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thatonebirdwrites · 1 year ago

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Excerpt from Book 3.5: The Mirror

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Note: This is a continuation of my AU that follows most of the canon's plot points but due to Korra and Asami already in a relationship by Book 3, events go down differently. This chapter references my version of Book 2 and the Long Hard Road chapter of my Book 3. As a recap, in my Book 2, Korra and Mako break up, and due to her uncle's machinations. Korra finds herself caught up in a spiral of not knowing who to trust outside of Asami, while Asami discovers essential information about the true reasons for the "lack of spirituality in the South." She and Korra investigate this and the rise in dark spirits, only to end up in a race against time to stop a World War that impacts all the nations.

Chapter 1: In Which The Journey Begins With A Single Step or Three

Asami leaned against the railing of the ship, queasy, and cold. The sea breeze blew her black hair to the side, and salt droplets from the engines sprayed on her parka. The sky burned a deep azure, the ocean sparkled like gems in the sunlight, and a pod of dolphins pranced in the ship’s wake. A quiet reprieve from a very exhausting trip so far.

A hummingbird spirit dived among the waves along with a trio of fish spirits. One of the squeals of the dolphins crashed through Asami’s ears, and a memory surged like a tsunami.

The bowl scraped against the rock with a squeal that pierced her ears.

Asami's hand trembled, but she deliberated a split second too long on how to compensate the tremor. Her electroshock discharged in a tight arc.

Zaheer had anticipated and dodged. “Your death is regrettable, and it saddens me to do this. You should have stood down, Mirror.” He flung the poison from the bowl, and it splashed against her ruined foot.

Pain seared into her right leg, far worse than the burning. She writhed in agony. Time slowed and crackled like flames in her mind.

Terror crushed her, her heartbeat rising, and her breaths in short gasps. The flashback grew in a mushroom cloud, drowning her in the smoke debris of trauma.

A spray of salt water hit her face and a rush of air blew her hair into her mouth. The shock of cold water shattered the memory of the cave and jolted her back into the present. Sputtering, Asami held up her hands to ward off another blast of water, this time from a dolphin that was being harried by that mischievous hummingbird spirit.

“Sani!” The hummingbird spirit darted around Asami’s head as if laughing, only to dive back into the water to lead the dolphin back toward their pod. Shimmering a light turquoise, the spirit flew and spun in the air like they were trying to cheer her up. It was absolutely endearing.

“Thanks,” she said. “I needed that.” Asami pulled out her handkerchief and wiped the salt water off her face.

The spirit, for whatever reason, had attached themself to Asami. She didn’t mind since Sani was also Jinora’s spirit friend, plus having Sani stay in person was a lot better than showing up in her dreams with cryptic messages. That had been the bane of her existence since the World War. Except, the more Asami thought about it, the more she realized she hadn’t had any weird dreams since she was poisoned and her chi energy depleted.

The memory of the poison lingered just on the edge of her awareness. No, she was not thinking about that again. Instead, she focused on what she could sense around herself.

The cold salt water droplets, splash of waves, songs of sea mammals, the song of dancing spirits, the warmth of the parka around her body, the belt that hummed against the base of her spine, and the brace that hooked into her prosthetic. All her current reality. Zaheer was in prison, far from them.

Beneath her feet, the rumbles of the engine vibrated through her legs, the sensation tingling through her in a comforting way. She forced her thoughts toward her present situation in hopes of avoiding another flashback.

Korra, her parents, Kya, and herself sailed on an old courier ship retrofitted with a modest steam engine, one chimney stack, and a robust icebreaker. Swirls of blue, white, and gold decorated the hull and exterior walls of the two deck ship. Korra’s parents had chosen it mostly because the ship would be taking the trip to Wolf Cove regardless, and because Senna personally knew the Captain. A friend of her cousin or second cousin, Asami couldn’t quite remember.

It also had a small crew, all of whom were incredibly loyal to Senna and her cousin. Meaning, word where they’d traveled by boat was unlikely to be leaked.

Despite that, they were all technically traveling in disguise, even Asami. Designing the outfits had been great fun, one of the few relaxing moments since Zaheer that Asami had.

“I think Senna’s right,” Asami said, tapping her bottom lip, while she sat in the wheelchair in front of her closet. “You and I swapping color schemes would aid our disguise. I with blue and white, you with red and black.”

“You’d look good in blue I think,” Korra said, her voice soft. It was the first time she’d spoken that day. She’d been silent since Jinora’s Master Ceremony three days ago, mostly using gestures to communicate what she wanted.

Asami turned to her and smiled, relieved to hear Korra’s voice again. “You’re biased,” she teased.

That got a faint smile from her girlfriend. She was propped against the wall on Asami’s bed, her legs sprawled in front of her. Her muscles had atrophied somewhat in the weeks since Zaheer, but they still were far more pronounced than Asami’s ever was. Her ocean blue eyes regarded Asami with a mixture of sadness and affection, and Asami found herself spellbound by Korra’s beauty.

The rich brown tone of her skin against the blue of her eyes, her muscular body, the curve of her full breasts beneath her tunic, the shape of her nose, and contours of her mouth — all a beautiful whole. It made Asami ache all over, that urge to hold Korra close, to kiss her, and bring her all the love and pleasure that Asami could muster.

Korra’s mother interrupted the moment by slipping through the ajar door with an arm full of clothing. “I’ve mended some of my clothes and one of Korra’s tunics, Asami. Would you like to try it on?”

Asami blushed at being caught staring, even though Korra was her girlfriend, and staring was quite allowed, as said by Korra herself before Zaheer. Was that still true? Asami was almost afraid to ask.

As the ship chugged along, Asami brushed tears from her eyes at the memory. Senna and Korra had to elongate the parka’s sleeves to fit Asami’s taller and more lithe stature. The trousers and tunic had apparently been easier to do, which Korra — in such a rare moment of pride — admitted she’d done the bottom right hem.

Asami lifted up her right leg to look down at that hem, the careful stitches hidden in the lush blue fabric. It fit snugly over her foot prosthetic and the powered leg brace. Sensation still hadn’t quite returned for the majority of her leg, but she could move it much easier with the aid of that brace. The fact Senna and Korra had widened the trousers to fit over it warmed Asami’s heart.

Such a thoughtful action.

For Korra, Asami had chosen black suit pants, a red blouse, and black wrap-around suit jacket, all of which had looked fantastically gorgeous on Korra. For her girlfriend’s golden-brown locks, Asami had coiled into one of Asami’s hats. Choosing one that worked well hadn’t been nearly as fun as having Korra try on some that clashed horrendously.

Until that moment with the hats, Asami couldn’t recall either of them laughing since Zaheer.

Korra donned that bizarre pinwheel hat Asami had found at a festival in the Fire Nation’s Capital City. Asami bit her lip to try to hold back her laughter as she held up the hand mirror. Korra tilted her head back and forth to get the pinwheel spinning.

To Asami’s surprise, Korra burst out laughing. “Way more silly than I thought!” Korra took off the hat and spun the pinweel on the top of the hat. “Why even make this?”

“The world may never know.” Asami dropped the hand mirror onto the end table. She dug through her hat box and pulled out a black, suede hat with a wide brim and a dent in its top. She tugged it onto Korra’s head, and adjusted it carefully for optimal tilt. “Ah, that one fits perfectly.”

Korra picked up the hand mirror and held it up. “Yeah.” Her voice softened. She looked at Asami, tears in her eyes. “Yeah, it does.”

Now Korra and her were on their way South to seek out Katara for healing. Asami felt anxious about the trip, especially meeting with Katara. What good would it do her? Kya had tried many a time since their rescue, but the depleted chi meant Kya’s healing hadn’t made a dent in Asami’s pain and physical trauma. Her leg hadn’t improved since Zaofu’s hospital, which was that partly due to the depleted chi too?

No, Asami couldn’t think of that now. She might panic. Instead, she leaned out over the railing to watch her spirit friend dance among the pod of dolphins. Squeals and chirps came from the mischievous mammals as they leaped and dove through the bubbling wake of the steam engine.

The chirps of the dolphins melded into the soft rumble of the ship’s engines, which in turn harmonized with the crash of waves against the hull. That morphed into the drips of water in a cave, the clash of earth and water and fire bending, the agony in her right leg, and the intense pain that thrashed through her at the poison.

She breathed in sharply. Her hands gripped the railing until her knuckles turned white.

Asami counted to five and breathed out slowly. She was at sea, far from any cave, safe from harm, and among safe people. No one outside of their immediate circle knew where she or Korra was. She took another steadying breath, and slowly the memory of that painful day faded back into the squeals of dolphins playing in a ship’s wake.

“Asami?”

Of course someone would find her. She turned to see Tonraq, Korra’s father, walk to the railing. He stood a head taller than her, even though she was quite tall for her lithe build, and he had a barrel of a chest, his corded muscles a sign of power. Yet, his gentle demeanor softened his chiseled features, his smile and jokes a welcome relief from the endless monotony of the ship.

However, it would never not baffle her that despite the cold of the Southern Ocean, Tonraq never wore a parka, only his long sleeved tunic, trousers, and snow boots. Maybe he’ll wear more sensible clothing once they reached Wolf Cove? Though Asami had to admit, she could see where Korra got her imperviousness to cold.

“What’s up?” She attempted a smile, but her spirit wasn’t in it. Being alone had been her goal, not talking, but she had no desire to be rude to her girlfriend’s parents. They’d been kind hosts.

Tonraq gestured to the view. “It’s a gorgeous day, is it not?”

Asami turned back to the ship’s wake. “Yes. Peaceful almost.”

“Almost?”

The question required an answer, but Asami hesitated, uncertain how to word her complex feelings. She rubbed her finger against the cold metal of the railing.

“If you’re up to sharing, I’ll listen.”

Of course he would. Both him and Senna had gone out of their way to remind Asami of that fact. Opening up however, was never easy for her, but she decided she’d try her best with Korra’s family. They were taking her in for months at a time, so it seemed only fair.

Asami chose her words carefully. “I’m doing my best to choose hope, but today has been difficult. I see the wake, the dolphin pod, the way the colors of the sea meld into the sky, and instead of dwelling in this present moment. I’m back in the cave being poisoned. It’s tiresome.”

“You’ve gone through great trauma. That’s a common reaction.” Tonraq leaned against the railing, facing her. “Choosing hope is a good practice. I’m glad to hear you’re doing so. Maybe you’ll rub off on Korra?” He smiled, but it was a sad one.

“Maybe.” Asami leaned forward and let her hair fall around her face. “She’s in a dark place right now.”

“She is. I’m glad you’re with us, Asami. You’ve been a solid support for her. A beacon of hope, but I worry for your own health. Don’t take on all of Korra’s pain. You have needs as well.”

Asami shrugged. “I suppose.” She knew Tonraq was correct, but she thought of her time after the World War, when she’d been trapped in a spiral of her own trauma. Korra had pulled her out of it eventually, though workers at Future Industries had aided in that endeavor. A community effort in a way.

Yet was Korra relying on community? She allowed her mother to help sometimes, Kya had been by often with healing sessions, but it was mostly Asami that aided her in day to day tasks. Finding balance there was difficult.

“You’ve had a rough time in life, haven’t you?” Tonraq asked. “I heard about your mother and father. How you’ve had to almost raise yourself.”

“Yes.” Asami wasn’t sure where Tonraq was going. “It is what it is.”

“Doesn’t have to be, Asami. Senna and I are here for you too. Even Kya is, and I know Katara has taken a liking to you.”

“Thank you.” Asami turned to look at Tonraq. “You’ve all been kind to me, and I appreciate it, truly. I simply am not used to it.” She brushed her hair from her face, but the wind blew it back. “But did you come only to check on me, or is there another reason?”

“Perceptive.” Tonraq turned to the ship’s wake. “Korra told us what she made you promise. Asami, to split your time between the South and Republic City? You’ve barely begun your own healing. You don’t have to take on such a burden. It’s okay to say no.”

Asami sighed. Wasn’t this part of her role as the Mirror? Korra had saved the world again by stopping Zaheer and his larger plan, so now she had to reflect and redirect or whatever. Part of that was the mutual aid network, the promises there, but there was also her company’s contract with Republic City’s rebuild. Oh, and that odd conversation her and Korra had overheard in the forests of Air Temple Island, where they’d learned Raiko had been tracking their movements. She also needed to work on her suit, the one to help her walk and run again.

Just thinking about it all tired her immensely.

“I can’t,” she said, “The last thing I want is for Korra to resent me. And there is at least two projects I can’t truly delegate to others.”

“Perhaps she will. Perhaps she won’t, but the traveling plus those projects of yours? It’ll put you in danger of worsening your condition.” Tonraq looked at her askance. “Yes, you are able to walk with arm crutches and your brace, but I’ve kept an eye on you this trip. Your symptoms of post-poisoning are mild but still present.”

“If you’re worried about my healing, then don’t be,” Asami said, irritated. “I know I have depleted chi, and I know Kya’s and Katara’s healing won’t work on me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still heal.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Asami.” Tonraq turned to face her with a slight frown. “If you push yourself too hard, you will collapse. I’ve seen it happen many a time. Even in myself. Korra needs you, yes. Other people may need you, sure. But you also need yourself.”

Asami crossed her arms. “Is this a father lecture? Because that sounds like a father lecture to me.”

Tonraq smiled. “If it helps to think of it like that, then sure. Just think about it, okay? You have at least two months with us down South. Take time to really consider your health and limits.”

Asami leaned against the railing and looked down at her right leg. Her platinum foot and powered brace held up well on the voyage, the gears and gyros impeccably casted, though she’ll see soon enough how it fared in freezing cold weather. “I hope this lecture isn’t due to my foot.”

“No. I gave Korra a similar lecture. Asked her to think through what she’s putting on you too. Have to be equal in my lecture giving, right?” He winked. “Promise me, you’re think it over?”

“All right. I promise. And thank you. I like your lectures better than my own father. Less cryptic.” Asami managed a smile, though she felt the strong urge to cry. Thinking of her father would never not bring a mixture of pain and anger, but it was an old pain now. He was in prison, her unlikely to see him anytime soon, and her life moved on in a far more complex direction.

She was Korra’s girlfriend and the Mirror of the Avatar, forged in the Beyond through the trials of time and baffling Lion Turtle riddles. Not even Zaheer with his conflicting philosophy of anti-government individualism and violent poisoning could destroy her or Korra or their relationship. She’d made certain of that.

When put that way, Asami Sato felt almost confident. Then she looked down at her prosthetic, lost to fourth-degree burns and rot. She considered her pain in her joints and right leg, the endless fatigue, and her confidence melted away into the wind.

***

Asami located Korra in the galley. Korra sipped tea, the mug cradled in her hands, while she sat in her wheelchair against the far wall, by a circular window. Her golden-brown hair was tied up in wolf-tails, and the black and red suit fit her form perfectly. Asami navigated through the maze of tables and chairs with her arm crutches, but she stopped a meter away to admire the beauty of Korra’s contours. Even with atrophied muscles, their bulge in the wrap-around jacket's sleeves made Asami want to wrap her hands around them. The sunlight through the window highlighted the golden-brown tones of Korra's skin, and her perfect little nose and lips were slightly pinched, in thought.

“You look beautiful today,” Asami said, quietly. She tugged a chair over with her right crutch and gratefully sank into the lush cushion. A chain kept the chair secured to that region of the floor, the metal back sadly without a second cushion. Not the most consistent design.

Korra huffed. She didn’t turn from the viewport but sipped her tea, her brow furrowed, and her shoulders scrunched together. “You’re required to say that as my girlfriend.”

“No. I say it because you are.” Asami leaned her crutches against the wall and reached over to lay her hand gently against Korra’s arm. “Always beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous. Spectacular…”

“What are you a thesaurus?” Korra interrupted with a snort. She finally looked at Asami. Dark circles were under her eyes from her struggle with depression, where most days she’d spent sleeping and rarely eating. Asami considered it progress that Korra actually replied to her. Most of the journey, she’d spent quiet.

“Only for you.”

“Nerd.”

“Dork.”

Korra snorted again, but a faint smile twitched her lips.

Asami couldn’t resist the cuteness of that lip twitch. She brushed her hand against Korra’s face, running her thumb along the edge of her lips. Korra leaned into the touch, her eyes half closed. Tenderly, she kissed Korra’s forehead.

“How are you today?” Asami had avoided asking the question the past four days after Korra had blown up at her. Asami had spent the rest of that day with Naga on the deck. Although Korra had apologized that evening, Asami had been skittish since then.

But seeing Sani dance in the waves and her talk with Tonraq had given her some courage.

Korra breathed out a sigh. “I don’t know.” She swirled the dredges of tea in her cup with her hand. “Everything feels so heavy. Suffocating.”

Asami brushed hair from Korra’s face, the lock having fallen out of her wolf tails. “Would it help to sit on the deck? There’s dolphins prancing in the ship’s wake. I watched them for a bit.”

Korra shook her head.

Asami dropped her hand into her lap. Silence stretched uncomfortably, and Asami wondered if maybe that was the wrong approach. She’d offered a solution without checking if that was even what Korra wanted. Maybe she just wanted to vent?

So she tried again. “That makes sense. I feel that heaviness too sometimes.”

Korra grunted with a slight nod of her head.

Maybe that’s what Korra needed more, Asami thought. Not a bouquet of solutions, but an acceptance that this was where Korra was currently. It was a radically different way to think and approach situations, and Asami definitely was not used to it. But she would try, for Korra’s sake.

For several minutes, they sat in silence. Asami realized with the sun low on the horizon, it was likely way past time for Korra's session. “Are you ready for Kya?”

Korra nodded.

“I’ll get her, okay?” Asami couldn’t push the chair with her crutches, though maybe there was a solution to that. Crutch holders she could install maybe? For now, she didn’t want to leave them here and strand herself.

“Wait.” Korra grabbed her arm and gently tugged.

Asami settled back into her chair and waited.

Korra laid her hand against Asami’s cheek. “I… I really do love you,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m not good at that right now.”

Asami laid her hand over Korra’s. “You do what you can, and I appreciate that. We’ll get through this together.”

Korra nodded and leaned her forehead against Asami’s.

She curled her arm around Korra’s shoulders and rubbed her back. For several minutes, Asami savored this moment of intimacy.

To her surprise, Korra pulled back to trail her fingers down Asami's face. Gently, Korra kissed Asami, and she returned the kiss, desperate for the affection. It had been so scarce on this journey. Part of her wanted more, so much more, but she was skittish to ask, especially with how dark Korra's mood could get.

“Okay,” Korra leaned back into her wheelchair. “I… I’m ready now.” She looked down at her hands.

Asami tucked a strand of hair behind Korra’s ear. “I’ll be back then.”

While she made her way slowly through the corridor, she kept her gaze on the floor that tilted ever so slightly in a seesaw motion. Something she simply couldn’t get used to, even after a week at sea.

At last minute, Kya had offered to go with them to continue the regimen for Korra, though Asami wondered if it had partly Senna’s idea. Although Kya would try waterbending healing on Asami here and again, it hadn’t worked. She still wasn’t sure what that meant. At least the sessions provided some semblance of a routine, which was a small comfort.

She rested at an intersection, before pushing off the wall to head to the left.

Her prosthetic worked flawlessly. The power from her battery helped move the joints of the brace, and even powered the prosthetic, to give it a firmer step. It had taken her most of the week to perfect that. Her hip, abdomen, and thigh muscles shifted the gyros in the brace, which in turn altered the current and provided the assistance to the step. She wondered if it was worth replicating for others in similar situations, but to mass produce this type of circuitry? She’d have to find a way to simplify it, especially considering how ad-hoc it’d gotten with her tinkering.

Up ahead, the door to Kya’s cabin was ajar. Asami could hear soft talking, and she paused. It would be rude to eavesdrop, and yet, her curiosity overruled her common sense. She carefully stepped closer to the wall and moved as quietly as she could.

“Senna,” Kya was saying, “I’ve searched Tenzin’s library. There’s no mention of such a condition. I will try the palace’s, but I think we both know the answer to Asami’s chi won’t be found there.”

“To go alone to the Spirit World? Kya, please, take one of us or at least a guard.”

“I’ve survived in the Spirit World before.” Kya laughed. “Truly, I appreciate the concern, but we both know this can’t wait.”

A sigh and then shuffling of what sounded like a chair. “You should tell her, Kya.”

“Tell her what? That we know nothing?”

The voices drifted closer to the door. Asami searched the corridor, but there was nowhere for her to hide. Best to pretend she happened to only just walk up. She pushed off the wall and deliberately brought her crutches down harder against the metal floor.

“Kya?” She said, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. “Korra is ready, if this time still works?”

She maneuvered to the open door, where she could see Senna standing behind a chair near the window. Even standing, Senna looked so small, but if memory served her, Korra's mother could easily lift Asami, so strength was hidden in her short stature. Her black hair was pulled back in a loose wolftail, and her blue eyes almost shone in the dim light of the room. She wore fur lined trousers and jacket, the colors a faded light blue similar to the colors of the crew.

Kya was near her bunk, her bag open and books spilled across her covers. Her silver hair hung around her frame, her dress partially covered with a loose jacket and wide belt, both the deep blue of Southern Water Tribe.

“Asami!” Kya turned with a smile. “How are you feeling?” She studied with an expert eye. “Your color is improved today I see.”

Annoyed that they spoke of her without her present? But she couldn’t say that out loud. Best to be diplomatic. “I am tired and my hip aches, but that’s all. Korra is in the galley waiting.”

“Hmm.” Kya frowned. “Pain? Have you taken your medicine yet today?”

“Yes.” Not the full dose, which would have made it very difficult for her to think and enjoy her time alone. “Do you want me to sit in the session again?”

Kya shook her head. “Rest instead.” She fixed Senna with a pointed look. “Thank you for the chat, Senna. I hope that alleviated your concerns.”

Senna bowed her head but didn’t reply.

“In the galley, you said? I’ll go get her.” Kya swept past Asami and headed down the hallway. Asami watched her go with a slight frown. Why would Kya need to go to the Spirit World about Asami’s chi?

“Senna?” Asami said once Kya had turned the corner and was out of earshot. “May I speak with you?”

The older woman sighed. “You overhead, didn’t you?”

“Hard not to,” Asami couldn’t keep the irritation from her voice. “You left the door ajar.”

Senna nodded and stepped out of the room. She motioned for Asami to follow her in the opposite direction Kya had gone. Asami was relieved at her slow pace, made it easier on her sore hip and the stress of using the arm crutches.

“Kya is insistent in not worrying you," Senna said, "but it is your body. You have the right to know the truth of it.”

“My depleted chi?” Asami said, flatly. “The fact it hasn’t regenerated?”

“Yes, but it’s more complicated than that.” Senna paused at Korra and Asami’s quarters and pushed open the door. She gestured to the bed. “Please sit first.”

Asami did as told. Sinking into the mattress did feel good on her sore hip. Elevating her legs would be even better, but Asami did not want to be lying down for this conversation, so she leaned against the wall instead.

Senna shut the door behind her and pulled out the chair from the desk. “Kya detected a shift in your Aura. We don’t know if it was pre- or post-Zaheer. We also don’t know if it impacts the lack of regeneration. Chi generally regenerates after a few days of rest, perhaps a week at most. For you it’s been over a month with no change.”

Yes, that was something Asami already knew. Kya wasn’t the only one who had perused Tenzin’s library before they’d left, but then Asami had no idea what to look for, so she’d been relatively unsuccessful in her endeavor. She had learned a lot about chakras, which had been mildly interesting.

But the aura? That was a topic she could broach.

“Shift in my aura?” Asami looked down at her hands and thought of her ordeal in the Beyond. “It may be prior to Zaheer. I… I suffered a spirit affliction due to Harmonic Convergence. It sundered my life’s timeline. But I’m not spiritual, so by the time I realized something was wrong, it was almost too late. Korra says I nearly died during the healing. While they… did something with my chi, I had to restore my timeline in the Beyond. It was complicated.”

Asami paused and wondered if she should try to provide a summary of her time in the Beyond, but that required a lot more trust. She wasn’t quite there with Korra’s parents.

“After I was healed, Korra and Bolin both said they felt something different. Like I was… more me or rather more whole as Bolin put it.” Asami struggled to recall exactly their words. “My spirit was more balanced I think was how Korra put it.”

Senna tapped her fingers against her leg in a way that reminded Asami strongly of Korra. “I am very glad you survived that, Asami. Spirit afflictions often can be deadly. If you ever wish to speak of it further…”

“That you’ll listen, I know, and I’m grateful for it.” Asami rubbed her thumb against the sheets. “It’s not easy for me to open up.”

Senna leaned forward and grasped Asami’s hand. “I understand. Just know the offer stands.”

Asami struggled against the bout of tears it brought her. Was this what her mother would have been like had she lived? The thought brought back the grief, long ago tucked in a box in her heart, but it had never gone away. And her time in the Beyond during the spirit healing, she’d seen her mother again, heard her voice in those memories of her five year old self.

Her mother had said in a recording that all of them were made up of connections, and wasn’t this another connection being built between her and Korra’s parents?

“I’m not used to this.” Asami brushed at her tears, embarrassed that they’d fallen despite her attempt to hold them back. “I… thought I had come to terms with my loss…she died when I was six, you know, and my father...” There wasn't anything else she wanted to say about him that wouldn't turn her grief into anger, so she left the sentence hanging.

“Grief doesn’t go away, Asami. Our hearts only grow bigger, giving it more space over time.” Senna squeezed her hand. “I know we can’t ever replace what you’ve lost, but I do want you to know you're welcome. It’s not only because you're Korra’s partner. It’s because of you and all you’ve done for us and our people. Do you understand?”

Asami wasn’t sure she did. Not fully, but she nodded mostly because she didn’t know what else to say.

Senna patted Asami’s hand and leaned back in the chair. “I will ask Kya to talk with you. For now, rest, all right?”

Asami nodded again. The conversation had fatigued her, so she gratefully laid down. Senna stood and helped elevate Asami’s feet, then tugged the end table closer with its cluster of water bottles and medicine jars. Asami took a brief sip of water, then settled against the soft blankets and closed her eyes.

***

When Asami woke, she found Korra sleeping against her side, her arms tight around Asami’s chest. Kya sat at the desk and wrote in a journal, a book open in front of her. Her silver hair spilled over her shoulders free from any wolftails, and her light brown skin tone darker in the shadows of the dimly lit room. The light above swung with the movement of the boat, the yellow light sweeping the room. The shadows shifted like they danced. An eerie scene for what Asami suspected would be a hard conversation.

“Hey,” Asami said, quietly. “Did the session go okay?”

Kya looked up and smiled, sadly. “As much as it can be. She’ll be in much better hands with my mother.”

Asami didn’t know what to say to that. “Why are you at our desk?”

“Senna mentioned you overheard us.” Kya tapped her pen against the book in front of her. “I’m sorry, Asami. I didn’t mean for it to seem we kept this from you. I just didn’t have any news.”

“Still, it is my body. Shouldn’t any research include me?”

Kya sighed. “Calling me out, now? But you and Senna are right. Your chi should have replenished, Asami. Something is preventing it. I’ve searched through all the records I could find, but I don’t see any proof that nonbenders can’t regenerate chi. Though nonbenders losing their chi is pretty rare in of itself.” She flipped a page in her book. “I heard you had a spirit affliction from Harmonic Convergence?”

“Yes. Korra and the acupuncturist healed it.”

“Can you go through the events at Harmonic Convergence, your symptoms, when Korra diagnosed it, and a summary of the healing?” Kya readied her pen. “I need specifics in case this is relevant.”

“All right…” That was far more than Asami felt comfortable sharing, but Kya was a healer and was only trying to help. So she reluctantly recounted the timeline of the spirit affliction. Kya only interrupted her three times to push for further details, until Asami got to the second meeting with the Lion Turtle and the ordeal in the Beyond.

“Wait, you were back at the initial meeting?” Kya said, startled.

“That’s what the Lion Turtle claimed. Considering the… events on my life’s pathway, I am inclined to believe it is the truth.” Asami had confirmed one of the strange time-traveling incidents with Jinora. Fixing her timeline had altered things weirdly. But how in the spirits could she explain any of that?

“Please keep going.” Kya made some notations in her journal.

Asami looked down at Korra’s head, where she had tucked it against Asami’s shoulder. How was her girlfriend sleeping through this? Kya must have given her a stronger dose of her medicine or something.

“It’s hard to explain. I had to repair my timeline, while Korra worked with the acupuncturist to redistribute my chi. I… found my timeline unlit, and as I walked it, it lit back up like the other pathways in the Beyond. I had to solve odd puzzles to repair shattered memories. There were also gateways, but when I entered them, I was back in time. Jinora confirmed one of these events was indeed real.”

Kya had stopped writing and instead looked at Asami in surprise. “That… that’s something. And you said you and Korra are spiritually connected now?”

Asami nodded.

“But neither of you can currently feel that.”

Again she nodded.

Kya frowned at her notes. “I sensed the shift in Korra’s aura after Harmonic Convergence, but I didn’t know you well yet. So I can’t really say if you also had a shift. Whether it’s related to your connection I don’t know. I do know Harmonic Convergence supercharged Korra’s spirit.”

She tapped her pen against the journal and looked out the round window at the ocean beyond. “I’ll be honest, things don’t look great for you two. The poisoning has severely harmed Korra’s chi pathways and chakras. It’s possible it’s done the same with yours, but with depleted chi, we have no way to repair that.”

“Any theory on why my body won’t replenish it?” Asami certainly had no idea. This was not her wheelhouse.

Kya shook her head. “I thought perhaps it was the poison, but nothing I’ve read supports that. What you shared does paint a clearer picture. Talking with Mom will help too. She’s great at picking apart my work.” A hint of sarcasm had filtered into her voice. “I swear she does it just to annoy me sometimes.” She glanced at Asami with a smile. “Thanks. If I do think of something, I’ll talk to you this time. Sound like a plan?”

“Yes, thank you.” That was a relief. She disliked people talking about her behind her back.

Standing, Kya gathered up her materials. “Get some rest. We’ll reach Wolf Cove in the next day.”

***

Asami had not seen Wolf Cove since the weeks after the World War. Back then, the city had been devastated, and she’d set up a Future Industries branch to aid in rebuilding. Now she stood in the bow next to Korra, Kya off to one side, and Tonraq and Senna to her right. Asami leaned against the crutches and stared in amazement.

“It looks amazing,” she said, quietly. The streets were wide with room for pedestrians, vehicles, dog sleds, and snowmobiles. The shattered buildings had been rebuilt, the skyline a mixture of old leather and stone alongside the newer sloping roofs styles. The docks had been retrofit with stone and wood that gave it a warmer feel despite the snow that coated the area. Most buildings flowed into each other like glacier melt, while others had been built taller and wider, their height like mini hills in the midst of the sprawling city. The main road from the docks pierced through the city and wove up a steep incline to the icy, stone palace at the base of the mountains farther to the west.

“Your branch has been essential in our rebuild,” Tonraq said. “Kanna’s work is quite popular. Including public’s opinion on the designs was a brilliant tactic, Asami.”

She shrugged. “Seems a bit counterproductive to not ask what folks want. This is your home, and that ought to be reflected.”

Korra reached out and grasped Asami’s hand. Asami squeezed her hand, comforted.

As they moved into the harbor, Asami was startled to find that they weren’t making for the main docks. Instead, the ship moved toward a portion of the harbor with several short quays clustered against a multitude of stone and wood warehouses.

“To avoid being seen, we decided to let the ship go to its usual dock,” Tonraq explained to her unspoken question. “One of the guards from the palace will meet us there with an old satomobile. We’ll come in through the guard entrance.”

“Ah.” So they really were going all out with the whole not letting anyone know Korra and her were here. It made her wonder how they’d manage Asami’s travel to and from the South. Would Tonraq and Senna devise something as complex as this?

“Tonraq,” Kya said, briskly. “I’ll meet all of you at the palace. There’s a few errands I need to complete once we dock.”

“Thank you for all your help, Kya,” Senna said. “And we’ll make sure a room is prepared for you.”

Kya waved away her thanks. “I’ll likely spend more time with Mom. But those nice guest rooms with those comfy beds? I’ll gladly take one of those.” She smiled and winked. “A million times better than my brother’s ridiculous adherence to lying on back-breaking monstrosities.”

Tonraq laughed. “Can say that again. Next time we stay there, we’re bringing our own mattresses.”

Asami stifled a laugh. All of them had a point. Most mattresses at Air Temple Island were rigid fiber and wood, except for her own. She’d had a mattress from her mansion brought over a year ago. If Tenzin had noticed, he hadn’t said anything.

The docking went smoothly, the crew shouting and calling to those at the quay, while a rope was thrown to tie secure them. The Captain stayed behind to speak with Senna and Kya, while half the crew lowered the gangplank and began to offload.

Tonraq led Korra and Asami down the plank between the offloading of crates and mail bags. The quay had the stench of seaweed and fish, much of the stone cracked and old. Narrow alleys twisted between large warehouses, where workers pushed and pulled trolleys filled with supplies. Only a few smaller ships were docked here, most offloading fish or other sea creatures.

Senna met up with them at the third alley, where together they navigated the maze to the edge of the warehouse district. A blue and white satomobile waited among the trucks and dog sleds that lined a street that curled along the shoreline and edges of the dock district.

The walk was further than Asami had ever walked up to that point, so she collapsed into the backseat of the satomobile with a groan of pain. Maybe she should have agreed to take a wheelchair. She tucked the crutches against the door and leaned her head back, exhausted. On the other side of her, Tonraq helped Korra into the seat, then folded up the wheelchair for the trunk.

Asami was drained of energy. Not only because of the long trip but also the stress it’d put on her fragile health. Her symptoms might not be as poor as Korra’s, but she was still far from her best. Talk flowed around her, and she didn't even try to parse what anyone said.

Asami woke to Korra nudging her hard in the side, and she realized she’d fallen asleep sometime during the drive, her head against Korra’s shoulder. She lifted her head and rubbed her eyes.

“Stay here,” Senna ordered her. “We’ll get you a chair.”

It was tempting to protest, but her body felt like lead, and she wanted to curl up on a bed and sleep.

“So we’re here,” Korra said, softly.

“Mhm.” Asami yawned. “What is the plan again?”

“You asking me that?” Korra sounded surprised. “Thought you had it memorized.”

“Pain and exhaustion makes it difficult to recall.” Asami looked out the window at the walls of the garage, which was partly a stable filled with camel-yaks, dogs, and vehicles. The stone walls had an icy glint from the sunlight that poured through the wide windows. “I may have pushed myself too much today.”

“Told you to use the chair!” Korra glared at her.

Asami studied the anger in Korra's expression and the slight jut of her lower lip. She gently traced her thumb along Korra’s lips. Her body might ache with pain, her right leg inflamed, but she also ached for Korra’s touch. They had only kissed a few times on the boat, and the lack of physical intimacy saddened Asami.

“Can I hold you tonight?” Asami asked.

Korra tilted her head. “Don’t you always?”

True, but under Korra’s parents’ roof, that action felt out of place. Like she was violating a norm. “So you are okay with us continuing to share a room? And me holding you when we’re in bed?”

Korra nodded.

Asami leaned forward and kissed Korra’s forehead. “Good.”

Updated 2 - 3 times a week on AO3. Read more here.

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oogalaboogalabich · 6 months ago

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Goddammit that kiss got me sick. I cant stop feekin dyin o typhus long enough to do anything productive so here.

I built the AU Astarion from my kinkfic and im runnin him as an abberant mind mage.

This backstory is entirely off the rails of canon. So effin self indulgent. I apologise for nothing.

Astarion in this AU met Cazador a few years earlier, barely weeks after the guy commited Vampire Patricide. Cazador just up and tried to go for it, nearly ripped Astarions throat out and scared him off so bad the elf skips town.

Ends up in the underdark and finds himself hanging out with a bunch of pirates for a few decades. Almost immediately after marrying this noteably redheaded crewmate ("she had a penchent for silk ropes and putting twats in their place") their crew gets fucked by a new ring of slavers. He doesnt actually know how long he was with them, but hes narrowed it down to almost two years on that ship before being sold to a house in the underdark. He escaped fairly quickly from there, helped by an unusually large druid, whod been their captive long before astarion arrived.

He gets an escort back to his family home, where he learns hes a little past overdue for his coming of age.

After all hes experienced, and a mind freshly robbed of any comfort or escape his previous lives used to bring him in reverie, he doesnt much care about picking a new name. Something he knew would come off as practically sacrelidge to certain parties.

In the end he picks "Astarius" as his adult name to avoid the trouble of getting used to something new. Its a bit ambitious in nature, and the drama behind "God of Stars" pleased his father well enough.

He spends a brief time trying to heal himself with a group of gith monks who have taken over an old lethanderan temple.

But when their methods dont quite work for him, he falls back into pirating, though he acts as more of a legal advisor and launderer these days.

He was about 200 when he simultaniously opened two practices. One in Waterdeep, the other in Immurks Hold. He found it invigorating having to juggle the Immurk Code of Conduct and the laws of Waterdeep.

He found hed gotten over most of his developed fears through the fairly prominant presence of vampire Lord Artor Morlin in his dealings. Though always under the pseudonym of different mercantile captains, which Astarius thought to be very funny.

He was on a business trip in the underdark near Waterdeep when the events of baldurs gate 3 take place.

No matter where he goes, everywhere in the underdark is suddenly swarming with illithids, and its even worse up on the surface. The world is in shambles, theres nothing left after a mere few months. The world made utterly barren, the soil salted and waters poisoned.

The animals die off, the people left behind are systematically rounded up and slaughtered or turned.

Less than a decade later the last bastion (at least in faerun) is ironically Menzoberranzan, where Astarius is forced to return. But when he arrives, people have for the most part let go of the prejeduces that ruled them. Its a fairly plesant place to live for the year or so it survived after his arrival.

He didnt stay for a fight when they heard the illithids were finally going to launch an attack on them directly. Almost nobody stayed in the end. And an attack never came.

For whatever reason. They all just...left. all the illithids gathered in their nautiloids and left the planet behind.

The few hundreds, maybe a few thousand people left on Torill spread out. Even with nothing fit to grow or drink naturally, they still get by with magic if they are lucky, summon creatures and glean vegitation from other planes etc.

Until Magic ceases to exist. After four or five years. It just...stops happening. Something or someone has killed Mystra again. And this time it doesnt come back.

Devils have stopped answering summons, or showing up at all. Warlocks are the last to lose their powers.

Astarius survives because he must. And instead of being content to live in this barren waste of a planet, he sets to work on finding a way out. Either off the planet, into a new world. To the astral plane for all he fucking cared.

Somewhere...anywhere but here.

Hes nearly 400 by the time he makes an ounce of headway.

Near the dregs of what was once reithwith town, he finds a crypt nearly untouched by the desolation of time, and even deeper still, lay the literal gauntlet of bloody shar.

Most importantly theres meat. Actual real food that isnt insects or what few digusting plants can still grow.

An entire colony of rats to live off of for as long as he can keep them breeding faster than he, or they, can eat.

He lives in what he jokingly calls "squalid luxury" for days, exploring and narrowly escaping death a few times. Shar was still ever present. Of course she would be. Torill was perfect for her now.

Theres one area he avoids simply because of the rank stench, but eventually curiosity gets the better of him.

And there...near a pile of corpses deep within the temple, he finds a polyhedron relic, covered in what was clearly tir su script...

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #astarion ancunin #bg3 fanfiction #alternate universe #bg3 au

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tom-failure · 3 months ago

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God, your mind! You're really making me think here.

Okay, I'd love to piece together the history of Zen's bike here, so let's try and do it.

Before I start on it, I really wanna rule out the gift aspect, and here's why. I think he's okay with gifts from fans because 1) those are things very explicitly just sent as tokens, they aren't really these utilitarian things, per se, just mementos, at least as far as I remember; and b) there's an exchange there. Zen works his ass off. His job is his hobby and his life. So he shares his hard work and its results with his fans, and they share their love, little trinkets, and words of praise. There's no power leverage on the fans' side, so I think this is why he likes it. He's the bigger giver, so to speak. To accept a whole bike, idk what he would wanna repay it with. I don't think it was a gift to start with.

So. In his teenage years (I usually guesstimate 13-14, given it happened in middle school) he ran away from home. He survived, worked odd jobs, extorted money, and was, by his own confession, 'exploited'. He had older biker friends (we even invite one to the party, he's an owner of a lamb bbq café now, so at least some of those guys are decently well-off). However, help comes with strings attached, and Zen evidently learned that early and didn't want to rely on that help too much beyond what is completely necessary. Hence his constant struggle to get money of his own, even if it meant he had to work his every waking moment and do what he calls 'bad things'.

The next thing we know is that, according to the revised timeline, 2 years before Another Story, or 3 years before Original Story, 20-year-old Zen has an accident, as a result of which he is severely injured (his life is on the line, and his left leg is threatened with amputation) and is taken to the hospital by the stalking V. As gratitude for saving his life, Zen accepts the offer to join the RFA which V mentions he's previously declined.

So, somewhere between 14 and 20, he picked up biking. The legal age to ride the model I picked up for him is 18 in SK, but we know young Zen was not good friends with the law, so it's easy to assume he could have learned to bike younger than that. Likely somewhere around 14-16. But he didn't have a bike of his own. I would think when he was about 17-18, one of his better friends sold him his old bike for some symbolic sum.

Now, to the crash itself. From the canon evidence summed up quite well in this post, it happened because he was speeding, turned a corner, couldn't brake, and hit the guard rail (which, articles tell, is one of the worst ways you could crash while turning a corner). We are told that Zen could lose his left leg, or it could end up paralysed as a result of that crash. He has to be rushed into surgery. Now, I'd think saving Zen's dream, and also apparently his life, indebts him enough towards V. So the additional incentive doesn't seem necessary. And also, I very much agree that V would not want that bike, or any bike, anywhere near Zen again.

However.

From watching a few videos of corner turning motorbike crashes, the bikes don't seem to get obliterated. I think even though it likely aided in crushing Zen's leg, and was definitely damaged, it was salvageable. But someone had to salvage it. And after V has secured Zen for the RFA, Rika tells V that she has a bright future planned for the child prodigy.

Which makes me think that, on the one hand, it's extremely likely that you are right, and that Rika, who kept tabs on everyone, salvaged that bike and got it fixed in order to gain additional leverage over Zen. She is said to have had contact with rich and influential party guests, which I think is how she secured the funds, so it probably wasn't a problem. And in that case when V 'disappeared' her from the RFA's life, he effectively shielded Zen from possible guilt tripping and exploitation.

On the other hand, Rika wanted Zen to become a superstar. She likely needed him to be the media presence of the Mint Eye: beloved by people, followed and obsessed over, he was the perfect candidate. In that case, giving him his motorbike back was dangerous, given how Zen eschewed any protective gear, as evidenced by his CGs.

His ass is riding with no helmet. His ass is gonna fuckin die.

I think that a possible candidate would be Seven, given he's rich, he's a bit of a speed junkie himself, he's partial to Zen, and he's perfectly willing to indulge his own and others' follies, but he's still in college at that time, conveniently sent abroad. He does already work or perhaps is being trained for the agency, according to the revised timeline. But, as he explains in Ray route, his cars are not just an expensive hobby, but also basically assets he can quickly and easily sell in case he needs money [for his own or Saeran's safety], so he likely wouldn't part with them anyway.

Others either have no money, or no reason yet to care. So Rika seems to be the one most likely candidate.

What the fuck kinda bike does Zen ride?..

#phew #that was long #i doomed you to my investigations #how do you feel?#also thank you for reading my zensung stuff #you're one of the people that make it worth it #прівєт пострижися

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prplpnk · 2 years ago

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Vanquish, Chapter 2: Destiny

Overcoming his past comes at a cost, and Dinobot makes a decision about the path he wishes to walk.

Rated: M

Words: 8,002

Warnings: Violence, Mind Control, Suicide Attempt, Suicidal Thoughts

Part 4 of the Connections Series

#Beast Wars #Transformers #Dinobot #Optimus Primal #Doop #Rattrap #Fanfic #Alternate Reality #The trip on the Off-Canon-Rails ends here #Canon Continues #I am a sad #Thank You Everyone who decided to give this weird plot of mine a chance #I appreciate you <3 <3 #Hope you enjoyed it :)

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no-droids · 4 years ago

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Home

gif credit: @javier-pena

Part Eighteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.5K

Warnings: SMUT, religion kink (maybe?), squirting, consensual stalking/pursuing, canon-typical violence, mention of underage drinking, uhh I believe that’s it but as always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything please!

A/N: Hey yall!!! So I know this chapter has been a long time coming and though I’m not completely satisfied with it, I hope it brings a little happiness to you for an hour or two while you read! School has been kicking my ass and I’ve been in a bit of an emotional slump recently, but I pulled a few all-nighters to post this on time and it’s finally finished! Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and sent me encouraging words over the past month or so, I hope you enjoy the end of the Sanctuary arc💕

Also like last time, part 2 of my collaboration with @followwhereshegoes will be posted after the chapter!! As a reminder, sweet girl is a reader insert and every imagining of her will be different—this is Lisa’s interpretation of her and her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, so please go give her a follow!

Day 5–11:13am:

You zone out again in the early morning, but that happens a lot. Din always keeps you up so late, all the time, and without any caf here, the rising sun just makes your eyes droop instead of flutter brighter and wider. You helped a bunch of younglings find their way into their robes when it was still dark out, tying sashes and fitting masks while holding back your yawns. The walk into Nariss is close to three hours, probably more with all these tiny little legs, and you almost forget to change into your new digs before everyone grabs breakfast.

Even though your ragtag entourage leaves for Nariss just as soon as everyone finishes eating, you don’t reach the city until nearly lunchtime. Mostly because the kids walk about as fast as the elderly holy women chaperoning the trip. You and Naydee lag behind the group, forcing yourself to meander slow as fuck when you nearly sprinted this same exact path just a few days ago. On the way there, you listen to children of all sorts sing happily as they walk, chatter about their excitement for the parade, complain about wearing the fabric mask they made themselves, and more than once, somebody takes a tumble onto the ground and is left in teary sniffles and dirt stained clothes. Likely for this reason, the robes are designed to be two pieces—a long tunic with a hood and a separate pants portion to prevent tripping instead of a draping skirt, but the smallest ones are clumsy and find a way to fall anyways.

It’s a colorful bunch—a chaotic rainbow of babies running around, and you share easy conversation with your new friend about the plans for the day until she asks something that makes you nearly trip and join the dirty robe club.

“Sister Drya said your family is meeting you in the city,” she tells you, ignoring your immediate subtle toe stub and the awkward shuffle you have to do to make up for it. “There’s going to be lots of people downtown, I’m worried it might be hard for them to find you.”

Your heart thuds in your chest and you feel a bit short of breath at being abruptly confronted with the need to lie, but at the same time, you kind of love it. Having a secret, hiding the truth from others, and just the reminder that you’re almost guaranteed to see Din and the baby before midnight pours warmth and tingles through your tummy. Everything together is a hit of spice, filling you with a kind of excitement that used to be foreign to you. Having fun, experiencing new things isn’t quite over yet, but home is calling and you miss it with every fiber of your being.

“I don’t think so,” you eventually respond, hoping she can see your kind smile and the sentiment it carries even as light, shimmery fabric wraps right around your mouth. “If I disappear, you’ll know why.”

Naydee’s eyes crinkle in the corners to match yours. “Hopefully you’ll be able to see the fireworks first,” she nudges you, her skin glowing against the pale cream fabric she has wrapped around her own mouth and the hood laying delicately over her braids. “They start at eight.”

The fireworks, you almost forgot. You know what? Today is a good day. You hear yourself think the full sentence multiple times, and the words put a spring in your step after every single one. The road gradually becomes wider and filled with more travelers, and you feel safe in the back. Like some kind of sheepdog bringing up the rear of this migrating cluster of children, making sure none of them drift off by themselves and start eating grass or something.

Surprisingly, the kids manage to be relatively patient and well-behaved once they’re in line at the gates. The Sisters shuffle them along one by one as everyone moves up slowly, taking even longer to get into the city than it did a few days ago. The entrance is packed already—so many people visiting for the festival, and they’re all dressed in costumes or robes of sorts, or at least a mask. Most are beautifully crafted, but some manage to look slightly scary even with the soft springtime color schemes. It’s a completely different world, a different life for each person as you pass them by. Your stomach is starting to growl by the time you finally make it to the front, and luckily the guards just let the kids through without any ceremony. Just you and the rest of the caretakers in light robes need to hold still for the retinal scan, matching each other perfectly except for differing shades of fabric, skin, and eye color. Once the gates open for you and you step through, though… it’s… Maker.

Extravagant, magnificent are both words. Floral is another.

It’s like they hung up bouquets wherever they could think to fit them, and this is just the edge of the city. As the group moves through the streets and closer to downtown, it becomes more and more overwhelming. The air itself is a warm fragrance wafting all around you, sunshiney and breezy and perfect, flowers of all kinds lining the modern buildings and archways like they were planted there from the very beginning and it just took this long to bloom between the cracks in the concrete. You wish you had names for all of them so you could list them—the only thing you can offer is the color and vague descriptions of the ones that stick out to you. Tiny yellow ones that are so small, they need to be bunched all together in massive quantities to even resemble normal flowers. Up overhead, elaborate arrangements of enormous blue and purple and pink ones, wrapping around each other and hanging down from rooftops. Some don’t even have petals, it’s like they’re big green cups that are big enough to hold things inside them. You’re fascinated by every single one, wanting to stop and smell them all individually but needing to keep up with the large group and not allow any stragglers to be left behind, including yourself.

About an hour later, when you’re almost in the middle of the city and there are people everywhere, it’s time to eat lunch. There isn’t much to it because of how expensive it is, and you’d normally feel bad for accepting the small meal each one of the children gets, but you donated all of your credits to the Keja and left absolutely zero for yourself. Good intentions, terrible idea. Still, you pull your mask down and snack on some deliciously fried food, trying not to eye anyone else’s platter after you finish yours. It’s so good and it’s gone in an instant; you couldn’t even say what exactly it was besides which stall you got it at. Whether it’s just the brilliant atmosphere or if the food on this moon is really just that good, you’re not really sure, but you’re still slightly hungry afterwards with no extra money to sneak a snack.

Soon after, the kids all line up to get their faces painted, or whatever portion of their face is visible behind the cloth masks and hoods they’ve got on, and music blares from at least four different directions and none of the songs are even in the same language. Depending on the part of town, it seems like the celebrations are all different. It makes sense, considering most if not all of these individuals were victims of the Empire’s wrath, spread far and wide across the galaxy. Here, they’re free, and they want everyone to know it. Spring festivals of some sort are likely common for most cultures, at least those from planets with seasons, not like Arvala-7 where it was arid and hot year-round, and you’re assuming there are multiple things being celebrated today depending on which street you live on. There’s chanting in different tongues, dancing and drums, outfits and masks from different cultures every single time you look.

At some point, the children spot a crowded street with flowery rails set up all along them, and you stand behind the tiny heads while everyone waits for the parade to begin. You think your heart has just been beating slightly faster than normal all day today, but when you finally hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance and cheers begin to pour out from the gathered crowd, it kicks up and you feel like you’re just as wide eyed at the spectacle as the waist-high babies all huddled together up against the railing.

A flurry of people and things pass in slow succession. First, New Republic officers with their blaring holobikes, bright orange as always. Then come large groups of people walking behind banners in languages you can’t read, some of them waving, some of them making different sounds and songs. Bands marching in formation, dancers in dresses and masks and gorgeous flowers in their hair like crowns, and then brilliant hovering vehicles decorated in bright colors and festive depictions. The craftsmanship and cultural significance is stunning to witness, it’s so insanely loud, there’s so much going on, and yet…

Through it all, you think of Din. No matter the faces, the sights you see. There’s someone juggling. There’s either a very tall man and woman walking together or they’re both on stilts. There are enormous balloons being led through the air, people are riding atop an assortment of animals you’ve never seen before, there are traditional costumes and spectacular stunts being performed. Stalls with games and prizes line the stretches of concrete on the cross streets, people are laughing and celebrating and drinking in equal parts, everything is so lively and festive and fun, and yet, though it all, you think of Din. Him and the baby, they’re always in the forefront of your mind, occupying your thoughts and making your tummy stir more and more as the time passes like the parade in front of you. You don’t think this environment would ever be his favorite, and in some far away galaxy, perhaps if you lived other lives together and called a beautiful moon exactly like this home, then you might have to drag him out to see all the with you and the kid every year. You’d have to bat your eyelashes and kiss his cheek and snuggle up to him all nice and pretty like, and he’d probably grumble and complain about it while wrapping his arms around you—all the people and the noise, sweet girl—but he’d go. For you, he’d go.

Your thoughts suddenly stop short and you blink for a second. Why… Why was that scene so vivid? So wistful? You used to preoccupy yourself with fantasies about Din all the time, back before you even knew him as Din. But in every single one, it was sexual and likely came from a place of boredom, a lack of external stimulation. Here you are amidst bustling surroundings, and you’re daydreaming about domesticity with him. Why? You want to travel the galaxy, right? You want to see things you’ve never seen before, right?

For some reason, you think of the floor, and you miss it.

***

Day 5—5:04pm:

It’s late afternoon at this point and nobody can find the teens.

More people have made their way into the city and it’s starting to get extremely fucking crowded, especially where you are downtown, and the handful of them must’ve slipped away with all the excitement happening and how difficult it is to keep the young ones together now that the parade is over. You don’t know how long they’ve been gone—one second they were walking around just slightly detached from the rest of you, you assumed because the boisterous younglings fucked with their cool vibe, and then the next Naydee is gasping out to you that they’re gone.

“Sister Drya is going to kill me,” she hisses, her dark eyebrows furrowed in self-admonishment and stress. So many fucking people here, you know her pain. “I was supposed to be chaperoning them, they were just here—”

She shakes her head under the loose, cream-colored hood, groaning and then speeding up her gait to catch up with the woman in charge, but you decide to grab her wrist before she can relay the bad news.

“I can go find them,” you offer, speaking as low as you can with the blaring noise surrounding you. “Before anyone knows they’re missing. Is there a way to convince everybody to stay in one spot for a little while? You won’t get in trouble, but I need to know how to find you again.”

Naydee’s eyes widen in surprise, and even though it’s likely a bit out of character for you, you have a feeling it’ll be a deceptively easy task. Even with the masses right now and how atrociously big this city is, you already have a general idea of where they’re likely to be. Besides, you’re not even sure your absence will be noticed if Naydee is the only one who figured out the teens were gone—the other Sisters can thrive without you while missing anyone else would be noticeable, and you owe your new friend a thousand favors for helping you out these past few days. The least you can do is save her from the scolding of one of the scariest old ladies you've ever met.

“Be as quick as you can,” she finally agrees. It’s a lot of trust to put into you, but you’ve had experience in reading the most unreadable man in the entire galaxy, some teenagers shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. “If you’re not back in thirty minutes or somebody notices, I’ll have to say something.”

You nod, silently breaking away from the group without another word. You think you can hear her announce to everyone that it might be best to eat dinner now to skip any long lines later—smart—but you’re out of their hearing range and line of sight almost immediately.

***

Day 5–5:17pm:

“Really?” You raise an eyebrow since they won’t be able to see the way your mouth is twisted up underneath your mask, crossing your arms and tapping your foot against the ground to further illustrate just how not fucking impressed you are.

Seven teenagers freeze, and slowly—depending on how much bravery they can individually muster—they turn around on their stools to face you. The atmosphere in the tavern is bustling and cheery, booze being passed around a large crowd that laughs and mingles, but your vibe is stone cold and quiet. The contrast doesn’t feel wrong on you like it normally would; the negative and disapproving energy you’re emitting makes you feel powerful, untouchable, armored and strong.

“How did you find us so fast?” One of the twin boys squeaks out behind a light blue robe, sounding worried.

“Had a hunch,” you grumble, glaring sternly at each of them in turn. Your tone is dry, your voice sits lower in your throat when you’re pissed off. All you had to do was look for the closest bar that doesn’t have any orange jumpsuits poking around waiting to card underage younglings, it wasn’t that difficult. “You’re not exactly unpredictable.”

“Are you gonna rat us out?” The other twin asks you, in a voice that’s oddly deep compared to his brother.

“I should,” you snap, quickly reaching out to push their drinks away. “I should let Sister Drya rain down her holy fury on your asses, got good people all twisted up over you for nothing and I’m missing dinn—”

You don’t know why, but you suddenly cut yourself off and jerk upright, spinning around.

The sounds of glasses clinking and boisterous voices fill the bar, but they seem to fade out for a second. Your eyes fly around the crowded space, your heart lodged in your throat and looking for anything reflective. Every flash you see is a false alarm—belt buckle, wristwatch, cocktail shaker—

He’s here… isn’t he?

Only, there’s nothing. Nothing is out of place, nothing jumps out at you the way you’re assuming it will. You’re braced taut and ready to bolt at the first sign of a chase, but it never comes.

It’s so… unexpected, this feeling. It’s not like you’re being hunted anymore, but instead, you’re the hunter. You’re feeling the weight of him from this far away and it’s like he’s calling for you to come find him, teasing the wild adrenaline rush you get from just feeling his presence, as if he absolutely knows it happens. Whispering soft in your ear and then vanishing the second you’re able to turn around, like he’s here but he’s not. Playing with you from so far away.

This… this is a taunt.

The whole thing at the inn was leagues below this, that was rudimentary. Teasing, getting even, having fun with each other, whatever you want to call that, that’s what it was. This is scarily sophisticated. Fluid and practiced and the best kind of frightening, stark and dangerous compared to the carefree and upbeat setting surrounding you. You’re not making it up, it’s not just you being paranoid. You know him with your eyes closed. You know he’s here somewhere watching you, just like you know the starlight that streaks across the pitch black horizon of hyperspace. Not because you can see it, not really, not directly. But because by it, even in the vastest and darkest and emptiest of voids, you’re suddenly able to see everything else.

“You okay, Nerida?”

The volume gradually comes back up and you blink, suddenly remembering where you are, who else is with you. The chatter becomes slightly louder than it seemed before.

“Yeah,” you eventually say, slightly airy while continuing to stare emptily at the crowded room. He’s not here, you don’t think, not anymore at least. But you’re not stupid, you know what this means. You’re already caught, there’s nothing you can conceivably do that will delay the reunion for the next—you look down and pull the loose sleeve up to check your communicator—seven fucking hours, there’s no way. He’ll pull back and follow you, keep up with you from a distance and then snatch you away right when you let your guard down. You at least need to get the kids back to their guardians before that can happen, though.

“Let’s go,” you quietly tell the group of foundlings, grabbing elbows and hauling them out of their stools. “Naydee was the only one who knew that you were gone when I left. Here’s to hoping she managed to keep it that way.”

***

Day 5–5:32pm:

Against all odds, you’re able to rally the wayward teens and successfully lead them through shoulders that are beginning to move closer together as the crowd grows and grows. You stay towards the back and don’t look behind you once—not only do you not want to give the younglings an unnecessary reason to become paranoid or to question your actions, but you can still feel Din lingering. Moving like a shadow, probably fitting in perfectly with the masked festival-goers, nothing drawing any attention to him with all the spectacular sights and noise occurring.

Soon you return to the same spot from before, and you and the teenagers seamlessly integrate yourselves back into the rest of the group without anyone noticing a thing is out of place. When you move to stand beside her, Naydee’s bone-deep sigh of relief is palpable even behind the concealing fabric; she squeezes your hand incredibly tight in a silent gesture of thanks, and then pulls something from the deep pockets of her robe and passes it to you sneakily. A purple fruit. She must’ve saved it for you.

Maker, fuck yes. It’s not much but it’s more dinner than any of the seven troublemakers get, but Naydee quietly assures you they’ll be able to eat something once they return to the Keja around midnight, just not the tasty expensive treats they’re selling at the vendors. As the sun goes down, you try not to stain your pretty fabric a deep maroon as you chomp and feel your lips start to curl upwards. It sounds so fucking stupid when you put it like this, but you keep going back to Din and revelling in knowing that he’s so close, like you’re just mentally checking in on him. You don’t get the sensation by thinking, though—more like you just focus really hard on your heart and feel him there just a second afterwards.

Is that how pure, stupid, shameless love feels when you’re completely entrenched in it? It’s not like it’s surrounding you, it’s not suffocating you or making you float. It’s just a thing. Like… a thing inside your chest, a physical thing you can search for and find, something you can point to on your body and say it’s right here, this is where my love for him lives. Right at the bottom of your heart, right where it curves and beats strong when other hearts meet flat at sharp angles. You do it over and over again, reconfirming its existence every single time. You don’t know what else you’d call it. Love is the only word. To love, to know. To hold in the heart.

Soon, you start to notice that people are slowly moving around your stationary group. You look up and watch the crowd begin to walk, some of them giving soft smiles to the cute children as they pass by, but all of them following the same unspoken direction.

“Where is everyone going?” You ask Naydee, standing on your tiptoes to watch the crowd migrate like a giant system, an organism or mechanism of thousands (or tens of thousands?) of smaller moving parts all traveling in tandem. It’s fascinating—you’ve been to crowded places, you know what it looks like when a lot of people are packed into one area, but you’ve never seen what it looks like when they all move together. They would normally be bumping into each other, slipping in between, fighting and never really getting anywhere, interacting individually and thinking separately. Now they’re progressing in one single direction, so many with the same mindset and understanding of what comes next. A second parade, almost, with New Republic officers directing the flow of pedestrians as they pass.

“The eastern part of the city!” Naydee yells over the noise and points, and beyond her extended finger, you can barely see the light of a dusky body of water in the distance beyond the buildings. “The fireworks are going to go off over the bay, but it takes awhile to get there!”

“Is…” You blink for a second, suddenly caught off guard, trying to think back to the holomap the concierge pulled up at the front desk of the inn. Surely you would’ve noticed it, but your sudden childlike hope makes you ask anyway. “Is it part of an ocean?”

Naydee shakes her head. “A really big lake!”

Your shoulders drop just the slightest bit in disappointment but still, you ache to see it. You can’t even imagine—the fireworks are likely going to reflect across the water, giving everyone double the view. And luckily, after all the children and caretakers are individually accounted for, you start to behind the slow-moving crowd towards the docks you know lie beyond.

Naydee scurries ahead to keep the kids together, ushering them forward and preventing any drunk passer-bys from accidentally stepping on them, and you quietly bring up the very rear of the entourage. You take the time to observe more than anything, walk in the back and experience instead of trailblaze. So many people, so many stories to be told, so many differences and diversity around you. Your face is partially concealed and you don’t move your head too much, just your eyes. They flick around to take in everything, the crowd thinning little by little as you make it out of the confined space downtown. You’re able to make out full bodies and outfits again instead of just heads and shoulders, allowing you to breathe just a bit easier under your mask.

And then at one point—and it’s almost a little startling because it happens all at once—the organizers must decide that the sun has officially gone down, because the lights come on. All of a sudden, paper lanterns and bulbs flicker into existence all around you and the world decides it wants to glow, glint and twinkle from the inside out. They’re everywhere, draping across rooftops and tangled around street signs and stuffed into the flower bouquets overhead, raining soft colors down on everything. You’re in complete awe, trying to keep walking but also needing to look at as much as fucking possible in the suddenly luminescent city. It’s so colorful, so vernal and warm and you feel like you’re… Like when you took a shower on the Crest for the first time and spent a few happy moments just playing with the water and soap for your own enjoyment, it’s as if all the brilliant rainbow of colors the bubbles would make under the fluorescent light decided to surround you at the same time. You’re inside stained glass, blinking at the flowers and wondering if Din can even smell the air or if it’s filtered, processed and reduced to nothing under the helmet.

And that’s when you see him.

But with the way your chest rapidly constricts and you can count your heart beats as they pound, blaring white noise through your ears and adrenaline through your veins, it’s like he's just allowing it to happen. You immediately understand that you don’t have fucking anything the second your eyes land on him; this isn’t a heads up that you caught wind of early, it’s not a gift or an advantage you’ve incidentally gained over him that you should be thankful for. Being able to see him directly like this, being able to make out all these fucking details from this far away… This just feels like you’re being informed of the endgame right before it comes. If you were anyone else, if you were a real bounty and this was a real hunt, his armor glinting and reflecting the lanterns overhead would feel like a knife you're about to be on the wrong side of.

You have a decision to make, very quickly. Either keep in this same direction, head straight towards him and just pretend like you are who you’re dressed as, a random caretaker for a bunch of rowdy foundlings during a spring festival on Nariss, or disappear. Drop back, move through the crowd and use the distance you have between you right now as your only hope of getting away in time. Neither one gives you a particular advantage—your chances of being caught have already skyrocketed exponentially just being able to see the reflection in his armor, the hovering shield at his side with big black eyes… staring directly at you.

You almost trip over your pantlegs, gasping. Baby. He beams at you and you think he calls out through the passing crowd, his tiny arms extending out, and your chest feels like you’re pulling organs as if they were muscles, cramping up and seizing with emotion. You want to run to them even though you’re meant to be running from them, call out over the noise and wave even though you’re not supposed to. You want to hold the kid again, squish his little forehead with kisses, walk around with Din’s hand pressed against your lower back and see the fireworks with him.

Your hands clutch at the draping fabric covering your chest, pulling and twisting it uncertainly. What do you do, what do you do?

No matter what, you know it’s over. Keep your head down and try to move past him, or break away from your group and try to escape—both are different paths that lead to the same result. What’s the point of running when he’s the one chasing you? The heart-pounding thrill is the only reason you’re even considering it, but his body stands so tall amongst the crowd, not moving while people ebb and flow like a river passing around him.

Except then you can hear his voice repeat the last thing he said to you in person as if he says it directly into the comm in your ear. When you do see me… try to outrun.

You should run—run, it’s better than just hoping he doesn’t see you when you already know he does.

Unless…

Out of a trillion different possibilities, you soon realize that there is exactly one situation in which this could turn out in your favor. You can immediately picture the scenario in your mind, but there’s just too many variables to conceivably rely on getting them all right. This maybe has a… two percent chance of working? Maybe? Everything would have to go perfectly, just fucking flawlessly, but what other choice do you have? Two percent is better than whatever odds you’re dealing with now.

You walk silently behind the group of foundlings as you approach closer and closer, keeping your head purposefully down as they skip and giggle and dance ahead. He knows you’re here—he has to know, you’re counting on him knowing. Walk right in front of him, pretend like you don’t see, make sure you keep left. Keep left, keep left, keep your head down, keep your head down—

A leather glove suddenly catches hold of your wrist hard enough to tug you backwards.

Your gasp is audible over the sound of the crowd and you spin around, jerking your head up to look at him in fear. Your heart slams as the beskar reflects your mask and hood back at you—you’re terrified and it shows, you can see it in your eyes.

You quickly try to yank your hand away, even as your index finger stretches up towards the communicator around his wrist.

“Miss Nerida?” A child’s voice cries, and then small hands grab at you from behind as you bury the urge to actually fight him. Your instincts are demanding you attack when his grip is this strong, but you just whine and struggle, slapping weakly at him with your free hand and feeling more of the younglings begin to pull at you, their high pitched voices calling more and more attention to the scene.

Your gaze flicks to the side, suddenly landing on a pair of New Republic officers helping direct the thousands of moving bodies from the closest street corner. They’re looking at you, pointing and beginning to speak into their own comm units. Din’s helmet snaps sideways to follow your gaze, and then he’s immediately dropping your wrist and stepping back, retreating as quickly as he caught you. Though you don’t want to—though you don’t want to give yourself away even more, you want to pretend fully that he was a complete stranger and the children were right to try to help you get away—your eyes fall to your son in the hovering crib by his side and you feel yourself crumble just a bit.

Just a few more hours, kid. A few more hours.

Children pull you away while your pursuers both disappear into the crowd, and you quickly turn to soothe the tiny babies instead of chasing after the one you miss so terribly.

“I’m alright,” you tell them, scooting them up and encouraging them to continue walking. Blend in, blend in, don’t let anybody think anything is wrong. “Come on, we’re fine, come on, we have to catch up.”

They take your lead as soon as one of the caretakers turns around and sees the small group crowding around you. You think she asks what happened, but you just tell her a man mistook you for someone else and nothing more comes of it. She’s able to settle the chaos better than you are, and by the time you’re continuing to travel forwards once more like nothing happened, the communicator suddenly flicks on in your ear.

“What did you do?” He breathes out, his footsteps moving fast through his voice. He’s traveling much quicker than you expected—is he still being followed? The officers are gone from your sight, they might be going after him right now, weaving between bodies and calling out to the perpetually vanishing glint of armor as he navigates his way out of danger.

You look down at the comm on your wrist and your heart nearly soars with victory. It worked. It worked. You just have to outlast a bit longer, don’t draw any extra attention to it—he’s preoccupied and he certainly doesn’t sound happy, but you hope that’ll be enough to make him slip. Use his frustration to your advantage, let him think the only thing you were successful at was momentarily escaping him.

“The cops weren’t part of the plan,” you admit quietly, keeping your head down as your loose hood billows in the twilight breeze. “Don’t get caught.”

There’s a few moments of just his breathing, his footsteps, and the noise floor humming through the comm, before he finally responds. “You look beautiful.”

You stare unseeingly down at the concrete under your feet, still feeling your hand tingle from where he caught you. The line abruptly mutes on his end and you just keep moving forward, onward, wanting to look back but knowing he’s already long gone.

***

Day 5–5:24pm:

Din is fucking furious.

He had you. You were right there, right in front of him, and even if he hadn’t been subtly trailing you all day, seeing the red footsteps get covered and flicker out of existence just a few moments after you make them, he would’ve recognized you anywhere. In black and white, in the fading light, with your face covered, children calling you by a different name and attaching themselves to you like they’ve known you forever—doesn’t matter, he would’ve known you. Your eyes have always given you away, always so expressive and starry and soft, but able to see right through solid steel whenever you look at him.

But then you slipped from his grasp, and then more guards pushed him further and further away from you. They must all be in constant communication, because every single jumpsuit he sees immediately spots him and starts following. It’s fucking exhausting, and he thinks of you the whole time.

He waits in a dark alley with the kid and taps the side of the helmet a few times to bring up the time on his comm, but then relaxes just slightly when he sees the hour. It’s earlier than he thought it was, he’ll be able to find you again.

Though, something tugs at him while he’s looking at the clock ticking away in front of his eyes, counting down each second that passes. There was… a moment. Back in the square, when he was holding onto you again, when you were looking directly into his once more—everything in his helmet—

No, he shakes his head while the kid looks up at him curiously, it can’t be. It was just a split second, it was gone so fast.

But he can’t get rid of it. Though there’s no explanation, he thinks the display screen flickered. The sky behind you looked different for a single frame, your footsteps weren’t bright red and visible anymore, your eyes weren’t grey and he stopped wondering what shade of fabric you and your friend decided to choose for you to wear. It was silvery, he’s almost certain. Like his armor, it only reflected the color of everything around it.

Color. Everywhere. Bursting for a blink of an eye, and then gone just as quick, before he could actually figure out what it really meant.

***

Day 5–6:59pm:

This water is quiet here, but it sparkles.

It doesn’t ever really get truly dark thanks to the enormous hanging moon and ringed gas giant dancing with Sanctuary II, constantly reflecting light back onto the surface and reacting with some of the trace chemicals up above the atmosphere, and you think the sky just might be the prettiest you’ve ever seen it. Must have something to do with the equinox, the glimmering angles of light being played with by celestial bodies in this stunning system, but it’s a dream. The Maker apparently couldn’t decide which colors he wanted tonight so he just splashed all of them together all at once, let them run and blend like ink in the gentle water below, like the various people who call this moon home.

That view in front of you, coupled with all the flowers and lanterns lining the streets behind you, and you’ve lost track of time the exact same way you hoped Din would. You think you’ve stood for about an hour or so in this one spot, half-listening to excited chatter from the babies, mostly just gazing across the stretch of water and being able to just barely spot the docks in the distance, but it feels like it’s only been minutes.

You check your watch—the fireworks should be starting any second now. You don’t know what to expect, just that in your experience, explosions tend to be loud. You've decided you’re not going to plug your ears, though. Tummy twisting with nerves and another inexplicable feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, you resolve to experience the unknown exactly the way it’s meant to be. Fully, without worry or fear.

Then, lacking any warning or ceremony whatsoever, a single flare launches silent and high from one of the small boats skimming the bay, and the crowd seems to hold its collective breath as the dim light disappears into thin air for a split second, before—

It’s… quite possibly the most dazzling thing you think you’ve ever seen. So shamelessly decorative just for the sake of it, not serving any other practical purpose besides celebration and visual spectacle, and you’ll probably never know another extravagance like it. You grew up with dust pelting against tired eyes, you never thought they’d get to reflect such gorgeous bursts of color back up at the sky, glassy and childlike amongst a group of equally wide-eyed children.

As expected, a deafening boom follows closely behind the singular display, but just witnessing it is incredible enough to make you forget to brace yourself for the sound and you jump almost violently in response. There comes a loud cheer from the people standing around you, a few delighted gasps and children who decide now is the best time to start crying, but then more flares begin to launch from the boats and the subsequent show will sear itself into your memory to replay over and over again.

Still, you think the endless sky and dark water below would have to light on fire to stop him from coming to mind.

Din.

You click the comm on, continuing to stare in stunned awe but wanting nothing more than to hear his voice right now, feel his hand rest on your lower back and the kid’s three fingers squeezing one of yours while the stars rain down from above. You’re only continuing to run from him because it’s expected of you, that’s the reason you’re here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to argue with yourself. “Do you always see in black and white?”

It takes him just a few seconds to respond, but he always does. “Only when I’m tracking someone.”

The loud booms can be heard over the earpiece, happening maybe a second after they crack and sparkle above you. You can’t tell if the latency is due to the electronics or if he’s just that far away from the source of the sound itself, but… you don’t think he is. He feels close again, like he could just walk up right next to you any second, or maybe that’s just how he always feels now.

“Does that mean you haven’t seen the sky here?” You ask after a moment. This whole time, everything has been grey for him?

“I saw it,” Din murmurs, and even though it’s quiet and explosions are thundering loud enough to deafen more sensitive ears, his quiet voice somehow breaks through it all. “When you left the Crest, I saw it behind you.”

For some reason, you suddenly feel like crying. Whether it’s the way he phrases it or the sentiment in the words, you’re close to tears without even knowing why, looking up at the sky illuminating spectacularly. He says it like he wasn’t the one who parked on this moon and told you to go on without him. “Can you… turn it off for just a second?”

He takes a second, before clarifying for you. “I turn it off and I lose your footprints.”

So that was the ultimatum. He doesn’t want to turn it off until you’re back with him again. Does he not understand? Does he not know what you know? Maybe you just happened to feel it first, this overwhelming physical sensation inside you whenever you think about him. It’s like the exact opposite of a hole in your chest. And it’s so odd, so counterintuitive. Being comforted in his absence, feeling him with you when he isn’t. Falling in love in the dark, knowing him without ever seeing him.

“You never needed them,” you say, reaching up to pull your mask down under your jaw and chin for a moment, wanting to freely breathe the freshwater and flowers while stars explode and fracture across the sky. It’s a truth you’re acknowledging, something you’ll carry with you, something you fundamentally own at this point. “You’d find me without the helmet. And I’d find you.”

The fireworks continue to bleed into the water beneath them, multicolor splashes rippling into existence and disappearing just as quick. You could’ve never imagined a more colorful, magnificent landscape—besides your waterfall on Naboo, of course. That was a pure product of nature though, a place hidden away and untouched by people, completely sacred. Light refracting against mist, natural glass that would shatter under your weight. This is a celebration of life and family. Loud in a different way, affecting you in a different way, but just as wonderful and touching. A cultivated paradise, designed to be beautiful and safe only because they wanted it to be.

“Think so?” He asks softly. He sounds so deep and warm, but… a little distant. You’re able to hear it in his words. You don’t know why, though. Doesn’t he believe you? Perhaps… perhaps this isn’t The Way. Perhaps this is part of a completely different oath, one where knowing and loving somebody isn’t the same thing as looking at their face, not at all. Where you can have them exist entirely separate from each other, because this is love. This is real, enduring, bone-deep love, and you haven’t ever seen his face, so how would he explain that? How would the Mandalorians reconcile that? You bear the mark of the mudhorn, you’ve moved through time and space with him, you’re a mother to his son, and you’ve never seen his face. It defies both the Mandalorian oath and traditional understandings of love, or it meets them right in the middle, depending on how you look at it.

“I know so.” For the first time, you think you might sound more confident and certain than he does. Maybe he doesn’t fully get it yet, but then you suppose he’ll just have to trust you. “Will you look at the sky?”

“I see it,” Din tells you, but you know he doesn’t. Not the way you want him to. And stars, you just want so many things for him, don’t you? The sky, fresh air, water, light, food, rest. You want him to see the galaxy the way you do—have a new appreciation for the gifts that are given just because you’re alive to experience them. All the physics and mathematics aligned perfectly for it to happen—all the chemistry, the systems, the dynamics that dictate the universe, they all got together and crafted a world where you, him, and the kid all exist together at the same time. You want him to know the significance of that.

“With color?” You ask, knowing his answer before he seems to.

“I…” Din wants to argue, or at least say it again. He can’t or he’ll lose you, he already told you he doesn’t want to turn the setting off. It’s such an unnecessary conflict, but you want to respect it so much that you’re willing to give up things of your own to make it happen.

“How do I fix it then?” You whisper, so desperately wanting this one thing for him, this one grandeur to behold. How do you fix this problem? How do you convince him to look with you? You’d offer to just go and find him instead of continuing to run away for the next few hours, but you know the show will be over soon and you don’t have much time left. “Do you want me to come look for you? It’ll be too late by then, you’re too far away. Look at the sky.”

It’s silent for a moment—truly silent, even though colorful bombs are going off above the bay. You don’t know why you’ve attached yourself to this so strongly, but it’s almost devastating when you don’t get a response. You look away from the spectacle for the first time in an eternity, gazing unseeingly into the crowd of onlookers with a sudden sadness taking hold of you. He won’t look, he’s too stubborn, he holds onto things too tightly.

But then, a flurry of flares start launching in rapid succession from the distant boats, screaming and crying on their way up and then igniting into showers of light, and the abrupt increase in activity manages to catch your attention once again. This must be the end, they saved the best for last. Every corner of the horizon flashes and sparks, and you’re mesmerized at how bright it is, how many colors they’ve managed to fit into one single frame.

“It’s beautiful,” comes his voice, and the smile that you break into feels just right for the brilliance of the view above you. Maker, it is, isn’t it? Now you can hear it—he sounds like he’s looking at it too, with color, in all its breathtaking glory, and you feel like you’re flying. Like he picked you up and let you watch up close, like you can feel his armor under your fingers right now as he carries you through the sky.

It swells up inside you, a rising wave similar to the ones you can see in the distance, and you know you probably shouldn’t say it because it’s not in your best interest to say it right now, but you have to say it anyways. It’s an unknowable compulsion, a need to connect and communicate directly with him but for your sake, not presently, not at this exact moment in time.

Luckily, you mute your comm just in time and simply give the words to him from very far away.

“Hurry up,” you say, sending the sentiment into the sky with all your love, and the conflicting hope that he won’t take the advice until a bit later on. “Come and find me.”

***

Day 5–7:37pm:

After the fireworks are over, people start to drift off in separate directions, clearing the traffic and congestion from the streets around you. Someone puts their hand on your shoulder and you blink a few times, spinning around and almost stepping on a bunch of tiny little feet by accident.

Stars, that’s a lot of children. They’re all crowded around Naydee, who pats a few heads and almost buckles under the younglings clinging to her leg.

“Figured you would be long gone by now,” she grins at you from behind her mask, and you’re reminded to pull yours up over your face just from looking at her. “It’s late—we’re going back to the Keja.”

“Oh, shit,” you breathe in surprise, but the noise of the gradually dispersing crowd manages to cover it up. At least from younger, more easily distracted ears, but you think Naydee hears you. Her dark eyes roll good-naturedly, looking happy but exhausted from the long day. You’re going to have to say goodbye now.

“What happened to your family?” She asks after a moment, and you think she’s being careful with the way she says it, likely because family is a difficult topic to navigate in general around some of the children hanging on her and begging for her attention. “Have you been in touch with them? If not, I’m sure you can come back with us. It’ll be late by the time we get there, but at least you’ll be safe.”

You open your mouth to automatically decline her offer, knowing Din is still in the crowded city looking for you and wanting to stay where there’s lots of people.

But then… well, he would expect you to do that, wouldn’t he?

There’s more people here. More danger, but better places to hide. It’s the obvious choice, it’s the one that makes the most logical sense. But you’d also be completely alone and you’re assuming the only reason he hasn’t snatched you up yet—which you know he could’ve done multiple times by now, is likely because you’re with a group of innocent foundlings, moody teenagers, and very stern older women. He probably doesn’t realize you’ve told them about him and the kid, though you were slightly vague on the details.

It’s also a little over three hours to get back, but you’re banking on it being closer to four with how whiney and tired some of the small voices sound, others sounding like they’re an enormous sugar rush contained into a tiny little capsule. Would he have the gall to try and get you right from under their noses? Will he even know you left the city, or will he assume you made the smartest decision possible and simply account for it ahead of time? No, you're overthinking it, just make a decision and stick with it.

“There’s also free food,” Naydee shrugs while you’re still considering, but… well, that settles that. Almost three days of friendship and she already knows exactly how to win you over in the end. Sustenance for your empty tummy, an escort the entire way there, and heavily guarded walls beyond. Din will have to get creative in response—you flaunted your imagination for days, coming up with dozens of evasion tactics to outlast him, but this one just seems… incredibly practical. Exploiting a weakness of his—isolating it, having it be reinforced by precedent, and then taking advantage of it. You bet he’ll catch on, but still, it’ll make it more difficult for him, and you’re grasping at straws to hang on just a little longer.

“I…” Quick, come up with something. You clear your throat. “The city is too crowded, I haven’t been able to find them. I could just… tell them where I’m headed and see if they can find me along the way?”

Naydee smiles and nods. “Sounds perfect.”

Yet, the entire walk back… you keep thinking you’re going to feel Din trailing behind you, waiting to feel the nerves twist in your tummy and your palms to sweat, but you don’t. You keep glancing over your shoulder and then down at your wrist, needing to talk yourself out of addressing him through the comm to let him know exactly what the plan is. You like maintaining a sense of secrecy from the new characters you’ve met on your adventures—Naydee, Karga, Peli—almost everyone you’ve been introduced to, you found a way to find a subtle enjoyment in hiding certain things from them. But with Din, you don’t have any walls. They crumbled nearly a full year ago when he silently pushed a cauterizer in your hand and took his armor off for you, and you’ve felt the inexplicable need to bare yourself to him in return ever since. It would be to your extreme detriment to do it now, but you still have to fight the urge.

Even if you don’t feel him following, you still find yourself acting like he is. Constantly turning back to double check the road behind you, drifting off in the middle of shallow, distant conversations with tiny foundlings who can’t tell the difference, keeping towards the middle of the pack this time to avoid being picked off towards the back. The belltower at the orphanage is loud and will ring for quite a distance, so your timing has to be utterly pristine for this to all work out. You eye your comm the entire way there, trying to stall just the right amount to avoid any realizations or fall into any traps he may be setting for you.

You eventually leave the city walls far behind you, and now you have no clue where he is. You lost him, and maybe that’s why you feel your heart beat insanely fast the whole time. He could be anywhere now. Behind you, adjacent, parallel—you can’t decide where to look, but it keeps you wide awake and focused while the group tiredly travels back to the temple.

***

Day 5–11:32pm:

You can see it in the distance, the brick buildings slowly coming into view. One might think your stress would have worked itself out by now, been brought back to a manageable level after four hours of walking, but you’ve been on red alert for the past hour or so. Any movement or rustle that doesn’t come from the sleepy children or exhausted caretakers, you’re on top of it, snapping your attention to the offending tree or animal and not being able to relax even after affirming it’s just nature, it’s not shiny metal bounding after you in the darkness, ready to take you down.

The infants are all likely snoozing away in the nursery, and the Sister who volunteered to stay behind and look after them comes to greet the group at the gate as you approach. Like always, two Brothers open the iron bars to allow you inside, and you feel the anxiety dig its claws into your tummy. If Din is going to get you, this is the very last moment to do it. These walls are guarded and you’re nervous for him, you’re nervous for yourself—you’re just fucking nervous. Jumpy and worried, not being able to pinpoint him anymore and feeling all the more anxious because of it.

It doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels right about this, but you can’t figure out specifically what’s wrong. This was the exact plan, this was a way for you to just survive these last few hours and yet, it doesn’t feel right that you actually succeeded in doing so. It doesn’t make sense that he’d allow you to return all the way here, especially when he was close enough to touch you earlier. Din has had so much time to snatch you up, so many opportunities to lure you away, confront you—anything to catch you, and he hasn’t done it yet. Why? Either you truly did escape and he has no idea where you are, which doesn’t feel right, or he’s choosing not to get you for whatever reason, which also doesn’t feel right. What’s he waiting for? You can’t have won. It was all too fucking easy, you’re expecting to see him around every single corner because he should be there, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

When someone gently touches your elbow, you’re so on edge that you nearly whip around in surprise.

“Sorry!” Naydee immediately apologizes, taking her hand back to lift her hood and remove the mask covering her face. “Didn’t mean to scare you! I was just going to say that the commissary is still open,” she offers, and you watch the small group of hungry teenagers break off from the group to make their way there. “It’s going to take awhile to get the children ready for bed, so we’ll be in the dormitories if you need to sleep. Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll see you again.”

You stare at her and blink a few times, trying to readjust your focus. She’s your new friend, she just said this was likely the last time you’ll see each other, but you can’t stop thinking about Din. Imagine he’s hours away in the city right now, still looking for you. You’re trying to evaluate your priorities here, but you truthfully never expected to get this far. Inside the gates, surrounded by brick buildings and silent guards. You know your way around here, you know hiding spots, you know how to outlast—it’s incredibly advantageous for you to be inside these walls. What is he doing?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you give Naydee a quick hug and she happily accepts it. “I’m sure we’ll meet again at some point.”

She smiles and nods, pulling back and letting a couple grumpy foundlings catch her robes and yank on them impatiently. The loud group eventually disappears into the dorms, and the door shutting behind them cuts off the tired crying and chatty voices determined to stay awake, leaving you in silence that feels slightly unfamiliar after going without it for so long.

Fuck, you just need to breathe. As soon as the dead quiet grips the air around you, you realize you need to relax. You’re way too fucking wound up; you want to bolt at the smallest thing and the sudden silence of being alone multiplies it to the point where you have to remind yourself of its importance. Breathe. Focus. There’s about fifteen minutes before the bells ring, fifteen more minutes and the chase will be all over.

Can you eat? You thought you’d want to, but you think you’re too fucking antsy. You can’t stay here alone, that’s for sure, but you also don’t want to be around all the children right now. The commissary will have a handful of people wandering around, teens snacking and maybe a Brother or two standing guard. It’s the best place to wait the clock out, so you make your way there. The gentle breeze billows around your loose robes, your pantlegs swishing as you walk.

A few minutes later, you’ve got a plate of food in front of you but your mask is still up, and you’re just sitting there. Towards the back of the large room, sitting by yourself at one of the tables and staring down at your communicator. Five minutes. You have five fucking minutes left before he finds you. Can you feel him? Is he closing in?

You sit up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath. Focus on that feeling from earlier. The presence in your chest, the weight that didn’t used to be there months ago—focus on that feeling and branch it outwards. Can you feel him?

Something catches your eye.

Or no… it doesn’t, does it? Nothing is out of place here, nothing is visibly wrong or amiss. The only thing that’s changed from all the times before is how dark it is through the windows, and how there are only a few kids in here grabbing a midnight snack instead of being packed like usual. Nothing else.

But there’s… there’s an acolyte in the far corner, standing guard with his back to the wall. It’s not his presence that gives you pause—you expected him to be here, there’s always been at least one present whenever you’ve sat down to eat. He doesn’t look any different from the rest of the Brothers you’ve passed by this evening or the days before—tall, silent, dark brown robes, hooded and mysterious—so why do you suddenly feel yourself break out into a cold sweat as soon as your eyes land on him?

Bubbling laughter and chatter echoes through the large room from one of the tables near the entrance—seven teenagers stuffing their faces with food and sharing animated conversation with each other now that it’s late and they’re alone—but your stomach twists and your fingers start to tremble as you slowly rise from your seat in the back. You want to keep your head down and be casual but it’s impossible, you desperately need to keep looking at that silent guard in particular and your heart kicks up in your chest—

—and then it wrenches sideways when you’re carefully backing away from the table and the offending acolyte takes a single step forwards.

Run. Everything in you screams for you to run, and it’s rarely done that before, but you can’t. Not yet, you don’t want to draw attention, and the logical part of your mind rages against your gut instinct to haul ass. He’s here—of course he is, the thought screams through your veins as you try to weave quickly in between tables, feeling light on your toes and readying yourself to run as soon as you can. The dark figure seems to find a careful pace behind you, staying just far enough behind and walking in perfect silence, and you have so many fucking questions but you can’t even think a single thing beyond run away, run away. Where’s the kid? How did he get those robes? Did he actually take his helmet off just to get to you in a room where anyone could confront him?

Your feet propel you forward as soon as you make it out of the door, you break out into a sprint—just flat out bolting because you know how fucking fast he is and you need as big a headstart as you can get.

You race down the stairs and through the courtyard, the beautiful surroundings contrasting drastically with the way you’re running for your fucking life through them. It’s not beautiful to you right now; you feel clumsy and physically unable to move fast enough no matter how quick you go, your eyes are wide and every nerve is on fire and you can’t even tell if he’s behind you anymore with how silently he moves, but you just trust that he is and keep barreling forward. Your breath puffs against the clinging fabric of your mask as you keep sprinting, willing your legs to pump faster. Get to the belltower at least, get to where you have the smallest chance of being caught by the people who guard this place.

As soon as you allow yourself to even conceive the possibility, two Brothers in dark hooded robes suddenly turn the corner a little ways in front of you and your reaction time is perfect—you jerk to a halt and take a single step forward as soon as they spot you. Since your momentum already committed you to it, you just have to walk, keep your head down, move directly past them and hope Din disappeared from behind you in time.

Step, step, step—keep going, control your breathing, you’re okay, you’re allowed to be up late tonight and they shouldn’t stop you. Walk right by… Stars, you feel their silent stares as you casually pass, and it just feels so cold and analytical compared to the kind of danger Din is gives off when dressed in the exact same clothing. He’s hard and tangible and an unrelenting force, where they just feel like ghosts that haunt this place. The threat they present is impersonal and detached, but the terror currently chasing after you is so real that he can read your mind.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as soon as you turn the corner, and your feet are already starting to speed up on their own knowing you’re out of their sight. Run, get to the belltower before Din does, you can see it standing tall about a hundred feet away. The stairs leading to the door come closer and closer, but you hear something behind you and it propels you faster. It’s like you can feel him right at your heels even though you haven’t seen him, snapping at your ankles even though your footsteps are the only ones you can hear anymore.

You scramble up the stairs and close the door behind you, spinning around and facing it even as you slowly retreat backwards into the moonlit tower, trying to stay quiet. Breathing through your nose, eyes shifting around the enclosed space, continuing to back up and away from the door. Where is he? There are so many windows that allow you to look outside, but why can’t you spot his movement through them? Wasn’t he right behind you?

Behind you.

There’s no reason or logic at all to it; you just react. Spinning around and throwing a mean punch.

Din jerks back just in time to miss it, twisting and dodging at the very last second to avoid your next few hits—but… things seem to slow down, even if they’re happening so fast. The moonlight cascades through the dozens of windows lining the circular walls and it shines just enough to reveal small glimpses of him. With every aggressive strike from you, you see something else—you see a flash of his chin when you try to uppercut, you aim for his chest and you see a bit of his jaw. When you go for his jaw, he steps sideways and catches your wrist, and you see the bend of his nose catch the light this time.

But then it’s like he finally figures out that you’re actually fighting him, and now he’s coming for you. Trained and ruthless, not weighed down by any armor and lightning quick, launching perfectly aimed attacks that you’re only able to avoid from reaction and muscle memory alone. You block or move whenever he strikes, you attack whenever you see an opening, you sidestep at the same time he does—

Until you land a spin kick directly to the center of his chest and snap your leg to shove him back, your heel smashing into that soft spot right above his stomach with dead precision and brute force. He exhales sharply and takes a few more steps back to steady himself while you pause to catch your breath.

Din abruptly comes back and you fall into it with him again, keeping a sharp rhythm with each other that’s faster, harder, and way more real than any sparring match you’ve ever shared. The hours and days in hyperspace you spent practicing with him are but a fraction of what he’s throwing at you right now, the combinations so rapid and blurred that you just have to trust your knowledge of him and his movement through the dark.

But then, your downfall. Bells begin ringing an earsplittingly familiar melody above you, and it shatters your concentration—you falter just as he grabs you and sweeps your feet out, and though you know how to get out of that, you’re not quick enough on the jump nor counterswing to prevent it. He takes you to the ground, hard, and then your wrists are being pinned together above your head and your mask is being tugged down.

Din’s mouth on yours makes you want to cry.

The whole thing is like coming home. You spent a week surrounded by strangers and having them call you by a name not given to you, fending for yourself, and now here he is. Someone who knows who you really are, someone that wants to care for you. Tears come to your eyes even as they're pressed tightly shut, and Din kisses you like he’s never known anything else. His mouth fits to yours as if the Maker made your lips before ever considering the rest of you, his bare hand clutching your jaw and forcing you to open for him, letting him lick deep inside after going so many days without it. It might feel dominant and overwhelming if it happened to any other person, but through it, you can also taste his desperation and weakness, how soft he is even when he’s squeezing your jaw and squishing your wrists together too tightly.

Rigid steel that bends only for your touch.

He pulls back and your heart throbs at how moonlight continues to bathe just the smallest glimpses of him under the hood—never the full thing, never the whole face, but enough. The quiet light that brushes the arch of his nose, how it bathes the hard line of his jaw so that you can barely see his scruff when he turns his head the right way. His eyes are hidden in near darkness but there’s the faintest glimmer where they should be, and it’s the closest you’ve ever been to looking at him without the helmet. You can see him, you can see shadows of his chin, his neck—dear stars, his fucking neck. You’re pinned and paralyzed under him and the ringing bells, yet you feel like you just might float if he wasn’t holding you so tight to the floor.

“Where’s the baby?” You finally lift your chin and ask, needing to raise your voice over the melody clanging loud throughout the tower.

“Making friends,” Din pants back down at you, and… stars, then you just start giggling. Adrenaline turning into pure joy, imagining the kid wreaking havoc with all the other babies in the nursery right now. It feels more light and airy than anything your body should know.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, swallowing and then continuing on with the same quick gasps. “You lost, I caught you in time.”

“Did you?” You drop your head to the brick floor and ask, biting your lip as he stares back down at you. Suddenly—

—Bong—

Din holds utterly still over you while you take a quick breath and wait for the next eleven bells…

…but then break into a slow grin up at him when nothing but utter silence follows.

There’s a moment. Just a single moment where the cogs turn rapidly under that shadowy hood, one where the faint reflection of light in his eyes flickers down to the communicator on your wrist that says midnight and back to you, one that solidifies the longer it takes for another bell to ring. It’s not going to.

One o’clock.

You think he puts it together. The one moment he was never able to figure you out—when you tried reprogramming the comms just a few days ago. The one trick up your sleeve that you resigned to throw away and almost forget about because the circumstances for pulling it off were never realistic. Fuck with the electronics and set the clock back just one hour—all you’d need to do is reset his communicator, the timecode is synced together. He told you before that it’s connected to his helmet, but all the buttons still work. Rapid, panicky thinking and a wild surge of bravery in the face of certain downfall is the only reason you were able to pull it off, and you’re perfectly willing to admit you just got lucky… especially when he’s still holding dead still over you.

But then Din moves so suddenly. You can’t account for it because there’s no build-up whatsoever—it’s so fast, you yelp while he grabs your knees and throws them both to one side. You flop over sideways and large hands reach up under the draping length of your tunic to yank your pants down over the curve of your ass, before he’s fitting his palm up between your legs and pushing two thick fingers inside you.

Your head thunks back against brick with how unexpected and merciless it is, but his other hand is grabbing your jaw and twisting, forcing you to look up, stare right into the dark shadow under the loose cowl. The whole thing is too overwhelming—you’re trying to keep quiet but your breathing feels like thunder crashing inside this tall, echoing chamber. He’s touched you so many times, he knows exactly how to do it by now, but it feels like so much more than that. Probably because you can see the way Din’s mouth silently falls open as he feels you, stretching his fingers up and hooking them tight inside. You can tell when he closes his eyes, the smallest glint slowly disappearing into nothingness while the hand around your jaw blindly moves up. It catches your chin and lips, and then two fingers push over the bottom edge of your teeth to slip into your mouth.

Your entire leg twitches and jerks while you lay sideways on the ground and open up for him, your neck twisted at a sharp angle to keep your eyes on him and his fingers in your mouth, giving you something to bite to stop making noise. Din makes room for himself inside you two different ways, and you just choke on his fingers and try to stay quiet, praying he’ll go deeper.

But then you’re not expecting his whole fucking arm to start moving the way it does—oh fuck, what is that? First you just feel jostled and displaced, but then suddenly a wicked, deep, burning pleasure starts to roar through you, radiating outwards from the rapid motion of just two fingers inside you. It’s not in and out, it’s up and down so hard and quick against your g-spot that your eyes cross and your hands go numb.

You think you grab at him, clutch onto his arm or chest and open your mouth to moan at the new and overwhelming sensation, but his hand pushes up against your chin and closes it for you, the bend of his fingers caught hard between your teeth but you don’t think he cares.

“Quiet,” Din hisses the word down at you while his arm continues to work, your toes starting to curl as the feeling overwhelms you. Fuck, what is happening, what is happening? It’s like he’s just shoving unfamiliar sensation at you so forcefully that you can’t even think straight anymore, not even ten seconds in. You can only feel the pleasure, fire blurring hot and shapeless through your entire body as your eyes clamp shut, his fingers isolating that perfect spot and stimulating it directly, relentlessly.

Something dull and white hot presses up tight against all the muscles you have down there and you’re almost afraid of how strong it is. You gasp and choke and he has to take his fingers out of your mouth and just clamp down around your entire jaw, sealing the whole thing shut with his large hand. And then Din’s fingers leave your pussy too—and stars, you should be embarrassed by how desperately it clamps around nothing for as long as it does. He’s not even inside you anymore but your body is on such a delay from the hot, twisting pleasure, and he doesn’t put them back in until your muscles are finished spasming.

Everything comes back full force as soon as he starts moving again. Noise starts to come from your throat, humming in your vocal cords to deal with the arcing, swirling build, and so Din just moves his hand there instead. He finds where it’s vibrating from your neck and he pushes up against it, trapping the sound right at the source. He’s fucking perfect at it for some reason… how many times must he have done this to know how to cut noise out without stopping airflow? You clutch at his wrist and silently mouth his name, feeling his arm work between your legs—faster, faster, harder, pushing you higher, higher—

Din pulls his fingers out again and this time, one of your thighs suddenly feels warm and wet while you spasm and you hear him growl out a ragged, “Fuck yes.” Everything is sparks zapping through you long after his touch is gone, you cry out but it’s all trapped under Din’s expert grip. His fingers soon push back inside you and you dig your nails into his forearm, your sounds muffled and quiet enough to hear his raspy groan.

“Let me see it again,” Din breathes, his arm starting to work up and down once more, and you don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore. What does he want to see? You losing your mind again? Being reduced to an utter mess in front of his shadowy but unobstructed gaze just because you managed to pull one over on him?

Fucking… apparently. It’s what happens, after all. You’ve never seen him like this before; whenever he’s worked up and taking it out on you, there was always something in it for him, too. He’d hammer into you and rock your world until his eventually shattered, and then you’d both lay exhausted afterwards, equally affected and satisfied. This isn’t like that—this is just cruel, targeted retribution on his behalf, coaxing the molten pleasure out of you with his fingers and keeping his other hand locked around your throat. You blink helplessly up at him, your vision starting to blur by the time he leans down to whisper to you.

“I missed you, sweet girl. Did you miss me?” It’s so soft and quiet compared to the strength and relentlessness of his movements. You can’t speak even if you wanted to, but when he finally pulls away to yank his hand out and you feel all your muscles automatically flex outwards and push against the sudden emptiness inside you, his voice groans long and satisfied while your thighs get wet again “Yeah you did,” he breathes, pushing your shaky legs to the brick with his hand and watching you struggle through the aftershocks.

Did you just cum? You don’t even know, that’s how fucked up you are right now. The whole thing felt like an orgasm from the very beginning, just a boiling hot tornado ripping through every single cell in your body, never really having a peak. If you didn’t cum, then why do you feel so weak? You feel heavy, your limbs don’t work properly, and you barely even register Din pulling at the fabric of his own robes until he fits himself up against your entrance.

When you do realize it, though… your body burns with it, wrecked already but wanting him to take what he wants from you.

“Oh, plea—” you gasp but you don’t even have enough time to get the full sentence out. He’s already pushing his hips forward, pressing you tight into the ground and opening you up after what feels like a fucking eternity without him. It’s the hottest, slickest welcome you could give him, you hear it in the whispered curse his lips brush up under your ear, the wet noises your body makes that get louder the longer you hold the moan in your throat and bury your head into his shoulder. He throbs thick and perfect inside your tight, spasming cunt, stretching you and smacking the rough ground near your head with how fucking good it is to be back, finally, finally—

Your hands grab uselessly at his chest while you try to acclimate, try to breathe while you’re blind with sensation. It’s so fitting for him, isn’t it? That your reunion should be just as physically debilitating as it is mentally. Din’s voice scrapes on a groan like he’s dragging it across the brick ground as quiet as he can, catching when you clamp down on him and shuddering when you clamp down harder. That’s just it—you don’t ever loosen, you just keep tightening and tightening around him, threatening to break and cum again.

This feels different from before, though. It’s deep, purposefully so. His hand reaches up to push the fabric of your hood back, lifting himself up over your body and wanting to start as deep as he can. You feel him in a place you’d never be able to reach and that’s just the beginning—that’s before he starts thrusting into you, hitting a dull sensation at the apex of each movement so hard that it becomes sharp. His hips don’t make practically any sound smacking into you because they don’t really smack, they just rock downwards and fuck you into the floor without needing to pull out really at all. You know he’s just trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but what he lacks in speed and agility he makes up in power.

You don’t even realize you’re making too much noise until a palm wraps tight around your mouth and the room gets a little emptier. Din keeps you all to himself on the floor, silencing as much as he’s working you up, smothering as much as he’s freeing you. There’s no easing up, no dragging it out, no gradual build or climb—it’s just there all of a sudden, pleasure and pain pummeling you all at once, engulfing you in flames.

You reach up to grab at the loose fabric of the hood over his face, catching a fistful of it before his hand suddenly snatches your shaky wrist and pins it back to the ground.

Maker, you forgot—oh, you completely forgot about how many people could find you right now if they ever decided to look in the right place. You’re not in hyperspace; your body is rocking against rough brick, you’re probably going to have a lump on the back of your head from how terrible you are at trying to map out heaven while holding still. He’s pinned down what he can with one hand; your fingers are the only things that can move besides how tight you can curl your toes, but you feel your moans turn into words against his palm. They garble indistinctly and you’re not really even sure what you’re saying, but Din decides it’s worth hearing.

“Shh,” he whispers, slowly lifting his hand from your mouth. “Shh, tell me—”

“W-wanna look,” you hear yourself whimper, trying your best to keep quiet but wanting to scream it while he fucks you hard and slow on the ground, “—I wanna see, I wanna look at you—”

“Fuck,” Din gasps, and though his grip tightens on your wrist and you know he can’t do it right this second, the words seem like they shatter something inside him, “Keep—oh fuck, please, k-keep saying…”

“I want to marry you,” you nearly whine for him, feeling his hips kick up rapidly and start hammering in and out, in and out, in and—“I want to see your face, I wanna be yours, I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I-I—”

You think he drops his head into your neck to muffle his own sounds. Though they start out rough and quiet and indiscernible, but they gradually become louder as he repeats himself over and over again, growling and fucking you rough. You only catch it on the peak, when he pulls his mouth away from your skin and gasps them raggedly one last time.

“—ve you—I l-love y—”

He kisses you to stop himself. But it’s not really a kiss, it’s more desperate than that. Though it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a different light. It’s not rejoicing at having you back with him once again; it’s a last prayer begging you to stay by his side forever. He loves you. He gives it everything—it feels even more concrete and simple than taking the hood off him and revealing his face would. You told you that you'd know him without ever seeing him, and you did. You picked him out and found him when absolutely nothing was giving him away, and this feels like a manifestation of that. Even if you’re not in a place where he can show you his face, his beautiful brown eyes, something still feels like it changes. He loves you. You gasp into his mouth and his tongue sinks deep into yours, tenacious and brave and unyielding.

When you finally cum, you almost bite him on accident.

Everything surges hot and molten while he pulls back and keeps fucking you through it, and you can’t tell where you’re touching him anymore, just that his skin is blazing hot under your hand and he feels like everything the armor isn’t. He loves you. You’re looking into his eyes right now. You can’t see any of the details, not really, but the moonlight flickers like silent stars moving through dark depths, staring right back at you and giving you an anchor for the euphoria rocketing through you. He loves you. Your nails dig in sharp and slowly drag downwards, scratching hard red lines into whatever thick muscle that is—

The back of his neck, making his hips stutter and when he cums for you, he does bite.

You lift your head just in time to feel his teeth catch your chin instead of your mouth, and his entire body shakes while you keep dragging your nails down the side of his neck and his throat. Din fucking lives for it, he releases you and arches into the pain and owns your marks like he wishes you made them deeper, stretching his neck and lifting his chin into the moonlight and—

Maker. You can see it, with direct light, you can see more of it than ever before. You can see his soft lips and white teeth gritting the sound of your name as quietly as he can, the dark facial hair dusting across the lower half of his face. A fucking gorgeous jawline and throat extended long over you, flexing hard with his cock pulsing inside you. You can just barely see the bottom of his nose from under the brown hood, the dark curls brushing up under his ears.

Stars, you still never see his eyes, the fabric of his hood acts like a blindfold draped over them, but you think you cum again. Even if it’s on accident, it’s mean—Din tries to keep from squishing you and his hand pushes down hard against your lower tummy while he shoves his hips deep one last time, and you cum while staring at half of his face in the moonlight. Completely lovestruck.

How can he be this beautiful when you’ve only seen fractions of him? You have everything but the eyes now, everything but the most mysterious thing about him, the reflection into his deepest self, but you feel like you’re hypnotized by every single feature you do see. His tongue coming out to wet his lips, the vein pulling under his sharp jaw—he’s gorgeous, he’s gorgeous, and your body agrees. It shakes and shudders under him and eventually, Din finishes and you keep looking as his chin slowly lowers, face disappearing into the shadow once more.

Stars. He’s so handsome and no one has ever told him, fucking dreamy and the biggest grump you’ve ever met. Without being able to see him, you already want to reach your hands out and touch him, drag your nails through his scruff and force him to extend outwards into the moonlight again for you. Whenever he does end up showing you his face, you know right fucking now that you’ll never be able to look away. For the rest of your life, you’ll be staring at him, apologizing blankly for your rudeness but not feeling sorry at all.

Din leans down and gives you a slow, gentle kiss, finally relaxing into a slouch and breathing hard with the effort it took to shatter you with pleasure.

“The kid is with the other foundlings,” he whispers against your lips. “You… you’ll have to go get him, I need to grab my armor.”

You squeeze around his cock, pulling at the fabric of his robes and ignoring him for just a second. He fucked you in robes belonging to one of the guards and nobody has mentioned it, you need to say something. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” he tells you after a moment, kissing up under your jaw. Oh fucking Maker, he feels so good and perfect inside you, shoulders so broad and crowding you on the floor, and his lips are plush and hot, brushing and fitting your skin like it’s just an extension of his own. “Some guy was wearing it.”

It takes you a second.

“Mando,” you suddenly gasp in quiet horror, pushing at his chest and trying your best to detach his mouth from your throat. It’s so much more difficult than it needs to be, but you eventually succeed. “What did you do to him? Where is he?”

He lifts his neck up just the tiniest bit, turning his face towards yours under the hood and holding still for way too fucking long. He’s too close to see the expression he’s making, but you know the tone of his silence. He’s in trouble and he knows it before you do.

“Ma—”

“They’re in a closet,” he admits at the very same time, completely monotone.

You don’t know which word to emphasize. A fucking closet? They’re? Plural? Instead of stressing any particular word, you decide not to do it at all and it ends up just coming out in the same exact blank tone as him. “They're in a closet.”

“Inside the Temple,” Din continues on when you lay still as a statue underneath him. His head slowly dips down once more, pushing his hips against you just the slightest bit to make you remember the cock still inside you instead. Your eyelashes flutter with it—fuck, focus—“I didn’t know there’d be more than two.” He kisses your neck so gently. “It was an accident.”

You don’t say anything at all, your mouth pinching down at the corners because it should but your heartbeat galloping with how… fucking sexy he is. You shouldn’t encourage this, this horrible behavior just to get close enough to catch you, but your curiosity overtakes you and you ask a question you’ve asked yourself before. “Did they put up a fight?”

“Mm,” he whispers noncommittally, rocking his hips down once more. “You did.” Your nails dig into his chest, making him falter just slightly before slowly kissing your neck again. “Did so good. Fought hard, outsmarted me. Pretty fucking girl.”

And then your eyes pop open as you feel it. His cock suddenly beginning to harden once again inside you, twitching and gradually gaining a thicker shape, and for a moment, you actually fucking consider it. He’s the only one in this galaxy that could not only ruin you on these sacred grounds, but then coax you into doing it more than once—stars, are you actually considering it?

“We can’t,” you automatically tell him, but it’s fucking pitiful. Zero effort, absolutely no umph behind it, leaving it entirely up to him and how much he wants it. Your logic reminds you that the kid is probably wreaking havoc in the nursery and there are tied up guards in the fucking temple that could be discovered any second. You shouldn’t have even let him fuck you here in the first place, but… “Mando, we can’t—”

His mouth opens against the crook of your neck and his tongue brushes velvet hot on your skin, tasting the glistening sweat there and not moving his broad figure a single inch over you besides getting closer, deeper. Your nails dig into his collarbone, aiming for reason one last time. It’s apparent that you’d be better off rephrasing, knowing the challenging streak in him and how much telling him what to do doesn't help.

“It’s not a good idea,” you attempt instead, breathless and trying not to move under his mouth and lazy hips. “Not smart. Bad idea to fuck again.”

Din’s body stops moving, even though he keeps getting harder. His jaw opens and then his teeth scrape softly against your flesh, making you tilt your neck back and gasp.

“Later,” he lifts his head to state aloud, committing it to truth now that it’s been spoken and heard by another person. “Later, I’ll fuck you on the ship, in our bed, when I can get you naked and have your taste in my mouth.”

Tingles rock through your body and you squeeze around his cock just as he pulls it out and tucks it back into his pants. Your lungs quiver when you inhale—it’s shaky, but it reminds you of how long it’s been since you’ve been able to breathe correctly.

“Later,” you finally agree, combing your fingers through your hair and glad you have this hood to cover your freshly fucked dishevelment. He came inside you and you don’t want to be leaking and getting your nice pretty robes all wet and stained, but then of course, without any prompting, Din quickly scoots back on his knees and drops his head down to take care of it for you.

***

Commotion.

After Din helped you clean up the way he sometimes likes and then disappeared to change back into his armor, you put your mask and hood back on and tried to look as casual as possible walking to the nursery. Your knees wobbled slightly and you couldn’t stop smiling under the mask the entire walk there, but when you arrived, you just saw a dim room with sleeping infants—not what you were expecting. Soon, however, you hear it: down the hall, distant and coming from the dormitories, you hear a loud commotion.

Fuck, you’re nearly wincing with every step you take now, and not because you’re sore. Well, you… are, a little bit, but in a great way. No, you’re just dreading the ridiculous shinanigans you already know are well underway, wondering if Din actually dropped the kid off in the dorms from the beginning or if he somehow migrated his way there to cause trouble.

When you walk inside, the first thing you see is a handful of crying and shouting toddlers, and while you can’t immediately spot your favorite floppy-eared monster, you don’t have to see him to know he’s probably standing tiny directly in the middle of this tense showdown. Automatically, you’re taking a few steps forward to rescue him, but then you stop as soon as you see what the other babies are so mad about. A large piece of chocolate leftover from the festival levitating just beyond their pitiful little reaches.

Hm. Who could possibly be responsible for using demon powers to steal snacks and hold them hostage from a sizeable group of hostile children. A mystery that may never be solved.

It makes you take a second. The sheer… the… stars, you can’t even think straight—how fucking typical it is just hits you right in the chest, sends your heart into orbit. Of course. Of course this is what he’s gotten himself into without immediate supervision, of course this is the shipwreck you’d walk into, and you’re holding back a chuckle before making a single move to intervene. In the midst of everything, you can hear adults approaching distantly from behind you.

“—don’t know where it came from, I was helping the younglings into bed when I heard the ruckus and I—”

The voices gradually grow louder, and you snatch the floating piece of candy out of thin air and whip around right before Sister Drya and Naydee walk in. Their hushed, concerned conversation is cut to an abrupt end, and you clear your throat as they take you in, standing in front of chaos central continuing to go off behind you. Do you… look as freshly disheveled as you are? You’re not supposed to be here, you know, but hopefully the only strange thing is your presence itself and not anything concerning your appearance.

“Nerida,” the older lady suddenly announces, the name alone holding so much expectation, and the younglings missing their candy have now turned their ire towards you and the crinkly food wrapper hidden in your fist. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, yeah,” you stand up a little straighter, letting the chocolate casually fall out of your grip behind you, and a stampede of feet suddenly kick up to recover it. It’s fine, nobody will know, it’s fine. “It’s just…” Your head tips behind you to the cause of the uproar, feeling a bit sheepish yet so incredibly fond. “My… kid.”

Sister Drya stares at you for a few seconds, before tipping sideways and staring at the culprit. “That is your child?”

You turn around just in time to see him, now abandoned by the angry mob of children, finally notice you. All of a sudden, his pitch black eyes light up something bright and sunshiney, and you just start beaming in return. What an adorable little creature, apple of your eye and pain of your ass.

“Yep,” you sigh, dropping into a squat and watching him barrel towards you, catching him right before he can trip over his brown potato sack and scooping him up into your arms. “Hiya, bug,” you murmur with a grin, lifting back up and plopping him in his favorite spot in the universe—your left hip. “You making friends?”

He giggles and it’s like sparkles and bubbles fill the room instead, wrapping tiny arms around the largest surface area he can get and clinging. He laughs with a tiny open mouth, bless him, clearly not understanding the sarcasm, and suddenly your eyes feel just the slightest bit wet. No, you’re not crying, don’t be fucking ridiculous, but you missed him like hell and he’s just the cutest fucking thing—why do you feel like crying?

“Sorry about that,” you apologize to the two women while slowly turning around, brushing your thumb over one of his cheeks and smiling as it squishes. “He’s… uh. Not great at sharing. We’ll work on it.”

Takes after his dad, you purposefully leave out, just a different kind of sharing. Din hasn’t shown you his full face yet and the kid performs magic tricks to taunt a roomful of children a fraction of his age for a single piece of chocolate, completely different kind of sharing.

Sister Drya says something in response, but when you look up to address her, all you see is Din standing silently behind her and Naydee, slowly dropping his hand from his helmet to his side. They don’t seem to notice he’s there and you automatically try your best to pay attention to the Sister speaking to you, but your eyes get caught on the silver reflecting in the dim light beyond. Fuck, he’s a presence. An immediate distraction, taking all your focus with a single glimpse. Seeing him fully armored again, staring at you from the silent shadows behind everything… you melt a little bit, knowing that you’ve seen more of what’s underneath than anyone. Your shoulders settle and your entire body burns warm, wobbly like the air around a fire, and one of the kid’s hands leaves you to reach out towards his dad.

You watch the metallic helmet tilt sideways after a moment, saying everything without saying anything. Come on, make up an excuse, let’s get out of here.

Looking at him in the quiet shadows, you’re reminded once again about how much you love him, how much softness you have inside you for a man so hard, so guarded. And, for the first time, a voice in your head finishes a poem you didn’t realize you were writing, adding its own verse and bringing everything back around to the beginning. He loves you, too. How much he lets his guard down for you, the way he’s revealed more of his face to you than not. You love each other. You’re family.

So, all at once, you decide to mess with him, because that’s what family does best.

“Don’t be shy, come say hello,” you suddenly urge his silent figure, taking a step forward and speaking directly to him. “Sister Drya, Naydee, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

It’s remarkable, you see it happen in front of you. Like he has powers of his own, Din just literally fucking disappears. Like magic, he’s nowhere to be found within a blink of an eye. You know he’s capable of it; he’s done it plenty of times during the chase just to fuck with your head, but you’re staring straight at him when it happens this time and it might just be the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever seen him do.

Sister Drya and Naydee both turn around to an empty hallway bathed in shadows and you laugh. A deep, shameless, loud belly laugh. Where the fuck did he go so quick? You were staring straight at him and you have no fucking clue. He’s just out, and you’re left alone with his child and the unspoken understanding that he’ll just catch up with you later.

You’re giggling even as you shake your head and give the women your genuine thanks for keeping you and feeding you these past few days, grabbing your backpack with all your belongings and eventually using three green fingers to wave goodbye to them. The very first thing Din says when he seamlessly joins you outside the Keja later is, “That wasn’t funny,” which just makes you laugh harder.

***

About a half hour has passed, and you’re walking along a dirt road, cradling a very happy baby in your arms and giving the grown man next to you an incredibly hard time.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, your back twinging slightly at the way you’re leaning about as sideways as you can get without falling over. You think you’re basically just the hypotenuse between the ground and Din, who easily supports almost your entire weight with your backpack slung around his far shoulder and readily allows you to rest against him.

“They’re fine,” he grumbles in response, squeezing you tight to his side. You just have to focus on moving your feet; it’s like he’s practically carrying your upper-half anyways. “I gave them the night off.”

“You stuffed them in a closet,” you hiss, feeling his shoulder shrug under your cheek.

“I gave them the robe back,” he says, not really defending himself and more just throwing it out there to see if it helps any. “I’m sure someone’s found them by now, they’re fine.”

Your eyes suddenly go wide, absolutely mortified at the thought. “Wait. What do you mean you gave the robe back?”

He shrugs once more, apparently not seeing the problem yet. “I borrowed it, so I gave it back after I put my armor back on.”

If you could plant your feet on the dirt road and screech to a halt, you would, but all your weight is already resting on him and you’re working solely off his forward movement. You just hope your tone holds the same amount of shocked disapproval your body language would’ve conveyed if you weren’t so completely attached to his hip like a parasite he adores.

“You fucked me wearing it, though.” Your voice is strangely flat, so fucking confused and horrified by the mental image of him just tossing the soiled garments haphazardly somewhere in the temple behind you, or even worse, leaving them somewhere respectful, and Din soon stops in the middle of the deserted road.

“Oh,” is all he says, emotionless and blank through the modulator. Did he not even consider this?

“I had to promise them I was a virgin just to sleep there, you know,” you admit, and you can tell that’s brand new information to him with how still he goes as you continue to lean against him. You’re getting the feeling that he probably knows a lot more about your experiences on this moon than you think he does, but can tell that this is brand new information to him. “And you locked three of their holy men in a closet, chased me across the temple grounds, fucked me in one of their robes, and then. You gave it. Back.”

Din stays perfectly silent for quite some time. You can never go back to that place, you know this for a fact. You’re banned forever now, it’s what you deserve.

Never one to be outdone but not actually having anything to say for himself, Din suddenly decides to just scoop you into his arms and boost up into the sky without a single word like an actual fucking maniac.

You squeal and damn near drop the baby because of it, but he cinches you tight to his chest and refuses to loosen with your struggle. Eventually, after you realize he’s completely locked you in and you won’t fall to your death with this poor innocent child in your arms, you glance over the shiny pauldron on his shoulder and watch the kid’s crib disappear by the abandoned road as Din takes you higher and higher.

The crib—he forgot the crib—

“D-Din,” you stammer out through the whistling air, stiff as a board. Stars, you have such a different sense of adventure than him; an explorer and a daredevil, one who gets a thrill from discovering the existence of the edge of a cliff and one who’ll take a running dive off of it without thinking twice. He’s hit with blaster fire some days, he faces down death completely fearless like it owes him one every single time, and you’re stiff as a fucking board while he carries you through the sky. It’s stunning up here, it’s exciting and wonderful, but you’re so scared that you can barely even look. He’s giving you the most fantastical view, everything your budding adventurous streak could ever ask for, and your terror is crushing. It would be different if you could hold on, but you’re responsible for not letting the baby slip through your arms and you just have to trust that he won’t let you slip through his.

You raise your voice. “Din?!”

“I won’t drop you,” he automatically reassures, and well you sure as fuck hope not, but there’s something else.

“What about the crib?” You call out over the wind whipping, tucking the baby tight to your chest and settling your hands over his ears to avoid them flapping and whacking you repeatedly in the chin.

“We’ll come back for it,” he responds, just as easily. Maker, you wish decision-making came that easy to you, that commitment and choice should be so simple as to just fly away from things on the ground and promise out loud to come back for them. You know he will, but still, his spontaneity shocks you after spending the past week thinking every decision through meticulously, and you’re taken aback by the casualness of it all while soaring through the sky, committing such spectacular feats without a single thought beyond it.

Soon—incredibly soon, which honestly kind of blows your mind—you spot Nariss glowing in the distance and then you’re flying overtop of the city, slowly dropping altitude in the middle of a quiet little side street.

Din carefully allows your feet to settle on the ground before letting go, but you still stumble a bit stupidly after flying so high without any sort of safety measure besides him, prioritizing the steadiness of the baby in your arms instead of your feet underneath you. His gloves catch at your clumsy body and pull you along with him without another word, leading you out of the quiet alley and into the middle of a beautiful, luminescent street.

What’s he doing? He seems slightly hurried, and you’re clueless but you go with it, clamoring along behind him to wherever he’s leading you.

Though, you suddenly remember one of the very last things you told him last night right before he steps up in front of a vendor.

“Caf,” Din grunts, sliding a few credits towards the man standing behind the counter. “The… biggest one you have.”

Okay, well. You could just about fucking cry.

“Y’sure?” The vendor asks skeptically, jerking his head at the large thermos behind him. He’s balding, wearing a white outfit with his eyes scrunched up and forehead sweaty, likely working all day. “It ain’t fresh. Closin’ up soon, was just about to trash it and go home.”

The helmet turns to gauge your response to the news, the sharp angles and contours looking so sleek and dangerous as they reflect the colorful lamplights, but just filling you with comfort beyond anything in the entire galaxy. He’ll take that armor off for you tonight and you’ll sleep next to him. He’ll call you by your given name, or the fond name he’s given you, and you’ll cuddle your baby on a metal floor in hyperspace with him, and all will be well. Even if he needs to leave again soon—even if you don’t get to go with him, you’ll always have these small eternities with each other, and that’s more enough for you now.

You’re completely zoned out while staring at him, and Din turns back to the vendor before you can even remember the conflict he was attempting to defer to you.

“Yeah, just empty the whole thing in there for her,” he mutters, and you want to marry him. It’s been a long week, and in your haze and delight of being with him in this gorgeous setting, your brain turns to cavewoman mush. Big man, makes me happy. Strong man, loves me, knows me. Provider, makes me feel good, protector, loves me.

Din hands you the large cup of steaming caffeine, clueless to your grunted inner monologue but knowing better than to reach out and grab the kid from your other arm. You’re just fine like this, hands full, the little frog snuggled up against your side and blinking up at your face instead of any of the shiny or glowing things around you. When you look down at him, you can see the world through his eyes—quite literally, they’re reflective and gigantic—and his father’s hand quickly finds its preferred spot on your lower back.

“Try to drink it quick,” Din advises you gruffly, pulling you snug into his side and sloshing the big cupful of piping hot liquid in your hand.

“It’s a thousand degrees,” you protest, trying to balance your three favorite things in the universe all begging for your direct attention at once. “It has to cool down.”

He gives a dismissive hm in response, and you frown even as your heart soars with how tightly he’s gripping you, how little leeway you have to even move without him. Part of you is so thrilled at being reunited with him that you consider snarking something back at him, excitement making you brave. He could probably chug boiling hot liquid in thirty seconds and doesn’t see the point in letting it sit any longer, and you could make some stupid joke about filtering it through his helmet or having a built in bendy straw but you decide to keep it to yourself.

So then you just stand there together, under stringed lights and flowers everywhere, and he waits. Holding you glued to his side, completely silent and clearly just waiting for your caf to stop steaming so threateningly in your hand so you can drink it. For some reason, the fact that he’s wanted by the New Republic doesn’t really register at this second—you’re not looking for cops, though he may be. You’re just lost in this beautiful, fancy city that’s on the edge of finally quieting down after a long day, and you’d like to see more of it with him next to you.

“Well, do you wanna just…” You ask, tilting your head around at all the vendors. “Shop around for a bit?”

“Shop… around,” Din repeats slowly, sounding the words out like they’re not common Basic. Admittedly, they do sit a bit awkward in his voice when put together like that, describing a phenomena he’s likely never even considered a thing before, but it’s so fucking pretty here and you’d like to show him something this time instead of the other way around.

“Yeah, like,” you shrug a shoulder, tipping your head in a random direction. Anywhere, you’ll go literally anywhere with him, the three of you can go explore. “Just wander around, and look at all the pretty things.”

From where you’re standing right now, you can already see glittering crystals and jewels being sold at the tent across the street, there’s a booth dedicated entirely to floral arrangements and crowns next to it, you can hear a distant quartet playing melodically in the distance and a couple is being painted by an artist on the corner. Bars are in full swing at this point, as if they weren’t all day, and even though the merchandise is all different, the multicolored tents look slightly similar when they’re underlit with multicolored lights. It’s less slightly lively than it was in the daytime, but also… more beautiful, in a sense. Muted, softer, more romantic.

“I don’t have any more credits,” Din admits casually, finally turning to look around at everything. You get the feeling that he’s just now seeing it, even after spending the entire day here. “That stale caf was the last of it.”

Money well fucking spent, you can assure him of that.

“It’s okay,” you tell him automatically, gently bumping your hip into his. “We don’t need credits, we can just look.”

So that’s what you do. Even though it’s completely not his fucking style, for the next hour or so, you just walk around downtown with him and sip your caf, looking at anything and everything new and experiencing it with him. At first, you think he’s just entertaining you, following you while you discover new streets and attractions, but then he points out different things and you know he's looking, too. There are large animals harnessed up and pulling carts for people to ride, there's an enormous spinning wheel set up in the distance, its colorful lights flickering out as soon as you ask what the fuck that is and why anyone would ever get inside one.

You eventually end up finishing your caf around the time he’s leading you back through a quiet, abandoned alleyway, and you hand him the empty cup to throw away in one of the trash cans on the corner. The conversation has faded to a comfortable quiet and you don’t really need to ask—you go willingly, not requiring anything beyond his hands on you and the baby dozing in your arms.

“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs, gently sweeping you up into his. You sigh, glad he’s giving you a moment to prepare yourself this time, holding the sleeping kid securely to your chest and resting your head on his shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

After you’re comfortable, Din rockets up from the ground and climbs high up into the canvas sky. He disappears with you and the baby into the pastel clouds above, making it back to the Razor Crest in probably about an hour, maybe less. You and the baby do nothing more than climb into the comfy floor blankets while Din starts up the engines, and you think you’re dozing off together by the time he makes the pit stop to collect the crib and the jump into hyperspace.

You think he might shower? You’re not sure—you just know he moves up behind you in bed at one point without any armor, burying his face in your hair while you cuddle the sleepy kid to your chest. It’s dark in the hull, Din’s palms are bare and warm as they slide around the front of your body and he breathes you in, and there isn’t a single place that can touch you here, not a single place you’d rather be.

Home.

***

@followwhereshegoes Thank you for the stunning artwork! 💕To anyone interested in possibly doing an art collab in the future, please message me!!

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mando x reader #mando x you #smut #reader insert #fanfic #star wars #rough day #no-droids

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editoress · 3 years ago

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In Defense of Kirsi

There’s a lot to say about Kirsi, and I’m saying it just in time for her crisis in canon. When she makes her next appearance, please consider: she’s had an awful time and she doesn’t know what’s going on. I’d go so far as to say she deserves to go off the rails for a little while. I explain.

The Sisterhood That Wasn’t

By rights, Kirsi and Lucia should be sisters. They were raised together by the same man from a young age. Kirsi says several times in the comic that she loves Lucia and that Lucia is her best friend. She confides once that Lucia is like a sister to her. But it’s not mutual.

There’s very little imbalance in the fact that Lucia is a lady in waiting—still a lady and not a servant, a companion rather than a maid. Lucia has her own noble title, and Kirsi does not give her orders. The relationship is lopsided, but not because of this and not in Kirsi’s favor.

Kirsi tells Lucia everything. More than that, she spills everything and then interrupts herself to show concern for Lucia. At the start of the comic, Kirsi stops complaining to hug Lucia, ask how she’s doing, and promise to find her a good match. At the dinner, Kirsi talks a little about feeling left out of Reimund’s plans, but swaps tracks to ask whether Lucia is okay. After the hunt, she explains her feelings and relationships but is quick to talk about Lucia’s own developments. She asks her not to be so formal. She cheers her on in matters of magic. Her first concern when there’s danger is whether Lucia will be safe enough.

Meanwhile, she’s told nothing, not by her father and certainly not by Lucia. Lucia ends many of the above conversations by leaving. She calls Kirsi “my lady” even in private. She refers to Lord Goldborne as “your father.” She talks to Reimund on Kirsi’s behalf, but it doubles as gathering information and distracting Kirsi from her plot errands. Kirsi is more than insightful enough to know that something is going on with Lucia, but no one will tell her what it is.

Lucia refers to Kirsi as her friend twice, tops. She tells Modeus that she would feel alone without him. She slips out at every opportunity to see Modeus (eight times so far), and sometimes her other friends.

I’m not bashing Lucia. This is necessary to the plot. (And Lucia didn’t get a choice in being Kirsi’s companion.) But from Kirsi’s point of view, her childhood best friend and sister began ditching her for literally anyone else, even a (supposedly) non sentient fighting machine, the instant they were away from home. As far as we can tell from the comic, Kirsi has no other friends. Of course she’s upset when Lucia wants to stop being her official companion to be a mage—but Kirsi even comes around and starts supporting her career idea by the end of that very night. Even up through the season premiere, after their fight, she calls Lucia her best friend.

Kirsi Is Mean to Modeus ):

Here’s a brief outline of every time Kirsi has seen or dealt with Modeus.

A war machine is brought to a tournament. Lucia runs off for a better look immediately. The war machine injures a knight in a tournament and then walks directly up to Lucia.

The war machine is at a dinner party for some reason. Lucia leaves to go talk to it.

Kirsi is told that a fairy attacked Lucia and the war machine protects her. She advocates for it to be Lucia’s personal guard.

As such, the war machine is brought along on the hunting trip. Lucia hangs out with it, Baynard, and Peres.

Lucia’s magic goes wrong. When the fire gets started again, Lucia is prone in the war machine’s arms. She and it retire early from the party and are gone the next morning.

Kirsi is told that Modeus and Lucia were, for some reason, right in the way of the hunt, and that this wind-up battle bot attacked a knight and yelled at them, which we didn’t know wind-up battle bots did.

Kirsi brings this up with Lucia during tea. Lucia immediately departs to hang on the arm of the nearby Modeus.

Kirsi asks Lucia to not have Modeus with her for like, four hours during a party. The newly discovered not-machine opts to leave.

Only joking, Modeus is at the party. Lucia ran off to hang out with him, but their romance is now exposed to the entire court.

Lucia is in danger, and Kirsi is told that only someone Lucia trusts can make it through to save her. The spell rejects Kirsi and breaks the instant Modeus reaches for the door.

We know Kirsi loves Lucia. So of course she values her company and safety, both of which appear to be jeopardized by Modeus, who she believed for most of the plot was a sort of very deadly robot. I wouldn’t like him either if that was the only angle from which I got to see him.

It Will Get Worse

We all want Kirsi to realize that fairies are people, too. For the life of me, I don’t know why Lord Goldborne let her have a particularly noxious education while harboring a fairy in their home, but he did. She will have to address that at some point. But first, she is going to have to face some more personal lies.

Kirsi has noticed Lucia choosing Modeus over her. In a strange place with a single friend, Kirsi has felt her absence. She has explained verbally that she is aware that Lucia keeps a certain distance between them, but she persists in saying, “I love you,” “my best friend,” and “sister.” She persists in asking Lucia to spend quality time with her, to try to solve what problems she sees in her most important relationship.

But the season premiere scene with the fire—Kirsi has to face the discrepancies once and for all. Lucia does not trust Kirsi. She trusts only Modeus. To Lucia, Kirsi is not her sister and not her best friend. Kirsi has been relying on, worrying about, and fighting for Lucia the whole time, and she has just been fundamentally shut out. She has watched a machine she recently learned has opinions, a machine that appeared all of two months ago, go where she can’t. Where perhaps she never could.

Kirsi’s about to feel deeply hurt and betrayed. If she didn’t hate Modeus before, then she might now. And though I don’t think she’ll ever stop fearing for Lucia, she may blame her for parts of all this.

An Addendum Pertaining to the Cat

Kirsi had an adorable black cat in the prologue. I assume the same (now old!) black cat appears in the opening present-day scene, a little rapscallion named Knave. He comes up a few pages later, where, despite being Kirsi’s cat, he’s following Lucia around on her social calls. I haven’t seen him since! Not the whole time!

I know the author probably just forgot about poor Knave. But it’s sad to think that Kirsi had one other lifelong friend, and now she doesn’t get her kitty, either. :c

#suitor armor

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 2 years ago

Note

Tbh I just love Toby and how chill he is. He doesn't Take shite from anyone, and he's a darn cool old man. So. Ya got some headcanons, pardner?

Yes.

(obligatory apology for the wait^)

(also we're not gonna be doing the "four headcanon" format; even my time-blind ass thinks it's pretty stale by now. let's just aim for... seven? sure. let's see if we can make it an "even" seven v)

1. This is closer to [RWS] canon than headcanon, but since it doesn't seem to be widely said I'll go ahead and spell it out here: Toby saved Henrietta. Passenger service on his old line (not, incidentally, the Wisbech & Upwell—just a similar line in East Anglia, which does not appear on our maps for odd reasons) had been discontinued almost two full years before Topham Hatt and his grandchildren arrived on holiday... but Toby just insisted on taking her every day anyway.

That stationmaster of theirs had been counting his chickens long before Toby was withdrawn...

2. He saved Henrietta... and Elsie.

Whoops. Everyone always does forget Elsie. Even by the standards of unpowered stock, she is very quiet, and to most on the rails Elsie is just considered a mute, lifeless, unfaced luggage van. Everyone else is slightly embarrassed at Toby and Henrietta treating her like their very-much-sapient daughter. They may have gone a little... off, towards the end of their old outfit, engines and coaches and trucks will say, looking significantly at each other.

Once Toby arrived on Sodor, there was plenty of use for Henrietta. Not so much for Elsie, tbh, and FC1 was a bit impatient with Toby's attachment to her, and thought that out of gratitude Toby ought to not be so willful about taking Elsie out on his quarrymen services against orders. (The same behavior he'd displayed against his old stationmaster! But surely FC1 deserved better than that—right??!)

Toby did back off, a little. At least, he waited out the three years until FC1 retired. After that, whenever FC1 visited the Ffarquhar line and caught out Toby with Elsie, they both just smiled.

3. Thomas was a right rotter to Toby when first he arrived. (As much a rotter as James? Well, no. But that's a low bar to clear.) He had not learned about the scrapping, rather than the storing, of the Coffee Pots until '48, and since then he had been determined to run the line single-handedly—which he did! (James, who was dispatched to help far oftener than either of them would like: What am I, chopped liver??!) Plus, he was simply very proud, and has his defensive/jealous tendencies, which were only amplified by his then very confused feelings about FC1, the railway, and Life.

Toby should have achieved some sort of official sainthood for mildly riding out his first stormy summer with an oddly adolescent Thomas. Of course, the whole thing with the officious policeman helped, but it is much to his credit that he took Thomas making nice with him afterwards in perfect stride. Toby quietly pieced together a lot of the history of the line while Thomas was still refusing to speak a civil word to him, and he was very understanding about Thomas's... mixed emotions.

4. The bit the Thin Clergyman left out was that Toby not only "frightened" the policeman—he did it by shining his lamp on him when he thought he was hidden behind a copse as he urinated. The combination of headlamp and bell gave him such a fright that he tripped over his own feet, and, trousers around his ankles, tumbled halfway down an embankment.

His crew dined and drank on that story at "The Toby Jug" for months.

5. Said pub, of course, later renamed itself "The Toby."

It's worth mentioning (again this is almost closer to analysis than headcanon, but I don't see anyone talking about this aspect of Toby so let's gooooooo) that Toby always, his whole life, had this sort of understated but undeniable charisma that set him apart. From his earliest days at Yarmouth Docks, he somehow stood out from his brothers—though he had the added charm of not seeming to know it. Not until he was chosen to represent them at the seaside village festival ("Toby, Trucks and Trouble"). He tended to make an impression on everyone—almost always a positive impression—and no one was surprised when he was given the honor of his own branch line. He's not extraordinary in most ways; he's identical to the other J70s, he's not specially bold or quick-witted or dashing... he was probably the most reliable of the lot but that's not exactly it either. He's just always been very sturdy, very authentic—very in touch with himself.

If you went back in time to the 1920s and told everyone at Yarmouth Docks that one day their Toby would be famous, they probably would have just nodded and soon gone about their business. Yep. Makes sense.

6. In some ways, this makes him rather similar to Thomas—an engine from a small and humble class who nevertheless seemed to be marked early for Special Things. The two are foils, of course.

Thomas and Toby are nearly the same age. But there's a reason (apart from his more obvious obsolescence) that Toby is always taken as his elder, why he has that whole air of great experience.

Toby was like Thomas, once. Eager to see more of the world, proud as punch to be given "his own line" to run, devotedly attached to Henrietta and Elsie, living the grand life of The Most Important Vehicle in This Whole Area (I Know Everyone and Everyone Knows Me)...

... but Toby has also gone through the end of all that.

He’s experienced what Thomas never really has—the inexorable, merciless decline of traffic; the replacement by new technology; passengers and clients easily replacing him and moving on with their lives. The false sentiment of "ohhh, we'll miss youuuuu! we're so sorryyyyyy it came to this; good-by! 🙃 good-by.. . ."

Toby is not a gloomy engine. He's been enjoying his (and his family's) good fortune ever since being summoned to the island of Sodor.

But there is a strong element of detachment there, too. This is all very nice, says the unconscious soul of Toby the tram engine, as it surveys all the business and beauty around him; I love it here, I'm not going to stop loving it here; but all good things must pass, and one day these people will break my heart too. Even all the "Railway Series" or "Thomas" fans with their merchandise and cameras who travel from so far away to go on our little specials, the kids who cry and flail with happiness when they see Thomas and Percy in the steam... especially them. One day they'll lose interest. One day they'll move on. As they can do (when we can't).

Again, it's not gloomy. The foundation of philosophy, rather. He's not cynical. Just... detached. Toby is the last engine of "the eight" who would ever have his funnel turned by his fame. It's all very nice—but it's not very meaningful.

Where he does unbend, and where he does love and trust, only comes in with the men and women of his workers' service. He and Henrietta feel truly comfortable with them. It was a new kind of work for them, but they took to it at once because they knew that with these people they were not being patronized; they were needed. (Probably. They still haven't been able to carve out a reliable road from the village to the quarry—but, Toby and Henrietta reckon, one day they probably will.) Then, too, unlike other passengers, they soon saw that these workers also understood the dangers—and that many of them had tasted the bitter pains—of being cast aside as no use, and therefore worth no consideration.

6. It is perhaps that mutual sympathy that has built upon the foundation of "catching old Officer Busybody with his pants down" such a strong and lasting affinity. At this point Toby and Henrietta (and Elsie! rattling along behind, with tools seldom touched) have been carting around the humblest locals to work and (on weekends) to worship and to day trips for generations. They are an institution, local legends, almost domestic gods.

The proprietors of "The Toby" have maintained the warmest relations with their mascot over the decades. Including having purchased rights to paint advertisements on Elsie from time to time. But probably the biggest "token" of their friendship—which is really quite expensive:

Every year, they gift 900 gallons of ale to Toby for his birthday.

That's enough for Toby, his crew, and every human in the yard to have a very merry little party. This is a rare phenomenon for a standard-gauge locomotive—it takes a prodigious amount of alcohol before they even notice, so usually no one bothers—but that will do it.

For Toby's centennial in 2014, the pub supplied enough that Thomas, Percy, Mavis, Daisy, and Bloomer could all be invited to partake in the festivities.

Thomas and Mavis got soooo giddy before their tanks needed to be refilled even once. They were a mess. It was funny. It was endearing. It was disgraceful.

Daisy and Bloomer accepted only enough to be polite, and were essentially the ones smirking and taking pictures to document said disgrace.

Percy downed a clear thousand gallons of ale all to himself, to no visible effect. Except to grin with supreme smugness when the others asked How?!?!

It was all fun and games until he could not wake up and make steam the next morning. FC3, who by then had also seen the pictures of Thomas and Mavis, was pissed.

(*small voice* But not as pissed as Percy!)

#8. Toby and Percy are BESTIES #that's another thing from the books i feel just doesn't get acknowledged enough!#ttte headcanon #ttte analysis #ttte toby #ttte #the railway series #chatter #9. toby's dry delivery of his roasts can sometimes verge on the rosa diaz-ish #(that one is probably Just Me huh? 😉)#alcohol cw

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sparkbeast20 · 3 years ago

Text

The Sea for Two (Leviathan X MC) Pt6

The Blue Lotus petals (series)

As a fan of Beauty X Beast pairing, Showing your “true self” to Lover or (Monster Love) Tropes. I figure to make a (More Demonic Forms AU/head canon) story for each brothers.

(spoiler for lesson 1-60)

Pt1 Pt2 Pt3 Pt4 Pt5

Warning: Swearing, Mention/Talking about someone taking their life, and Violence.

Previously

You stare at the railing for a few second, before Beel grab your shoulder snapping you out of your stunned state.

“y/n are you already?” Beel asks

“What just happen?”

“So that went well……Good thinking on shutting off the light while everyone is distract by Beel.” Asmo shut the door behind him and walk over to one of the arm chairs and start taking his dress off.

“Do you have to do it here and now Asmo!” Levi turns red and quickly looked away from Asmo and in the window.

“Oh please! I’m still wear underwear, I’m not completely naked~”

“Asmo I’m done changing, go and use the bathroom like everyone else!” Satan is releasing a bit of dark aura but Asmo pay no mind and just walk pass him and sticking out his tongue at Satan before close the bath room door behind him, and just sigh and walk back to his bed and took a sit. Then he turns and looks at Levi. “His not wrong, that was quick thinking”

“Well since we can see in the dark, that doesn’t mean humans can. And I had to do something I don’t want Beel feeling bad for eating y/n friend out of anger”

“True, but do you think he notice Beel-”

“No! and if he did notice that Beel is not human, then Lucifer will have all of us hanging on the side of the ship by are toes”

Satan was about to make a comment about Lucifer might suspect already, when Levi’s D.D.D started ringing. Levi pulled it out from his pocket and looked who’s calling him, then he groans.

“Let me guess?”

“It’s Mammon”

“Well answer it, his with y/n and Beel” Asmo finally came out the bathroom fully clothed.

Levi rolls his eyes in annoyance and tap the phone and place it at his ear.

“Mammon you better calling that you are ready to pay me bac-”

“NO! you, selfish prick! We’re at the ship’s jail! Some human just killed themselves by jumping off the ship, some crewmates saw us nearby and asks us to come with them for questioning asking us some questions. Like what did he say, what did he warn you, that weird shit. y/n is losing their patience cuz’ they keep asking the same question and told us that we can leave until the captain arrive.”

“Great, we are in big trouble. Ugh! Wait there me, Satan and Asmo are heading over there to pick you guys up”

“Like we’re going anywhere! Oh~ Beel said to bring Belphie with you and snacks his getting hungry- Shit got to go they can’t see me using my phone here” before Levi could ask, Mammon ends the call.

“Well?”

“Y/n and our brothers witness someone jumping off the ship, and took them for questioning. And we all know how bad those to with question, that’s why y/n is been the only one answering. But they already at their wits end and the two aren’t helping.” Asmo sigh while Satan facepalms.

“Should we get Lucifer?”

“Hells no! Let’s just go and get them, also Beel told Mammon who tells me to bring Belphie and snacks with us”

“Well, you’re not wrong, Lucifer will just kill us if he finds out about this.” Satan sighs and got up from the bed “Then let’s get Belphie and pick up are brothers and our human” Asmo didn’t need o say anything he already skip and heads out from the suit and go grab Belphie.

As the two heads out Satan pause and look back at Levi. “You alright?”

“I’m just worried about y/n, after our fight they haven’t a time to rest. They’ll be at their limit at this point.”

“All more the reason go there, and pick them up from security and take them back to your suit. But you two really need to talk about your behavior during this entire trip” Levi sheepishly nodded accepting that what Satan is telling him is true.

He’s just scared to how you’re going to react, and might see him differently. He knows that you love him with all his flews. But telling you about he real reason to hate being out of sea might scare you.

He loves being out at sea, when he was still commanding an army and fleet something to distract him from the thing deep inside his mind. But now he can distract himself with just watch and playing games. He can hear it whispering to him to jump into the water and let go. Even with the blue lotus suppressing it, he can still hear it.

But he has to put those thoughts back and focus on getting you and his brothers out of jail and back to the suits.

At that moment Asmo peek in the suit with Belphie standing beside him and gesturing to time to move, and follow and head to security.

“I told you that he can take it anymore and jump before we could talk him out of it” you sounded tired and a little piss, as the crewmate keep asking you the same question, while Mammon is pacing angrily and Beel at the bench in the cell with one hand on his stomach.

“Yes, we understand sir/ma’am but we have to wait for the captain, His is the only one can say when you are free to go but before that, we need to know what actually happen.”

You took a deep breath and compose yourself, before talking again.

“So, me and my boyfriend’s brothers left the restaurant and heading back to our respected suits, on the way we hear someone crying, we followed that sound and saw a man about to jump, but before we can talk him out of it. He jumps”

The crewmate nodded with their finger in their mouth and thumb under their chin.

“That is quit unfortunate sight to be seen” A sober voice grab all your attention and look over to the doorway.

“Captain Leh! You’re here!” the crewmate stood up straight and salute at him. He stand with his hand behind his back with a close eyes smile on his face.

about the way he so calms about just hearing about one person just jump off the ship, just made you feel uncomfortable.

And knowing about what the guy said before jumping makes you want to be careful around the crew.

“Hey yer finally here! Now you hear our side of the story, can you let us go and go focus on getting the body” Mammon's yelling snap you out of your train of thought.

“Is already taken care of sir. Now if you please, I want to talk to one of you for a moment, then after that you are all free to go”

"That was fast"

You looked back at the two brothers and aren’t sure if they can handle talking to the captain properly, you nodded and told captain Leh that you go with him.

He looked at the crewmate and nodded signaling him to open the cell. You walk out and walk over to the captain.

“Let’s take this to the green room.” You sigh but agreed and followed him to the green room.

Just play along, and if he tries anything you still have the pact.

After walking 30 minutes you two finally made to the top part of the ship. And saw a green door with familiar writing on it.

"Wait are those-"

"Demonic writing"

Shock to what he said, you quickly grab your left bicep where Levi's pact mark is place and about to summon him, when Captain Leh grab you by the neck and start struggling you.

"I know when a master is about to summon their demon" he pulls you in closer, getting up your face. "Since I'm a demon"

Your eyes widen once you hear that.

"How-"

"How did your demons sense me? is all thanks to my master for making a powerful spell to cloak my scent and aura. But I think Lord pride suspect it."

He opens the door of the room which is completely pitch black and can see a thing all the while still holding you by the neck.

"So, I decided to keep away, but once I notice that you have all the seven lords under your command, I had to have you."

He tosses you to a chair, which instantly bind you with chains by magic on the chair.

"So, I waited for the right time make sure that you are not with the Lord Diavolo, Lord Lucifer and Barbatos and then that happen. Someone killing themselves with you witnessing it and all I had to do is play nice and separate you from your demons and here we are"

He knees down in front of you with his glowing eyes stare at yours.

"I need your pact with Lord Mammon and Lord Beelzebub for my master's business"

He snaps his fingers then the door slowly closes behind him.

“Hi~ dearies! We’re here to pick up our kids!” Asmo open the door dramatically with a cheerful smile on his face with Satan covering his face to hide how embarrass he is standing near Asmo, with Levi and Belphie a emotionless but mentally wincing at Asmo. While the crewmate and security are stunned and shock.

“Kids?” one crewmate manages to asks.

“Yes~” Asmo sings the answer “My brothers and our precious little human”

“Did you just say human?”

Satan smack Asmo at the back of his head.

“My-my p-p-partner” Levi quicky interjects.

“Ah~ the three people who saw someone jump off the ship. The two men are in the cell while the other person with them is with Captain Leh to talk to him in private”

“Why?” Levi asks

“Is about the person who jumped. Your brothers can’t leave the cell until they both come back”

Both Levi and Asmo sigh in annoyance before the three brothers walks to the waiting area, while Belphie walk over to the desk.

“I want to see my twin”

“Sure, right this way” a security guard guide Belphie to the back.

As the three pulled out their phones to distract them as they wait.

“Hey where are the three people that the whole crew are talking about.” Levi recognizes the voice, and looked up before quickly look back down.

“Shit! Is y/n’s friend” Levi quickly whispers to Satan and Asmo, both look up and immediately look back down trying not to get notice.

“don’t tell me he’s here to report about Beel” right after Satan said that, he turns his head to see Mason talking to one of the guards before head to the back.

“This is bad!” Asmo comments.

“Hey little bro! over here-”

“I didn’t come here for you, I came for Beel.” Belphie cuts him off “Beel here I got you snack” Belphie brought up a backpack filled with chips and a drink.

The guard open the cell slightly for the bag slide through and Beel immediately grab it and open it and start munching on chips while hummed.

“Wow you were really hungry huh?” a voice from the door grabs the three brothers’ attention and they looked over.

“You! you were the one who try to stop Beel in the restaurant” Mammon points at Mason, startling him by Mammon loud voice.

“Yeah, it was me, y/n try to help you stop your brother?” he tilts his head in confusion but Mammon nodded “Oh! Okay, sure I hear from one of my colleagues that y/n and the two in the restaurant witness a suicide”

“Yeah, we were heading back when we saw a guy crying and about to jump, but before we can say anything he just jump” Mason just nodded and looked in the cell.

“Where’s y/n?”

“Your captain wants to talk to them in private in the green room-”

“Wait what!” All the color from Mason’s face drains

“What’s wrong?” Beel stop eating and his face turned into a worried one.

“I suggest not say anything else, unless you want to keep your job” the guard grab Mason’s shoulder and tighten his grab but Belphie tap his shoulder grabbing his attention. “What!”

“Sleep…” Belphie whisper a hex, causing the guard to let go and stumble back before falling face first on the ground and drifted off to slumber. “Now” He looks over to Mason with his demonic aura showing.

Mason backs up to the cell bars, then he felt them shook and look over to see Beel broke the cell door by ripping it off from the hinges and toss it to the side and stepping out with Mammon with an angry looked on his eyes.

“The green room is Captain Leh way to punish crewmates who step out of line. But he would never use it to the guest”

Mammon grab Mason by the collar.

“So, that guy who jump was a crewmate who couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Could be? I don’t know what kind of torture is happening. All I know is never cross Captain Leh” Mammon pull him closer and really get in to his face as he snarls at Mason.

“You’re going to take us to the green room or else”

“Yeah, I will. y/n is my best friend. I’m not going to let anything happen to them” Mammon let him go, and quickly grab the back of his neck and usher him out of the room. With Beel silent and Belphie growl right behind them.

The four walk out to entrance hall, shocking the guards and a couple of crewmates and the three brothers who see the Mammon and Belphie piss off and Beel deadpan.

“Hey! You two aren’t suppose to out of your cell until Captain-”

“Beel!” without a second waste, Beel quickly turn and grab the guards by the neck and slamming them on the front desk knocking them out. That scared the crewmate and all of them start running to the exits

“What the hell! Mammon! Beel! You’re going to make us caught-”

“The Capitan is about to torture y/n about what they saw” Mammon spat it out, causing Levi’s eyes widen.

“What!”

“Long story.” Belphie pass through Mammon and Beel, and walk over to him. “Right now, we need to get to where ever the green room is and his knows where it is” Belphie points over his shoulder and at to Mason who still have Mammon holding him by the back of the neck.

Levi hiss and march over and grab him by the neck, as Mammon let go.

“If your captain even lay a hair on my mate, you better believe me and my brothers will kill him and the rest of the crew of this ship” Levi releases a bit of demonic aura and looks at Mason right to the eye as he said it. But nodded and then Levi let go. “Take us there now.” Mason nodded and quickly get up and start running to the green room with Levi, Mammon, Beel, and Asmo while Satan and Belphie to a second and looked at each other.

“Call Lucifer, his suspicion was right about the captain he was a demon in disguise”

#obey me #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me reader x leviathan #obey me monster love #obey me shall we date #obey me mc #obey me blue lotus petals

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becomewings · 4 years ago

Photo

BTS Universe Timeline

« previous |

TIMELINE GUIDE

Content warning: contains references to death, suicide, suicidal ideation, child abuse, domestic violence, blood, homicide, depression, trauma, PTSD

This guide contains major spoilers from all BU media

Revisions and additions will be made as necessary, so please visit the original post for the most up-to-date version (update log is included at bottom of post)

All names are provided as fully as known

Bracketed dates are inferred or calculated from references in the text

While the timeline is presented here as objectively as possible, I acknowledge that there is a level of subjectivity in choosing which information is significant enough for inclusion and in certain connections drawn between entries

Please inform me of any suspected errors; I will investigate and correct them

Do not repost, copy, or quote without permission

School Years: Together & Apart

- March Year 19 through 10 April Year 22 -

2 March Year 19 Notes 1 (SJ)

Ten days after returning from the U.S., SeokJin and his father visit the principal’s office at his new school. SeokJin learns that he will start one grade lower due to the different education systems. SeokJin’s father grips his shoulder while the principal explains that school is a “dangerous place” that needs to be “tightly controlled.” He asks: “You know you have to keep me informed, right? You’ll be a good student, right?” SeokJin squeezes out a “yes” and his father lets go. Both ChangJun and the principal laugh. SeokJin looks down at their shining shoes, wondering from where the light is coming.

Note: SeokJin’s 25 June Year 19 entry in Notes 1 specifies that his father attended the same high school. JiMin’s 23 July Year 22 entry in Notes 2 reveals that, according to a comment he finds on an online news article, ChangJun and the principal were in school at the same time and fought with each other “as if it would only end when one of them dropped dead,” but they appeared to get along later due to politics.

3 March Year 19 BTS Universe Story: The Boy on the Threshold, ep.1

On the first day of school at Songju Jeil High School, the Dean of Students berates the six latecomers lined up outside: SeokJin, NamJoon, HoSeok, JiMin, TaeHyung, and JungKook. YoonGi arrives even later. The Dean assigns them one month of community service as punishment. When he notices SeokJin, he clears his throat and says he is letting them off because it’s the first day: they must all assemble after classes to clean the annex, a classroom turned into a storage room. This room becomes their meeting place and hideout even after their punishment is finished.

Note: Their punishment for being late is referenced in JiMin’s 12 March Year 19 entry in Notes 1, when he escapes to the old classroom again and finds the others already there. He observes that it feels as though they’ve been “hanging out together forever.” The punishment scene is also similar to a moment in the BTS Begins Middle Scene VCR. Although it includes a few extra students and cannot be confirmed as BU content, it does mirror the canonical detail of YoonGi arriving last.

28 May Year 19 Notes: Answer

In the classroom hideout, JungKook asks everyone what their dreams are because he has to write a paper about future hopes. SeokJin wants to become a good person, and YoonGi says it’s okay to have no dream. TaeHyung poses on a chair and says he’s going to be a superhero. HoSeok scolds him and adds that he wants to find his mom and live happily. JiMin asks him if he is unhappy now, and HoSeok pulls an exaggeratedly worried expression. “Is that how it works?” JiMin is flustered when HoSeok asks what his dream is and remembers that when he was in preschool he wanted to be president, but didn’t know what he wanted after that. Everyone looks at NamJoon, who shrugs and confesses that while he wants to say something nice, he doesn’t have a dream either and just wishes that his part-time job pays more. JungKook looks down at his assignment, divided into sections for “student” and “parent,” and wonders what he hopes to become. He can’t think of anything to write.

12 June Year 19 — The Sea Notes 1

YoonGi’s entry:

All seven boys cut school and decide to go to the sea. They have little money between them, so they must walk to the train station. As they leave, YoonGi almost bumps into JiMin and realizes that he is standing frozen with a trembling face. JiMin stares at a sign that reads “2.1km to Grass Flower Arboretum.” YoonGi flatly tells him that it’s too hot to go to the arboretum. He has an “instinctive feeling” that they should avoid it. He observes that JiMin walks away like a little kid, head bent and shoulders hunched.

JungKook’s entry:

The boys arrive at the beach. They hang around under a torn parasol until HoSeok holds up a discovery on his phone: a large rock that is supposed to grant your dream if you stand atop it and shout your dream out to the sea. TaeHyung encourages them to go. While they grumble in the heat on the long trek, JungKook reflects on how he had recently asked the others what their dreams were. (See 28 May Year 19.) None of them really have a dream to pursue.

YoonGi tells JungKook to stop biting his nails or else they’ll become like his. Then he asks JungKook what his dream is. Having never thought about it, JungKook doesn’t know. He hesitates and then asks what a dream is. HoSeok rattles off a few definitions from his phone. YoonGi questions, “How can something that you want to achieve most in your life and something that is unlikely to come true both be called a dream? … Don’t ever try to have a dream.” JungKook asks why. At his glance, YoonGi stops biting his nails and puts his hands in his pockets. “Because it’s tough having one.” JungKook is curious about why YoonGi bites his nails but doesn’t ask. He recalls that it has been a habit since his childhood to hurt himself. He remembers cutting his finger on a knife badly enough that his mom took him to the hospital, but she didn’t take care of him after they went home. His wound healed slowly because he kept pressing it; the pain helped him feel awake. Even now, he sometimes feels hollow.

TaeHyung asks how much longer they have to walk. HoSeok is puzzled, saying they should be close. They gaze around the empty, pebbled beach. JiMin sighs and reads aloud from an article on his phone. A resort will be built on this beach, and the construction company blew up the rock. They notice the cordoned off construction zone. They try to reassure each other to remain positive, but they all feel the disappointment of walking all that way for nothing. JungKook notices YoonGi biting his nails again and tries to stop him, but he is interrupted by a loud drilling noise. JungKook looks past him at the sea and all that remains of the dream-granting rock, the pebbles under their feet. “Is the world tough for you, too?” he asks, but YoonGi can’t hear him. JungKook screams again. “Do you want to give up on this world, too?” HoSeok and TaeHyung laugh at their mimed conversation. They all look out to the sea and shout their dreams. The drilling is so loud that they can’t hear each other. JungKook cannot even hear his own dream. When the noise stops, they cut off abruptly and laugh. SeokJin suggests that they take a photo. He sets the timer and runs to join their row, the sea behind them. They walk back to the train station. JungKook asks if he can keep the photo. SeokJin writes “June 12” on the back and gives it to him, telling him that his dream will come true. JungKook asks if SeokJin knows what he shouted to the sea, and SeokJin merely taps his shoulder and strides ahead.

BTS Universe Story : The Boy on the Threshold, ep.3

JungKook’s memory of the beach trip follows a similar structure to the scene in Notes 1, plus a notable addition. After they fail to find the dream-granting boulder, JungKook climbs up on the pier railing. He thinks: “I’ve always liked walking on the edge of walls or on top of lines. Focusing on centering my gravity means that I don’t really think of anything else, and the boundary—not quite a part of either place—always felt like where I should be.” Someone grabs his arm while he precariously balances. YoonGi tells him not to do that, and JungKook assures him that he won’t fall.

“YoonGi would often grab my arm when I walked on railings. The others would look after me, too, after seeing him do that. I liked their helping hands. It felt like they were telling me that I should go to them. That this wasn’t my place. Maybe their hands were why I walked on the railings.”

25 June Year 19 Notes 1 (SJ)

Alone in the classroom hideout, SeokJin finds a plant by the window. He takes pictures with his phone but doesn’t think they capture what the human eye sees. He notices that “HoSeok’s plant” is scribbled on the floor beneath the pot and then realizes that the window sills, walls, and ceiling are covered with graffiti and drawings, messages left behind by the students who once passed through that room. He wonders if there were past teachers who used violence and endless tests or students like him who ratted out their friends to the principal. Since his father also attended that high school, SeokJin looks for his name on the walls and finds it with a phrase written underneath: “Everything started from here.”

Note: TaeHyung, JiMin, NamJoon, and YoonGi discover several other familiar names near Kim ChangJun (SeokJin’s father) on the classroom wall in TaeHyung’s 23 July Year 22 entry from 7’s album Notes and the extended version in Notes 2.

30 August Year 19 Notes: Her

JiMin plays in HoSeok’s shadow while he is on the phone, reflecting on how HoSeok has accompanied him on the two-hour walk home since the beginning of the school semester. JiMin eventually realized that HoSeok didn’t live in the same direction but never questioned him, simply hoping that their time walking together would stretch the day out a little longer. HoSeok finishes on the phone and chases after him while the cicadas sing and their ice creams melt. Suddenly, JiMin is afraid, wondering how many of these days are left.

20 March Year 20 Notes 1 (TH)

TaeHyung sneaks up on NamJoon in the hallway by their classroom hideout. He stops when he hears SeokJin’s voice inside, apparently informing the principal about how TaeHyung and YoonGi had ditched school and got in a fight over the past few days. SeokJin throws open the door, phone in hand, and looks flustered to see NamJoon standing there. TaeHyung hides in a corner and is shocked to hear NamJoon assure him, “It’s OK. There must’ve been a good reason.” HoSeok and JiMin find TaeHyung in the hallway, and HoSeok pulls him into the classroom. NamJoon beams at TaeHyung as though nothing strange has happened. Believing that NamJoon “must have his reasons” because he is more intelligent and mature, TaeHyung decides not to tell anyone about the conversation he overheard.

15 May Year 20 Notes 1 (NJ)

NamJoon visits the classroom hideout on his last day of school. Two weeks prior, his family decided that they needed to move due to complications with his father’s health and their overdue rent. NamJoon tries to write a message on a piece of paper. He scribbles “I must survive” before the pencil lead snaps. He crumples the paper and writes in the dust on the window instead.

“No farewell message would be enough to let the others know how I felt. At the same time, no farewell message was needed to make myself understood. ‘See you again.’ It was a wish, rather than a promise.”

Note: “I must survive” is a recurring message tied to NamJoon in the BU MVs. See also 17 December Year 21.

7 June Year 20 Notes: Persona

TaeHyung’s two month old puppy Dubu slips out of the leash and disappears while he is distracted on his phone. TaeHyung runs around the neighborhood looking for him, first angry at the puppy and then blaming himself. When Dubu returns on his own, TaeHyung is filled with the unfamiliar feeling that he is someone who can be relied on.

11 June Year 20 BTS Universe Story: The Boy on the Threshold, ep.5 Everyone’s Place

In the classroom hideout, JungKook listens to YoonGi playing the piano. The sound of the music makes him feel as if YoonGi understands how he feels and is trying to console him. The Dean of Students forces the door open, demanding why they are there. He berates and slaps JungKook, knocking him to the floor. YoonGi steps between them and shoves the teacher’s shoulder. The dean warns him that he had better be prepared for the consequences of putting his hands on a teacher and then leaves. Despite his throbbing cheek, JungKook smiles because it is the first time someone has protected him, and the feeling of getting closer to YoonGi makes him giddy. For the next two weeks, YoonGi does not come to school.

25 June Year 20 Notes 1

JungKook’s entry:

JungKook tries to play the piano in the classroom hideout, unable to make it sound like YoonGi did. He reflects on the rumor that YoonGi was expelled after the events of 11 June and wonders if YoonGi would still be here playing the piano if JungKook had not been there that day when the teacher appeared.

YoonGi’s entry:

Breathing hard, YoonGi arrives at his bedroom, removes a half-burned piano key from an envelope in his desk drawer, and throws it into the trash can. He remembers a day four years ago when he returned to their burned down home and found a skeleton of the piano where his mother’s room used to stand. He noticed several piano keys on the ground and took one of them, wondering what note it was and how many times her fingers touched it. In the present, YoonGi thinks how unbearable living under his father’s rule is and recalls what happened that day: he is officially expelled from school. He picks up the piano key again and hurls it out the window.

“I couldn’t hear the piano key hit the ground. Now I’d never know what note it made. It’d never make a sound again. I’d never play the piano again.”

17 July Year 20 Notes 1 (SJ)

At the end of the last school day before summer vacation, SeokJin tries to leave quickly but is hailed by HoSeok and JiMin. No one knows that he was pressured by the principal and revealed their hideout, which led to JungKook and YoonGi being discovered (11 June) and the latter’s expulsion (25 June). HoSeok wishes SeokJin a good vacation and to keep in touch, but he can’t reply.

“My first day at this school crossed my mind as I passed through the school gate. We were all late and got punished. But we were together, so we could laugh together. I had ruined all those memories we shared.”

Note: Variations of the sentiment “we can laugh when we’re together” recur throughout BU.

15 September Year 20 Notes 1 (HS)

In the hospital emergency room, HoSeok wants to explain how JiMin had a seizure at the bus stop to his mother, Sim SeonMi. When the doctors wheel JiMin’s bed out, HoSeok begins to follow until SeonMi thanks him and touches his shoulder. He feels like she has drawn a line between them that he cannot cross. He falls to the floor, and when he looks up, JiMin’s bed is gone.

Note: The name of JiMin’s mother is specified in his BTS Universe Story arc, Stopped Time. JiMin’s 11 May Year 22 entry in Notes 1 reflects that he blacked out at the bus stop after seeing the window of the Grass Flower Arboretum shuttle bus open. His 12 August Year 22 entry in Notes 2 reveals the real cause of JiMin’s seizure at the bus stop: he sees the boy that he left behind at the arboretum warehouse on 6 April Year 11. Though the boy’s empty eyes no longer speak to JiMin, this chance encounter awakens his memories of that day.

28 September Year 20 Notes: Her and Smeraldo Books Twitter

JiMin, heavily medicated, has lost track of how long he has been back in the hospital. But he considers this a special day because he lies to the doctor for the first time about not remembering anything.

Note: He is lying about not remembering what triggered his seizure at the bus stop on 15 September and/or what happened at the Grass Flower Arboretum when he was a kid (see Notes 2 comments above). This lie is also referenced in his 11 May Year 22 entry in Notes 1.

30 September Year 20 Notes 1 (JK)

A teacher hits JungKook with an attendance book when he refuses to admit that he still visits the classroom hideout, reminding him of when YoonGi was beaten. Later, JungKook stands outside the room and imagines that the others are waiting for him on the other side. He opens the door to only find HoSeok, clearing out what remains of their belongings. HoSeok walks him out, and JungKook realizes that those days are gone and will never come again.

25 February Year 21 Notes: Her (HS)

HoSeok watches himself dance in the mirror. He has danced since he was around twelve and discovered an ecstasy that came from inside himself. Outside of the mirror, HoSeok is a person who collapses everywhere and takes medicine he doesn’t need, who smiles even when he hates it and isn’t happy. But when he dances, he truly becomes himself, casting away all that weighs him down and feeling that he can become happy.

2 May Year 21 Notes: Persona (JK)

Biking along the Yangjicheon riverbank, JungKook thinks about how his friends left him one by one and that no one at home or in the world smiles at him anymore. He stops in the shadows under a bridge. Nobody comes to this kind of ruined place, and maybe that is the reason no one comes to him either. He feels most comfortable alone in the complete darkness where no one will look for him and wants the moment to never end.

9 August Year 21 Notes: Persona (SJ)

SeokJin walks along a Los Angeles beach and photographs the ocean. It has been a year since he fled Songju and moved to his mother’s family’s home, where he grew up as a child. He doesn’t photograph people anymore and didn’t bring any photos from high school with him, afraid to remember who he was at that time or to wonder about how his friends are doing and whether they still think of him.

17 December Year 21 Notes 1 (NJ)

This lengthy entry details events that transpired since the autumn of Year 20 when NamJoon’s family moved to the village, framed by moments on 17 December itself as NamJoon leaves on his own. His family chooses this village because it has a nearby hospital for his ailing father and employers who will hire someone without a high school diploma. NamJoon serves as a delivery boy for an eatery, competing for work with the other local boys. They grow a strange sense of solidarity, and he privately dubs one of them “TaeHyung,” even though the boy’s discontent, outward behavior is more akin to YoonGi’s. (Quotation marks added to the name here for clarity.) Competition slackens when snow falls in winter. NamJoon and “TaeHyung” are the only ones poor enough to risk the road up to the mountain town’s rest area when orders are phoned to the village below. On an afternoon forecast to have heavy snowfall, the restaurant owner dismisses “TaeHyung” due to his bruised face and gives the deliveries to NamJoon. The old delivery scooter fishtails on NamJoon’s third trip down the mountain, throwing him off. More anxious about the scratched scooter than his cut ankle and aching body, NamJoon finally gets it to restart and returns to the eatery. “TaeHyung,” who has been hanging around this whole time, approaches and asks for a favor. Before he can answer, NamJoon receives a call from his mother relaying that his father went outside alone and fell, requiring a trip to the hospital. NamJoon understands that his father was only trying to keep his dignity but is still frustrated because he can’t earn any more much-needed money this day. He hands “TaeHyung” the keys and leaves to take his father to the hospital.

The next day, NamJoon learns that “TaeHyung” was in a fatal accident during one of the deliveries up the mountain. The police officer blames him for being a poor driver and not wearing a helmet. NamJoon does not speak up that he has never seen the helmet the owner now has placed out on the counter. He visits the scene of the accident, thinking that the white outline on the road could be his if he was the one to make the next delivery—just as it could be his family mourning in the village instead of “TaeHyung’s” mother. On a later trip carrying his father home from the bus stop, NamJoon pretends not to hear his father’s frail voice over the noise of barking dogs. A week after that, NamJoon is making steady deliveries up the mountain. During what is ultimately his last delivery, he speaks with a stranger at the rest area, who cautions him to take care. “Do you know what’s really dangerous? Calcium chloride and wet leaves, not the snow itself,” the stranger blurts as NamJoon departs. NamJoon drives carefully back, not looking at the scene of the accident. This is not out of safety, as he tries to convince himself, but guilt: guilt for surviving, for his relief of being the one alive, for not defending “TaeHyung’s” driving skills. He also wonders if he is “a hypocrite pretending to have a guilty conscience.” Because he scattered wet leaves and sprinkled calcium chloride to prevent the road from icing over where he fell that afternoon, believing that he would be making the next delivery. If he did not do both those things, would “TaeHyung” be alive?

Mind and body numb, NamJoon makes it home from the delivery detached from the world around him. The barking dogs snap him out of the daze, and he remembers his father’s words that he pretended not to hear and dwelled on daily despite trying not to think about them: “Go, NamJoon. You must survive.” The next morning (17 December), NamJoon sneaks away to the bus stop. He is running away from his family’s misfortunes, from his own resignation to his fate, from poverty. The bus is scheduled to arrive in Songju in a few hours—the city he left with no notice and is returning to once more with the same. NamJoon wonders if his old friends still live there and how they are doing. On the frosted window, he writes with his finger: “I must survive.”

Note: The village boy’s real name is JongHun according to NamJoon’s 12 June Year 22 entry in Notes 2, which also reveals that he visited JongHun’s home to give his condolences before he left town.

1 February Year 22 Notes: 7 (SJ)

Summoned by his father without explanation, SeokJin flies back to Korea from Los Angeles. Although he has addresses in both LA and Songju, neither place feels like his home.

———————————————————

Update Log

Posted May 5, 2021

Do not repost.

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alj4890 · 3 years ago

Note

I have ask my lovely fanfic write! What if we get Liams POV when Drake and Riley are star gazing at Lythikos. It never really says what Liam was doing when all of this was happening. And we know his room has the best view so how could he not see Drake and Riley laying in the snow? I wonder how he feels knowing he can’t be the one she’s with.

You know, it would have been great if Liam, in canon, had a chance to ask about what MC did when out with Drake, Maxwell, or Hana. As incredibly sweet as he is, he had to have suffered with twinges of doubt and jealousy. I would have loved for him to mention Drake and the MC becoming nearly inseparable at Lythikos, especially after Drake being a jerk in the previous chapters. Here's my take on Liam's POV during that scene.

@gkittylove99 @krsnlove @kingliam2019 @texaskitten30 @yourmajesty09 @mom2000aggie @ofpixelsandscribbles @twinkleallnight @lodberg @amandablink @neotericthemis @mm2305 @sfb123 @iufilms

Masterlist

One Night in Lythikos

It had taken a while to finally break free of Olivia, but Liam managed to end her tour of her home by pleading exhaustion. He hated to do that to one of his oldest friends, but she was starting to act like their relationship was more than what it was. He didn't know how to gently break it to her that his own feelings remained unchanged since first meeting her at the age of six.

How could he possibly feel anything more for any of the ladies when a certain American continued to steal his heart?

Liam leaned against his bedroom door after bidding Olivia goodnight. He wished he could have returned downstairs to see Riley once more. Their few minutes of ice skating had not been anywhere near enough the amount of time he needed with her. His lips quirked into a fond smile as he thought of the glimpses he had seen of her with Drake snow skiing. Asking his best friend to look out for her had been the best idea he had ever had.

If he couldn't be with her all the time, at least he could rest easy in knowing she would be cared for by Drake and Maxwell. He couldn't think of anyone better for support and encouragement.

Maybe Hana. That particular lady had surprised him with her genuine sweetness. He was relieved that she was not a suitor who chased after him. After their cronut trip in the capital, he knew that Hana was nothing more than a friend and viewed him as such. He had no doubt that once he chose Riley that she would be a part of their close circle of friends. She had the ability, like Maxwell, to bolster their moods with kindness and a willingness to be of service.

He was thrilled that she and Riley had each other to help them through their first foray into Cordonian society. He had known most of his suitors his entire life and he sadly knew how catty and insulting some of them could be. Court life could be cut throat amongst the nobles. They rarely did anything without expecting something in return. Hana and Riley were both breaths of fresh air in his world. They were nice and thoughtful simply because it was who they were. He hoped once this was over that neither of them became jaded.

After stoking the fire in his fireplace, he poured himself a much needed drink, slipped his overcoat on, and stepped outside.

He walked past the hot tub and stood looking out over the snowy wilderness of Olivia's home. The quiet peacefulness reminded him how hectic his life had become these past few months. He missed his old life and the ease of being a spare to the heir.

He had never envied Leo's place in the royal line. All the expectations and pressures his brother had been under had worried Liam. So much of it was caused by Leo's rebellious nature, yet he knew his older sibling desired to do the right thing for Cordonia. He had tried to encourage him and help guide him towards what was needed from their future king. He had no idea that his efforts would be the central reason behind Leo's abdication.

Somehow, Leo had seen the king Liam could be before anyone else. It was perhaps the greatest compliment his brother had ever given him. Their late night walk though the capital had been eye opening. Once Leo placed the notion of Liam taking the crown in his mind, it felt right. It felt like he had finally found his purpose in this world of theirs. It felt like his destiny.

And now, as he stood there looking over this icy part of his kingdom, he felt the next part of his destiny seem to crystallize.

Riley.

Their meeting in New York followed by Maxwell seeing that the two were meant for something more than a chance encounter pointed at how special she truly was to Liam. Just the thought of her made him smile. The happiness he felt grow with every single moment spent near her was an unexpected delight that life had given him. It was as if she was his reward for not shirking his duty to his country and family.

Liam took a long sip as snowflakes began to fall around him. Flipping his collar up when a brisk breeze blew, he decided to go back inside for the night. He took one last look at the majestic mountains and took a step back. Movement in the valley caused him to pause.

His eyes narrowed as he tried to make out who was down there.

That's Drake.

He shook his head at his friend roaming the countryside without a coat on. Something must have happened to make him leave the manor without it. The man had always been a stickler with making certain one has the proper essentials when outside.

There was only one thing that Liam could think of to drive Drake into rushing out. He must have had a fight with a noble. Given the animosity between his friend and a certain duchess, he knew who had made the freezing temperatures more preferable to her hospitality.

"Drake! Wait!"

Liam froze at the sound of that particular voice. He immediately saw the woman he was unable to stop thinking of run through the snow.

"What are you doing out here, Brooks?"

What is she doing out here? More importantly, why is she chasing Drake?

"I wanted to see if you were okay." Riley replied.

Liam could tell just by Drake's posture that he was shocked. No one else in their lives had ever run after him to see what upset him.

Drake rubbed the back of his neck while speaking in too low of a tone for Liam to hear. The prince found himself leaning out over his balcony's railing, hoping to find out what they were saying.

His eyes widened when Drake pushed Riley down into the snow.

"Hey!" She yelled. "What was that--"

Drake fell back beside her.

Very close beside her.

"Yes, m'lady?"

Since when did Drake ever purposefully use m'lady?

"Drake, this is gorgeous!" Riley exclaimed.

What is gorgeous? What is going on?!

"There's nothing like a meteor shower, especially up here at this altitude."

Liam looked up and saw what they did. He had forgotten how often Drake and Savannah would chart and plan camping trips around these astronomical events. It had become a special time for the siblings once their father died.

And now he is sharing this with Riley.

An unusual feeling crept over Liam as he watched the two lay with their heads close together, pointing up at night sky. A bitterness intertwined with a growing anger that Drake got to do something like this with her. Something romantic.

If anyone should be enjoying this with Riley, it should be me! I'm the one she came here for! I'm the one who longs to simply see her smile. Drake has been cruel about her becoming a suitor. Why is he now being so nice? He got to spend the entire day with her while I was stuck with Olivia. Don't I deserve some part of Riley's time away from the court?

Liam couldn't believe his own thoughts and feelings. He had never been jealous of anyone before. Drake was more than just his best friend, he was family. Yet in this moment, Liam thought he could have easily banished him from the kingdom.

Guilt began to take over his frustration.

Why would I begrudge my best friend receiving kindness for once at court? No one gives him a chance or even an ounce of the respect he deserves. Riley has the ability to cut right through a person's outer appearance and see their true self. How could I selfishly wish to have that all to myself? I want the two people I care about the most to be friends. Don't I?

He watched as Drake stood up then reached to help Riley off the ground.

Is it my imagination or is he holding on to her hand a little too long?

Liam's eyes narrowed as they walked side by side back to the manor. At one point, Riley stumbled causing Drake to reach out and take her hand again.

"Can't have you hurting yourself out here." Drake told her. "The last thing I need is your death on my hands."

Riley's laughter drifted up to Liam.

"I think Bertrand might even be upset if that happened."

"Which is why we are going inside. Dealing with one Beaumont is hard enough." Drake added.

Is he...teasing her?

Liam lost sight of them as the pair headed for the front door.

He turned and headed back into his room, tossing back the rest of his scotch. Once inside, he tore his coat off and went to the fireplace. Bracing his hands on the mantle, he dropped his head forward while dealing with the new emotions flooding through him.

He needed to spend time with Riley. Not only for the sake of seeing what type of queen she would be, but he simply needed her. His mind went through possible activities they could do over these next few days.

Whatever I do, it has to be more romantic than what Drake did tonight.

That thought made his head jerk up. He stared at his reflection in the mirror above the mantle. Had he become a jealous man? Had Riley awakened this unknown part to his personality? Was he going to be petty enough to try and outdo what was most likely an innocent activity Drake had allowed her to take part in?

He honestly did not want to answer any of those questions. He doubted he would enjoy learning what kind of man he truly was.

He rubbed his hands over his face and turned back toward the balcony doors. His eyes fell upon the hot tub outside.

"I'll invite her to share that with me." He said softly.

Plans to do so and how to enhance the romance it presented began to form in his mind.

Liam knew he shouldn't feel this way, but he was bound and determined to make a memory for Riley be one of the two of them sharing an unforgettable romantic moment.

#choices the royal romance #liam x riley #drake x riley #trr olivia #trr hana #trr maxwell #choices the stories you play

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lillupon · 3 years ago

Text

AEV Chapter 21 Bonus: Canon-divergent AU

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may have seen me blabbing about Wonwoo getting pregnant in this fic! I actually debated for a long time on whether or not male omegas could conceive. If male omegas could not get pregnant, it could be another reason why they occupy the lowest rung in the societal hierarchy. Anyway, I scrapped that idea because there’s something very thrilling about Mingyu knocking Wonwoo up—in particular, while he is still Wonwoo’s student.

But then I thought: Maybe alphas are more virile and omegas are more fertile during their cycles. They didn’t use protection while Mingyu was in rut. So, despite Wonwoo being on the pill, he gets pregnant. He doesn’t find out that he’s pregnant until he and Mingyu have already broken up. He keeps the child. Names her Jeongyeon.

I imagine Mingyu and Wonwoo reconnecting in the same way they did in chapter 20. Wonwoo reluctantly cuts their first meeting short, but this time, not with the excuse of being hungry and having to do more work later:

Wonwoo slips off the table and stretches his arms over head. The vertebrae between his shoulder blades pop satisfyingly. “I’m sorry, Mingyu. I’d love to chat more, but I have to run.”

Mingyu also slides off the desk. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you this long.”

You can keep me for as long as you like. Wonwoo doesn’t voice the thought out loud, but it embarrasses him just to think it. Things have changed. Now, Wonwoo is just one face in a sea of thousands, just one person out of many who loves Mingyu. “Don’t be sorry. I really enjoyed catching up with you and hearing about what you’ve been up to.”

Mingyu smiles at him. “You don’t have to spare my feelings.”

Wonwoo laughs softly. “I’m serious! I would have liked to talk more, but I, ah—I need to go pick my daughter up from daycare.”

The smile freezes on Mingyu’s lips. His throat bobs as he swallows. It’s a beat before he recovers. “I’m sorry for keeping you from your family. I didn’t realise you had a kid and a mate now.”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “It’s just my daughter and me.”

“Oh,” Mingyu says. “Your mate…”

“Not in the picture anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu says. Stiff. Awkward. Cautiously curious, he asks, “Did they uh… You know… Kick the bucket?”

Wonwoo’s laugh is genuine. Kicking balls rather than buckets, he wants to say. “No, they’re alive and well. We just went our separate ways.”

Mingyu’s heart falls out the bottom of his stomach when Wonwoo says that he needs to go pick his daughter up from daycare. They had spent the last two hours chatting and laughing. Mingyu had found himself falling all over again. Charmed by this beautiful man with his beautiful smile.

Of course someone else had been captivated too. He had steeled himself for this before he walked through the doors of Carat Elementary, that Wonwoo might belong to another person now. The mental preparation does nothing to ease his disappointment.

His heart is saved from its death throes by the words It’s just my daughter and me. It valiantly climbs up to his chest again. It still hurts, but with a different sort of wound. Wonwoo had loved someone enough to have a child with them, but they had walked out.

How could anyone do that to Wonwoo?

Mingyu feels like a gormless and clingy puppy. He trails after Wonwoo as the omega goes to his desk to pack up his belongings. Falls into step beside Wonwoo as they exit through the school doors and head to the parking lot.

Mingyu waits until Wonwoo’s car has pulled out of the parking lot before leaving himself.

Chaeyoung returns home for reading break. The Kim family all take a trip down to the hot springs for a week. Mingyu had been looking forward to spending time with his family for months, but now that he is actually here, all he wants to do is return to the city. See Wonwoo again.

As soon as Mingyu is back in the city, he visits Wonwoo again. A lot of people won’t date single parents, but Wonwoo having a kid changes nothing for him. The years they spent apart have not diminished his feelings for Wonwoo. Mingyu still pines, still wants to provide—not just for Wonwoo, but Jeongyeon as well. He just has to figure out whether or not Wonwoo is interested in dating someone. More specifically: whether or not Wonwoo might be interested in dating him.

Meanwhile, Wonwoo is struggling to figure out how to break the news to Mingyu. He wonders if he should bring it up at all. It’s a huge secret—perhaps even more so than the clandestine affair between student and teacher. It’s a secret that can destroy the budding friendship that is starting to bloom between him and Mingyu. Mingyu will feel betrayed, lied to, Wonwoo knows. He doesn’t know if he can withstand losing Mingyu a second time.

It weighs on him, every time they meet. Almost to the point where he feels sick when he sees Mingyu smiling at him, sweet and tender. To make matters worse, Jeongyeon, normally a shy and quiet child, has imprinted on Mingyu like a duckling. It’s as if she knows Mingyu is her father. It hurts Wonwoo’s heart, to look at the two of them playing: Mingyu sitting hunched in a too-small plastic chair, daintily holding a tiny teacup between his forefinger and thumb; Jeongyeon pouring Mingyu tea, sharing with him plastic pastries. This could be his, for real, but he’s so scared.

They’re both falling deeper and deeper for each other, and they both know it. But as quickly as they had crossed the line years ago, they’re more hesitant now.

It comes to a breaking point when Mingyu invites him for a day out. An afternoon at the art gallery, where the current exhibition features one of Wonwoo’s favourite artists, followed by dinner at a restaurant along the waterfront. This is different from all the other times they’ve spent in each other’s presence. Wonwoo knows this because he had caught a whiff of the nervousness in Mingyu’s scent before it was swiftly buried, and because Mingyu had said, “I was thinking, it might be just you and me.”

So Wonwoo drops Jeongyeon off at Dahyun’s house that day. He showers and spends an hour rifling through his closet before deciding on a simple turtleneck and dark jeans. He works some product into his hair and spritzes on a bit of cologne. He feels embarrassed for trying so hard, until he opens the door to greet Mingyu and is instead made speechless. He is floored by how gorgeous Mingyu looks. A sweater with a deep v-neck, the colour of red wine. Tucked into thigh-hugging navy trousers that make his legs look a mile long.

Now Wonwoo fears he hasn’t tried hard enough. Except Mingyu quells that worry with an awed, “Wow. You look great.”

If Wonwoo had any doubts that their outing was a date, those thoughts are dispelled in the first two minutes: Mingyu opens the passenger door for him. Wonwoo ducks into the car, wanting to tease Mingyu about it, regain some sense of normalcy. Except the old-fashioned gesture has him giddy and tongue-tied like a young omega being taken out on their first date.

Fast-forward to the tail-end of their date. By the waterfront. Night has fallen. They had had a late dinner in a floating restaurant. They exit the boat, arms brushing. They stroll up the dock, making their way to the main wharf. Beneath Wonwoo’s feet, the wooden planks sway as a gentle tide ebbs and flows. He had two glasses of red wine with his salmon. Not quite enough to get tipsy, but he finds himself listing towards Mingyu, as if he is drunk. He flounders over his own feet, bumps into Mingyu’s side.

Mingyu reaches out to steady him with a hand on his low back. “Careful,” he says. Keeps his hand there.

All this reciprocated flirting and touching. Wonwoo feels like he’s been turned inside-out, his most vulnerable feelings on bright neon display for Mingyu’s eyes.

Victorian street lamps line either side of the wharf, glowing a warm orange that penetrates through the dark. Mingyu steps up to the railing and leans his weight against it. Wonwoo joins him. Together, they gaze out at the dark waters.

“I’m mad,” Mingyu says, except he sounds anything but. His voice sounds like it has been pulled taut, turned rough and brittle.

Wonwoo turns to Mingyu. Mingyu’s profile is thrown in shadow, and yet it still makes Wonwoo ache. He’s so handsome. “What’s wrong? Why are you mad?”

Mingyu doesn’t respond.

“Mingyu?” Wonwoo tries again.

Quietly, Mingyu says, “If it had been me, I never would have left you and Jeongyeon.”

Ahh, I’m really captivated by this AU of AEV, but I feel like it would need another 30k-40k words to do it justice. I literally came up with this entire scenario so I could have Mingyu say that cheesy-ass line, hah!

CLICK HERE TO READ THE CONTINUATION BY AN ANON

#aev bonus

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philip-ks-dick · 3 years ago

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Philip K. Dick, For Dummies.

I’ve been researching PK.D for a few years now, as he’s my father’s favourite author and I’ve been watching movie and show adaptations of his work for the longest time. I have personally only read the books listed, here’s the order (I think) you should read them in, based on difficulty level and the knowledge you need of the PKD canon to understand the books that follow. This is purely my opinion based on knowledge of the author. by philip-k’s-dick (lol)

Beginner. (These books and stories allow readers to explore Dick’s pet themes and stylistic quirks without falling too far down the rabbit hole)

The Short Stories: Over the course of his life, PKD wrote somewhere in the range of 150 short stories. Naturally, it would be silly of me to dump all of them on you at once, but undeniably, the shorter format allows the big ideas of Dick’s work to come through more clearly, and even the screwier stories conform to relatively coherent shape, making them an excellent jumping off point, especially for an author who wrote almost nonstop throughout his life.

My Favourites:

In The Days of Perky Pat - In this novel, survivors of a global thermonuclear war live in isolated enclaves in California, surviving off what they can scrounge from the wastes and supplies delivered from Mars. The older generation spend their leisure time playing with the eponymous doll in an escapist role-playing game that recalls life before the apocalypse — a way of life that is being quickly forgotten. At the story's climax, a couple from one isolated outpost of humanity plays a game against the dwellers of another outpost (who play the game with a doll similar to Perky Pat dubbed "Connie Companion") in deadly earnest. The survivors' shared enthusiasm for the Perky Pat doll and the creation of her accessories from vital supplies is a sort of mass delusion that prevents meaningful re-building of the shattered society. In stark contrast, the children of the survivors show absolutely no interest in the delusion and have begun adapting to their new life.

(Elements of the story were later incorporated into Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, written in 1964 and published in 1965, in which a Perky Pat simulation game is induced by drugs and miniature models instead. Palmer Eldritch is not a continuation or sequel however.)

What the Dead Men Say - Death is followed by a period of 'half-life', a short amount of time which can be rationed out over long periods in which the dead can be revived—so that, potentially, they can 'live' on for a long time. When attempts to bring back important businessman Louis Sarapis fail, it's clearly more than mere negligence. Sure enough, Sarapis starts speaking from beyond the grave. From outer space, in fact. Yet no-one seems terribly bothered, other than those directly concerned in the plot mechanics. Eventually entire communications networks (phones, TV, radio) are blocked by Sarapis' broadcasts

(Philip's later novel Ubik is a continuation of What the Dead Men Say)

Autofac - Three men wait outside their settlement for an automated delivery truck. Five years earlier, during the Total Global Conflict, a network of hardened automatic factories ("autofacs") had been set up with cybernetic controls that determine what food and consumer goods to manufacture and deliver. Human input had been lost, and the men planned disruption to try to establish communication and take over control. They destroy the delivery, but the truck radios the autofac and unloads an identical replacement, then prevents them from reloading items. They act out being disgusted with the milk delivery and are given a complaints checklist. In a blank space, they write improvised semantic garble—"the product is thoroughly pizzled". The autofac sends a humanoid data collector that communicates on an oral basis, but is not capable of conceptual thought, and they are unable to persuade the network to shut down before it consumes all resources. Their next strategy sets neighbouring autofacs in competition with each other for rare resources and seemingly succeeds, but there is a hidden level

Beyond Lies The Wub - Peterson, a crew member of a spaceship loading up with food animals on Mars, buys an enormous pig-like creature known as a "wub" from a native just before departure. Franco, his captain, is worried about the extra weight but seems more concerned about its taste, as his ship is short of food. However, after takeoff, the crew realizes that the wub is a very intelligent creature, capable of telepathy and maybe even mind control.

Peterson and the wub spend time discussing mythological figures and the travels of Odysseus. Captain Franco, paranoid after an earlier confrontation with the Wub which left him temporarily paralyzed, bursts in and insists on killing and eating the wub. The crew becomes very much opposed to killing the sensitive creature after it makes a plea for understanding, but Franco still makes a meal out of him. At the dinner table, Captain Franco apologises for the "interruption" and resumes the earlier conversation between Peterson and the Wub - which now has apparently taken over the Captain's body

Human Is - Jill Herrick and her husband Lester are in the middle of an argument. Lester deflects his wife’s claim that he is “hideous” with cold indifference. He tells her that he will not allow their child in the house and will have him removed to government custody because he is interfering with his research. Before the distraught Jill can pass this onto their son Gus, Lester gets news that he will be taking a trip to Rexor IV. Despite Jill’s desire to go there and see the planet, Lester insists that he will go alone.

Later Jill tells her brother Frank and she is going to leave Lester. She explains how happy she has been with Lester gone and how he seems to be getting worse every year of their marriage. More cold and more “ruthless,” not to mention the incessant working.

Lester comes home a very different man. He praises Jill’s cooking and expresses disgust with his work on Rexor IV studying toxins. He says he prefers Terra and being home with his wife.

Jill reports these changes to Frank, while Lester is playing in the room with Gus. Frank has Lester brought to a lab for more studies under the guidance of the Federal Clearance agency. Before long they realize that Lester has had his body taken over by a Rexorian.

The Hanging Stranger - The protagonist, Ed Loyce, is a store owner who is disturbed when he sees a stranger hanging from a lamppost, but finds that other people consider the apparent lynching unremarkable.

He finds evidence that alien insects have taken over, manages to get out of town, talks to the police commissioner, who believes him, and after getting all the information about what Ed knows, explains that the body was hung to see if anyone reacted to it, anyone they didn't have control over. He then takes Ed outside and hangs him from a lamppost.

The Commuter - Ed Jacobson is a railway worker at Woking station. His life takes a turn for the worse when his son, Sam, begins experiencing psychotic episodes. When he is selling rail tickets at work, a young woman named Linda asks for a ticket to a destination called Macon Heights that is not listed on any map.

The Minority Report - In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these "precogs" allow a division of the police called Precrime to arrest suspects before they can commit any actual crimes. When the head of Precrime, John Anderton, is himself predicted to murder a man whom he has never met, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot

Full Books:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department, is assigned to "retire" (kill) six androids of the new and highly intelligent Nexus-6 model which have recently escaped from Mars and traveled to Earth. These androids are made of organic matter so similar to a human's that only a posthumous "bone marrow analysis" can independently prove the difference, making them almost impossible to distinguish from real people. Deckard hopes this mission will earn him enough bounty money to buy a live animal to replace his lone electric sheep to comfort his depressed wife Iran. Deckard visits the Rosen Association's headquarters in Seattle to confirm the accuracy of the latest empathy test meant to identify incognito androids. Deckard suspects the test may not be capable of distinguishing the latest Nexus-6 models from genuine human beings, and it appears to give a false positive on his host in Seattle, Rachael Rosen, meaning the police have potentially been executing human beings. The Rosen Association attempts to blackmail Deckard to get him to drop the case, but Deckard retests Rachael and determines that Rachael is, indeed, an android, which she ultimately admits.

Clans of the Alphane Moon - War between Earth and insectoid-dominated Alpha III ended over a decade ago. (According to the novel, "Alphane" refers to the nearest star to our own system, Alpha Centauri). Some years after the end of hostilities, Earth intends to secure its now independent colony in the Alphane system, Alpha III M2. As a former satellite-based global psychiatric institution for colonists on other Alphane system worlds unable to cope with the stresses of colonisation, the inhabitants of Alpha III M2 have lived peacefully for years. But, under the pretence of a medical mission, Earth intends to take their colony back.

Against this background, Chuck Rittersdorf and his wife Mary are separating. Although they think they are going their separate ways, they soon find themselves together again on Alpha III M2. Mary travels there through government work, Chuck sees it as a chance to kill Mary using his remote control simulacrum. Along the way he is guided by his Ganymedean slime mould neighbour Lord Running Clam and Mary finds herself manipulated by the Alphane sympathiser, comedian Bunny Hentman.

The Man in the High Castle - In 1962, 15 years after Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany have won World War II, Robert "Bob" Childan owns an Americana antique shop in San Francisco, California (located in the Japanese-occupied Pacific States of America), which is most commonly frequented by the Japanese, who make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts. Childan is contacted by Nobusuke Tagomi, a high-ranking Japanese trade official, who is seeking a gift to impress a visiting Swedish industrialist named Baynes. Childan's store is stocked in part with counterfeit antiques from the Wyndam-Matson Corporation, a metalworking company. Frank Frink (formerly Fink), a secretly Jewish-American veteran of World War II, has just been fired from the Wyndam-Matson factory, when he agrees to join a former co-worker to begin a handcrafted jewellery business. Meanwhile, Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado (in the neutral buffer zone of Mountain States), where she begins a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier, Joe Cinnadella. Throughout the book, many of these characters frequently make important decisions using prophetic messages they interpret from the I Ching, a Chinese cultural import. Many characters are also reading a widely banned yet extremely popular new novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II in 1945, a concept that amazes and intrigues its readers.

Frink reveals that the Wyndam-Matson Corporation has been supplying Childan with counterfeit antiques, which works to blackmail Wyndam-Matson for money to finance Frink's new jewelry venture. Tagomi and Baynes meet, but Baynes repeatedly delays any real business as they await an expected third party from Japan. Suddenly, the public receives news of the death of the Chancellor of Germany, Martin Bormann, after a short illness. Childan tentatively, on consignment, takes some of Frink's "authentic" new metalwork and attempts to curry favour with a Japanese client, who surprisingly considers Frink's jewelry immensely spiritually alive. Juliana and Joe take a road trip to Denver, Colorado and Joe impulsively decides they should go on a side-trip to meet the mysterious Hawthorne Abendsen, author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, who supposedly lives in a guarded fortress-like estate called the "High Castle" in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Soon, Joseph Goebbels is announced as the new German Chancellor.

Intermediate. (These are the books to pick up once you have the basics of what makes a PKD novel down. They’re obtuse enough to hit a little heavier, but don’t provide the full dose of surrealism Dick was capable of serving up. This is also good spot to jump in if you’ve experienced weird fiction before.)

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - The novel is set in a dystopian version of 1988, following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the United States' democratic institutions. The National Guard ("nats") and US police force ("pols") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a "Director" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to twelve. The black population has almost been rendered extinct. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time.

The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are "Sixes", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility.

Waking up the following day in a seedy hotel with no identification, Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants, and that the lobby clerk has placed a microscopic tracking device on him. She promises not to turn Taverner over to the police on the condition that he spend the night with her. Although he attempts to escape, Kathy confronts him again after he has successfully passed a police checkpoint using the forged identity cards. Feeling in her debt, he accompanies Kathy to her apartment block, where Inspector McNulty, Kathy's police handler, is waiting. McNulty has located Taverner via the tracking device the hotel lobby clerk placed on him, and instructs Taverner to come with him to the 469th Precinct police station so that further biometric identity checks can be performed.

Time out of Joint - Ragle Gumm lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper contest called "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent, and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. A soft-drink stand disappears, replaced by a small slip of paper with the words "SOFT-DRINK STAND" printed on it in block letters. Intriguing little pieces of the real 1959 turn up: a magazine article on Marilyn Monroe, a telephone book with non-operational exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies; the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor "Vic" Nielson, in whom he confides. A neighborhood woman, Mrs. Keitelbein, invites him to a civil defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before.

Confusion gradually mounts for Gumm. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: "Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel

Ubik - By the year 1992, humanity has colonized the Moon and psychic powers are common. The protagonist, Joe Chip, is a debt-ridden technician working for Runciter Associates, a "prudence organization" employing "inertials"—people with the ability to negate the powers of telepaths and "precogs"—to enforce the privacy of clients. The company is run by Glen Runciter, assisted by his deceased wife Ella who is kept in a state of "half-life", a form of cryonic suspension that allows the deceased limited consciousness and ability to communicate. While consulting with Ella, Runciter discovers that her consciousness is being invaded by another half-lifer named Jory Miller

Difficult. (This section comes with a caveat: within these novels you will encounter numerous hallucinations, drug trips, an entire trilogy about gnostic spirituality and mental illness, and more than a little unabashed nightmare fuel. It’s normal to get tangled up in what goes on in these books. It’s also normal to be weirded out. But with proper grounding, you’ll make it though with your faculties intact. Probably.)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (Can-D) in concert with "layouts." Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternative reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.

Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat (or P.P.) Layouts, Inc., has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug Can-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible.

The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P.P. Layouts' top precog, has received a "draft notice" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds—but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite.

A Scanner Darkly - When performing his work as an undercover agent, Arctor goes by the name "Fred" and wears a "scramble suit" that conceals his identity from other officers. Then he is able to sit in a police facility and observe his housemates through "holo-scanners", audio-visual surveillance devices that are placed throughout the house. Arctor's use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently or "compete". When Arctor sees himself in the videos saved by the scanners, he does not realize that it is him. Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. They do not know his identity because he wears the scramble suit, but when his police supervisor suggests to him that he might be Bob Arctor, he is confused and thinks it cannot be possible.

Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games, intended to break the will of the patients

(If this one seems difficult to wrap your mind around, that's because its a fictionalized account of real events, and you may need to read about Philip's life at the time to understand the autobiographical nature of the book.)

The VALIS Trilogy

(Fictionalized account of religious experiences in PKD’s life.)

VALIS - In March, 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra and interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien space probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest; it also aided the United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in August, 1974. Kevin turns his friends onto a film called Valis that contains obvious references to revelations identical to those that Horselover Fat has experienced, including what appears to be time dysfunction. The film is itself a fictional account of an alternative-universe version of Nixon ("Ferris F. Fremount") and his fall, engineered by a satellite called valis. (The plot of the fictitious film Valis was that of Dick's then-unpublished novel Radio Free Albemuth.) In seeking the film's makers, Kevin, Phil, Fat, and David—now calling themselves the Rhipidon Society—head to an estate owned by popular musician Eric Lampton and his wife Linda. They decide the goal that they have been led toward is Sophia Lampton, who is two-years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom (Pistis Sophia) anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. In addition to healing Phil's schizophrenic personality split, she tells them that their conclusions about valis (which Fat had previously termed "Zebra") and reality are correct, and more importantly, that we should worship, not gods, but humanity. She dies two days later due to a laser accident caused by Brent Mini. Undeterred, Fat (who has now resurged) goes on a global search for the next incarnation of Sophia.

Dick also offers a rationalist explanation of his apparent theophany, acknowledging that it might have been visual and auditory hallucinations from either schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae.

Characters:

Phil (Philip K. Dick): Narrator (first person), science fiction writer, author of Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Three Stigmata.

Horselover Fat: Narrator (third person), a schizophrenic modality of Phil himself. (Philip in Greek means "fond of horses"; dick is German for "fat".)

Gloria Knudson: Suicidal friend of Fat's who Fat is unable to save.

Kevin: Cynical friend of Fat's whose cat died running across the street, based on K. W. Jeter.

Sherri Solvig: Church-going friend of Fat's, eventually dies from lymphatic cancer.

David: Catholic friend of Fat's, based on Tim Powers.

Eric Lampton: Rock star, screenwriter, actor, a. k. a. "Mother Goose"; a fictionalised version of David Bowie.

Linda Lampton: Actress, wife of Eric Lampton.

Brent Mini: Electronic composer, a fictionalised version of Brian Eno.

Sophia Lampton: Two-year-old child (personalised incarnation of Holy Wisdom within some variants of Gnosticism), said to be the daughter of Linda Lampton and valis and the "Fifth Savior".

The Divine Invasion - After a fatal car accident on Earth, Herb Asher is placed into cryonic suspension as he waits for a spleen replacement. Clinically dead, Herb experiences lucid dreams while in suspended animation and relives the last six years of his life.

In the past, Herb lived as a recluse in an isolated dome on a remote planet in the binary star system, CY30-CY30B. Yah, a local divinity of the planet in exile from Earth, appears to Herb in a vision as a burning flame, and forces him to contact his sick female neighbor, Rybys Rommey, who happens to be terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and pregnant with Yah's child.

With the help of the immortal soul of Elijah, who takes the form of a wild beggar named Elias Tate, Herb agrees to become Rybys's legal husband and father of the unborn "savior". Together they plan to smuggle the six-month pregnant Rybys back to Earth, under the pretext of seeking help for Rybys' medical condition at a medical research facility. After being born in human form, Yah plans to confront the fallen angel Belial, who has ruled the Earth for 2000 years since the fall of Masada in the first century CE. Yah's powers, however, are limited by Belial's dominion on Earth, and the four of them must take extra precautions to avoid being detected by the forces of darkness.

Things do not go as planned. "Big Noodle", Earth's A.I. system, warns the ecclesiastical authorities in the Christian-Islamic church and Scientific Legate about the divine "invasion" and countermeasures are prepared. A number of failed attempts are made to destroy the unborn child, all of them thwarted by Elijah and Yah. After successfully making the interstellar journey back to Earth and narrowly avoiding a forced abortion, Rybys and Herb escape in the nick of time, only to be involved in a fatal taxi crash, probably due to the machinations of Belial. Rybys dies from her injuries sustained in the crash, and her unborn son Emmanuel (Yah in human form) suffers brain damage from the trauma but survives. Herb is critically injured and put into cryonic suspension until a spleen replacement can be found. Baby Emmanuel is placed into a synthetic womb, but Elias Tate manages to sneak Emmanuel out of the hospital before the church is able to kill him.

Six years pass. In a school for special children, Emmanuel meets Zina, a girl who also seems to have similar skills and talents, but acts as a surrogate teacher to Emmanuel. For four years, Zina helps Emmanuel regain his memory (the brain damage caused amnesia) and discover his true identity as Yah, creator of the universe.

When he's ready, Zina shows Emmanuel her own parallel universe. In this peaceful world, organized religion has little influence, Rybys Rommey is still alive and married to Herb Asher, and Belial is only a goat kid living in a petting zoo.

In an act of kindness, Zina and Emmanuel liberate the goat-creature from his cage, momentarily forgetting that the animal is Belial. The goat-creature finds Herb Asher and attempts to retain control of the world by possessing him and convincing him that Yahweh's creation is an ugly thing that should be shown for what it really is. Eventually Herb is saved by Linda Fox, a young singer whom he loves and who is his own personal Savior; she and the goat-creature meet and she kills it, defeating Belial. He finally discovers that this meeting happens over again for everyone in the world, and whether they choose Belial or their Savior decides if they find salvation.

Characters:

Herb Asher: audio engineer

Rybys Rommey: mother of Emmanuel, sick with MS

Yah: Yahweh

Elias Tate: Incarnation of Elijah

Emmanuel (Manny): Yah incarnated in human form

Zina Pallas: Shekhinah

Linda Fox: singer, songwriter, Yetzer Hatov

Belial: Yetzer Hara

Fulton Statler Harms: Chief prelate of the Christian-Islamic Church (C.I.C), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

Nicholas Bulkowsky: Communist Party Chairman, Procurator maximus of the Scientific Legate

VALIS: agent of Yahweh, disinhibiting stimulus

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, (a guru based on Alan Watts), and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his allegedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost.

Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is skeptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality).

The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert.

On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon institutionalized. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record (Koto Music by Kimio Eto) that Edgar offers her.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law.

Characters:

Angel Archer: Narrator, manager of a Berkeley record store, widow of Jeff Archer.

Timothy Archer: Bishop of California; father of the late Jeff Archer and father-in-law of Angel. Dies in Israel, searching for psychotropic mushroom connected with Zadokite sect. Based on James Albert Pike, Dick's personal friend, who was an American Episcopalian bishop.

Kirsten Lundborg: Timothy Archer's secretary and lover. Dies from barbiturate overdose after loss of remission from cancer.

Bill Lundborg: Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia, and who is obsessed with cars.

Edgar Barefoot: Houseboat guru, radio personality, lecturer. Based on Alan Watts.

Jeff Archer: Son of Timothy Archer, and deceased husband of Angel. A professional student who was romantically obsessed with Kirsten.

Thank you, if you read all of this. it took me six hours today to write this all

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