#Trained together for a bit and became a tiny bit of rivals

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 115

“Seriously old man?” the rumbling voice nearly caused Tim to jump, his eyes darting away from where Ras was sitting, the Al Ghul almost seeming to perk. It was kind of hard to miss the man… teen… being? It was kind of hard to miss the owner of the voice what with how their hair looked like it was on fire. 

They motioned around at well, everything, crimson eyes looking exasperated. “Really?” They were definitely motioning towards him, interrupting Ras when he opened his mouth to talk. “No, I don’t want to hear it, I swear- Did he kidnap you?” That was definitely aimed at him. 

“N-no?” Tim was feeling slightly unbalanced and may be on hour sixty without sleep at this point, if the hour long nap was counted. “I need help finding my not-dad who's lost in time.” 

The being let out a strangled noise that Tim could nearly swear was almost another one, but couldn’t vocalize his slurred thoughts as the dude muttered something, motioning around as though he was tempted to strangle something or someone. 

Ras cleared his throat, looking almost awkward which was how Tim knew he had to be dreaming or drugged. Probably drugged. “Jordan, how good to see you, it’s been so long-”

“Can it Pops,” the being-named-Jordan scoffed, finger pointing towards the Demon’s Head. “Moms still pissed and isn’t coming back any time soon with you still pulling this shit.” 

Tim felt his brain stall, process for a moment, then process some more over what he just heard before his mouth ran before it could catch up. “Ras is married???” 

[lovingumi]

— requested.

— chaos.

⤷ Hi, dear!~ I’m so in love with your Inarizaki writing! Thank you really. This’s too soft~ Can I ask headcanons about Inarizaki in the training camp with their manager?

synopsis: being inarizaki’s manager HC

pairing: inarizaki & fem!reader

warnings: none

+ i’m so happy you love them!! only the best for my boys and lil anons <3333 i’m reposting this because tumblr hates me <3

since it was almost match season, you had decided to ask the managers of some other teams to have a training camp for a few days!

it included karasuno, fukurodani, nekoma and of course inarizaki!

after the schools had agreed to a date and schedule, you gathered the team and told them the plan.

they were pretty excited! especially aran and atsumu since they both would see their friendly rivals.

osamu didn’t have any different feelings, he only hoped for some good food. akaashi and osamu would be besties change my mind

akagi was very excited to play with the top libero’s like yaku, komi and noya!

it was safe to say everyone was looking forward to it.

and so, a week later the team stepped out of the bus in front of fukurodani academy where the training camp would take place.

the managers lead all of you around and told you where you could put your stuff down.

and after that, practice could finally start!

to say that atsumu was fired up was an understatement. i mean, he was going against a setter who was on top of the technical parts of setting, a setter who knew exactly what to do with minimal movements and a setter who knew his teams strengths and how to bring out the one hundred percentage out.

atsumu felt like he was on top of the world and he was thriving.

aran had a friendly banter with bokuto, forcing a smile on your face whenever you were in their presence.

you saw akagi talk with noya, yaku and komi, a hand on his hip as he laughed at something noya said.

you felt all fuzzy inside seeing your team interact with the others )^o^(

inarizaki won majority of the matches they played, the real challenge however being fukurōdani.

bokuto had this tiny blush on his face as he went against someone equally strong, a bright smile on his face as he did what he always did: get some points for the team.

akaashi had this lil smirk on his face when he baited atsumu with a dump, staring at the blonde male who had a pout on his face.

“eh, akaashi. you’re pretty good, aren’t ya?”

akaashi was about to respond if it wasn’t for bokuto suddenly entering the conversation and slinging an arm around his setter.

“akaashi’s the best, isn’t he?” his eyes were closed and his pearly teeth were on display, teasing his best friend who tried to play it down.

inside atsumu’s head while staring at the energetic ace: yeah, i’ll play with him sometime

after practice had ended, they showered, changed in to something comfortable and had some dinner all together!

oh how much i wish that this was real

akaashi, kenma and osamu sat at a table together, talking about all the different onigiri’s they wanted to try and make, except for kenma, he stayed silent and just played his lil game.

“akaashi, we should really meet up sometime and try a few out.”

kageyama and atsumu sat opposite to them and talked about some stupid shit. it was mostly atsumu talking and kageyama nodding with a tiny blush covering his cheeks. please tell me you guys have seen that atsumu and kageyama official art of them in the youth training camp

“tobio-kun, we should play a bit after dinner! i just know that we’d be a good team together.”

at another table were bokuto, aran, hinata, yamaguchi and lev. they were honestly just talking about volleyball and food, nothing else.

hinata, yamaguchi and lev just watched the two aces talk with wide eyes and brag a little bit, bokuto doing the latter a tad more than our sweet aran who just watched with a tiny smile and that lil sparkle in his eyes.

“if you guys wanna be an ace like aran and me, then you should definitely always cheer us on and ask us things you want some more insight on!”

bokuto my lil babie

kuroo, washio, suna, omimi and tsukishima were minding their own business, all smiling a bit while talking about some stupid shit. yes, even tsukki cracked a tiny smile.

“so that’s the story on how i made this one love volleyball!” kuroo smacked tsukishima’s back, forcing an ‘oof’ from the latter before mumbling a quiet ‘hai’, no energy left to go against the stubborn third year.

“yikes, that’s pretty lame.”

not the glare tsukki gave suna

daichi, ennoshita, konoha and kita were just talking about the hard life of being in a team that’s just pure chaos </3

“yeah, the twins aren’t exactly sane either. osamu may look like the sane one, but he’s just as bad. fightin’ and playin’ around all the time with atsumu.” daichi nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. “hinata and kageyama are like that too.” konoha just sighed, a hand on his hip as he shook his head. “we just have a giant baby who needs lots of reassurance all the time.”

and last but not least, our libero’s and their lil chaotic squad!

this one exists out of komi, akagi, yaku, noya, tanaka and suga. its just all chaos with probably just komi and akagi being the sane ones.

“hey, we should definitely meet up sometime and just hang out together!”

you on the other hand kept moving from table to table, receiving a little wave from atsumu when you passed their table, a smile from akaashi, a wink from bokuto with a bright smile from hinata and a loose side hug from kita who bragged a little about you.

“_____, she’s pretty amazin’, ain’t she?” you felt your cheeks warm up a little, giving the sign to get out of here with the sweet excuse of hearing your name get called by yukie.

kita has a lil soft spot for you in my manager head canons because i love him <3

and the next two days went like this one, only a few tables would change and the noise only became louder since everyone had become better friends!

so, mission succes! ^ - ^

+

bokuto had asked you a little favour of accompanying him and a few others in a late night practice, to which you obviously couldn’t say no to when he stared at you with those big golden eyes.

so, you sat on the ground and watched the ball go over the net repeatedly, the squeaks of their shoes on the gym floor echoing through the gym.

team one existed out of atsumu, akaashi, kageyama, hinata, noya and suna. while team two existed out of kuroo, konoha, tsukishima, osamu, bokuto and aran.

atsumu insisted on being with all the setters while bokuto really wanted to play with aran, thus, the teams ended up like this.

you watched with sharp, yet sleepy eyes the guys go intensely against each other. they truly were not holding back even a little bit.

“tobio-kun!” atsumu set the ball for kageyama who watched with big blue eyes the ball rotate in the air. he ran up and hit the ball with sparkling eyes and lips that were curved up into a smile.

konoha dived for the ball and brought it up, only for the ball to go in to the bleachers instead of staying on the court. he stood up, letting out a sigh as the sweat dripped down his face.

“you don’t even know how happy i am that you two aren’t in a team together.” kuroo reached for a water bottle and nodded, speaking after taking a big gulp, “i second that.”

“atsumu-san, your tosses are so easy to hit!” hinata stared at the setter like he put the stars in the sky, mouth wide open as the setter chuckled. “of course, sho-kun! only the best for my spikers,” he said with a grin on his face.

“these teammates of yours are pretty good, aran,” bokuto said, the rasp even more evident in his voice as he raised his head towards the ceiling with his eyes closed.

“could say the same ‘bout you, that setter of yours is somethin’ else.”

bokuto looked down and tilted his head, chuckling as his tooth smile made an appearance. “like i always say, akaashi’s the best!”

suna dropped down on the floor, waving his hand as a signal of stepping out. “i’m done, it’s over for me.”

and just like that, you heard all voices agree, tired smiles on their faces as they started cleaning out the gym.

[alice-angel12x]

💔Gem!Deku x Gem!Reader

"You think this is the place?" Asked a rouge.

"Yep, that's what our sources tell us," Said another.

"You got the cages and rope ready," The leader asked.

"Yeah of course, but why did we bring this dead weight," A low Lackie asked kicking a tarp-covered cage.

"Because this dead weight is our bait. Those rocks have a soft spot for their own kind, especially the weaker and fragile ones," The leader said as he ripped the tarp away.

Revealing a bound Phosphophyllite gem with messy dark green hair and green eyes. His wrists and ankles were tied together, and a piece of cloth was wrapped around his mouth.

"You know the drill, right Deku," The leader smiled cruelly.

"MMhhm! NNmph!" Deku tried to scream.

The Trappers grabbed the helpless gem as they descended into the caves.

The Kessho people, or gem people many humans call them. Being made entirely of crystals of all kinds, they are highly sought after by humans. Because their entire body was made of pure and untainted crystals, many hunters seek these beauties. For things from jewelry to weapons, or just want a shiny servent, many reasons.

So the gems hide in many places of the world, from small islands to deep underground tunnels and caves. Anywhere out of human reach.

-------

Please. I don't want any part of this. Please let me go! I tried to cry out but I couldn't with the gag in the way. The memories of previous raids started resurfacing. They would use gems like me to lure others out of hiding, for what reason they help me varies. Some communities of gem had an elitist-like community, or even ones made up of one kind of gems. But when they got close they were ambushed and locked away in cages. They would after be turned into weapons and jewelry.

"Here, place him here," The leader Rato said.

They placed me down near a ledge and ripped away from my gag. Looking over I could see two gems walking by down below. I tried to stay as quiet and still as I could so they wouldn't notice me.

"Deku's too quiet," Rato growled.

He stomped on my hand shattering it. I could hold back the pain as I cried out, it echoed throughout the cave. Looking down at the gems below they quickly spotted me and ran away. Good at least they won't get caught.

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

Suddenly there was a rustle and a-

"SMASH!!" shouted a large gem.

The gem delivered a powerful punch knocking three of the rouges away. Deku stared in awe at the scene and the powerful gem with a brave smile on his face, but the wind was so strong that Deku was blown off the edge. Time seemed to slow as he watches the edge grow farther and farther away. Deku shut his eyes closed waiting for his painful end When an f/c blurr caught him.

"Are you alright?" Asked a kind voice.

Deku looked up to his hero to be meet E/c eyes with their hair the same color to match. His eyes sparkled as his hero's hair Glimmered beautifully in the moonlight. He looked down to see he was being held bridle style.

"Y-yes," Deku stuttered bashfully.

"Don't worry your safe now, as long as your under All Mights protection you have nothing to fear," The (gem type) smiled.

But Deku couldn't help but just stare at this new gem as an infatuation grew. His captures were long dealt with as the new group of gems escorted him back to their hidden home.

"u-um who are you?" Deku asked the mysterious G/t(gem type).

"Well my friends like to call me Y/n," they smiled as they untied Deku.

"I-I'm Deku," He said with a beet-red face.

"Pleasure to meet you Deku," Y/n greeted as they handed him over to other gems.

"Ochaco, Momo this is Deku. Please get him property clothed and make sure he feels welcomed," All Might a Yellow diamond smiled. (No not that one)

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

From that day on I have lived with these Gems for the past 300 years, and my feelings for Y/n only grew. They were so brave and confident, was also one of the greatest fighters in the village. One of the few gems trained under All Might. Sadly cause I only have a toughness scale of 3, so I wasn't suited for combat.

Though All Might noticed that I was very observant and good with notes, so he assigned me to the encyclopedia. My job is to take notes of the enemies we encounter and record events. Then there were some books about stuff I made up, humans would call them fantasies or stories. Though I didn't mind this being my job cause Y/n would come by and read my works. I couldn't help but feel lighter than air and embarrassed at the same time as they were reading my work.

Y/n would always come in after her patrol, come in and read, or more often just sit down and talk to me. Though most of the time it was just him listening to whatever good memories of the human world, or my memories of my original home.

I tried to keep my feeling to myself the best I could by just doodling in my private book, just for my eyes only, but I guess I wasn't secret enough.

"Wow dude, you really have a thing for Y/n," said a voice.

I gasped as I jumped back to see it was Denki, who quickly snatched my drawing book and speed through my embarrassing drawings.

"Wow, you've got it bad. All these drawings are of Y/n and you being lovey-dovey," He said out loud.

Attracting the attention of Iida the Topaz and Ochaco the pink diamond ( No not that one you SU fans). They quickly came over and looked through my book.

"Wow, looks like Touya has a love rival," Ochaco gasped.

Touya the padparadscha gem, was also one of the top fighters for the village and is always Y/n's patrol partner, who was also pinning after them too. There would be times he would just randomly jump into our conversation and steal their attention. But I couldn't hear what they were saying as I covered my ears in embarrassment.

"Oh no, Y/n forgot their other sword," Momo gasped.

"I'll take it to them!" I offered as I quickly grabbed the weapon and ran out of the library.

"Does he know  where Y/n and Touya are?" Momo asked.

"It even notes was Y/n patrols today," Denki said flipping through the pages not paying attention.

----------

Y/n and Touya stood guard at one of the cave entrances, as the warm sunlight funneled through. Y/n smiled as she felt the warm light on her powered covered surface.

"Hey Y/n, do you ever wonder what could be on the surface?" Touya asked.

"Ever since Deku came and told me stories of the surface, it only fueled my imagination," Y/n turned to her trusted partner.

"One day we'll be the ones on top, and I'll take you all over the surface. Just you and me," Touya said with confidence.

" That's an awfully big promise Touya," Y/n said as they sat next to him.

"I mean we can always just wait till the humans go extinct," Touya suggested.

"Haha, all right. I'll hold you to that promise," Y/n laughed as they gently held Touya's hand.

Deku watched from the side of a tunnel wall, as he sighed sadly and turned back into the tunnel. He wandered the cave tunnels as he hugged Y/n's sword close to him. As he turned the corner he bumped into something, something large.

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

I felt lighter than air as I stared into Y/n's e/c eyes.

"AAAAHHHH!" Someone screamed.

"How did the enemy pass us?" Y/n gasped.

"No, maybe the other entrances were compromised," I suggested.

"You go check the next entrance over and see if anything is wrong, I'll go check up the tunnels," Y/n said as she ran down into the dark caves.

With a sigh, I ran to the next entrance that leads to the forests, which was supposed to be guarded by Katsuki and Shoto. Turning the corner he saw two humans picking up pieces of Shoto and Bakugou and stuffing them into potato sacks. Touya quickly drew his sword and cut down the intruders.

Touya to worried about his partner quickly stuffed the rest of Shoto and Bakugou into the bag, not caring he is mixing their pieces, and quickly ran to the village.

---------

"Looks like we caught a phosphophyllite, hold that rock tight Nomu," A light blue hair human smile.

The giant mutant humanoid figure Nomu nodded silently as it the poor gem in its giant hands. Deku's arms were broken off as he was restrained by Nomu's brute strength.

"What fine craftsmen ship, able to slice through rock," Said a tall human with dark back- purple hair.

"LET ME GO!" Deku screamed as he tried to break free from the Nomu.

"Nomu shut the pebble up before he alerts the others," The man growled.

"HEY!" Y/n shouted.

"Another one," The other human grumbled.

"Y/n," Deku smiled in relief.

"Let him go," Y/n said lowly.

"Nomu get it," Tomura pointed at the G/t.

Y/n ran towards the creature and sliced its head clean off, with the sharp edge of her arm. Deku stared with worried and sad eyes as he looked over their damaged form. The left section around her face was broken off, the elbow broke off their left arm, they were missing their right hand, and her right leg was horribly cracked, and it looked like it could fall apart at any moment.

Y/n moved swiftly and kicked the human hard in the face. Deku quickly got up as the two ran down the tunnel.

Deku looked back to see Y/n was having a bit of trouble keeping up with Deku.

"Y/n, are you okay?" Deku asked.

"Don't worry turn right and follow," Y/n said as she pushed forward.

As the two quickly turned the corner, the humans regained their composer and made chase after the two.  Y/n pushed a medium-sized boulder away from a tiny hole in the side of the cave wall. Deku hesitantly got in when suddenly Y/n started to close the opening.

"Y/n What are you doing?" Deku asked as the opening became too small for him to even squeeze out of.

"Hiding you, I'll come back for you. I have to lead them away from the village," Y/n explained as they backed away.

"No, Please don't do this. Don't leave me Y/n. I- I want to tell you something first,'' Deku said quickly.

Y/n smiled sadly as she turned to face Deku from the other side of the boulder. Deku could tell they were ready to throw their life away for everyone, for him.

"Y/n, I love-,"

Suddenly Y/n's head was sliced clean off by a thrown sword. Deku gasped in horror as he watched Y/n's body fall to the ground, he tried to reach out but he had no arm to hold out.

Deku wanted to scream and cry, but no sound came out of him. Y/n slowly turned their head towards Deku and mouthed.

'Please live for me, Deku," they mouthed as the humans quickly gathered her broken body.

They were in such a rush they left Y/n's head behind. Deku fell to his knees as he stared at his crush for so long. It felt like an eternity When All Might and Touya arrived, Their eyes widen with horror and sorrow as Touya fell to his knees and held Y/n's head. He put their foreheads together as he cried out in sorrow.

"NOO!" Touya cried.

All might soon notice Deku was trapped behind the boulder and quickly moved it aside with no effort.

"Let us go Young Deku, we need to evacuate the village before they bring more of them," All might said as he helped Deku to his feet.

-----------

(400 years later)

It has been a long time since Y/n's death, All Might changed in a way after his student's death. If he weren't needed, he would lock himself away, but for the most part, he was still the jolly smiling gem he was before. Touya, on the other hand, didn't take Y/n's death all that well, he did lose his love who was his partner for 800 years. He started to call himself Dabi and started to cover only parts of his face, giving him a patchwork look. It not only scared most humans but fellow gems too.

I was upgraded to a medic after Momo was taken about 200 years back, we some people over the years and gained new ones too. I helped piece gems back together, but my main goal is to bring Y/n back. The village moved up high into the mountain, so high it would be difficult for them to breathe, but Humans would risk their lives and come up anyways. Some came with Weapons and tools made of gems, and many times they were G/t so I slowly put Y/n back together piece by piece.

I Finished them for the most part, but there were still 3 large gaping holes in their torso. I tried to use other gem pieces that matched her Mohs scale. Yet it only worked sometimes, she would wake up for about three minutes. Yet when they do everyone who was watching my work quickly rushed in to tell them how much they missed them and update them on everything.

Even Tou- Dabi would come by. Y/n was weirded out at first but they got used to it quickly and I would never really get a chance to talk to them, but I will never forget the last time they woke up. As they said their goodnight to everyone, they turned to me as said.

"I'll miss you Deku, I can't wait to wake up to see you again," Y/n smiled as they fell back unconscious.

I'll bring you back Y/n so I can tell you how I feel.

[1800sunaarinn]

ADULT TRIO + KNIFE PLAY

anon asks:

tw. knife play.

lordie!! knife play is one of my fav kinks to read about, it makes me go whoosh in the tummy. oof, these headcanons are my view of them, please don’t take them seriously 💀 also, word of warning, i’m not that good at writing and describing knife play! it’s a fav to read but a pain to write hehe. i definitely got more confident towards the end, 🙂.

♰ Chrollo Luclifer

i think chrollo would definitely be the most tamest when it comes to knife play, only because he doesn’t want to mark up your pretty skin with thin scars

he wouldn’t use it as a form of punishment because he tends to go all out with his punishments, and there’s no telling if he would be to control himself when in that mindset

but, i think if you do ask him to go a bit harder with the knife, he would. he respects your wishes and places your want above anything else, so there’s that.

he’ll be sweet about it, but with an underlying hint of sadism, because this is chrollo we’re talking about. he steals and kills to get what he want!!

but,,, i do think he might go against his rule of not using it as a form of punishment when you’ve really made him angry.

he won’t slash and dice at you, lololol. but he would press the knife deeper against your skin, idk tbh!!

#///:!!! +

“So pretty, baby.” Chrollo’s gray eyes had their usual warmth, watching with a small cruel twinged smile as your body reacted to the fresh, long, thin line of cut skin. The warm blood pressed against the open wound and fell down like a curtain, quickly reaching your left breast and coating it the skin.

The pain didn’t register, only tendrils of pleasure warping around your body, causing a short shudder. Warmth filled your body, and the need to be cut at again had you begging for more. “Kur, more, I need more!”

“As you wish,” And, thus started a chain of thin cuts along the top of your breasts. Each cut causing a different pleasurable sound to escape you, and each sound turning Chrollo on even more than before.

Your hands were gripping the sheets, your eyes closed shut to conceal the watering, and your jaw slacken. It were simple cuts you were receiving, small thin cuts, yet it was enough to dampen your panties. The ache between your legs became more dominant, and you tried to close your legs only to remember who were between them.

Chrollo noticed the action, grinning with sudden mischief. He began to softly drag the knife against your skin, between your breasts, down your stomach and only inches above your lacy, red silky panties. Your hips jerked upwards softly, in a silent ask to get a move on.

“Kur, come on!”

“Are you going to ask nicely?”

“Please,”

He only hummed, one hand gripping your thigh and spreading them. You only watch in anticipation as the knife is brought closer to your soft flesh, mouth watering at the thought of feeling the pinch of pain and pleasure on your sensitive thighs.

You’re not left disappointed, as the knife softly traces against your skin. The cool metal sending shivers through you, the blade softly rubbing against your skin. The slightest bit of pressure was added, breaking the skin and sending blood spilling down.

You reacted with a soft moan, eyes trained on the knife and blood. The knife moved with the same amount of pressure along your thigh, unlike last time, he doesn’t stop with a single thin cut, he continued on with the knife. Only lifting it a tiny bit before reconnecting it.

Your head had fell back then, soft whimpers leaving your throat at the continued pain in your thigh.

“Hm, pretty.” Chrollo hummed, you look up then, noticing the mirth and excitement in his eyes. “You are mine, forever, now. You know that right?”

You only nod in agreement, not registering the kanji characters that spelled out Kuroro Lucilfer. “You are mine too, right?”

The knife cuts through the skin, presenting your wet and dripping cunt to him. He pressed the flat side of the knife against your cunt lips, trailing down snd collecting your wetness on the blade. “Right,” he answered back, looking into your eyes as he placed the wet knife in his mouth, licking your arousal from it with a hum.

He chunked the knife away then, it landed perfectly in the wall, but you ignored it in favor of diving your hands into his black hair. Sharply moaning when his eagerly leaned forward and attacked your aching cunt.

It was then you actually took note of his name against your thigh.

🃏 Hisoka Morow

honestly, this clown will definitely be the most sadistic one of the three. now, now, here me out! not only does he like that you let him fight you, sex you, but you also let him mark you up?! with a knife, no less?!?!

bloodlust bc he wants to kill? we don’t know her!! all we know is that listing to see your blood running down the valley of your breasts, and ultimately him licking it up.

but,, despite his obvious eagerness to do this act with you. he would be a little worried about your blood loss, bc bitch is not letting up on the deep ass cuts, and it’s not like you’re stopping him.

you’re much as a sadistic as him, so he probably have cuts everywhere as well. but with texture surprise, you both have most of those cuts concealed. this will definitely turn into some type of power olay on who can get the most cuts and the deepest.

hisoka finds pleasure in just about anything, so it isn’t surprise when he decides to fuck you while also cutting you.

like chrollo, his name will be somewhere on your body. and your name on his body, don’t forget that!!

#///:!!! +

You pant lightly, thighs tightening just a bit around Hisoka’s thighs as the knife along your collarbone drags down in a slow and tantalizing pace. It was a deep cut that sent a small abundance of blood spilling down, running along your chest and breasts, and eventually dripping onto Hisoka’s lap. The smirk plastered on Hisoka’s lips was enough for you know to that he was only getting started, but so were you.

“My turn,” You said, a smirk of your own appearing. The bedazzled knife in your hand was cold, the blade glinting beautifully in the light. You twirl the knife a few times before teasingly dragging it against his cheek and jaw, grinning when his smirk slip.

The knife drags pass his throat, and in between his collarbones. Then, you add press and drag the knife down. Blood immediately stains his skin and chases after the knife, collecting and doubling in size.

Hisoka overexaggerates his whimpers, barely concealing his excitement.

You barely had enough time to pull your knife away before gripping your hair, pulling back and exposing your naked upper half. His own knife teasingly smoothing across your expanse of skin, grinning with bloodlust as he makes small cuts along your stomach, watching in sick satisfaction when your hips jerks.

“Ah!” You moan, having nearly forgot that his cock was buried deep within you. The sudden movement pressed his deeper, and sent waves of pleasures through your body, your cuts tingling with the sensation.

With the knife dragging against your waist and hip teasingly, back and forth, not even close to cutting the skin but enough to keep you on edge. Hisoka leaned forward and latched his mouth on your skin, tongue lapping at the blood.

Your moans reverberating around the room as your hips move at a slow pace, as his warm tongue licked along your skin, as the cool knife teasingly drags along your skin.

“M-more, Hisoka!” You urge, hands settling on his shoulders. With a single push, he fell back against the back, the knives forgotten on the floor.

Both hands on his chest, and his hands on your hips, you began to move your hips quicker, chasing an orgasm. Both of your moans created a symphony.

Your own blood dripped onto Hisoka, mixing together with his, and outlining the characters that spelled out your name.

📍Illumi Zoldyck

first and foremost,, illumi would definitely be more than happier to extract his control over you. which is mostly way he’ll be the one to have the most marks, bc, one you a bad bitch and two he not finna extract any type of control over you

you built different. nobody finna manipulate or control you, and that’s just facts. and besides, illumi is fucking sub and if anybody tells me otherwise, you’re wrong❤️. idk idk idk, this man is a sub and i’m not taking constructive criticism.

he might look bad and tough, but that’s all out the window the second he under you!! i’m telling you, this man will be so pliant in your arms it’s crazy. ofc once he actually trusts you enough to be in this situation, duh.

he will definitely have that dumb ass look in his eyes ⚫️.⚫️, and you’re like 👁^➖ “i gotchu babe.” type shit. this don’t make any sense.

idk idk idk i think when he’s comfortable enough, he will definitely start moaning and whimpering when you cut him. but, like, knife play almost never leads to sex. illumi just likes to being cut at by you—!!

he wants you to cut him a bit too deep, but you’re like not too deep because you have no idea what type of relaxes might kick in if you go too deep. one wrong move and you dead, dead as a cockroach 🤪.

#///:!!! +

You were sitting on Illumi’s lap, perfectly clothed, a small twinge of cruelty in your eyes as you twirl the knife in your fingers. Illumi was only half dressed, his pants on, his shirt missing, and his long hair spilling over his shoulders and onto the bed.

“You’re mine, yes?” You ask, twirling the knife even faster before gripping it with a small smack. You stared into his black eyes, not bothered that they were as emotionless as always.

“I am to be your husband.” He answered, a bit robotically. You were working on that, though, safely and healthy undoing years and years of conditioning seemed a bit impossible. Especially for someone like Illumi who held his family’s traditional above anything else.

“Mhm,” You hummed, placing the knife against his neck and smirking when his breath hitched slightly. You trailed the knife down his shoulder blade, along his arm and dragging the smallest hint of blood. Then with a quickness that rival his own, your hand was tangled in his hair, wrapped around your hand and you tugged harshly. The knife back his throat. “You are mine, yes?”

You briefly imagined if this was hard for him to admit, he was use to being able to have his control on others, but you proved to be different, you brought out a different side of him. Had this been anyone else, he would’ve killed them. But you were you, his fiancée, the person he trusted with his life. The only person he will ever allowed this to happen. “I am yours.”

“Good boy,” You praise, kissing his cheeks before letting go of his hair. There was the faintest hint of blush on his cheeks. The knife dragged downwards, skimming over his collarbones and down his chest, smoothed over the rigs in his stomach before back up again. Only this time, with added pressure that caused blood to immediately spill over.

He didn’t show any indication that he was in pain, or pleasure for that matter. You took that as challenge, as you always do. Right underneath his left pectoral, you began to carve your name into his skin. Deep enough to scar over and show, and you relished in the sharp intake of breath from Illumi.

“Is that your name?” He asked, and you looked up to meet his eyes, startling at the sudden fire burning in them. He was looking at you as if you were meal ready to be eaten, the sudden emotion cussing you to pause slightly.

“And, if it is?” You raised a brow, collecting yourself easily and finishing off the last character of your name.

“Then, it is only fair that I carve my name into your skin as well.” Illumi stated, and quickly, the knife was snatched for you hands and your back was meeting the soft bed. You had no time to collect yourself, your pants being tugged off, revealing your lacy panties, and his large hand on your thigh.

“Aht, aht—!” You pressed your foot to his bare chest, eyes burning with similar fire. “Ask me first, Illumi.”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Illumi, ask me first.” Your tone left no room for arguing.

He blinked once, eyes boring into yours, seemingly trying to assert his dominance. He definitely needed some more work, his lingering controlling nature still present. But, you weren’t going to back down. Kneeling over for a man is not something you do, something your mother always told you not to do.

You raised a brow.

“May I?” He asked, his tone the same flat number it always is. You nod your consent. He goes to bring the knife closer, but you stop him again. “Thank you,”

You smirk then, “you’re welcome, pretty boy.” And you watch as his cheeks turn a small hint of pink, and as the knife began to carve his name into your soft thigh.

📍. 20/13/11.

note — oof, can you tell who my favorite in the adult trio is? i definitely gained more confidence in this towards the end. i’m not fully happy with this, but i’m confident enough to post it??

requests for one shots are closed.

thirst anon, character anon, and regular anon questions are open.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Ok but like... In some weird alternate universe... Would Hero!Shiggy become childhood friends to enemies to friends to lovers with Villain!Dabi?

Absolutely yes because hero!Shiggy would never leave a friend behind, specially if that friends is suffering and needs someone by his side.

I can imagine it like this:

Dabi was a lonely kid, not because he didn't had friends, but because somehow he felt like he was not really seen. Like everyone saw what they wanted to see, but no one could break the walls he put there. He had a shitty childhood. He was pretending everything was fine all the time, but it was not. No one knew, no one saw.

And then Tomura found him.

Even when he was a weird kid with a dangerous quirk, it was impossible to ignore him. He was kind and stubborn, the only one who never backed away from an adventure or a dare. Dabi liked that. Eventually, he learned that Tomura has a shitty childhood just like him. Around that time they became a team. They'd run away from home some days, they'd train and study together, they'd talk about their plans and dreams. Dabi was not scared of Tomura, neither he was afraid of his hands. Tomura wanted to become a great pro-hero and Dabi wanted to beat the future pro-hero #1 in a fight.

But one day, Dabi died. At least that's what they told him when he asked. That's what he learn in school, that his friend had died and he hadn't been able to save him.

Tomura grew with that weight on his heart. His mindset changed after that. No, he didn't want to be a normal pro-hero. He wanted to be a rescue specialist, someone to save those who were low and hidden, who were lonely and left behind. Others could fight with villains, but him? He was there to save lives, not take them.

His years studying to be a hero were not exactly remarkable. Yes, he went at UA, but thanks to his nature he was always getting ignore. He was insanely smart and fast, had good strength and flexibility, but his quirk was, once more, too dangerous to be a hero quirk. He graduated the best he could and started working on tiny agencies, helping wherever he can. It was in his 19th birthday when he saw Dabi again.

The building Tomura was in was coming down.

Outside, heroes and villians were crashing against each other, like waves hitting the rocks of a beach. Tomura was running running running through the building, carefully decaying with his quirk a path for him to break through. Behind him, following close, at least three families cried out. He needed to take them to the ground before another big attack. There were kids with him. He couldn't fail them. He couldn't—

A blast occurred, followed by an object collided the side of the building and coming through right in from of them, hitting the wall hard.

Tomura waved the families to keep going. He swallowed. “Just one more floor, stay close to the walls. There's more heroes waiting for you, okay? Now go! ”

The person in front of him was a villain. He knew it in his heart, that's why he shielded the families with his body and pushed them to quickly pass by the body, straight to the next exit. The villain grunted, breathing heavily as he pushed himself up. Black ripped clothes, dirty dark hair, blue—

Blue eyes. The same blue eyes he had adored as a child. The same nose and bratty smile, the same spiky hair.

“ Dabi. ”

There was a moment between them, when none of them moved or blinked or breathed. They only started at their childhood friend.

And then Dabi attacked him with a blast of blue fire straight to his face.

All over Tomura, faked hands were grabbing his body. Their mechanisms were specially designed to give him the extra mobility he needed, with fine ropes inside them that he could shot and retract at will. Tomura dodge the attack, shooting one of those hand to Dabi's feet and tugging the rope, making the idiot fall to the ground.

The fight was short and fast. Dabi tried burning the rope of the hand, Tomura took the chance to run to the hole Dabi had left on the side of the building. The last thing Tomura saw before jumping, using a hand to slide him safely to the ground, was Dabi incredulous face as he watched him go.

From that point on, as a cruel joke, they kept finding each other in the oddest of situations.

Tomura was always submerging himself in big fights scenarios, because he was always risking his life to save others. Dabi, on the other hand, was always there to bring support to the villain side. So they kept clashing and interrupting the other.

And of course, arguing tension.

That was probably the most frustrating fact about it all. Every time, Tomura tried to make Dabi explain how he was alive, where had he been all those years, why he never went back to find him. Every time Dabi tried to make Tomura turned his back to the heroes.

“ Come with me. ”

They went back to their respective places alone, feeling defeated and tired.

But not always. Little by little, in between fights and attacks, they found themselves smiling again to each other. Well, yes, there was also a bit of sexual tension, mostly because Tomura needed to get close to Dabi in order to capture him, so sometimes Dabi would found himself pinned to the ground and other times Tomura would find himself trapped against Dabi's body and a wall. It made them dizzy, addicted even. The shot of adrenaline after learning there was a new mission, so they could see the other again. The feeling of the fight, of being totally immersed in another person's breathing, saying, moving. It was the heat and the danger, the familiarity, the joy of finding a friend and a rival, an enemie and a possible lover.

Little did the know that another twist was about to shake them to the core.

A year later, Tomura was kidnapped by a big bad man Dabi was working for. They called him AFO. Imagine Dabi surprise and concern when he found out that Tomura was on their base, alone with who was probably the worst person alive. Dabi was only a distraction, apparently. Something to drag Tomura closer and closer, enough to have him exactly where AFO wanted, like a moth in a spider web. He wanted to break Tomura, turn him against the heroes, against All Might.

Dabi saw him only once before making his decision. It was late, he sneaked pass the guards to the lab where Tomura was being kept. And what he saw, the way he saw the boy he had missed and loved and hated and longed for, floating in a giant capsule filled with water... He had heard the rumors about Tomura screaming his throat raw, the level of suffering he was putting up with.

For the first time in years now, Dabi felt the bitterness of his behavior climbing to his mouth. He had let that happened. Tomura let him scape again and again, he had covered him, lie for him, he was there because of him.

Dabi couldn't let him die for him too.

He smashed the glass. Tomura was heavier with muscle, he couldn't— he—

Just in time, he felt a friend of his lift Tomura up. Twice.

“ Is this the boy? ”

Dabi didn't reply, dead eyes sparkling among the darkness of the room. Behind him, Compress read his face and let out a tiny approval, telling the others to hurry up. They needed to get far really fast if they wanted to survive the night.

Tomura hadn't met them yet. The League of Villains. His somehow friends, even when he refused to called them that. Would he like them? As he ran, he came to think that yes, Tomura would probably adore them. It was impossible, but the League was fighting like Tomura was a part of them too, barely knowing the guy.

Everything was fine until Toga shouted at someone to make room for the boyfriends.

Oh, they were dead, they knew it. It was either the heroes or the villains, two sides where they didn't belong. So why? Why risking it all for a dude?

Maybe—, Dabi thought to himself as he watched Tomura wake up with rage as pure as his white hair on his eyes, a look he had never seen on him. Tomura only touched the ground and in seconds, a road of dust was opened to them. No more bodies or walls or trees, just a gray path with nothing in it.

In the distance, he heard someone calling out Tomura's name, a hero, a girl.

Spinner mumbled something and pointed at the rising sun. The rest started running towards the horizon. Dabi stayed back, holding Tomura up with an arm on his waist. The hero let his head rest on his shoulder and fell asleep again.

Maybe because he's our hero.

[ressyfaerie]

Fic request; (sorry if this isn't a personal headcanon of yours) Kai comes out as nonbinary & the team are largely accepting. Tyson takes longer than the rest to understand and pesters Kai with all his questions & general Tyson-ness. Doesn't have to be shippy but would be a nice bonus!

Oh I love this! I’ve read about someone's headcanon being Kai as nonbinary! As someone who also struggles with their gender identity this will be fun to write! I’m excited! But I understand this can be a sensitive topic for some people, so I’ll throw it into a readmore. It’s not my personal headcanon but writing this will be interesting and fun! I’m adding some Ressyfaerie flare so I apologize if it’s not exactly what you imagined! <3

The team had noticed Kai’s subtle attempts to experiment lately.

Wearing clothes that weren’t his normal style, the most surprising was the almost crop top Tyson immediately pointed out. Ray noticed the extra makeup he occasionally wore under his blue shark fins. His dark coloured clothes would occasionally be more pastel. He went to a school across town, so they didn’t see him most of the day; regardless they still noticed a change in his attitude. With each passing day, he became more comfortable with himself.

Today started off as any ordinary training day in the dojo. The team showed up after school and huddled waiting for Tyson who generally showed up late. Kenny opened his laptop in the corner, Hilary showed up with snacks attempting to bribe the team into showing her new blading techniques. Max and Ray stayed close, talking strategy or gossiping about what happened at school. Today Max wore a frilly green skirt overtop of white leggings.

“Hey! I was wondering where that went!” Hilary gasped when she saw it.

“Sorry Hil!” Max shrugged with a smirk.

“When I said you could borrow my clothes I didn’t mean keep them in your closet for a rainy day!”

“Hehe, sorry. I’ll buy my own, I’ll give your stuff back.” She glared at Max, “promise…”

They heard the door open. As good teammates they had all memorized the way their friends did everyday things, opening doors, walking, you name it.

“Here comes grouch of the year.” Max groaned.

“He’s been a lot better lately, give him a break…” Ray patted Max’s shoulder.

The door to the dojo slid open, Kenny looked up from his computer for a moment, “hey Kai!”

“Hey Kenny.”

Kai gave him a look that might have been a smile… or a judging glare… Who could tell at this point.

“Oh! Kenny smiled while pointing at Kai’s hand, “pretty colours!”

“Kai, I love them!” Max bounced over and grasped one of his hands inspecting the nailpolish. “Did you do them yourself?”

“Y—yeah… thanks.” Kai gulped.

Ray looked at them over Max’s shoulder. “Blue and red, good choice, any special occasion?”

“No. I just like doing them sometimes. It… makes me feel good.”

“Hey that happens to me too!” Max’s eyes shimmered.

“I haven’t worn nailpolish in public yet…” Kai looked to the ceiling and looked back down to the group. “I know it’s not normal.”

Ray chuckled, “it’s normal Kai.”

“What is normal anyways?” Max let go of his hand.

“You make a good point.” Kai nodded his head in response while looking at his hand.

The door to the house flung open, they could hear someone kick their shoes off and groan.

Tyson…

They all knew it was Tyson, but Kai worried about him. He was painfully aware that Tyson would have something to say about his new look, even though Tyson enjoyed doing much the same things, he always had to point it out!

The door to the dojo was thrown open, Tyson burst through, “hey guys!” Tyson grew a huge smile while looking at his friends. Then he looked at Kai and his mouth grew into a gasp.

Kai rolled his eyes.

“Look at you, Kai! Someone has been working way too hard to be a pretty boy lately!”

Kai sighed, and Max knit his eyebrows.

Max whispered in Ray’s direction, “I think I get it...”

After a while they drifted into their work. Kenny and Tyson analyzed something on his computer. Hilary badgered Tyson to show her a new move. Kai fiddled with Dranzer in the corner, Max nudged Ray, and they made their way to Kai.

The two of them sat in front of Kai, the hardwood creaked under them. Kai knew they wanted something, but remembered he was trying to be… nicer lately.

“What’s up?” Kai lowered the tiny screwdriver he was working with.

Max smiled at him.

“What is it?” Kai asked again, this time with a bit more attitude.

“You know you can tell us anything right, Kai?” Ray was pressuring him.

“Ray!” Max swatted his shoulder gently.

“Look, I’ve been uh…” Max folded their hands together fiddling with individual fingers. “For lack of better words, gender hopping for a while now. So I guess… What I’m trying to say is… I get what you're laying down.”

Kai blinked a few times, surprised Max picked it up so fast. He wasn’t sure if he was ready… but he knew his friends, he could trust them.

“I uh.” Kai started, then laughed a bit, “wow.” He fiddled with the small screwdriver on the floor, “you just… right on the money, Max.”

Max dropped his hand on Kai’s thigh. Kai wasn’t huge on touching yet, but Max wanted to give him some form of comfort.

“I’ve been thinking for… quite some time.” Kai started, he rubbed the back of his neck before continuing. “About my um… gender identity.”

The room grew quieter. Both Kai, Max, and Ray were aware the rest of the room picked up on the serious vibe and were listening in.

Max went to say something, but Kai continued.

“I know it’s more than what I want to wear, or makeup or nailpolish. Anyone can do that stuff... It’s more than that. That’s why I’ve been thinking so much.”

Max put both hands on Kai’s leg. Kai grinned.

“I think… I might be non-binary—” the room was quiet, “I’m not one-hundred percent sure but—”

Max cut him off, “it’s fine Kai.” Their face practically glowed from how proud Max was of Kai. “You don’t need to give us a list of reasons, we trust you.”

“Thanks.” Kai let a grin slip out.

“Wait, Kai, you’re gay!?” Kenny gasped.

“No...” Kai now worried that it was too soon.

“Kenny! Non-bnary is a gender thing not a sexuality thing!” Max educated his friend as best as possible in the short timeframe.

“Ooohhh , sorry.” Kenny blushed. “I’m not quite… on the gender train yet, but I’m trying.”

Kai gave Kenny a soft expression, “Thanks, Kenny. I appreciate it.”

Tyson turned around, Kai’s heart fell in his chest, “wait… So you’re not a boy, Kai?”

“What are your pronouns!” Max squealed over Tyson’s remark.

“Um.” Kai hadn’t really thought much about it, “like, anything really. He or them? I know you like them Max but I guess…”

“You don’t mind if we call you a boy?”

Kai shrugged, “I don’t feel like… dysphoric about it. Just that you guys know how I feel when you think about me… I think… that’s all I want.”

The room grew quiet for a moment. Max didn’t want to press the situation, but everyone had more questions.

“Do you experience a lot of gender dysphoria?” Max felt the sweat form in their palms, and relieved some of the pressure from Kai’s leg.

“Sometimes.” When Kai admitted it, he felt his shoulders become light. “But I think it really lines up with my trauma. That’s why… I’m still unsure. But I wanted you guys to know.”

“Thanks for telling us.” Ray patted his shoulder.

“I’m glad I did.”

Kai’s words rang through the dojo.

It was Tyson who got up first.

“Anyone want anything to drink? I’m going to go get a soda. Kai, you want anything?”

Kai was unsure what to think, he stared at Tyson, lost for an answer to a basic question.

“It’s not complicated. I’m not asking you to pick a gender or anything, just what to drink.” Tyson’s words seemed almost... angry.

Max ripped their hands away from Kai and spat towards Kai’s rival, “Tyson!”

“Whatever. I’ll get water I guess.” Tyson threw his hands in the air and left through the door outside.

“What is his fucking problem?” Max grimaced.

“He was never this upset when you came out.” Ray side eyed Max.

Ray and Max pushed themselves off the floor ready to go confront him. Kai got up, placing his arm in front of them.

“No, I think I should talk to him.”

Are you sure, Kai?” Ray wore a worried look.

“Yeah. It’s about time we talked.” Kai made his way to the door, opening it and sliding it shut behind him gently.

Outside the sun had just set. The backyard was veiled in twilight. The other side of the wooden deck across the gravel Tyson shut a door behind him, carrying a can and a bottle of water. Kai hopped off the dojo’s floorboards and felt the gravel crunch under his feet. He made his way to Tyson.

Tyson saw him, and sat on the edge. Letting his feet dangle while he looked over the yard as Kai approached him.

“What’s up?” Tyson raised his eyebrows and smiled sarcastically, then went back to a neutral expression.

“Are you okay?” Kai looked him up and down trying to find out what the problem was.

Tyson handed him the bottle of water with a friendly gesture. Kai took it, and unscrewed the cap, he chugged it.

Tyson opened the can, the only noise other than bugs and the slight splashing of fish in the pond.

“You know…” Tyson took a sip, “I like makeup, dresses, and nailpolish as much as the next guy. But I’m not like you guys.”

“That’s okay.” Kai sat beside him a few feet away. He leaned against one of the wooden beams, “we never said you had to be.”

Tyson scoffed slightly, “I get Max, I do. But you’re such a manly guy. Why?”

“It’s hard to explain if you haven’t felt it yourself but… It’s not just about wearing more… feminine things. There’s a mental aspect to it. And besides…”

Kai used his water bottle to gently bash it against Tyson’s leg, “I’m not that manly.”

“I’ve seen you in a suit…” Tyson shook his head while grinning.

Kai took a breath, “why does this upset you so much? You never had a problem when Max announced his gender reveal—”

“A thousand times.” Tyson finished his sentence.

They both laughed.

A few insects jumped off the pond and reflected the setting sun in their fluttering wings.

“Why does this upset you so much?”

“First of all, I’m not upset. You can do anything you need to do, Kai.”

“If you’re not upset, then what are you?”

Tyson gave him his full attention, the eye contact made Kai’s hair stand on end.

Tyson wasn’t answering, so Kai continued, “I’m still the same person I’ve always been. Nothing has changed, but now I can be more comfortable, and true to who I am.”

“I know that, and I’m proud of you.” Tyson shook the can in circles with one hand.

Kai was starting to lose patience now, “so what the hell is up?!”

“Nothing.” Tyson avoided the question while staring into the distance.

“There’s got to be something if you’re acting like this—so what the hell?”

“It’s fine, Kai. Let’s just forget about it—”

“No.”

Kai was stern, making sure to stay true to his emotional truth.

“Excuse me?” Tyson layed down the can with a loud thud.

Kai threw the water bottle beside him, still holding on to it, his whole body stood still in a white anger.

“You’ve been picking on everything I’ve been doing lately, pointing out every change, in my personality or appearance. You’ve been hypersensitive to me changing, now you have to tell me why!”

Kai’s intense words made Tyson raise his voice louder.

“Because! It’s so annoying! I was so confident in my sexuality but now—if you’re not a boy then I guess that doesn’t make me fully gay like I thought and now I have more soul searching to do! And that pisses me off!”

They challenged each other for a moment, until… Tyson noticed what he said, he could feel his face going red, and he drank out of the can while turning away trying to hide his expression.

Kai wasn’t sure if he heard him right, but what else could he have meant?

“Tyson…”

“Shut up.”

Kai let go of the bottle, it fell and rolled away from them, ignoring it he pulled himself closer to Tyson.

Tyson leaned away, his body felt like it was on fire out of embarrassment, he just wanted to turn and run.

“You don’t have to put yourself in a box. Just live. Figure it out as you go. That’s what I’m doing.”

Kai’s voice was—as always, honey to Tyson’s ears. Tyson shivered, unsure what to do or say.

“It’s alright, Tyson.” Kai wore no expression, but Tyson knew everything he wanted to express.

Tyson stared down at his blue and red nails, smiling at the colour choice.

“I’m proud of you for telling us about your gender Kai… and I’ll support you anyway I can.”

“Thanks, Tyson. That means everything to me.”

[auty-ren]

The Offer: Chapter 2

Touches

Pairing: ClanLeader!Mando x fem. Reader

Rating: T (Mature for future chapters)

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Injury, Touching, Insinuations of sex, Cursing (just a tiny bit), Fluff, Yearning (a lot).

A/N: I’m having so much fun writing this. Please let me know what you think! Comments and feedback appreciated always. It’s also on AO3. Hope y’all enjoy💕

Chapter 1 | Chapter 3

Mandalorian lore via mandoa.org (I dont own it)

ClanLeader!Au created by @magichandthing​​

Gif by @coredrive​

Summary: You finally get to speak to Clan Leader Djarin again.

Your nose was definitely broken.

The elder assessed that much on her initial exam of your face. 

The bile in your stomach churned and nausea flooded your senses at the thought of having to reset the broken cartilage. You knew they would have to realign your nose otherwise it would never grow back properly. However, your stubbornness took hold and you wouldn’t let the elder anywhere near your face. You knew the pain that was eventually going to happen, but you dreaded the process. You wanted to postpone it for as long as you could. You tried to rationalize other options, internally debating and trying to come up with excuses for Mira and the Elder. Maybe if it was left alone, your nose would heal just fine; it seemed like a probable outcome you just hoped Mira would see it that way and leave you be.

Mira, of course, had different plans.

It took Mira straddling you, completely immobile due to her weight pressing into your chest, and the strength she held your arms with for the Elder woman to be able to fix your nose from its dislocated position. When she finally did, you're sure your scream reverberated off the walls.

“We underestimated your strength ad’ika.” The woman joked after giving a final dose of a bacta shot. Your eyes were still watering and you just huffed in response, causing Mira to chuckle from across the room.

Mira’s company started to grow on you, even though at first your time together was filled with silence. She often busied herself around the hut; shining her armor, cleaning her assortment of weapons, tinkering with different pieces of mechanics that littered the shelves. You would offer to help and she accepted, reluctantly at first, but you were starting to think she enjoyed your company as much as you did hers.

Most of the conversation was you asking questions about Mira and her people. You had some knowledge of the ways of a Mandalorian but Mira always explained it better. She always answered you with a sense of patience, explaining everything to you in detail you could understand. You appreciated it, the last thing you would want to do is offend her people with ignorance. She seemed to enjoy your enthusiasm for learning about Mandalorian culture.

“Ba'jur bal beskar'gam, Ara'nov, aliit, Mando' a bal Mand'alor, An vencuyan mhi.”

“What?”

“It is a rhyme taught to children, so they can better understand our way of life.” She put down the tool she was cleaning her armor with, handing you the piece to polish. Before you could even ask, she recited the same phrase to you in basic.

“Education and armor, Self-defense, our tribe, Our language, and our leader, All help us survive.”

Days bled into weeks and you started to lose count of how long you had been with Mira. Your injuries had healed fully thanks to Mira and the elder that visited you. Light remains of your still healing bruises were all the evidence of the encounter. As you felt better, Mira invited you to accompany her into the village. It had almost become pleasant, the little routine you two had. The fresh air always felt nice, and Mira filled the time telling you more stories of her clan.

“That man,” you paused, debating whether or not you should even bring up the topic. “The one who I met when we first arrived, who was he?”

Ever since then you found yourself wondering about him more than you liked to admit. He and Mira had been the first people to treat you with kindness in a long time, so you figured the reaction to him was just grateful. Your curious nature made it almost impossible to not want to know more. You had learned much about Mira the last few weeks, and the persistent thoughts of him would certainly cease at knowing more of him. At least that's what you told yourself, but it was hard to forget that blooming you felt in your chest when he first spoke to you. How the deep timbre of his voice felt like honey that settled in your bones. You caught yourself daydreaming how his voice would sound without the mask of his voice coder, just as rich and deep but something new and soft against your ears. It probably felt heavenly to hear him whisper things to you, his breath gentle in your ear.

Mira turned to you and watched as you waited for an answer. It was as if Mira could read your thoughts from the way her head tilted to look at you. You were thankful she didn't pry, that was a conversation you didn't want to have.

“He is the strongest and conscientious of us all, which is why the High Elders chose him to lead and defend our clan. Each of the pendants he wears is a testament to his fortitude.”

You listened intently, hanging on to every word Mira spoke.

“They say he received his signent by hunting a Mudhorn that terrorized the village and killing the beast with a viro-blade as his only weapon.”

“Oh,” was all you could say, your voice just a whisper in the silence left behind her words. As much as you will yourself to be satisfied with this information, it only seemed to stoke the fire that had been set ablaze by him. You wanted to know so much more, the desire to be around him was something you tried hard to ignore.

—

Much to Mira’s protest you mostly stayed to yourself, already feeling so out of place. Aside from her, the elder, and the brief encounter with the clan leader Djarin you hadn’t spoken to anyone else since being here. She tried all she could to get you to attend their weekly dinner, a celebration every clan member attended, she insisted. You eventually caved to her persistence. So you sat with her at one of the long wooden tables, chipping away at the plate full of food in front of you. Every so often you stopped to pull at a loose thread in your sleeve, somehow hoping the action would ease the anxiousness you felt.

The clan had given you new clothes shortly after settling with Mira. She presented the garments to you one night, explaining that the leaders agreed you would feel more comfortable in them. A simple, deep red, long sleeve tunic, and a long brown skirt that flowed around the movement of your legs. It was similar to the attire you’d seen some of the women in the village wearing.  It felt unusual at first, you were so used to wearing the same few articles, almost threadbare in places from the years of consistent wear. These clothes seemed almost new, soft to the touch, and fit your body perfectly. The gesture nearly brought tears to your eyes, no one had given you such a thoughtful gift since you were a child.

It was so refreshing to see that not all the hope had been purged from the galaxy. Mira's people were just as legend had described them, fierce warriors with integrity and strength that rivaled entire battalions of soldiers; but there was also love and kinship that was deeply rooted in pillars of their society. It seemed almost surreal, this warrior race had taken you in; had healed and cared for you. It was something you had to witness first-hand, no amount of stories could convey the community the Mandalorians had, at least no one would believe you if you had tried.

You opted to observe the events of dinner, not wanting to cause any more trouble than you felt you had already. Mira had not lied when she said everyone would be there. The tables were filled with people laughing and enjoying the company of each other. It felt so peaceful, and the unsettling feeling in your stomach subsided as the dinner went on. The evening eventually started winding down when dusk had settled over the village. You thought it would be rude to leave without Mira, so you waited patiently on the sidelines wanting to return to the hut.

“How are you feeling?”

Din leaned his shoulder against the wall behind you, his arms crossed and his head tilted to the side. You jumped, you hadn't even heard him coming towards you. He seemed amused at your reaction, letting out a huff that slightly jolted his shoulders.

“I’m fine,” You felt that same pull start in your chest. “Mira has taken very good care of me.”

“Good.”

He became silent, watching the clan mingle like you were. This was exactly what you had been hoping for, to be alone, to be able to talk with him, and ask all the things you had been pondering since your initial meeting. But now you felt so small, every word you had readied was lost on your tongue, swallowed by the intimidation you felt. He was the noblest warrior of his clan, strong and authoritative in his ways but he made your heart flutter in a way you didn't know could. It was suffocating, being around him but you craved it nonetheless.

He moved to sit next to you, straddling the bench you sat on. You could feel him looking at you, but you didn't dare tear your gaze from in front of you. You felt your face flush all the way to the tips of your ears. He hadn’t said five words to you and you were already a mess.

“I should find Mira,” you broke the tension, hoping to escape so you could finally breathe again. “It's late.”

Before you could distance yourself he spoke, halting you in your tracks.

“I can return you to your hut,” he paused pushing himself to stand. He considered you for a moment as if to debate his next words.

“If that's what you wish.”

—

“I haven’t seen you since your arrival.” It wasn't really a question, more of an observation. You turned to look at his helmet, still trained on the path in front of you.

“Mira forced me to break my isolation.”

A huffed laugh came through his helmet, effectively melting some of the tension that had built up. Your own smile stretched across your lips, he still made you incredibly nervous but he at least had a sense of humor.

You didn't exchange any more words, silence falling back over you both. It felt just a little different than before, the tension wasn't drawn so tight. A light airy feeling replaced the energy that flows between the two of you. You could feel your muscles relaxing just the slightest bit, the bubbling worry in your stomach replaced with a dull ache.

Your senses focused back on your surroundings, cool darkness had enveloped your path, lit only by the torches mounted against the huts. People still congregated in the street, groups exchanging wishes of sweet dreams as most of them prepared for sleep. As you passed, side by side with their leader, each person stopped to give a small bow. Some of their gazes lingered on you, not in a judgemental way, most of them just seemed curious in nature. It was probably odd, seeing some strange woman being escorted by the most respected man in their village. If he noticed their looks, he didn't make it known.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw a small flash of bright color, sticking out noticeably against the neutral tones of the earth. You stopped and tucked in between two of the homes lining your path home, was a small flower bed. Some of the buds had yet to bloom, the new petals poking through the green shell that encased them. Others were full and brilliant, ranging from every color under the sun. You kneeled down to gently caress the buds in the palm of your hand.

Din didn’t realize you had stopped at first. He noticed the absence of your footsteps and turned around, watching you admire the flowers. He walked closer to you, essentially blanketing you in his shadow. Like before, you failed to notice his presence behind you.

“Sorry,” you apologized once you realized he was waiting for you. Standing up and brushing the dirt from your knees. You awkwardly clasped your hands together in front of you, waiting for him to respond. He stood still, completely static and it felt like a standoff of who would move next. You thought of saying something, anything to get him to act again but before you could he cut you off.

“You like…” He seemed to carefully consider his next words, in some ways it almost seemed meek the way the syllables rolled off his tongue. “Flowers?”

You turned your head to glance at the bed behind you. Realizing now how odd you must've looked, stopping to smell flowers like some child. You looked forward and he had yet to move still staring directly at you, at least that's what you assumed it was hard to tell with his visor.

“Yes, um…” Your mouth felt dry and tightened around your words. You know he didn't ask for an explanation but you gave one nonetheless, trying to ease your embarrassment.

“My mother used to have flowers on my home planet,” You turned your face down to your hands, rubbing your thumb at the juncture of two of your fingers. “I haven't seen any since the day I left...”

It had been a long time since you had thought of your old life. Ever since the war it had become painful to even entertain the good memories. Your parents had become ghosts of what they once were.  Their faces were just flashes in your mind, reduced to the few reminders that stuck with you. The smells of cedar and earth reminded you of your father, his clothes always permeated with the smell of the outdoors. Sometimes you could recall how kind his eyes were, seeing a glimpse of them in your dreams. You remembered your mother’s flowers, how they grew during the warm season filling beds of green with vivid, swirling color.

“I didn’t realize they still grew.” You tried your best to keep the emotions these memories held from finding your face, but Din sensed them nonetheless. He hesitated for a moment before gesturing for you to follow him again.

—

“Thank you, for walking with me,” you said turning to him with a small smile on your face as the hut came into your view.

“Of course.” He stopped just a few feet away from you, turning to mimic your position.

“Goodnight,” you said, turning and walking up the few steps of the porch to Mira’s home.

“You never told me your name,” he said, causing you to stop just in front of the door, you turned back to face him.

You told him, giving a slight smile at the end of your words. He parroted your name, climbing up the stairs becoming level with you again. He moved closer to your body, leaving just a few inches between your chests. You looked up into his visor, your reflection more noticeable with the close proximity of your bodies.

He repeated your name, his hands going for one of the necklaces resting against his chest. He lifted it away from him, bringing the necklace around your neck, the cool metal of the pendant resting just above your breasts. You looked between him and the mythosaur skull, the same one you saw plastered on nearly everything in the village. You wanted to say something, your mouth opening, and closing while trying to focus long enough to string a few words together.

“You’re so beautiful.” He leaned his arm against the door behind you, pinning you between him and the wood of Mira’s hut. His other hand came up to trace along the length of your neck, his knuckles stopping when they reached your chin.

You felt like you were on fire, your blood running white-hot under your skin, leaving a blushed tint in its wake. You didn’t dare look up at him, afraid you’d melt under his gaze that seemed to bore straight through you. You kept your eyes fixated on the expansion of chest level with your eyes.

“Have you thought about staying?” His fingers gripped your chin, bringing you to look directly at his visor.

“Stay?” You were a little taken back, your voice coming out as a squeak compared to his. “Here?”

“Yes, here.” He chuckled, his voice dropped mocking the whisper in your tone. A smile threatens the corners of your lips and you bite on the inside of your cheek to stop the spread. He thought it was entertaining, watching you become giddy under his attention. You turned to look just past his shoulder, willing the flush you felt on your face and neck to subside. You had wanted his attention and now you had it but you were failing miserably at being anything but at his mercy.

“Do you like it here?” He said sensing your hesitation, forcing you to focus on him again.

“Yes, of course.” It was true, you enjoyed your time. But to stay? What place did you have here? They had made you feel so welcome but you were an outsider and you had yet to offer any contribution to their way of life. You had felt better than you had in years. Like a familiar version of yourself had taken over again, replenishing the life you so desperately tried to find before. It felt invigorating but you knew it couldn't last forever, and with your injuries in the final stages of healing, you knew that time was coming to an end.

“Then stay.” His voice was firm but held a sort of gentleness that made your heart flip in your ribcage.

He grabbed your hand, leading your palm to rest in the middle of his chest. Your fingers instinctively spread over the warmth of his skin, he interlocked his fingers with yours, effectively trapping your hand behind his.

You couldn’t see his face, but it felt as if you were staring right into his soul. You imagined the depth and piercing look of his eyes. You imagined they were just like the rest of him, fierce and intriguing but with a softness hid behind them. Mesmerizing you and making you want nothing more than to fall deep in their hypnosis. You wanted to kiss him, to feel him against you, flesh and bone to be explored by your fingertips. You wanted to be encased totally by him, to drown in the warmth he exuded, to feel nothing but him for the rest of your days.

With a newfound boldness, you slipped your hand away from his slowly trailing down the center of his chest. The pads of your fingers moved over the toned muscle of his chest, doing exactly what you had daydreamed about since you met him. His skin was a beautiful tanned color with scars scattered, telling the story of his battles. You traced a few, fingers delicately moving across the raised skin. You felt his breath released from behind his helmet, so quiet you may have not noticed if it weren't for the rise and fall of his chest. You continued your movements, traveling down until you met the trail of hair that peeked out from his trousers. He abruptly grabbed your wrist, a groan filtering through to your ears. His grip was firm, stopping your actions but being careful not to hurt you.

“You should get some rest.” His voice was so low, gravelly, barely registering with the voice coder of his helmet. He released his grip, moving your hand back to your side.

You were afraid you had fucked up, misreading him and crossing some forbidden line. Shame flooded your mind, causing your gaze to drift to your feet. He reached up to your face, pushing the hair that fell in your face back, revealing the timid look that fell on your features. He held his palm against your face for just a moment longer than necessary. As his hand fell from your face, you were back to staring into the darkness of his visor, surprised by the tenderness of his actions.

“Goodnight,” He whispered, turning back to walk down the steps, leaving you stunned and missing his warmth.

“Goodnight.”

—————

Taglist: @queenofheavenandhell​​ @youmeanmybrain​ @theocatkov​ @dreamgirl-67 @duker42​ @spxcedxdddy​ @vikingqueen28​ @hdlynn​ @leo-moon​ @tiffdawg​

(Let me know if you want to be added or removed!💕)

[itslieutenanthawkeye]

Jeankasa Royal AU: A Knight's Mission

Sir Jean Kirstein has been sent to hizuru by the Yaegar brothers with one goal: become princess Azumabito’s close guard and pave the way to betray and conquest the eastern country. But the hizuran princess is much lovelier than what he imagined. Can Jean’s loyalty stay with the yaegar brothers or will it tilt towards the woman he may, or may not, be falling in love with?

AO3

The capital city of Hizuru, Heian-kyo, is thrice as large as some eldian cities. Flanked on all sides by tall, snowy-peaked mountains and home to about two million citizens, it is the largest city in the eastern country. Despite the high altitude, the noise and music and laughter in the city equal –or maybe rival— the cold winds blowing from the mountains.

The royal palace, built beautifully halfway up one of the tallest peaks, is nothing like it.

I curse lowly as I’m being led through the passageways of the Azumabito palace, with its sliding doors, quiet servants, and even quieter rooms. There’s the sound of running water coming from somewhere to my right, perhaps it’s the famous gardens I was told about on my induction —a gift from one of the previous empresses to her emperor, a place of peace and quietness so they could grow old together. Although in all honesty, the last things this place needs are peace and quiet.

Some faint music would be fine, I think as I find myself missing the horrid sound from Reiner’s little cousin practicing the violin. I guess I would even take a whole concert of that if it meant breaking the perpetual silence of the palace.

I look to my right, noticing that Marco looks calmer than Reiner and I put together. I’m not surprised; he helped the Yaegar brothers concoct the plan to gain Hizuru’s vast territory, free its people from a monarchy and, above all, get Eldia’s claws on their precious mines.

“Take a deep breath,” Marco whispers, his voice as serene as the rest of the palace. The servant, a tiny girl in a simple kimono, is far away from us that she won’t hear. “She will be pleased with us.”

We’re presents, gifts sent to look after the princess by her fiancée in Eldia, her political alliance once she comes of age, Eren. He chose us well; the three of us are nice to the eyes, charming to a degree. If the princess takes a liking for any of us, we might be granted the charge of close guard for either the princess or her guardian, and then it’ll be an easy task to learn the secrets of the castle, be aware of its military routes… all in all, we’ll know more details how to overthrow the teenage ruler and free the people.

By taking over Hizuru, we will give Zeke Yaegar access to the hizuran mines, and we’llhave our hands filled with silver. Enough silver to leave knighthood, enough silver to convince a nice girl to marry me, enough silver to buy a whole castle.

If we manage to keep our heads on our shoulders, the grimmer side of my brain chirps in.

I shake my head, quite enjoying the fact that it is still attached to my body. This must work. It cannot go awry. If it does go awry and we manage to escape, I can imagine Zeke and Eren condemning us to a lifetime of menial tasks within the military, without a chance to become rich through any of their colonization schemes.

And if we don’t manage to escape…well, we all became acquainted with hizuran torture methods before coming. I’m not looking forward to dying, let alone be tortured.

“Jean,” Marco calls, giving me a sideways glance. We are standing at the doors of the throne room, where the princess and her guardian await us. The servant girls leading us have disappeared beyond the doors, perhaps to announce our presence us to the princess. “You need to stand straighter than that.”

Again, I do as Marco says. He’s much more put together than I, and a bit of me feels a twinge of jealousy of how good of a leader he is among our tiny group. He’s told me before I have much more leader material, however Zeke chose him to lead this expedition, not me.

“Are you okay?” Reiner asks at my side. “You look like you’re about to puke.”

I glare. “I’ve never met a proper royal before.”

“What about all those fancy folks in Eldia?”

“I meant I’ve never met a princess.” I say, shrugging, wondering what awaits us behind the door. Not much is known about hizuran royalty back home, and there are no pictures nor paintings of the hidden flower of Hizuru.

She might be hideous for all we know. All chances point to her being hideous if she refuses to get pictures or paintings of her face. Although I’m not sure if her being hideous will help or damage our attempts at charming our way into her private guard. If she’s hideous, I pity that poor Yaegar bastard.

“It doesn’t matter what she looks like,” Marco said, guessing his thoughts. “Remember we were sent for a reason.”

I look around, wondering what is up with his sudden burst of information, or if a group of guards will come get us from sniffing our betrayal in the air. But nobody comes; in fact, the palace is as quiet as before. Maybe it’s the way Marco talks, maybe that soft purr of his voice makes his words mingle with the eerie peace of the palace.

“What’s taking so long?” I say, looking away from Marco, clearing my throat.

“There’s an extremely specific etiquette to informing the princess of new guests in the palace. And then you add the etiquette of the Pine Room, it’ll take a few minutes,” Reiner replies, giving me a frown at the confusion in my face. “The Pine Room? The throne room, Jean. Do you not remember anything from our lessons? Did you not read the booklet?”

To be fair, I didn’t. We stopped by a seaside city on our way over, and that beautiful redhead had kept my attention from studying our booklets on the way before discarding them. “I’m an idiot.”

“Just remember, bow deeply, don’t raise your head until she allows you, let her speak first, call her imperial majesty when greeting her, then just call her princess,” Marco lists with a soft smile. “Walk ahead of her only when you are allowed, let her call you by your name.”

“Seems like a lot of fucking rules for a kid.” I reply.

“She’s not a kid,” Reiner says with an exasperated sigh. “She’s seventeen. Aren’t you eighteen yourself?”

“I have more life experience than a princess could ever have,” I say with a flirting smile, but then drop my stance at Marco and Reiner’s concerned gazes. “Alright, alright. I won’t screw up. I never do, remember?”

“Which is why Eren chose you as her present too.” Marco says with a wink, making me blush.

“Any other rules I should remember?”

This time it’s Reiner who answers. “Never call her by her name, never touch her.”

“What’s her name anyways?”

Marco leans into me, whispering even lower, almost looking fearful to pronounce the princess’ name too loud. “Mikasa, that’s her name.”

I mouth the syllables underneath. Mi-ka-sa. Huh. Doesn’t sound like a too awful name; not hard to pronounce anyways. Not that I’ll be using it much, mind you. Out of the three, it’s Marco the one who is more likely to charm the princess, to become her friend or lover, whatever he needs to get the information we need about Hizuru. He’s got a much softer demeanor; it doesn’t work much with girls at bars, but it will surely work with a princess. I can see the confidence in his face as the servant girl slides the door open.

We got this, that’s what his face says.

Two, three years, and we’ll be richer than god. Bless Eren for choosing us for this plan.

“The princess is ready to see you.”

We are led across an enormous room with wide windows at both sides, from which I can clearly see the city sprawled in a thousand different colors below. There are some people gathered in the chamber that stare at us as we walk by. From their clothes and expressions by seeing foreigners, I figure they’re not all royals. The princess must be holding audiences for her people.

I see her throne at the end of the room, and her sitting on it. But we are too far away for me to see anything but the deep blue color of her kimono. I stifle laughter; if she sits this far away from everyone, she must be horrid.

Two guards flank our way as we moved forward, and I fear troubles have begun already. We are taller than the hizuran guards, but they train for decades to become skilled at combat, and I’ve no doubt we would not win against them.

“Princess,” the servant girl says, talking in her direction. “Your gifts have arrived.”

“Please, let them come before me.” She says, and the soft cadence of her voice surprises me. She must be a good singer, I think hazily. And this must be some sort of ritual.

We walk ahead until we are standing about ten feet away from a screen seemingly made from crystal, which impedes anyone from walking any closer to her throne. Ah, it must be a security measure. A bulletproof screen to guard the princess form any madman that might sneak their way in the Pine Room while she holds audiences.

The three of us fall to our knees and bow, pressing our foreheads against the pristine floor. Again, I haven’t seen her royal face.

There is the soft shift of fabric on the wooden floor, and then tiny steps. “Rise, eldian knights, gifts of my future husband,” she says, in perfect eldian, to my surprise. “I would look upon your faces.”

I smile slightly at the silliness of it all, at the fancy words she is using to perfection, but my smile freezes the moment my gaze lands upon her face. And my first thought is that Eren Yaegar is the luckiest bastard in the world.

This princess is the most beautiful, perfect woman I’ve ever seen. Ever. She has gray eyes, jet black hair and is not as small as I thought she would be. Her face isn’t precisely hizuran, but it isn’t quite eldian either. It’s strange, but not unpleasant to the eye.

Who am I kidding? She’s a vision to look at.

“Thank you for your journey, knights of Eldia,” she says, her expression serene, giving away not much emotion. “Please, bring forth the bread and salt.”

Servants scurry around the room and bring us jade platters full of bread and salt. I blink, realizing they’ve accommodated to the eldian custom of sharing a meal with your guests to assure their lives will be well guarded while under the host’s roof.

I look at her as the servants make the long way from the entrance to the throne room. She wears no jewelry, and her kimono is of a wonderful shade of purple and silver. Her hair is not combed upwards in the traditional hizuran fashion. It’s long, beautiful and darker than night itself. I’ve seen dark before, but not like this. It is deep, tantalizing, beautiful.

Her gaze catches mine during the seconds we wait for the bread to arrive, and I look away instinctively. She noticed I was staring, I curse myself. Staring like an idiot is not the way to get her trust.

My eyes trail to the throne, and I notice another woman has been looking at me the whole time. I’m guessing that’s her guardian, Kiyomi Azumabito, and curse myself again. She won’t want a staring creep near her protégée.

The bread comes on a platter for each, and Mikasa —no, the princess. The princess has a platter too. We eat the tiny salted bread buns while looking at each other in silence. Once we are done, Mikasa cleans her hands on a towel one of her servants offers to her.

“Now, we have done your eldian tradition and you must know you are safe and welcome,” she says in that serious tone of voice. I wonder if she ever laughs. “I would like to know your names. Blond sir, please go first.”

“Reiner Braun, your imperial majesty,” Reiner says, bowing slightly. I hold the need to roll my eyes. We won’t have to bow each time we speak to her, will we?

“And I must call you?”

Another custom. I really should’ve read that booklet.

“Either is fine, your majesty.”

“You may call me princess.”

“Thank you, princess.”

Mikasa, the princess turns to Marco and he gives her a polite smile. Her face proposes the name question to him, and Marco catches the intention of her face quickly. “Marco Bodt, your imperial highness. You may call me as you wish.”

“Your face, I don’t know the eldian word for the dots,” she says, gesturing to the bridge of her own nose. I hold back another smile. She’s so cute. “What is the word? Oh, you may call me princess.”

Marco smiles charmingly, and I feel jealousy again. “Freckles, your highness.”

“Freckles,” the princess says, pronouncing the word as if she were tasting a new meal. So pretty. She looks at Marco, gives him a tight smile, stirring the fire of jealousy in my chest. Damn his freckles to hell. “Thank you, Sir Marco. You’ve given me the gift of a new word.”

Marco bows, and now I roll my eyes. What am I supposed to do after that? He just gave the princess knowledge. For a royal that owns a thousand mines, knowledge is the one thing one can give her to make her smile is knowledge.

“And you, sir?” She says expectantly. Our eyes meet again, and I feel the rush of blood to my cheeks. I gather my thoughts; I’m a knight. I’m here to betray her and get rich, not stare at her pretty self or get jealous from Marco making her smile.

I bow in the same way Reiner did. “Jean Kirstein, your imperial majesty.”

“Nice to meet you, Jean,” she says, then opens her eyes slightly, seemingly catching herself. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Kiyomi Azumabito narrowing hers. “How may I call you, sir?”

Yours, the rawest part of my mind shouts.

“You may use either, your imperial majesty.” I say, feeling my breath quicken at the thought of her slipping. What was it about me that made her slip? My looks? Or maybe she’s just trying to intimidate the creep that’s been ogling her?

“You may call me princess, Je—Sir Jean.” She says, stumbling a little with her words. She clears her throat. “You’re taller than most, aren’t you?”

Heads turn in our direction, and I guess this isn’t part of the protocol. My height has made her curious, which makes me feel like a proud little kid. “I am, princess.”

“Good sparring partner.” She mutters, more to herself than to the crowd, but the three of us hear her clearly. She looks at me again, and this time there’s nothing I can do to hide my blush. “Good knights, it seems. I am grateful to my future husband for his gift. We will see that you are well taken care of within court.”

“Thank you, princess.” We say at unison.

“I hear my husband wants to make you three part of my personal guard,” she says thoughtfully.

“Yes, princess.” Marco says.

“I appreciate my future husband’s will to look after me,” Mikasa says, and something in me suspects she’s keeping the protocol once again. “We will discuss these matters in future meetings. For now, please enjoy your dinner in your quarters and have a rest, my knights.”

Hearing her call us my knights almost turns me into a puddle. But I hide my feelings behind a mask of proudly knighthood. This mission isn’t to lust after a princess. This mission is to get rich. After I claim my part of the silver mines, I can woo as many princesses as I want.

“Thank you, princess.” We say at unison, and we are dismissed from the throne room.

The servant girl leads us to our room, a big, furniture-less chamber overlooking a series of hot spring pools for us alone. She explains to us how to lay out our futons on the curious tatami flooring, but my mind is on Mikasa. On the princess and her purple kimono and how much I would enjoy seeing it on the floor of our chambers. And her in the hot spring pool with me.

“Stop it,” Marco says after the servant girl leaves.

“Stop what?”

“Lusting after her. Crushing on her,” Marco says in a disapproving tone of voice. He’s figured it out. He knows me too well and knows when a woman catches my eye. “Jean, we are not here to crush out on a woman. We are here to—”

“I won’t try and sleep with her, Marco,” I reply, closing my eyes and throwing my back against the floor. “Just let me have my mind fun for a little while. She’s a beautiful girl.”

“She is indeed,” Reiner agrees as he examines the clothes they’d prepared for us. I wonder if they’ll let us wear our uniforms if we do manage to become her close guards. “Pretty eyes, and not even you can deny that, Marco.”

I open my eyes and notice that Marco raises his eyebrows. “She is a cute little thing.”

I frown. “I thought we weren’t here to just after her? Also, don’t call her a thing.”

“Now you’re protective of her?” Reiner asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “Stop giving me that face, Kirstein. You were the one who was ogling her today. You cannot compromise the mission.”

“He won’t,” Marco assures him, patting my shoulder. “Jean just has an eye for pretty girls. The moment he sees another servant that catches his eye, he’ll stop being weird about the princess. Won’t you, Jean?”

“Yeah,” I shrug. “We should just stop talking about the princess altogether, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“If anyone hears us calling her a pretty little thing, we’ll get in trouble.” I reply with another shrug, and that seems to convince them. My intentions are slightly devious, though. Maybe I don’t want them to think of her the way I am. I don’t want them to call her pretty or think about her at all. I know we have a mission, and my eyes are on the silver at the end of the rainbow. But for now, the thoughts of the princess are all mine.

“How’s the liaison?” Reiner asks Marco. “Do we know who it is yet?”

“I’m sure they’ll show themselves soon.” Marco replies, and their conversation diverges into territory that isn’t related to women, far away from the princess. I sigh, trying to focus on their talk of hizuran customs and the architecture of the palace (subjects that might seem innocent to any casual listener) but my mind is on the princess and her pretty, serious face. It’d be fun to see her laugh at a point, but I don’t say this out loud.

For now, I want the image of her to be mine alone.

Maybe I’ll try to beat Marco at being her close guard.

___________________________

I enter the royal chamber and get rid of my kimono to walk about in my undergarments. Kiyomi is sitting on the far end of the room, and she gestures me to sit at her side to have our afternoon tea. I take the cup and walk out towards my garden, cringing at the idea of sitting down a moment longer.

I understand the need for audiences, and it is not that I don’t enjoy listening to queries from the citizens and solving as many problems as I’m allowed…but I’m not one to made for sitting down.

“That boy,” I hear myself saying before I can stop myself, looking at Kiyomi over my shoulder. “The tall one.”

“What about him?” Kiyomi asks, in that casual tone I know so well. She’s curious to know what I’m thinking, because she already formed an idea of the boy herself.

“He’s got a good height,” I say, turning again towards the gardens. “I haven’t sparred with someone so tall in a while.”

“He’s an eldian knight,” Kiyomi replies calmly. “He could harm you.”

“He was sent by Eren, wasn’t he? I doubt they mean any harm.”

“I don’t trust Yaegar.”

The words make me arch an eyebrow, and I’m persuaded to go sit at her side. I’ve met the Yaegar boy sporadically since I was brought back into the castle and became Kiyomi’s protégée. He was a loud child and, for a while, an even louder teenager. It’s been a while since I saw him last, and I wonder if he’s quieter now; a quieter demeanor would fit those green eyes of him much better. “Why don’t you trust him?”

“He’s sent handsome men.”

I snort. “Are you scared of handsome men, Kiyomi?”

“It concerns me he’s sent them to test you,” Kiyomi says, taking a sip of her tea, closing her eyes. “Three handsome men, all sent to be your close guards.”

Ah, my noble future husband, I think sarcastically. For a political alliance, it seems like too much trouble to test my loyalty for him this way. It’s not like we will always live together after we are married; we will have our wedding night, and a few months together every year afterwards. Because he is bound to Eldia as much as I am to Hizuru.

“I won’t jump into bed with them, you know. Not at first, at least.” I reply, and my words cause Kiyomi to choke on her tea. I cover my mouth with a hand, stifling a giggle. “I’m sorry, Kiyomi. Let me help you clean.”

“Don’t.” she warns, narrowing her eyes. She knows I just said that to shock her, but she does not like the ring of my words. An unmarried and young princess is a dangerous thing, she has told me. She and my servants told me I am lovely to look at. According to her, I am ripe for picking.

According to my skills, whoever comes near me will end with a broken neck.

“About the sparring,” I mention again. “I really haven’t had a tall fighting partner.”

Kiyomi smiles and narrows her eyes again, this time playfully. “You are rather set on that boy,” she says. I shoot her a questioning look, but all I get in return is the same placid, cheerful smile of hers that tells me she’s seeing something I am not. “You were looking at him since they walked into the room.”

“Because he is tall. I haven’t practiced against someone that tall,” I reply, but Kiyomi remains silent. Her silence hurts my pride. “Do you really think me capable of jumping into bed with the presents Eren sent me? Why do you think I would act this way?”

The hurt tone of my words placates her teasing somewhat. She puts her porcelain cup down and places a hand atop my own, a loving gesture that’s not uncommon among families behind closed doors. I smile; I barely remember my family before Kiyomi. In a way, she’s the closest I’ve ever had to a mother.

“He just reminds me of someone, dear princess, that is all. I trust your judgment with these gifts as much as I trust your judgement with the council,” she says. Her words swell my pride as easy as they hurt it a moment ago.

“Who does he remind you of?” I ask, curious. “That Jean knight.”

She shakes her head. “Not important at the moment,” she sighs, using a piece of silk cloth to clean some of the crumbs around us. “What is important is you choosing which one of the three will be your close guard.”

“Must I choose?” I ask. The last thing I want is a close guard; someone to accompany me everywhere, stand by my tub when I wash, stand by me when I eat, watch over me while I sleep. It seems invasive, at best. “I can defend myself. We could give them the treatment we give ambassadors. They will much prefer that.”

“This is not for you. Your future husband has clearly gone out of his way to send you protection,” Kiyomi says. “Not allowing at least one of them as your close guard will mean offending him. The Yaegar brothers are the head of a powerful nation, a conquering nation. A nation we must keep in our good graces.”

Unlike the Yaegar brothers, the two eldians who rose to the head of the Eldian empire in a mere five years, I do not care much about conquering. The emperor before me, a distant uncle of mine, resembled them more than I ever will. He spread our dominion to the islands on the shallow waters to the west, and the vast horse plains to the north…lands I intend to return once I ascend to the throne of Hizuru and clean out my council.

Having an empress who doesn’t want to conquer won’t settle well with most royals, and it will surely make us weak in the face of Eldian prowess. So, my marriage must keep us in Eldia’s good graces for a generation or two, depending on how many heirs Eren and I produce. He has displayed every hizuran gift we’ve sent him, so I must do the same. Although I’ve never sent him humans as presents, to be fair.

This must’ve been his older brother’s idea. As little as I’ve treated him, I can’t conceive the idea of Eren sending three humans as presents. He values freedom of will too much.

“So, how will I choose my close guard?” I ask.

“We will give you time with the three, on your own,” Kiyomim says easily. “It’ll be a trial period, of sorts. You will choose in the end. I trust you will choose wisely, and go for the one who will tempt you the least.”

“None of them tempts me.” I reply, again hurt in my pride. Why does she think I will act like a giddy teenager? The three men are not bad to look upon, but I value my commitment to Hizuru far too much to put it at risk for a foreign man. My own mother already did, and it did not end well.

“Do you have one you’d prefer me to choose?” I ask, curious to know about her impression of the three knights. “One you think would make a good job?”

“I do,” she says. I look at her expectantly, but Kiyomi remains focused on pouring more tea for the both us. “I won’t tell you, Mikasa. You are bound for a throne and decisions will be your daily living. We start small, but important: you must choose this close guard of yours mindfully and responsibly.”

I sigh, sipping a little more tea, finding it bitter. I’ve taken decisions before but choosing a man who will guard me day and night is not high on my list of priorities. “Can I still have the tall one for sparring? Even if I don’t choose him.”

“I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“He can’t mind if he’s a present,” I quip back, thinking there must be a flaw to Eren’s logic. Why someone who loves the concept of being free so badly send three humans as presents for his future wife?

“Even so,” Kiyomi says with a soft smile. “I’m sure the Kirstein knight won’t mind.”

I frown, there’s a playful tone to her voice that I don’t recognize. Is she trying to imply Jean will agree because he will think I am not strong enough to beat him? I take another determined sip of my tea. Kiyomi is good at reading people, and if she thinks the tall knight considers me weak, then it must be so.

“I will show him.”

“What, princess?” Kiyomi asks.

I shake my head, undermining the matter, my head filled with thoughts of the tall knight.

__________________

The next morning, Kiyomi sends a message with one of her servant girls. Princess Mikasa will meet with us one at a time throughout an unspecified period of time, and then she will make her decision before the summer festivities.

Marco is called first, although I am not surprised. He did impress her first with his vast knowledge of the word freckles.

He comes back and tells us how he and the princess went visiting the art museum within the palace. They talked for hours about hizuran artists, and then see a small play together, in which he met the members of the council that handle cultural affairs within her palace and the city.

The next day, Reiner is called. Mikasa takes him to the silk market in one of her official visits, and they have lunch in the hanging gardens at one of the mountains, where he meets the minister of trade.

Despite their vastly different experiences, both Marco and Reiner agree on something.

“She’s quiet.” Reiner says from the pool of hot water in our garden. “She’s like an old volcano.”

“Did you just call her old?” I blurt out.

“He’s right,” Marco says, putting an appeasing hand on my shoulder. “She does come off as an old volcano. Never make a sound, and when they do, it’s important.”

I frown. “Could you not make conversation with her then?”

“You need to know the right things to say.” Reiner says, arching his eyebrow. “Do you think you can handle it?”

I scoff and roll my eyes. Reiner wants to be her close guard. Out of the three, he perhaps wanted it from before we even reached Hizuru. This is a mission to not only get rich, but also to get honor. He wants to be the hero that conquered Hizuru, perhaps he wants to conquer the whole country for himself. “Are you forgetting who you’re talking to?” I say, with an amount of confidence that I do not feel. “I can catch anything she throws my way.”

The next day, I get a call to go to the northmost garden in the castle, and a group of servants to accompany me to boot. Marco and Reiner both give me a thumbs up as the group of servants leads me away from the room; I smile confidently at them, but in reality, there’s a hole in my stomach that seems to be growing bigger.

The servants take me to a changing room first, and they hand me clothes that seem too cold for the weather outside. Black pants and a black, sleeveless shirt. I don’t ask questions, mostly because I know they won’t be answered by the group of silent servants.

I don’t want to think why she chose me last. On one hand, she might’ve not wanted to deal with my annoying ass for the first couple of days. On the other, she and Kiyomi might think to leave the best for last. Either thought is equally terrifying. Reiner and Marco met important people, and I can’t help but to wonder who I will meet todayu, or how I must act around them. I studied the members of her council, yes, but I reading about a person and meeting a person are two different things.

I find Mikasa –the princes— in a large, barren stretch of land that overlooks the mountains, talking to a man a few decades older. She wears pants and a sleeveless top much like mine, all black. I have to look at the ground as I walk forward; I’m not a prude by any means, but the clothes she has on would be considered scandalous for any hizuran royal. There is something in her hands, a black, metal-looking stick, and the man at her side holds it too.

It must be some sort of test, I tell myself. She wants to see if I can keep my mouth shut, my eyes to myself, and my face expressionless, qualities any future empress would want for a close guard. So, I must not, by all means, let my eyes wander to the curves of her body in that black ensemble, which matches so perfectly with her ponytailed hair.

I catch her eye and she gestures us all forward. The servants lead me until we’re standing six feet away from each other. I bend forward, meaning to bow, but the man with her presses the butt of his stick against my chin, stopping me.

“What?” he says in a booming voice, using eldian for my sake. “Do you intend on fighting right away?”

I blink, stepping back in an attempt of self-preservation. “Come again?”

“Sir Jean,” Mikasa —the princess says, greeting me with a polite smile I barely manage to give back. “I’m happy I look upon your face this morning.”

“Thank you, princess,” I say, stopping myself before I bow again, giving the long, heavy stick in their hands a fleeting look. “Thank you for this opportunity, princess, for letting me accompany you for the morning.”

The princess blinks at me and gives me a tight-lipped smile. “This is Yoshida Kururugi,” she says, giving the man next to her a look. “He was a head drill instructor for the hizuran troops. He became my personal teacher when I turned nine.”

The trainer looks hardened by the years, to say the least. Long scars traverse his face, prints from Hizuru’s bloody past. He stands straight, and I take that as a permission to bow before him. I do so, feeling more angered than confused. I might’ve been slightly out of line when meeting her, but that didn’t mean she had to give me this treatment.

Marco and Reiner met ministers, council members. And here I am, stuck with an old, bittered trainer for the frail princess. “Princess, I am confused,” I say after I finish greeting the man. “What are we doing today?”

She nods, acknowledging my question as valid, and takes a deep breath before answering. “We are sparring, Sir Jean,” she says, putting both hands on her long stick.

I blink, confused. “Princess, I do not wish to hurt you.”

Mikasa arches an eyebrow, in a surprisingly proud expression. “I will be fine.”

“But, princess—”

“I have not had a tall sparring partner in a while. You won’t be in trouble if you hurt me,” she says haughtily, and her voice reminds me I have no say in the discussion, no authority. If the princess wishes to spar with his shiny new present, so she shall. I hate it. “I am not familiar with eldian swordplay, and you are not familiar with eastern fighting styles.”

In that she is mistaken, I think as I try to force myself not to smile. I perhaps know more about hizuran fighting styles than she does. As much as a war veteran this man may be, Mikasa is still a princess. And no mere princess can stand against an eldian soldier.

“It shall be done as you say.” I say. The metal stick is against my chin before I can bow before her. I look at Yoshida, barely containing my frown. “I know, I know. No bowing before a fight.”

“A smart eldian,” he tells Mikasa, who nods in agreement.

“Let us begin,” she says. “You can have Kururugi’s weapon.”

Yoshida goes to the side of the training arena and Mikasa stands before me, regal, beautiful and, above all, unthreatening. I can’t say my pride isn’t more than a little hurt by her decision to make me a sparring partner, but I won’t say it aloud. If the princess wants a puppet to play sword with, I won’t make it easy for her. If the princess wants sparring, sparring she shall have. We bow to each other, and thus our fight begins without giving me a second to gloat to myself at the fact that the powerful hizuran flower has bowed for me.

She lifts her weapon and waits, her back straight, her body waiting. Ah, she wants to play the waiting game, wants me to lure her out into the struggle. Alright, I’ll give in. I charge forward with my weapon, dodging in the very last second to hit her behind her legs, thinking that if I make her loose balance, we can be done with the silly fight and move onto meeting members of her council.

To my utter shock, Mikasa jumps and avoids my stockade. She twirls, defying physics, and lands a kick to my chest that sends me stumbling back. I fall on my bottom, cursing lowly, and it is only then that I notice the muscles shifting in her arms, the way she isn’t even out of breath from her jump.

“Come, Sir Jean,” she says. “We are not finished yet.”

I stand again, feeling heat rushing to my cheeks. She’s a proud royal, and she is mocking me for having thought I could be a match to her. My pride overwhelms my sense of logic, and I charge forward again. I was the sixth best cadet in my generation; I’ve beaten Reiner at sparring, and I’ve even beaten Eren Yaegar himself at a fist fight. A mere princess with a few muscles isn’t a challenge.

She blocks my stockade again and tries hitting me with her stick, but I avoid it as good as she did it before. I hear her sighing in surprise, but I give myself no time to be proud. I kick forward, connecting my feet to her chest, and she steps back a few steps. Unlike me, however, she does not fall to the ground.

Mikasa stays at a safe distance. “You are tall, but slow.”

“You want conversation now?” I ask as we circle each other, both trying to find an opening.

“It is good to have conversation with the opponent,” she says seriously.

“Not when we’re fighting,” I reply, feeling my temper rise. “What are you hoping to get out of this?”

Mikasa blinks in confusion. She opens her mouth to answer, but I take an advantage of that brief moment of distraction to charge at her. Our weapons touch and I kick forward, but she is smaller than I am and, just as she said, I perhaps am too slow for her. She slithers away, aiming a blow at my hip, which I stop with my own weapon.

I attack once again and swing at her ankles, but she jumps and avoids the blow easily, as if she’s skipping rope. I go for her again, and my weapon connects with the muscles of her abdomen. Mikasa gives out a startled yelp, but she doesn’t back down. She charges at me with the most serene expression I’ve ever seen in a fighter and her weapon connects with my lower back.

I cry out from the pain from the sheer weight of the weapon, wondering why she isn’t crying from the blow I gave her.

“Damn you!” I shout, using my arms to grab her by the waist and lift her in the air. Not even that startles the princess, however. Letting go of her weapon, Mikasa wraps both of her legs around me and, using all her weight, brings us both down against the floor.

For a second, all I see is white flashes of light pass over my eyes, all I can feel is the throb of where her weapon connected with mine. After a moment of heavy breathing, I look down to realize she’s caught under my weight, her eyes wide in surprise and her face flushed from our fight. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“You-you—”

“I’m a great fighter?” I guess. “I know. I was sixth of my class.”

“You…”

“What is it?” I ask, my head thumping from exasperation. “You were all confidence back then. What ate your tongue?”

She flushes harder, and it is then that all the hizuran rules about physical touch flood my brain. I’m keenly aware of how little fabric we’re both using, how well I can feel the curve of her breasts against my body.

“You can’t touch me,” she pants, finding her ground and pushing me back. I move without protest, reeling still from the fact that I had her so close. Yoshida is at the princess’ side in less than five seconds, but, to my relief, I see no wish to punish me for touching the princess in his face. He eyes me up and down as the princess comes to her feet.

“Tall, slow,” he says, and I feel myself flushing in embarrassment. “Good fighter, though. Strong, good with your arms. Under whose command did you use to be?”

“Commander Smith,” I reply reluctantly. “Erwin Smith.”

“Ah, Smith,” Yoshida replies thoughtfully. “He did a good job. He must be disappointed to have lost such a good fighter.”

No, he’s looking forward to collecting another victory for Eldia, I think, but keep my mouth shut. Most of my attention is on the princess anyways. On the princess and her reddened face, the reddened shoulders, the feel of her body against mine. She averts her gaze from mine and part of me wonders if this is an accomplishment or a terrible mistake.

“Need help, boy?” Yoshida asks, his tone jovial, almost friendly, grabbing my hand to bring me to my feet. I stand, but the princess remains silent. “You sure are tall! What do people eat in Eldia?”

“I’m taller than most.” I say, giving him a half smile.

“It’s been a while since I saw the princess struggle in a fight,” Yoshida says, giving Mikasa a wide, friendly smile that she doesn’t return. I frown; it didn’t feel like she was struggling at all. “Princess?”

“Kururugi, do I have permission to leave?” she says, her eyes barely meeting mine.

Her master opens his mouth, as if recalling the rules and etiquette when it came to Mikasa. Now, he knows why she seems so upset, and why she refuses to look at me directly. “Of course, child,” he says with a nod. “You may leave. We will talk about your fight later.”

The princess runs past by me to enter the palace, and she is soon surrounded by three handmaids dressed in gray kimonos.

“I didn’t even apologize.” I say as the handmaids dress the princess with a beautiful green gown. I’m so focused on the movements of the muscles in her back that I barely have time to notice that one of the handmaids has a head of yellow hair. The liaison Zeke talked about, perhaps?

“I’m sure she will apologize to you in due time,” Yoshida says, bringing my attention back to him. “You just need to give her a little time. She is proud, but she is fair. She knows she forced your hand into the fight, and thus you broke the rules that bind her so.”

“How do you know her so well?” I venture.

Kururugi smiles at me. “Why, I’m Kiyomi’s partner. We raised her. She’s practically my daughter.” he says with an amused smile, and I curse myself for not having studied the booklet with all the information about the royals of Hizuru more thoroughly. “Don’t worry, boy, she will come around. In the meantime, I’m guessing you and I can have tea out in the gardens.”

I swallow saliva. Sure, she can’t stay shy forever, but I have a mission to fulfill. A timed mission, a mission that will make me richer than God. I don’t have time for the princess to be shy, or to be offended. What if she stays mad for the whole year?

I look at Kururugi, feeling the hole in my stomach become true and deep. This is the man who has raised her, the man who has trained her in the hizuran arts of combat. And I just embarrassed the princess in front of him. No, I touched the princess in front of him. I had her under my body in front of him, which must be the royal hizuran equivalent of getting caught half-naked by your own father in a barn, with a boy.

I feel lightheaded suddenly. I definitely screwed up.

[3laxx]

Beneath Hexside High

When Boscha accidentally trashes the gym in Grudgby practice, Luz panics and pulls her in Gus' tunnel to avoid getting in trouble. Unfortunately for them, that only gets them in more trouble, as they discover some dark secret beneath Hexside...

Luz and Boscha fall through the floor into their rival school's ruins, Glandus, and discover that they aren't alone down there. Begrudgingly, they have to work together.

The summary is a little questionable but I'm tired xD I'm glad it attracted you anyway! Also I'm very open for summary suggestions, just shoot them in the comments!

In any way, have fun with this Oneshot, I had a lot of fun writing it and will hopefully be able to write more over summer.

Ao3 / FF.net

---

Grumbling, she leaned against her locker and let her head knock against the hard surface. How these things were actually alive while feeling so much like metal was still a mystery to her, even after the four years she had spent on the Boiling Isles.

She was nearing graduation now, and her choice to take all tracks took its toll now. Nowadays, she was hurrying from one class to another, trying to perfect her glyphs skills while also trying to cram as much theory into her head as possible.

Her ADHD wasn’t making her life easy, with just scribbling down notes while listening to professors droning on about something, but usually, it helped when the magic theory showed itself in the more practical lessons. Naturally, she had a lot more trouble getting all the history right, since the Boiling Isles had an entirely different chronology and events from the human world.

Here, nobody knew about the invention of the printing machine, the World Wars, or John F. Kennedy.

Instead, she was learning about the Savage ages, the emperor’s version of the history of the Boiling Isles (while Eda was teaching her all about the true history) and the different laws and establishments made over the past fifty years.

Well, her friends kept an eye on her at least.

Eda always made her eat enough, so much that she started reminding her of her mom back in the human realm by now, and King always managed to make her smile.

Willow and Gus helped her with Plants and Illusions and when Boscha had started being a little more open to the friendly human, her clique had started helping Luz along as well. With their help, Luz had managed to find a lot more glyphs still, and now at the age of eighteen, she had mastered plants and ice magic, as well as discovered useful glyphs for abominations, oracles, lightning, teleportation, and her personal favorite, mist. Well, it was more of a combination between fire and ice glyphs, which she had first discovered by mixing up drawing her glyph in class and accidentally created the mist glyph, which held properties of both the fire and ice glyph.

She could also summon clear water and had even managed to find a shield glyph, making it a lot easier on Eda and Lilith to protect the House from boiling rain.

She had even been able to find a healing glyph, which she had immediately given to the Healing Coven as well because they had a deeper understanding of their magic, and paired with the glyph, Luz had been able to learn advanced healing outside of Hexside classes together with some glyph interested healers.

By now, she could easily attend to scratches, wounds, lacerations and even ease the pain of broken bones. The healers over in the Coven loved using the glyphs as a first-aid painkiller.

The best aspect of staying here on the Boiling Isles was, of course, her chosen family and friends, but one person had managed to make her stay way sweeter.

Her girlfriend.

Opening her eyes, Luz smiled towards the chattering group of her friends closing in on her locker and locked eyes with Amity. The young witch smiled back and, upon reaching her, leaned next to her on the lockers, not minding the eye above her head blinking sleepily before closing again, and took Luz’s hand to interlace their fingers.

“Hi babe.”, she greeted and got a small meep! in return, making her smirk. Amity was still so easily flustered, she almost felt bad.

“Hi. You look tired.”, there it was. Luz hummed when she gave a noncommittal shrug, then she turned to Willow who was waiting for her attention to talk about the upcoming test in plants.

Amity and she had started dating two years ago when they had confessed during their Azura Book Club meeting. Or well, Amity had confessed, Luz had awkwardly laughed and kissed her hand.

Fond memories.

She bit back a chuckle before answering Willow while squeezing Amity’s hand softly.

“Hey Willow, by the way. I’ve had some trouble with the speed of growing flowers. Either I grow them too fast and they break or I grow them too slow and can’t get them to full bloom. What’s up with that?”, she asked, getting Willow’s full attention – and enthusiasm – for her question.

After Willow had switched to the plant track, it had become evident that the plat witch not only had quite some skill to show for this track but also the enthusiasm and interest to study hard for it. She had caught up with theory a lot faster than Bump would’ve anticipated.

Her girlfriend rested her head against her shoulder before answering Skara who had been gushing about some up-and-coming singer she heard about, and Luz couldn’t help but overhear the mini yawn she tried to cover. Apparently, she had studied all night again, and then she was calling her tired.

Luz nodded to the answer Willow gave about managing to bring the flower up to full bloom before keeping it right there, when the bell screamed and she reached down to shoulder her bag again, waving the others goodbye and tugging Amity along who was just laughing about a joke Gus made before turning back to her.

Another little yawn.

Luz hummed at that, kissing her temple. She didn’t even get a chastising clap on her shoulder, just a quiet, satisfied hum. Normally, Amity was pretty adamant about keeping public affection to a minimum, especially while they were nearing graduation. But sometimes, Luz couldn’t resist.

“I look tired while you’re dead on your feet.”, she mumbled and Amity tried to bite something back but instead, a big yawn now sounded. She grinned at that and lifted their hands, pressing a soft kiss to her fingers and coming to a stop in front of the abomination’s classroom.

Luckily, they would attend a practical class today. She was sure Amity would doze away otherwise with the state she was in. Humming, Luz turned to her and softly took her in her arms, resting her chin on the side of Amity’s head. Thanks to her heels, Amity was just tall enough for Luz not to reach the top of her head, but she was still small enough for Luz to cuddle her in properly. The abominations professor would still take a while, Luz had heard about some hold up in the oracles hallways and he had been called there to keep whatever it was under control.

Amity sighed and buried her face in her girlfriend’s uniform, before nuzzling her way up to Luz’s neck, breathing against her brown skin. Luz loved the way she was snuggling up to her, like a little cat. Whenever she was given the chance, Amity would take up any and all physical affection. Preferably in private, since she wasn’t a big fan of being observed doing so, but with her sleep deprivation, her boundaries had seemed to be somewhat adjusted.

Not that Luz minded. She loved affection from her, and she didn’t care about being in public. Sometimes she even liked it, because she could show people how much Amity was her little girlfriend.

“… Mm md m stud all nmmght…”, she mumbled and Luz strained her ears but couldn’t actually make out what Amity had meant.

“… What did you say?”, she asked and the witch huffed, before turning her head a bit so her mouth wouldn’t be pressed up against Luz’s collarbone and muffle her words.

“Mom made me study all night.”, she replied, now much clearer and Luz grumbled at that, “For the last test I got.”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Luz held her tighter, genuinely confused.

“Your last test was an A, how could she be angry with that?”, she asked and Amity huffed.

“I don’t know. I think she had a bad day.”, she sighed, then she pressed a small, hidden kiss to Luz’s neck and shook her head.

“No talk, more hug.”, she demanded and Luz knew exactly why. After this class, she would have to go to the gym to train for Grudgby and Amity didn’t like hugging her when she was sweaty. She assumed her girlfriend just didn’t like the smell. And after lunch, they both had some extra activities, which meant no Azura Book Club for the afternoon.

Luz already missed her until tomorrow.

Even after two years of a happy relationship, the longing for close proximity hadn’t lessened. Even a weekend occasionally was too long, resulting in some snippy, well-meaning comments from Eda until Luz would see her again on Monday.

The witch nuzzled closer to her and Luz leaned her head against hers, experimentally blowing some tiny baby hairs that stood away from her little ponytail, observing how they fluttered in the wind. Amity had tried resisting her mother’s demands to dye her hair again about a year back but had quickly lost the fight. Luz wondered what her hair would look like now since Amity had let it grow out a little more and kept it wilder and unruly. She would really like to see her naturally brunette hair on her. Maybe as soon as Amity turned eighteen, she was allowed to let it grow out.

Humming, Luz let herself fall back against the wall, pulling Amity with her and letting her rest on her chest due to the slight angle they stood in now, but Amity didn’t seem to mind. They waited for another bit until it became clear that the professor wouldn’t turn up anymore, so Luz coaxed Amity into following her to the communal space of the graduates, a room that was reserved for the grad class only, where they lied down on a couch together.

Sitting down against the backrest, Amity immediately slumped against her and Luz adjusted accordingly for her girlfriend to sit comfortably, before nuzzling her nose into her hair.

“What class you got after abominations?”, she asked softly and Amity hummed, a little strained.

“Runes. Can you just hide me?”, she asked and Luz had to smile about that, softly kissing her temple. Amity wasn’t even bothered by the handful of other students in the room, which painted a full picture of her exhaustion for Luz.

“I don’t think I have room to hide you in my Grudgby uniform.”, she timidly replied and Amity let out an exasperated groan, before turning to Luz and throwing both her leg over her lap and her arm around her chest.

“Pleeease, I’m so tired, I don’t wanna go to Runes.”, she whined and Luz decided she had never heard anything more adorable than her girlfriend’s whining.

“You’re top of the year. You’re not allowed to say stuff like that. Others are looking up to you.”, she jokingly mumbled, to which she finally earned the well-deserved jab in her ribs.

“You’re not allowed to say that to me, you’re my girlfriend.”, Amity grumbled and Luz giggled, somewhat sliding to the side so she leaned against the armrest instead and put her legs up on the couch after kicking off her shoes and coaxed Amity to follow her suit. Which she did and a minute later, they were lying down on their sides, cuddled up together.

“Sorry, Mi Amor, I won’t do it again.”, she mumbled, then Amity pressed her cold nose into the crook between her jaw and neck, which made her shiver. Amity loved to do that because she always had an exceptionally cold nose tip.

“Good. Accept defeat.”, the young witch huffed and Luz couldn’t help but giggle at her sleepy voice, softly kissing her forehead, before nudging her so Amity would look up. She looked up blearily, her eyes barely opened so Luz couldn’t even make out the molten gold of her iris, then she kissed her nose tip before Amity was allowed to lie back down on her chest, her nose pushing right back to the junction of Luz’s neck to her jaw. She supposed she wouldn’t ever be able to get Amity to stop that. Honestly, she didn’t want to, anyway.

“I accept defeat, oh almighty overlord.”, she softly mocked the girl in her arms and got an indignant, but nonetheless content huff back. Smiling, Luz listened to her breaths getting longer and calmer, while she kept her nose buried in her hair, enjoying smelling Amity’s very own scent paired with the shampoo she was using. Humming, the Latina finally closed her eyes as well, smiling to herself.

It didn’t take long until Amity fell asleep against her and Luz was just glad that the twins didn’t attend Hexside anymore since they had graduated two years ago.

It wasn’t that she didn’t miss their antics, but it sure made Amity a lot more comfortable not being annoyed by her older siblings all day long, since they still lived at home and she had them all afternoon still.

Luz was leaning against the side rest of the couch now and Amity had her arms slung around her torso, her cheek squished against Luz’s chest while she slept. The human smiled softly, before taking a picture on Amity’s scroll phone for her to find later, then she rested her head back against the cushion and hummed, closing her eyes as well.

She trusted the bell’s screaming to wake them up in time, so she let herself doze away softly, enjoying the feeling of her girlfriend in her arms and her head rested on her chest, their steady breathing aligning until they created a calming symphony.

Little did she know Gus found them as well after Luz had also dozed away, and taken another picture to send to them later, before sitting down on the couch next to them and starting to practice an Illusion spell he had been working on together with Luz, who had found the Illusion glyph just about a week ago.

 ---

Luz groaned when her head slammed into the stone floor and she opted to just stay on her back until the white spots of pain would stop dancing in her vision.

This decision wasn’t hers to make, though.

Because a rough pair of hands ripped her up and pulled her into a sprint. Or well, she was stumbling more than she was running actually until she regained her footing and was able to carry herself across the bumpy, uneven floor while behind them, a growl sounded.

“For fucks sake, Noceda!”, an incredibly charming voice yelled into her ear as if she hadn’t just taken the brunt of the fall for them both and she winced with the volume.

“Boscha, I swear, if it hadn’t been for you, we wouldn’t be in this situation!”, she grumbled, rubbing the spot where she had hit the stone, then she glanced over to the triclops girl.

The other teen didn’t spare her a glance while her seeking eyes followed the hallway they were running down, seeking a hideout or an exit or anything.

“That’s because you insisted on using that stupid tunnel the small faker dug to get away from Bump!”, Boscha growled and Luz finally ripped her hands away, so she could be running freely again.

“First of all, Gus is an Illusionist, not a faker. And it’s not my fault you trashed the gym just to show me off!”, she shot back and followed Boscha taking a sharp right.

“And it’s not my fault your stupid face makes me wanna throw things into it!”

The human groaned. They wouldn’t get anywhere with this.

After they had once again gotten into a fight in the gym, Boscha had absolutely trashed the place, leading to Bump demanding to speak to them and Luz, handling out of panic, pulling Boscha into the tunnel Gus had dug under the school.

The tunnel floor had opened up under the weight of the two girls, and given way to a hidden set of hallways, looking like the school floors above them. Luz had a bad feeling that they had been hidden and sealed off for a reason. Didn’t Grom live under the school or something?

She definitely remembered that Hexside had been built on the ruins of their opposing school, Glandus High. Were these ruins of the former Glandus school?

Well, it didn’t matter anyway. Because right after they had fallen into these forgotten hallways, something had started chasing them. Boscha had said it was something like rats, just essentially bigger versions from the human realm, but at the same time, she had been pretty uncertain.

That wasn’t anything like critters living off of crumbs down here. She was pretty sure it was a lot worse, maybe even Grometheus himself, but she absolutely didn’t want to find out. And to both their dismay, in their panic, Boscha and Luz had managed to find what was probably the only other hole in the ground and fallen through that as well. Now they were a long way under the school with no way back up.

Boscha took another aimless left and Luz huffed, still rubbing her head before running straight into a wall, along with Boscha who had looked behind them. Now, this was a dead end.

“Fuck. Any ideas?”, the three-eyed gaze found her and Luz quickly got up to grab Boscha’s sleeve in turn now and dart back to the hallway they had been coming from, before running again, away from the direction they had been coming from.

“I think these hallways are somewhat structured like Hexside above. If we follow this one and take a right, we might find some stairs and breakthrough.”, she rambled, her brain running a thousand miles an hour while she was trying to navigate through this maze. She hoped there would be some sort of stairs.

“Are you sure about this, Noceda?!”

Rolling her eyes, Luz shrugged and let go of Boscha’s sleeve.

“I’m assuming these are Glandus High hallways. I hope Bump somewhat resembled Hexside from it.”

Now it was Boscha’s turn to snarl.

“You really think Bump would resemble the infrastructure of our rivals?!”, she asked and Luz grimaced. She admitted, it seemed super unlikely, but if she was being honest, she had no idea. She just wanted to keep running for now. What was worrying her more was that the walls all along the hallways were somewhat lit. Which meant there was still magic lingering around here.

Was this a good or a bad sign? What if the creature chasing them was feeding off of it? Or even worse, it was the one keeping the magic alive down here?

Growling, Luz tried to keep her mind in the game instead of lapsing into theories.

They took another turn, running down a hallway and past a few abandoned rooms, but soon it became evident to Luz that if the hallways were somewhat close to Hexside above, they should’ve stumbled across some stairs by now.

“Maybe we can hide out in one of those rooms for the time being, until that thing forgets us!”, she yelped, pinching her aching sides, but Boscha didn’t lessen her sprint.

“That thing found us immediately when we fell down here! Pretty sure it uses magic tracking us!”

A nod was all Luz could muster. She groaned, taking a turn to some sort of communal area, then they sprinted into another hallway branching off of it, spending no time looking around. And sure enough, a few seconds after they left the room, she heard one of the old chairs cracking.

“Shouldn’t we find any sort of way upstairs, soon?!”, she questioned and the other teen growled, “I mean, we’re two levels below, somehow they had to be connected!”

After taking another turn, they stumbled into a big room, looking almost like an auditorium, and Luz had to break her sprint into a jog, favoring her aching sides.

“C’mon human! We gotta go!”, the witch yelled when she turned, but Luz was heaving. She couldn’t go on like that.

“I’ll try to block off here! Go around!”, she ordered and pulled a glyph, turning through the door they had been coming through. Boscha knew Luz was right. They couldn’t keep on running away like this, and she preferred the open space to the hallways as well. Grumbling, she jogged backward, then she turned and sprinted out into the hallway to go around. Luckily, they seemed to stretch all around this auditorium or gym.

Meanwhile, Luz tried to regain her breath as she threw the rock glyph, creating a wall underneath herself so whatever followed them would be confused first. Huffing, she crouched down on the ledge she had created for the beast to show itself. It had started chasing them down immediately after they had entered these halls and not let off of them. Maybe it was territorial, but it shouldn’t have found them as easily.

Groaning, Luz rubbed her sides. She was not used to sprinting that much, even after playing Grudgby for four years now. Against Amity’s endurance and Willow’s strength, she was still very much a nerd. Suddenly, silence filled the catacombs down here and the scratching and huffing from whatever had given them a good run for their lives stopped. For a short moment, Luz feared it had gotten Boscha, but she would’ve heard her screams. Probably.

Holding her breath, she fixated the door while she pulled the next glyph, a fire glyph, and remained quiet. Apparently, Boscha did the same, as she couldn’t hear a sound whatsoever anymore.

And then, hell broke loose.

Something was barreling through her wall and the next thing she knew she was falling down to the ground. Rocks of her summoned wall fell around her and dust filled her lungs before she roughly slammed on the tiles below, her elbow cracking and her head, once again, connecting with stone.

At this rate, she should consider wearing a helmet.

Quickly coming to her feet, Luz stumbled out of the dust cloud and for the first time, got a proper look at the beast that had been following them around for the past few minutes. It was big and scaly, but she couldn’t define what exactly it was. It almost looked like a mix of a rat and a lizard, just a lot bigger than was still acceptable. Its skin and scales seemed worn and battle experienced, but the beast didn’t seem old. On the contrary, it seemed quite full of energy.

A scream escaped her throat and the thing turned towards her. Where there should be eyes, there was just head. Her gaze flickering around, she saw no eyes. This thing had nothing that resembled eyes. Apparently, it was blind.

Figures why it found them so quickly.

It was completely relying on its hearing, judging by the big, mouse-like ears on top of its head. Luz breathed through. Maybe she could befriend and calm it down. After all, they fell into its territory, maybe they could satiate its rage somewhat and leave before anyone came to harm.

When it opened its big snout, though, Luz gulped and reconsidered.

These teeth looked very much made for killing.

She doubted this thing grew them for no reason. They looked like they could smash and swallow cows in whole. The thing started charging at her and she couldn’t move in shock until a fireball slammed into the side of its hideous head and she looked over to see a furious pink head between the rubble.

“Human! Do you have a death wish?!”, she heard and resisted rolling her eyes.

“How do we escape this?!”, she shot back and Boscha jumped over the debris of her failed wall, before joining her side, grumbling when she summoned fire around her hands.

“We kill it.”, she hissed and Luz slanted her lips, but she readied a glyph.

“I don’t feel like that’s the right thi-”, she began, but the triclops sent another fireball after the beast before grabbing her neck, her hand clasping too tightly she almost complained and forcing her out of the way while it charged.

“Either this thing or us!”, she called and the human sighed. Fine, she could see that logic. That still didn’t ease her mind.

“It’s blind! We could use that!”

Boscha shot her a glance and, while obviously heeding her useful information, she still seemed aggravated and annoyed with her. There was just no way to make Boscha happy.

Keeping their mouths shut and their feet planted to the ground, they held their breath. The beast shook its head after slamming into the wall, then it began sniffing around and Luz had to muffle a disgruntled groan of annoyance.

Cool, it could smell them as well. So much went for keeping quiet if it could still locate them.

Picking up her scent, it turned towards her and once again opened its snout, revealing its multiple fangs, before charging back at her and Luz could just so jump out of the way while it rushed past her.

“It can smell us!”, she yelled at Boscha who summoned some lightning to throw it at the beast, confusing it for a moment while she joined back up with the human.

“Alright then, new plan.”, the pink-headed witch shot her a glare, readying her stance, “We finally turn deadly.”

Grumbling, Luz pulled out a few new glyphs, furrowing her eyebrows.

“You do. I’ll try to cage it in.”, she held back and Boscha growled in frustration.

“Fine, you do you. As soon as you trapped it, I can kill it.”

She was just about to disagree when Boscha was already on the move. The witch sprinted towards the beast and sent powerful blasts after it, while Luz still pondered. She didn’t want to kill it. They had intruded into their territory. On the other hand, it was probably powerful enough to break out of everything Luz would cook up for it as a cage. And even if she could somehow capture it, it’d most likely starve once they left.

Huffing, the human gripped her glyphs tighter and ran after Boscha. She couldn’t prevent it and most likely, Boscha was right. They would either kill it or be killed and if she could choose, she preferred the first option to the second.

Slapping a glyph on the floor, she let a thorned vine shoot towards the beast but it smartly dodged the plant and instead opted for trampling Luz down in a big cloud of dust, while Boscha didn’t stop shooting it with everything she had.

Dazedly, Luz got back up after having felt her ribcage being compressed by about thrice her weight, then she threw another glyph to hinder it from reaching Boscha. An ice pillar slammed into its side just as it got ready to snap at the Grudgby team captain, then she huffed and propped herself up on her knees.

That had been close. The beast got back up way faster than she had been able to recharge and whipped its tail at the witch, but she managed to slam it back with a shield, causing an explosion where the tail connected with the shield.

“Human!”

Luz reacted fast and jumped to action, letting a plant glyph grow underground to resurface right before Boscha and foiling another attack, at least stalling the beast for a moment, until the witch could get herself a little farther away. She stumbled back, summoning lightning to disorient the attacker, then she made a run for it, past Luz and towards a wider space, so they could fan out and take it into their crossfire. The demon tried snapping at both of them but they were standing too far apart, both attacking it with the best they could muster until the beast managed to break through Luz’s defense and slam her into the wall behind her.

Groaning, she fell to the floor and immediately smelled the horrible stench of decaying organic material around her. The beast had her now.

She squinted her eyes and felt teeth snapping at her, yet the attacker was pulled back and only managed to bite onto her leg, dragging her with.

Opening her eyes, Luz saw Boscha having summoned a leash on which she had tried to pull it away from her.

“Fuck’s sake, Boscha! Let it go!”, she screamed in pain and gave it her best to punch and kick the beast wherever she could, but she had yet to find a weak spot.

“If you wanna be eaten, sure!”, the witch yelled back and despite the pain, Luz couldn’t help but groan in frustration. Sure, thank you, she was hanging onto that thing Boscha had caught.

Growling, she slapped a rock glyph on the floor and conjured a spike to impale the beast from beneath, but it jumped to the side. At least she had left an anchor to hold onto now, which she promptly did.

Immediately, the pull on her leg made her scream, and the beast snapped after her again in the hopes of getting more of her.

“LET GO RIGHT NOW!!”, she screamed and the pull stopped when the beast was released and jumped forward, ripping her in a different direction now, but she was prepared. A well-aimed blast from her explosion glyph shot the snout of the thing right open as the side of it had been exposed. Luz rolled away and tried coming back to her feet but there was no use.

“Strap it down!”, she yelled at Boscha who was already way ahead of her. The witch jumped past her and used the leash spell again to trap it, yelping when its razor-sharp teeth grazed her arm, then Luz slapped a glyph on the ground and a gigantic ice shard rose from the ground, impaling the beast right through the stomach and out its back.

Panting, the two teenagers watched its breathing stopping, then Boscha dropped down to the ground next to Luz.

“Titan’s fucking asshole, human.”, she fell flat on her back, panting, “Luckily for us I got skills.”

At that, the human could merely snarl as she sat up a little straighter, slapping a healing glyph on her impaled leg and making it a little better. She couldn’t quite heal up, but at least she had stopped the blood flow.

“Lucky for us I got enough glyphs packed for some reason. Oh wait, I know exactly why! Because I knew you would get us in trouble in training.”, she shot back and Boscha couldn’t do much else than laugh.

“… We’re actually a good team, Noceda.”, she finally said and Luz plopped down next to her before using her last healing glyph to stick it to Boscha’s arm, causing a low grunt from the witch as the pain subsided.

“We actually are, huh.”, grinning smugly, she turned back to the other teenager, “… ‘s that mean I’m off the bench?”

Boscha merely gave her a glare.

 ---

After a few minutes of catching their breath, they decided not to take their chances with the family of that thing.

Luz had discovered her arm that had taken the brunt of the fall from her wall was bruised and she shouldn’t move it more. At least she could move everything else. All over her body she was sporting scratches, smaller and bigger ones, and her leg had started bleeding again after the magic of the glyph had faded, even if the wounds had gotten smaller. The back of her head felt wet due to hitting it on the ground two or three times – she didn’t even remember anymore – but she didn’t dare to check if she was actually bleeding. For now, it was just a feeling and she couldn’t do anything about it anyway, because she had used up her healing glyphs.

Boscha looked just like her, except she had a laceration on her forehead from when the beast had decided to hit her force shield and sported some nasty gashes along her arm. Just like Luz, she was bruised all over.

Unwillingly, she still offered her support when Luz couldn’t put weight on her leg and let her wrap an arm around her shoulders before they could start to make their way towards the next hallway. Luz hobbled along to Boscha’s dragging steps and they made slow progress, but at least they couldn’t make out any other hostile noises for now. She didn’t suppose they could last another fight, Boscha’s bile sac was probably drained and her glyphs wouldn’t last them long anymore.

Luckily for them, they actually found a flight of stairs. It didn’t get them far, but at least they got back up to the level they had fallen into from Gus’ tunnel. Luz would really have to inform him of the maze down here, to mind when he would continue on his tunnel, not to fall down here on accident.

On the other hand, if she told him, he’d probably go down here on purpose to explore. Grimacing, she decided to tell Willow, so she could at least attempt to secure Gus’ tunnel enough so he wouldn’t do the same as Boscha and her.

Up here, the torches were all lit as well. In the dimmed light, they could see well enough to navigate around and watch for possible holes which they had been able to avoid on the level below. Which implied that this basement actually went down at least one level deeper than where they had been. At one point, Boscha requested a break, and Luz more than willingly agreed, groaning when she sat down and leaned against the wall. She had used her jacket as a makeshift sling for her arm and her leg was bleeding, not immensely, but she figured the amount she had already lost would be piling up in the future. It was just dribbling, but continuously. Boscha’s arm as well.

“Think we should just blast upwards? For all we know, Hexside’s halls should just be above us.”, the witch requested and Luz shook her head.

“There’s at least the height of Gus’ tunnel between us and Hexside’s ground level and the danger is too big that we’ll actually hit a wall and cause structural damage. Plus, we could be hurting other students.”, she quickly said while leaning her head against the wall, grimacing while she pulled her pants tighter around her wounds, in an attempt to make them stop bleeding. With just one hand that proved more difficult than she thought.

“Well, what do you propose, then?”, Boscha snarled and Luz sighed. She was not up for the snappy nonsense Boscha was pulling right now.

“We search the hole up to Gus’ tunnel and go up through there. We just took some lefts and rights. How hard can it be to find our way back?”

Boscha merely gave her a suspicious glance, then she sighed and shrugged, before helping the human back up to her feet.

“Fine, we can try that. I think it was a right, then left and two rights?”, she guessed and Luz furrowed her eyebrows.

“Wait, but wasn’t that left, right thing a dead end? Where we ran into the wall?”, she leaned against Boscha and the teenager groaned, closing her lower eyes in frustration while the third kept open, not to lose the direction of where they had come from.

“But wasn’t the big gym thing another left?”

“I think it was a right.”, Luz pondered, then she shrugged, “We’ll find it, pretty sure. We could follow some noises if you can hear some!”

Instead of broadcasting her frustration again, the Grudgby captain just started walking and pulled Luz along who tried to hobble the most balanced she could, before pulling a light glyph and activating it so it’d illuminate the way before them and help them have a little more sight than what the torches did. They bickered sometimes about the directions and ran into the wrong hallways quite a lot, but in the end, Boscha’s ears flicked when she picked something up.

“Hey, wait, I think there are some voices in that direction!”, she excitedly quipped and Luz considered this being the first time she actually saw Boscha being genuine. Just as quickly as that excitement came, she stopped it, though, “Thank the Titan, I was getting really fed up with you.”

At that, the human couldn’t help but snort.

“And what would you have done, huh? Just left me at some corner?”

Boscha shrugged non-committal and continued on until they finally saw a light that didn’t belong to the torches or the light glyph Luz had activated. Now she could also hear the voices of the students through the ceiling and let out a big breath of relief.

“Thank fuck.”, she sighed when they arrived at the hole up to Gus’ tunnel. Apparently, nobody else had discovered the hole down here. Which meant they couldn’t just pop up there looking like this.

Luz helped Boscha up into Gus’ tunnel and in turn, the triclops pulled her up. Deciding to follow the tunnel to the Grudgby field not to pop up somewhere in the school and attract any attention, they crawled their way to where Gus had shown Luz the tunnel ending beneath the bleachers. They emerged unseen and Boscha helped Luz hobble out towards the side where the bleachers were open, then they both breathed through. The sunlight hit their faces in what felt like hours to them when in reality, they couldn’t have been down there for longer than an hour.

“So, infirmary, huh?”, Luz finally broke the silence and Boscha nodded with a grimace.

“Maybe we can pretend we settled our dispute on the field.”, she added and Luz chuckled before agreeing. They made their way around the school and entered through the main entrance because that was the one closest to the infirmary when suddenly, a voice made them stop dead in their tracks.

“Stop right there!”

It sounded angry.

Luz gulped when she turned to see Amity stomping towards them, trailed by a furious-looking Willow and a guilty Gus. Trying a smile, she managed a small voice. Her girlfriend was looking like she could rip her up in the air. She was actually baring her fangs, and Willow wasn’t looking that much different.

“H-Heeey, Amity! Good that you’re here, actually, because-”

“Save it!”, she snapped and glared at Boscha who had shrunk just as much as Luz had, then she cupped her face, inspecting her up and down. When Amity pulled her fingers back out of her hair, they were tinged red, just what Luz had expected from her rough falls. Meanwhile, Boscha was arrested by Willow who was still trailed by Gus, with his shoulders pulled up, watching Willow grabbing Boscha’s ear and pulling her right to the infirmary while the Grudgby captain was weakly complaining and whining at the way she was being handled.

Luz fixated back on her girlfriend who was still looking at her red fingers, then she looked over the human once more, only now registering the injuries she was sporting. One twinge in her expression told Luz that their Grudgby lie would not hold up against her bitten leg.

“… Oh Titan, what happened to you…?”, she softly asked, so softly that Luz almost hadn’t heard her. Grimacing, she tried shrugging it off, even if her heart broke with Amity’s scared expression.

“I-I’m fine, Amity, I’m okay, it’s actually just-”, her girlfriend looked up to her and Luz cut her sentence off right when she saw her watering eyes catching her gaze.

The witch leaned towards her and pulled her head down with her hands cupping her neck, then their lips connected. Luz closed her eyes at that, savoring every little second she got of Amity’s kiss.

In the two years of their relationship, they hadn’t kissed in public, just little cheek or hand kisses. But never real kisses, on the lips, because of the public display of affection that Amity wanted to keep at a minimum.

Luz leaned into the kiss and hummed softly, enjoying how Amity’s body was pressing against her despite the pain. Her arms slowly weaving around her waist, Luz pulled Amity even closer, feeling Amity pouring all her concern and fear into the kiss. She couldn’t imagine how worried Amity must’ve been. First, they trash the gym, then they vanish completely, and now Luz turns up bleeding and injured. She must’ve been worried sick and Luz was feeling more and more guilty the longer she thought about it. Their kiss came to a gentle stop, but Amity didn’t have enough yet. She nuzzled back against her human and Luz captured her lips back, sighing with the small love confessions Amity granted her. She tilted her head a little more, allowing Amity more control, and even felt her girlfriend whining a little, mewling into their kiss. This was more of a reunion than it was a make-out.

Her fingers softly weaved into the locks around Luz’s ears, before she pulled back and her gaze sought out her human’s gaze again. Only now did Luz realize that her eyes were actually wet and that a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Oh gosh, Amity, are you crying?”, she reflexively asked and her girlfriend’s expression very quickly turned into something else. Something very different. She almost looked angry again.

“Yeah, of course, I’m crying!”, she suddenly shouted and pinched Luz’s ear, causing her to flinch and yelp, “I was worried sick about you! Nobody knew where you went until Gus said you might’ve used his tunnel and Bump got all weird about that! And now you come back injured!”

“Ouch, Ami, my ears!”, she tried but her girlfriend wouldn’t listen, “A-And about that, could we actually-”

“No, you’ll be listening to me now!”, she snapped and Luz immediately sealed her lips, her shoulders pulling up, “What you did in the gym was irresponsible and childish, and then disappearing like that is just plain careless! Am I being clear?”

Luz nodded, then she tried suppressing a little groan but Amity had caught it, her eyes suddenly widening.

“Oh Titan, that’s right! We should get you to the infirmary, immediately!”

The human nodded to that again and managed a strained smile before her girlfriend summoned an abomination to scoop her up and carry her to the healers’ office.

“… You don’t wanna carry me yourself?”, Luz dared to ask quietly and Amity turned around to chastise her more, though she could recognize a little teasing glimmer in her eyes.

“You’re covered in questionable substances and I don’t wanna touch that. As soon as you’re cleaned up, I can carry you around.”

Luz grinned at that.

---

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[shoyomeow]

WINTER WONDERLAND

- a @babythotshq collaboration

❀ characters : motoya komori x gnl! reader

❀ genre : fluff

❀ warnings : mentions of alcohol, language , mentions of the pandemic

❀ wc : 2444

❀prompt : game night

shoutout to @sempiternal-amour . i got you for the secret santa event and i hope you had a wonderful christmas.

USUALLY CHRISTMAS WAS YOUR FAVOURITE HOLIDAY.

There had always been a set routine that you had adopted during this time of the year that always filled you with more happiness that you could imagine and once you had started dating Motoya, who had been just as enthusiastic as you and would not only tolerate but add on to your extreme love for Christmas, it seemed that nothing in your life could go wrong.

At least during Christmas.

That was until this year of course.

2020, the year that you hope you never have to relive again and the year that has filled you with so much pain, anguish and exhaustion that the disconnection you felt from Christmas was not even unexpected at this point.

There was no part of you that felt like it was Christmas time and you figured that the same could be said for your beloved boyfriend as well since he didn’t show you any signs of holiday spirit either. Going through the year had been hard on both of them, while neither of them were extroverts who liked going out there was something oddly stifling about being forced to stay home instead of choosing to.

As the months passed by and the virus didn’t show any signs of going away, their irritation at being forced to stay at home morphed into sheer fear for themselves and their loved ones so you suppose it was understandable that neither of you felt up for Christmas this year,

You flinched as cold and slightly damp skin came in contact with your exposed arms, the sleeves of your hoodie having been rolled up to give you more comfort as you kneaded the dough, “How many times have I told you not to hug me after working out? You smell gross babe.”

You teased as you turned your head to see your boyfriend better, his bangs were sticking to his forehead, no doubt because of the sweat but there was a bright smile on his face which even after all these years made you swoon.

“The love of my life looked so serious how could I not comfort them by bestowing my loving embrace upon them.” he pouted prompting an automatic eyeroll.

“Okay you dork,” you pecked his cheek to reassure him before pushing him away, “Now go take a shower before you stink up the whole place. I didn’t spend that much money on scented candles for you to ruin it with your sweat.”

“Whatever my love commands, i shall do.” With one last kiss to the back of your neck, Motoya walked away from you and into the washroom.

God, even though three years had passed since you started dating the volleyball player you couldn’t help but feel giddy over him. You used to think that it was only in fiction that people didn’t get completely and utterly bored with their partners.

“So i was thinking,” Motoya started as the two of you lounged on the sofa with your legs perched up on his lap as the two of you searched for something to watch.

“Oh dear, that’s never a good sign now is it?”

You laughed as he flicked the back of your feet, briefly making a quip about how you should moisturise more before looking at you and continuing his earlier sentence, “What if we have a game night or something for Christmas?”

“Hah?” You sat up at that and frowned at him, “Babe won’t that be like really irresponsible? We’re still in danger from the virus and shit.”

“No no,” he shook his head vehemently as if the very thought of breaking safety protocols was terrifying, “Like a virtual thing. I was talking to a few of my old teammates from high school and shit so they were telling me how they had a virtual party for a birthday so I dunno.”

“Look, I know we’ve both been in sort of a funk recently and you haven’t been feeling the vibe for this year either but I just thought it would be nice to go through our routine and just try to enjoy ourselves?”

“What would we even play though?” You mused as you looked at the boy who seemed to beam at the prospect of not having his idea shut down.

“I already googled that shit,” Motoya giggled as he leaned forward to press a light kiss to your lips, “You really should start moisturising babe.”

“Yeah yeah,” you pecked his nose, briefly wondering if people would hate how absolutely cringey the two of you were as a couple, “Does that mean we’re going to go through all the traditions?”

“Mm, of course. The others might not want to but we can do it ourselves right?”

“Yeah,” your enthusiasm for Christmas was still pretty much nonexistent but as you looked at your boyfriend who was showering you with kisses you couldn’t help but think that you didn’t have to be enthusiastic for Christmas at all.

Christmas Eve was surprisingly amazing.

The two of you had woken up at the same time, which was odd considering that Motoya always woke up before you for his training. A part of you wanted to stay snuggled up next to him in bed but there was a slightly bigger part of you which wanted to start with the festivities already.

Like all Christmases before today, it started with baking. Of course neither of you were that great at cooking so you had ordered the batters for everything that you were supposed to make.

The cookies and plum cake were first, considering that the mixes for them were the easiest to navigate through , the gingerbread house was next. You and Motoya had always had a certain amount of fondness for assembling the house , maybe it was because of the food fight that usually used to follow that used to prompt you to head to the backyard to hose each other down.

The second event was of course getting ready to wear the ugliest possible Christmas outfits the two of you could find. There was one Christmas, the very first one that you two spent together where you dressed up in attractive clothes taking inspiration from the Mean Girls outfit and while Motoya had appreciated that he had immediately made you swoon when he said that he would love to dress up in ugly outfits starting next year.

With your and Motoya’s nails painted with bright red and green nail polish and the two of you dressed in equally bright (and horrendous) red and green sweaters, you sat down with your laptops in front of you and logged into the zoom meeting.

Sakusa was the first one there of course, always the one to be ten minutes before the given time no matter how much he hated events like this, you and Motoya smiled triumphantly as his eyes narrowed in to look at something on the screen and his nose turned up in disgust.

“What in the hell are the two of you even wearing?”

The look of sheer disgust filled the two of you with a sense of pride , after all that was always the wanted reaction for you two. Second to horror of course.

“Are the others not here yet?”

“There are a few in the waiting room, I’ll just let them in.”

“Babe didn’t you disable the waiting room?” You questioned as you saw Motoya accept everyone individually.

He just looked at you with wide eyes with his eyebrows scrunched up, “Wait you can do that?”

You let out a snort before taking his laptop from him, out of the two of you you had always been the more tech savvy one.

“Heya everyone!” You tried to mask the awkwardness you were feeling as you greeted the handful of people who had joined in. Motoya and you wanted it to be a “small event” so you hadn’t invited many people in the first place except for a few of your mutual friends and Sakusa, “Thank you for joining us. Motoya and I didn’t want Christmas to suck so we figured something like this would be sorta fun.”

The circle you and Motoya mostly ran in was a close knit one where everyone knew each other and honestly you preferred having this than being surrounded by a bunch of fake people with whom you couldn’t be yourself.

Akira, your oldest friend and the person who had introduced you to Motoya in the first place was adorning her favourite cosplay , one of some character called Uravity and she smiled at you (well you assumed it was at you) before opening her mouth, “MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU WHORES.”

You winced at the loudness of her tone, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to connect your laptop to the Bluetooth speaker, “Akira my love, are you drunk already?”

“What’s Christmas without eggnog?” Akira grinned at you before picking up a piece of fried chicken and biting into it, “Besides, I’m exhausted as fuck this Christmas so you can’t judge me.”

“If you’re all exhausted and shit then why the fuck are you cosplaying?” Ryo, a teammate of Motoya's, grumbled as he looked at his screen. Surprisingly enough Ryo and Akira went to the same college, when you and Motoya got together it was a bit surprising to see that so many of the people you knew were somehow connected to him.

“Ryo stop being mean to Akira, she can do whatever she wants to do.” Like a true mom friend Azusa let out a soft sigh as he looked at the people on his screen. Azusa, was probably the only “new addition” you had to your group.

It was a bit surprising to say this but it was Sakusa who had introduced you and Motoya to the purple haired man who became your friend instantly. Apparently Azusa was one of the only people Sakusa respected enough to introduce to his circle, even his MSBY team members hadn’t received that privilege yet.

“Why can’t you all just shut up?” The final person in your tiny little group spoke up as he hid his face with the cloth of his turtleneck , “You guys are way too loud.”

“Now now,” Motoya intervened, “Why don’t we all start with the games already?”

Ryo’s lips turned up to form a competitive grin, “Of course, I’m going to pummel all of you to the ground.”

“Not if i pummel you first you stupid hoe,” Akira yelled at her screen but it was obvious that the declaration was meant for the only person who considered to be her rival (who she used to watch disney movies with and cried)

Sakusa had won all the games.

They didn’t play many games , just a few basic ones like Pictionary , bingo, and some trivia. They added a little spice to it by incorporating sharpies, drinks and junk food into the equation but at the end of it all, Sakusa was the only one who was fully sober while the rest were stuffed and tipsy and had drawings all over their face.

“FUCK,” you raised your head from Motoya’s shoulder and looked at the small square box where Ryo was staring at his lap? table? well whatever it was, “WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT I WAS USING A PERMANENT MARKER ON MY FACE?”

You let out a loud laugh as you looked at his face, there were drawings all over it - a proof that he lost miserably against Sakusa’s prowess - and the fact that he couldn’t get rid of it easily combined with her tipsy state , she burst into laughter.

The kind of laughter that made it hard to breathe and was so painful that you had to clutch your stomach , despite knowing that doing so had absolutely no impact on the pain you felt. Your laughter must’ve triggered a domino as everyone who was present in the zoom meeting started cackling, except for of course Ryo who was staring at all of you angrily.

“Whatever I’m leaving you assholes,” Ryo grumbled as he moved towards his laptop before moving back, “I’m only leaving because my mother is calling me so don’t bother pestering me to join again. Merry Christmas and bye you dicks.”

“Hey guys,” Akira’s girlfriend, Sumire, popped up on her screen and smiled sheepishly at the group, “Kira’s completely knocked out so I’m just gonna tuck her in. I’m sure she appreciated this, she’s been feeling funky lately.”

“No problemo Sumire,” you smiled at the girl, “the pleasure was all ours. Merry Christmas beautiful!”

Sumire blushed at the compliment before smiling at everyone, “Merry Christmas everyone, good night.”

“Aight I’m gonna sleep. I have work to finish tomorrow , this was fun guys.” Azusa smiled at them wryly as he clutched his head , he had always been the most sensitive to alcohol in their group.

“Good night Zuzu!”

The boy blushed at the nickname before growling angrily , “STOP CALLING ME THAT.”

You and Motoya shared a laugh as he left, the only people who were left in the meeting now were the two of you and Sakusa who seemed like he was on the verge of falling asleep then and there.

“Goodbye.”

Never mind , Sakusa left as well.

You laughed at his antics , already expecting an eloquent text about how the event was fun from the MSBY player, before you moved forward to shut down your laptop and Motoya’s laptop.

“Are we gonna get up to wash our face?” Motoya grumbled as he pulled you back into his arms.

“We can wait till tomorrow can’t we?” You nuzzled into his neck before placing a soft kiss there, “Thank you for doing this love. It was really fun.”

“Mm,” he nodded slowly , “it was. Maybe next year it will be better?”

“We can only hope can’t we?” You raised your head to press soft kisses on his face, “Besides as long as I’m with you, every Christmas is amazing.”

Motoya stared at you for a moment before the two of you burst out laughing, “That was so cheesy!”

“I know right? I almost couldn’t keep a straight face when I said it.”

“I love you so much,” Motoya leaned down to kiss you languidly before resting his forehead on yours, “I’m gonna marry you someday.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll say yes.”

“I know you will. Weren’t you the one who asked me to marry you on our first date?”

“That was because you gave me cake!”

“Yeah yeah,” Motoya moved in his position to make you more comfortable as you laid on his chest, “Merry Christmas love.”

“Merry Christmas handsome.”

[tamcitrus]

10 years later.

pairing: Bokuto Koutaro x g/n reader.

genre: angst, aged up characters

word count: 2K ~

prompt: It had been 10 years since your main character last saw their biggest crush. How they both ended up in the same city away from their hometowns makes no sense to them. How do they react and how does the story unfold?

a/n: first time using the prompt of the week! @kingkags I hope you're up for some angst 🌈 and @loneveenas I hope you like what I come up for your potw! 💕

It started with you coming back from abroad after getting your degree. You were outside your country for many years. After your parents' divorce and your break up with some foreign guy, you decided to come back home with your mom. You were in contact with your best friend in Tokyo and you meet her boyfriend, Hinata Shouyou.

"Come on, you have to come with me, you'll have fun and Shou has a lot of hot friends! Just for a while, if you're not vibing with it we can leave. You're sleeping here tonight anyways, so..." she said.

"Will there be alcohol?"

"Yeah, it's a party! They reserved a little restaurant, so it'll be just the team and their friends."

"Ok then we go," you agreed.

And later, you were happy you did.

You met Hinata as soon as you arrived.

"Order whatever you want, y/n! The drinks are on the team!" Hinata said and then he took his girlfriend away.

You walked to the bar and ordered a beer, watching everyone talk and dance. Hinata really had some handsome teammates. Maybe, with a bit of alcohol running through your system, you could talk to one of them.

"I'll take a beer, please 'Samu!" a man said by your side to a guy who seemed to be the bartender.

His voice was familiar. You looked aside to see the guy and gasped. This… couldn't be.

And then, the biggest golden eyes looked at you, and after a minute they showed recognition. And you remembered him too.

"Bokuto-kun?" you asked, just in case your memory betrayed you.

"Y/n? Oh my god, it's you!" he was as loud as you remembered him.

He was going to hug you but stopped to look at you and check if you were ok with it. You smiled at him and tied your arms around his neck. He hugged you tight from your waist.

"I can't believe you're here! How long it's been? Five years?"

"Like ten actually," you laughed. "I… do you play with Hinata?"

"Yeah! Do you know him?" he let you go.

"His girlfriend is my best friend, they invited me," you explained.

“That’s crazy! We live in a small world, right? Did you see the game?”

“No, sorry,” you laughed. “We just got here. But it’s great to see you’re a pro now, it really suits you.”

He guided you to an empty table and told you about how he became pro and how some of his teammates were his rivals back at high school. You told him about your years abroad, and how you decided to come back after a failed relationship.

“Are you living in our old neighborhood?” he said.

“No, we're here in the big city now.”

“Hey hey, Bokkun, we were looking for you! We'll play beer pong, are you in?" a blond guy interrupted your talk. "How about you? Wanna play...?"

"I'm y/n. And yes, I'd like to play," you smiled.

"He's Miya Atsumu. Tsumu this is y/n, an old friend!" Bokuto introduced you to his teammate.

He shook your hand and smiled at you. Then you followed him to the group that was playing.

A two hours and a lot of drinks later, you were drunk. Your friend found you again, sitting in a couch and laughing with Bokuto and Atsumu. She sat by your side to talk to you in the ear. Hinata was holding her hand, still standing.

"Hey, I'm gonna get going, I have something to do," she told you and you laughed.

You were too drunk to think straight and you slowly understood her words.

"Are you ditching me? Sakura?" you said, a bit louder than you intended.

"I can take you to her house later!" a smiling Bokuto offered and then he winked at Hinata.

"That's great, Shouyou will text you my address! Thanks, Bokuto-san! See you later, babe!"

And with a kiss on your cheek your friend left you there. You wanted to say something else but the alcohol in your system didn't allowed you to.

"You can crush in my place, if you want," Bokuto sit closer to you once Atsumu got up to talk to someone. "I don't think they'll end their thing soon, Hinata has a lot of stamina," he laughed.

You nodded and try to get up. Bokuto laughed when you almost trip with your own feet and grabbed your arm to keep you steady.

"Ok, maybe we can get going too, what do you think?"

"Are you sure? I don't want to bust your celebration," you pouted.

"I'm sure, yeah, I'm tired anyway. I'll text Hinata so your friend won't worry, ok? I'mma go say goodbye to the boys and be right back with you!"

He was still the same caring friend from ten years ago. It made your stomach to feel butterflies.

You sat on a chair near the door and you waited for him to come back. You texted Sakura, or at least you tried to, you'll check it in the morning. Bokuto was back in a few minutes and he guided you to his car. The trip was silent but you appreciated it. The cold wind of the night sober you up a bit.

"Thank you for inviting me, Bokuto," you said when you arrived. "You're probably the only person I trust in this city besides Sakura," you laughed.

"No problem. It was crazy to see you there today. Maybe we can finish our talk in the morning," he smiled.He signaled you to wait a minute and you sat on his couch.

He had a nice apartment, there was books everywhere and weights among other training stuff. You didn't remember he was a fan of books in the past.

Bokuto was back, changed, and offered you some clothes for you to change too.

"There's my bedroom, you have a bathroom inside and if you need anything else, I'll be in the couch."

"I can't come back after a decade and take your bed. I'll sleep in the couch."

"Y/n, you had too much alcohol to sleep in a tiny couch. You don't want your body aching with your head tomorrow, trust me," he laughed. "Please, use my bed."

"Ok but if you're uncomfortable, let me know," you said.

You really wanted to stay awake and keep talking to him, but your body thought otherwise. As soon as you got changed and hit the king size bed, you were out.

-

The next morning you woke up with a horrible headache and the smell of coffee dragging you to consciousness. Bokuto was humming to some pop song that was playing in a low volume.

"Good morning," you said after cleaning yourself up and walking outside the room.

"Hey, y/n, good morning! Do you have a headache? I don't have any medicine for it but I can drive you to your friend's place and we can get some in the way," he was turned with your back at you.

It was surreal. He was there, your childhood best friend, your biggest crush ever, the same you remembered him from many years ago: friendly, selfless, funny, the same black and grey wild hair. And somehow he was even more handsome now.

"I can take the bus there, don't worry about it. Do you need help?"

"All done!" he walked to the table with a tray with two coffees and cookies.

"We can go out next time and I'll pay, in return for last night," you said. "Well, if you want…"

"I have a few free days this week so I'll take your offer," he smiled.

The breakfast was for catching up, again. You felt you could talk to him about your years without seeing each other forever. He talked to you about high school after you left, volleyball and his pro career. And you exchanged numbers. Then, he drove you to Sakura's place. Hinata was still there so they left together.

"I can't believe you left me there last night," you said to your friend when you were alone.

"Hinata told me you and Bokuto knew each other, so I thought you'd be fine, I wasn't gonna leave you with some stranger!" she excused. "And you left with him! What happened?"

"Nothing happened, I was drunk…"

-

Bokuto texted you later that week and you met again on his free day for dinner.

"Life's pretty much the same but sometimes people recognizes me or stops me in the streets now, that's crazy," he laughed. "What about you?"

"Nothing that interesting. I got my business degree in England and I'm working at my mom's company for now, until I can use my degree here," you took a sip of your wine.

"And your failed relationship?"

"Oh, I thought he was a good guy but it turned out he wasn't," you faked a smile. "I wouldn't say I was in love but I cared about that idiot."

"That's a shame, you were a great person when you lived here and I bet you're even better now," he commented.

"Thanks, Bokuto," you blushed.

I shouldn't let my hopes up, you thought. Surely he has someone in his life after all this time. I shouldn't revive an old feeling.

"Shit, sorry, I have to get this," he said when his phone rang.

"No problem, I'll ask for the dessert while you talk," you smiled and he nodded at you.

-

You saw each other several times the next two weeks. Every talk, every text, every meeting you had reminded you why you were in love with him. Maybe you never really got over him. Maybe, deep inside, you still loved him.

"I'd say you go for it!" Sakura told you one day. "I never heard that he had a partner and, come on, how could you not brag if you were dating someone like him? We should've seen a picture or something."

"I don't think Hinata would be happy to hear you say that," you laughed and tried to avoid the topic.

"Come on, y/n. You're amazing and he seems to be interested to rebuild your friendship after a decade. Shoot your shot, my friend, don't let the opportunity vanish again."

You sighed and kept drinking with your friend. Maybe next time, you thought.

-

A week later, you were at Bokuto's place again, having "the afternoon english tea" as he said. You even got him some blends to try.

"You did this every day when you were abroad?" he asked.

"No, not always. I tried to keep my japanese traditions too," you smiled at him.

You watched a movie and shared silly comments in between. The sun was going down when it ended.

"Do you want to order a pizza?" he asked.

"Yeah, that'd be cool," you agreed.

This is it. Now or never.

"Can I talk to you about something? When you finish the call," you said and he nodded.

He grabbed his phone and walked to the fridge to get the number from his favorite pizza shop. Just before he dialed, the doorbell rang. He walked to the door and gasped after he opened it.

"Akaashi!" he sounded happy.

You leaned back to look at the door and saw something that maybe you shouldn't have seen. They were kissing. It was quick and innocent but it was a kiss. You looked at the tv again.

"Y/n is here!" Bokuto said and they were walking inside. "I told you about them, remember?"

"Yes and you texted me about them too," Akaashi softly laughed. He had luggage with him and he left it by the door.

"Y/n, he's Akaashi Keiji. Do you remember him? He was in first year, you met him before you left," Koutaro introduced you.

"Yes, I do, you were Bokuto's teammate! It's nice to see you, Akaashi-kun," you smiled.

"Nice to see you're back, y/n-san. Bokuto told me that you happened to meet at a party, that's a huge coincidence. It sounds like fate."

"I was about to order pizza, did you eat something?" Bokuto asked from the kitchen.

"No but pizza sounds good," he smiled. Then he disappeared inside Bokuto's room.

Fate. Yeah, it was laughing at your expense.

"He looks tired, maybe I should go," you said when you heard the shower.

"It's ok, you can stay!" Bokuto turned around to look at you. "Are you ok, y/n?" he saw your weird expression.

"I have to go, sorry," you grabbed your stuff and walked to the door.

He followed you outside after he told Akaashi he was going out for a second.

"What's wrong?" he asked again.

"I… I'm sorry. I didn't know…" you struggled to explain.

"Is this about Akaashi?"

"No- uhm, well, not exactly. It doesn't matter," you were standing at the entrance of his little house.

"I'm sorry. I should've told you…" he figured out by himself. "We don't… we can't make it super public, he's a writer and his agent…"

"No, it's fine, you don't have to explain. I never asked," you laughed. "Akaashi is a perfect fit for you."

"Yeah, he's… awesome. You're awesome too, I mean it," he hugged you.

"Thanks, Bokuto. And I'm happy for you."

You separated from him and smiled.

"Text me when you have a free day, I'll invite you both to eat," you kissed his cheek. "See you later."

-

You went to Sakura's apartment that night. After a bottle of wine, you were able to tell her what happened.

"His partner was on a trip. And then… they arrived with me there. And I was about to… I was gonna tell Bokuto maybe I never got over him… and then he was kissing someone…"

"I'm sorry, I was the one that told you to go for it," Sakura felt guilty.

"Nah, that's fine. I… it's been 10 fucking years, there's no way he wouldn't have someone. He's the perfect guy," you laughed.

"Ok, so... There's this guy. Shouyou's teammate…"

"I don't know if I'm interested…"

"Atsumu, that's his name. Shou told me he asked about you the other day, he wants your number."

"Well, tell Hinata that he can give Atsumu my number," you agreed.

"Just have some fun and you'll get over it. Besides, he's still your friend, right?"

"Yeah, he is."

[mamabearcatfanfics]

More Than Words - Part Two

Today’s the day I was going to originally start posting this little fic, but you got the first part early! I’m trying to keep each part small (which is actually harder for me than long long chapters, believe it or not) so hopefully you’ll get a little taste each day, or every second day if real life gets in the way. Grab a coffee and enjoy :)

If you haven’t read it already, here’s a link to PART ONE

Pat…

Pat pat pat pat pat…

Inuyasha grunted, blearily opening his eyes to the tiny orange fluffball currently sitting on his chest, one paw resting against his cheekbone.

Mew. Mew. Meoooow!

The kitten patted him on the cheek again with his tiny paw and then flexed his needle like claws for good measure. Inuyasha’s hand shot out and grabbed the tiny kitten by the scruff of the neck and shook him very gently.

“Shippou, dame!” He glanced over to the clock resting on the small desk that acted as his study space, dining room table and general holdall for things he didn’t have room for anywhere else. 5.59am. As he watched, the numbers ticked over and a tinny sounding alarm beeped at him. Time to get up.

He sat up and swung his legs around, stretching both arms up above his head and groaning in relief at the satisfying pops that got the kinks out of his back. He tried to ignore the excited kitten kneading his paws on his bare thigh, but the tiny pricks of those sharp little claws made it difficult. He cracked his neck from side to side. Sometimes he wondered if sleeping on the floor would be more comfortable than this lumpy mattress he’d found on the side of the road. 

Shippou jumped down as Inuyasha stood, circling his legs with plaintive mews as he turned off the alarm then shuffled over to the small cupboard under the sink, retrieving the box of cat biscuits. Shippou’s mews became even more frantic as he shook some cat biscuits into a small blue bowl then placed it on the tiled floor next to an identical bowl of water. The kitten immediately began eating noisily, his little paws kneading against the cold floor. Inuyasha couldn’t help but grin at him.

It wasn’t like he’d wanted a cat. But when he’d found the tiny kitten shivering near the back fence, covered in dirt and fleas with his little tail caught in a tin can, he couldn’t very well just leave him there. He was sorta getting used to having the little guy around. Even if he was a little shit that bit him on the ankles every time he walked in the door. He was a little concerned about telling Kaede that he’d adopted a kitten – there wasn’t a clause about pets on his lease, but he was hoping she wouldn’t mind. She had already overlooked a lot of things when she’d agreed to take him on as a tenant - maybe just one more wouldn’t hurt?

He popped a slice of bread in his toaster, then spread the hot toast with a lot of butter and the tiniest scraping of Vegemite. The salty taste was good for breakfast, but he’d learnt the hard way that it was better eaten in small portions.

Glancing at the time, he quickly pulled on his clothes, and pulled his hair up into a loose bun, trying to ignore the overflowing laundry basket in the corner. Sunday was laundry day, the one day that he didn’t open the shop. He didn’t like the laundromat, but washing it in his own sink and trying to get it all dry was worse. He got the impression that the older woman who ran it was always trying to flirt with him, and it made him uncomfortable, but there was nowhere else within walking distance, and going somewhere on the train or bus meant extra money, so he had to put up with it.

Shippou was now contentedly sitting on the windowsill above Inuyasha’s bed, diligently washing his face with his tiny paws after finishing his breakfast. He’d been so bony when Inuyasha had first found him two weeks ago, frighteningly so, but now he was beginning to fill out. His orange and white striped fur was now fluffy and clean, and his green eyes sparkled with mischief. The tray of cat litter was still unused that morning, so Inuyasha turned to leave, giving Shippou a final glance.

“Be a good boy Shippou”, he said, his english slow and careful. Shippou paused his ablutions to blink at him, his tongue still poking out mid lick, and Inuyasha snorted. At least he didn’t have to worry too much about making a mistake in front of his new flatmate; Shippou wasn’t the best conversationalist either.

He yawned again as he jogged down the steep staircase that led from his studio to the shop, then pulled up the metal security door that covered the shopfront, letting in some cooler morning air. 6.30am. Just enough time for him to make himself a coffee before…

“Good morning!”

He turned in surprise. There was the girl from yesterday. She was leaning over, with her hands resting on her knees, panting a little. His eyes roved appreciatively over her petite form, dressed in what was obviously her running gear – ¾ leggings, a cropped misshapen t-shirt with some unintelligible english words that showed an enticing sliver of pale skin, and bright blue running shoes. He watched as she tugged the earbuds from her ears, shoving them in a tiny pocket in her leggings. Wait, what had she said again? Still half asleep, he racked his brain for the right words – it had been a greeting of some sort, he was sure.

“Hullo Kagome”, he said cautiously.

The smile she gifted him with as she suddenly stood upright rivaled the warmth of the summer sunrise behind her.

“You remembered my name!” He smirked at the excited wriggle she did, shuffling her feet on the footpath. “I have to know yours now!”

He blinked at her.

“Uh…” she tapped her lips with her forefinger as if thinking for a moment, then pointed to herself. “Kagome”, then gestured towards him and looked at him expectantly.

He hesitated for a moment. What name should he give her? The english one that he’d been putting on all his documentation since he came to Australia, or his real name, the name he’d mostly left behind with his old life. After looking at her open friendly face for a few more moments, he came to a decision.

“Inuyasha.” He bowed forward a little.

Kagome smiled. “That’s Japanese, right?” He nodded. “Yes, I was right!” she said with a grin. “Hajimemashite Inuyasha.”

“Hajimemashite Kagome”, he grinned. He breathed a sigh of relief. Another person he could speak to besides Kaede and Sango. Although, she’d said that a bit hesitantly, like she was trying to remember it. “Nihongo wo hanasemasuka?” he asked.

Kagome held up her forefinger and thumb close together, and shrugged. “Only two terms in high school. And words I picked up from anime. And the swear words Souta and I learned to tease Jiji.”

Inuyasha shrugged back. From the general jist of what he’d just understood, her answer was ‘not much’. He latched on to the last bit of of information. “Jiji? Grandfather?”

Kagome beamed at him and nodded. “Uh huh. My grandfather is Japanese.” An alarm beeped on her phone, and she reached into the small pocket it was wedged in. “Aw crap, I gotta run, otherwise I won’t have time to have a shower before work.” She tucked the phone back in her pocket and put her earbuds back in her ears. “Jā matane Inuyasha!” she called out as she jogged away.

“Yeah. See you Kagome!” he called back with a wave. He couldn’t help smiling as he walked back inside the shop. That had been nice. He’d spoken english to her and she hadn’t tried to correct him or tease him, just been cheerful and supportive. He moved over to the coffee machine and switched it on, ready to start his day. But he couldn’t help glance up in the direction Kagome had gone. He hoped he would see her again soon.

☕💘☕

Read Part Three

[konohagakureship]

Deidara and Sasori d&d au!  Two more members of the Akatsuki Fellowship!! They are travelling around Khorvaire, in the world of Eberron!

au! Akatsuki D&D

Headcanons:

All the info related to places and clans is from the canonic lore of Eberron, or from interpretations that i’ve found here and there, and also a bit of my own homebrew lore. I’m gathering all the info and sources in my WorldAnvil page so you can check it out if you want :)

And this is the map with notes so you can pin all the locations.

This time I chose to put only the info relevant to the characters to make the post shorter. But still, this will be a LONG post so be prepared xD

Founding of the Akatsuki Fellowship

All the members of the party met in Sharn, the biggest city of the continent of Khorvaire. They were there for different reasons but ended up travelling together across the world.

Sasori the poison master

Sasori’s mother was a Talenta halfling. She and her family travelled to Gatherhold often to commerce with other tribes and foreigners.

There she met Sasori’s father, a medic from House Jorasco who was serving in a hospital in Gatherhold. They got married and months after Sasori was born.

Gatherhold is the biggest city in the Talenta Plains and the main enclave of the nomadic Talenta tribes, but halflings from all Khorvaire gather and make business there.

Sasori was born into the Jorasco House but was raised by his maternal family in Gatherhold. He learned the ways of the Talenta halflings and was given a  Swindlespitter in his rite of passage, who he named Hiruko.

Swindlespitters are small sized dinosaurs with poisonous spit, that steal and eat other dinosaurs’ eggs. Talenta halflings craft masks to represent their bond with their mount, and they believe their spirits unite when they wear them. Sasori carved his mask in wood as it was typical from his tribe.

Short after bonding with Hiruko, his Mark of Healing appeared and Sasori was sent to Vedykar (Karrnath), the main enclave of House Jorasco, to learn medicine and alchemy. There he was tutored by his paternal grandmother Chiyo.

Sasori had a strong connection with his Mark of Healing, which made him a quick learner and proficient student in various medical fields. Even though he was doing great academically, Sasori was lonely and missed his parents, so Chiyo taught him the art of poison-making in an attempt to bond with her grandkid.

But Sasori’s loneliness took a toll on him and soon his feelings for House Jorasco and its medical monopoly began to sour. This made him start looking for new approaches to medicine.

Karrnath employs undead soldiers controlled by the Blood of Vol necromancers. And even though now this religion is looked down upon the Five Nations, Karrnath remains the stronghold of their faith and practitioners of its dark magic are seen in the streets of Vedykar.

Sasori encountered some Blood of Vol Seekers and quickly took interest in necromancy, their dark arts and the promise of immortality.

With this new reprehensible interest mixed up with his animosity towards House Jorasco, Sasori was distrusted amongst his peers and he ultimately left Vedykar.

Atur is a city of culture and arts, and has the largest worship site of the Blood of Vol in Khorvaire. In this city, the living and dead coexist in a daily basis.

Sasori settled in Atur for a while. There he studied the secrets of necromancy, even though he never showed interest in the Blood of Vol faith, and developed his medical skills to the point of becoming a master in poisons and drugs.

During one of his experiments he lost his right leg, and travelled to Korth to obtain a mystical engineered prosthesis from House Cannith. There he met the Warforged and got interested in their technology.

In the Last War, House Cannith produced the Warforged, mindless automatons made of wood and steel, but the use of magic turned them into fully sentient soldiers that can feel pain and emotion. Now they are considered people and have free will.

Back in Atur, he began to research about the Warforged to see if he could implement a similar technology to the dead and the living to make them more efficient. This lead him to apply to The True Shapers to study the art of woodcraft and forging.

The True Shapers is House Thuranni academy of crafts. This school rivals with House Phiarlan’s The Shapers, but The True Shapers is considered the best of its kind. (See Itachi and Kisame’s post for more info about the elven houses rivalry)

Sasori studied in The True Shapers for some time. But using necromancy and dark magic for crafting theater props was not of the like of his instructors, so he was invited to leave the academy and search a place where he could make a better use of his artistic skills.

He then travelled to Sharn, where he worked briefly for House Jorasco in the upper city hospital facilities before starting his own business.

He opened an atelier named The Puppeteer, in the Callestan district. He worked closely with the halfling Boromar clan, crafting poisons and artifacts for the cartel on demand, but he was also open to any other independent customers and criminal organizations.

Sasori became a great asset for all those who wanted to make deals with the Boromar or the Jorasco but were on their black list, like the smugglers and bounty hunters of House Tarkanan, or for those who just wanted to acquire a flask of dreamlily (drug).

With his many connections to important organisations, Sasori had eyes and ears in every House of Sharn yet he often visited The Shadowkeeper (who he well knew was a safe house for Thuranni spies and assassins) to catch up with what was going on outside of the city, and particularly in Atur.

Deidara the firecracker

Deidara's parents lived in a small village of Thrane. His birth was influenced by infernal powers and so he was born a Fernia planetouched tiefling.

Fernian tieflings’ abilities are tied to fire, their skin is fiery red or orange and warm to the touch, and when they grow angry the ambient temperature rises. Fernian tieflings are fiery and passionate, with an innate love for seeing things destroyed by flame.

His poor human parents, scared of their newborn child turned to The Church to seek help. The Church of the Silver Flame is the most extended religious community in Khorvaire and has its capital in Flamekeep (Thrane). 

Though they believe in compassion and charity, the goal of the Church is to destroy all evil in the world and for that they employ any means they deem necessary, such as extermination. 

The Church sees tieflings as potential threats if their power is not properly tamed, and so they established the tiefling community of Rellekor. Rellekor is a haven for planetouched tieflings where they are raised and taught to control their magic, but also a place to keep them away from the regular population.

When human families give birth to a tiefling, they will usually deliver them to The Church, who in turn will send them to Rellekor. That’s what happened to Deidara.

Deidara never met his parents, haven been raised and trained in Rellekor since he can remember, and was too boisterous for anyone to want to take him under their wing. So he never had anyone to look up to.

As a Fernian tiefling it was really hard for him to follow the path of light of the Silver Flame, and so he was constantly being grounded and chased around by the Templars for making things combust. 

He was a mischievous kid with too much passion for fire and explosions, and so they named him "Firecracker Deidara".

But growing up, he took a liking for crafts and so he started studying pottery. His tutors were relieved to see that he had found a hobby that wasn't potentially destructive... until Deidara found a way to mix his sculptures with his fiery magic and called it art.

Thanks to his new explosive art, Deidara’s tutors reprimended him even more often, and this, far from making him embrace the path of light, made him see Rellekor's authorities with disdain and his behavior worsened.

Feeling trapped in the tiefling city, he decided to travel to Thaliost where he enrolled in The Shapers, House Phiarlan’s academy of crafts. He saw The Shapers as a way to escape from his life in Rellekor and maybe purchase the artistic career he dreamed of.

Deidara avidly studied the art of pottery in The Shapers, and even though he was a great potter, his artistic approach was too revolutionary for the academy and he was given the option to leave his explosions or leave The Shapers. 

He then travelled to Atur in an attempt to enroll in The True Shapers, but received the same recommendation from his previous academy and thus his application was denied when he refused to abandon his fiery art.

Forever mad at the Thuranni for refusing him without giving his art an opportunity, Deidara left Atur in a hurry after burning down the reception hall of The True Shapers. 

Being rejected from the best craftmanship academies and not wanting to return to Rellekor’s suffocating system, he wandered through many cities and villages of Khorvaire until he arrived in Sharn.

In Sharn he tried to make art for a living but few people were interested in his unstable creations. This, and his multiple altercations with the law and the cartels, pushed him to the lower levels of the city and ended up in the lawless Callestan district.

There he rented the tiny garret of The Shadowkeeper and made it his home and workshop... without knowing that the tavern was run by Thuranni elves.

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

We have the first four members of the party!! Now i need the other four to show up too ;)

[covrtofnightmares]

&&. cauldron above, ( henryk wolfe ) was just spotted in the fae lands — word has it ( he ) is affiliated with ( the spring court ). ( he ) is a ( 519 / physically 35 ) year old ( warrior fae ). it’s been said that ( he ) resembles ( henry cavill ). ( he ) has been said to be ( reckless & confident ) but also quite ( arrogant & promiscuous ). ( he ) is currently serving as ( the general of the spring court ).

— ❝ sex is about power.❞

name: henryk matthias wolfe

birthday: september 12th | virgo

scent: mint oil, italian lemon, green apple, geranium flower,  amber, vanilla, vetiver, moss, cedarwood, spices + ( SIGNATURE COLOGNE: eros - versace )

appearance:  6′3″ with a strong, muscular build honed from centuries of priming his body for power, battle, and sex. luca has spent much of his immortality physically and mentally pushing himself to impossible limits in order to be the best of the best, and as such, his physique is a strong reflection of that. as one of the warrior fae, his body demands to be consistently tested; his endurance and strength is proof enough of that. luca has dark brown hair with a tendency to grow wavy and curly if not properly cared for. he can go with or without a beard, but prefers to keep one nice and groomed for personal preference.

current familial / relationship status: henryk never knew if he had any family; he was cast out as a young child, bastardized by both of his parents and tossed into the brutality of the warrior race. he fit right in with the rest of them. the closest thing to family henryk has ever had is the high ruler’s family of the spring court; ares is the closest thing to a brother henryk will ever know, and arielle the closest to a sister.

biography: henryk was born in the hills of the night court as the bastard son of two warrior fae--a sweet, docile nymph-like creature named arabella and a soldier named perseus. henryk’s mother, arabella, was something akin to an angel of light--a faerie who had descended from a long line of respectable warrior fae who began an affair with a poor warrior soldier. she was the daughter of a great war general among their dispersed clans, while henryk’s father was a soldier who worked under her father’s ranks. the two warrior fae fell passionately in love, but by the time henryk was conceived, arabella’s family had disowned her and she and perseus were left to fend for themselves in a cold and unforgiving world. the warrior race of fae were particularly brutal and ruthless, so the idea of being left to their own devices was hardly the most traumatic thing either arabella or her lover could dread to encounter. still, the jarring loss of family proved to be a hefty burden, and arabella felt herself physically waste away as her pregnancy progressed. 

unfortunately, these tragic circumstances resulted in a painful and difficult childbirth–one she did not manage to live through. overwhelmed with grief and misplaced hatred towards his son for “causing” the death of his beloved, henryk’s father cast him out and abandoned the boy to the streets, abandoning his son to one of the orphanages that littered the fae realms--a special workhouse for warrior fae who were to be raised by their own kind. and so, henryk burst into the world not unlike many other warrior fae who came before him: tossed into violence, danger, and a sense of isolation so complete that the mere thought of the term “famly” was a decidedly foreign concept to him. 

after that, the streets raised henryk. tossed around through workhouses and apprenticeships to afford room and board for much of his young life, henryk had to learn how to take care of himself. it was through the negligence of adults surrounding him that henryk grew reckless and selfish; he was crafty and intelligent, innovative and careless. he took what he wanted when he wanted it, causing friction and tension with those who took him in over the years. henryk cared very little for his schooling and apprenticeships, wishing instead to use his insight and intelligence to apply directly to life itself. he became a bit of a bully in many regards, using his brute strength and natural combat skills to hone himself into a ruthless, trained warrior.

along the way, he found ares deerling--a high fae whose mannerisms and behavior mirrored henryk’s in more ways than one. they were kindred spirits, tied together by common interests an similar personalities. ares was not a warrior fae by nature, but henryk still considered the high spring court fae to be like a member of his pack--the only family henryk had ever truly known, come to think of it. due to henryk’s relationship with ares, he fell into good graces with the spring court, eventually meshing in with the high lord’s family. he thinks of princess arielle as his younger sister and ares not just as his brother, but as his closest friend and confidante; it’s a relationship that no one can rival if he has anything to say about it. eventually, henryk worked himself up to serving as the spring court’s general, dealing in matters of war and military affairs. and with the growing tensions and newborn alliances emerging between the fae courts, henryk finds that his position in the spring court is now more important than ever before.

of course, the one snag in henryk’s concentration comes in the form of the tiny, pixie-like princess of the winter court. henryk wishes he could say he had uncomplicated feelings about ares’ arranged betrothal to princess tatiana valentina, but that would be a lie. one he isn’t ready to confront, particularly if it means upsetting the two people who mean the most to him in the entire world. tatiana will go on to marry ares, and together the two will produce some of the strongest heirs the realm of astralis has ever known. it’s something henryk has forced himself to come to terms with, even if it leaves a strange ache in the pit of his stomach. it’s something henryk has learned to deal with...

but that doesn’t mean he has to like it, does he?

affinity: wind and ice, though his strength is almost exclusively in his combat abilities

wings: as is typical with the warrior race, henryk has durable wings perfect for flight and combat. his are large, black wings similar to that of a hawk, marking him as a strong predator in the sky. henryk’s wings are built for endurance, battle, and instilling fear into those who dare to oppose him.

[bizawa-sensei]

So this is a fluff fic I wrote for KiriTetsu because those boys don’t get enough love as a ship. It was originally gonna be a one shot, but there’s a second “chapter” I’ll share after this, and from there, I think it’s just going to evolve into a cute little collection of one shots that all take place in the same canon established in the first chapter. Idk. Either way, enjoy and feel free to leave feedback! I’m new to this!

“Just Guys Being Dudes: A Love Story”

Ship: KiriTetsu

Genre: Romance/fluff

Word count: 1,295

“Promise you’re not gonna freak out. Okay, bro?”

Kirishima could hear the nervousness in his own voice. He wondered how he had wound up here, about to confess his feelings to his handsome, silver-haired friend. He’d never really liked anyone before, at least not like this, so he had no idea what he was doing.

C’mon. Be a man. Just tell him how you feel.

*************

When he’d first heard about their similar Quirks during the sports festival, Kirishima had been annoyed, to say the least. He struggled to believe his Quirk was good enough to be a hero to begin with, but now there was some other guy with basically the same ability? How was he supposed to stand out? Hardening isn’t the flashiest Quirk, after all. Then, of course , they’d been matched up in the one on one fights and, of course, it had ended in a draw.

To be fair, that day did have certain... redeeming qualities. First and foremost, Kirishima had won the tie breaker. Then there was the strange feeling in his chest when he’d first touched Tetsu’s hand for said tie breaker, and hearing the other boy cheering him on in the stands once he progressed.

That night, Kiri could hardly sleep. His thoughts darted around his head like ricocheting bullets. Was Tetsu a threat? What was that feeling he’d had when they clasped hands? Why did hearing Tetsu cheer for him make him so... happy? Shouldn’t they be rivals? Or are they going to be best bros? Why couldn’t Kiri think of anything else?

As the school year progressed, the two of them became close friends. They’d ended up bonding over the strange number of similarities they shared. Their Quirks, their determination, their dedication to being the best men they could be. They even had the same birthday.

The two boys were surprised when they unknowingly chose the same pro hero to study under for their workplace training, but this only ended up bringing them closer. Kirishima had been impressed at the way Tetsu had handled the League of Villains’ attack on the training camp. It was one of the manliest things he’d ever heard and for some reason, imagining Tetsu defeating Mustard in the face of unimaginable odds made Kiri’s knees just a tiny bit weak.

For his part, Tetsutetsu had been impressed with Kiri’s abilities as well. The bravery he displayed in saving that cocky blonde prick from the League was incredible. Stupid, maybe, but incredible nonetheless. There’s was a strong friendship built on mutual respect. They really were best bros.

But in recent weeks, Kirishima had started to realize what those feelings he’d had since the sports festival really meant: he had a crush on his bro. He’d never really had a crush on anyone before, so it took him a little while to grasp exactly what was happening. Once he did, Tetsu was all he could think about.

Their workouts had always been fun, but now they were the highlight of Kiri’s day. He found himself daydreaming about what Tetsu’s lips might feel like on his own, or what it would be like for their friendly “bro hugs” to last just a little bit longer. Kiri was thankful for the natural flush his workout built up; it was a perfect mask for the blush that dusted his cheeks when he looked at his friend.

It had only been a few months, but to Kiri, it felt like years. He couldn’t stand holding it back anymore. He had no idea how Tetsutetsu would react if he confessed his feelings, but he hoped they could at least remain friends. They were too close not to... right? Nothing as simple as a crush would come between them. It couldn’t. They were bros.

All of these hidden feelings and anxieties finally came to a head one evening as the friends walked back to their dorms from the gym. It was their standard routine. That day, though, Kiri asked Tetsu if they could stop for a bit and just sit.

“It’s just a really nice day, dude. Let’s sit in the shade and relax a little,” he’d suggested.

Tetsutetsu wasn’t really surprised. Kiri was generally more laidback than his friend was, and Tetsu had to admit that sometimes it rubbed off a little.

“Sure, man. Sounds good,” Tetsu replied. They made their way to a nice patch of grass under a tree and plopped down side by side. There was a lovely view of the sunset there, and Kiri really hoped that would work in his favor.

“Hey, so... there’s something I really need to tell you,” Kirishima began.

“What is it, dude? You know you can tell me anything,” his friend said.

Kiri could feel the heat rising in his face and he hoped it wasn’t too obvious. (It was. His face was as red as his hair and Tetsu briefly worried that his friend might have developed a fever.)

“Promise you’re not gonna freak out. Okay, bro?”

“I promise. But hurry it up, man. You’re making me nervous.”

Kirishima took a deep breath to steady himself.

“I... think I kinda like you. You’re really strong and manly and cool and... your face is really nice to look at,” Kiri said, his words tumbling out nervously. “I totally get it if you don’t feel the same way, but not telling you felt really cowardly and I really hope you’ll still be my bro.”

“Are... are you serious?” Tetsu asked, his face unreadable. Kiri looked at the ground, half expecting his friend to punch him or something. “Dude... I like you too. Like, a lot. I just wasn’t man enough to tell you.”

Kiri looked up at Tetsutetsu and saw that he was blushing. He’d never seen a look like that on the other boy’s face; he actually looked kind of... shy.

Before he could stop himself, Kirishima leaned in and planted a quick kiss on Tetsu’s cheek, making both boys blush even deeper. They sat in nervous silence for a moment, neither daring to look at the other.

“I think... it was really manly of you to tell me that,” Kiri said, finally breaking the silence.

“Thanks, dude. I think it was really manly of you too,” Tetsu replied quietly. “So... does this mean you maybe... want to be my boyfriend?”

Tentatively, Kiri placed a shaky hand on Tetsu’s.

“I... would really like that, bro,” he said, smiling up at the steely-haired boy beside him. Tetsu looked down at him for a moment, before his eyes darted back down to their touching hands on the grass between them.

“Does... I mean, would it... would it be okay if I kissed you?” Tetsu asked, barely audible.

Kirishima said nothing in reply. He simply leaned in and gently placed his lips on Tetsu’s. Their first kiss was slow and soft, something neither of them had ever experienced, and in that moment, both boys wished it could last forever.

They sat under the tree until curfew, slowly adjusting to the newness of the situation. When it was time to go inside, they walked back to Heights Alliance together (still somewhat nervously) holding hands, both of them slightly in shock but settling into the feeling of being together. When they arrived at the dorms, Kiri turned to face Tetsu.

“Hey... thanks for not freaking out or anything. I’m really glad this happened,” he said, looking into his new boyfriend’s dark eyes.

“I am too,” Tetsu replied, before gathering all his courage and kissing Kiri gently on the lips one last time. “Good night, dude.”

“Night, bro.”

They exchanged sharp-toothed grins and parted ways. Neither of them could sleep a wink that night... and neither of them could stop smiling.

[santalsaburablog]

Adventures of Santal. Chapter 9: Landa's Secret

Revealing the secret builds trust.

Quarrel! After meeting near the Jedi Temple, Santal and her aunt's paths diverge in opposite directions. In an attempt to resolve the conflict, the girl manages to help the oncoming woman Rana Martez, and then return to continue her studies at the Jedi Temple. The story continues.

Over the past week since that day, Santal got to know all the members of the clan better. Dasha, as an inborn empath, was able to feel emotions from childhood, at least basic ones. Nick is cheerful, constantly smiling and can amuse those who are sad. Grace loves to laugh. Landa is strict, obedient and obedient to her elders. Just like me, Santal thought.

Almost nothing can be said about the rest, because I rarely had contact. From conversations it became clear that many really do not remember practically anything. Because of this, the girl even felt sorry for her peers. Because they weren't as lucky as she was. She knows a lot about her parents now. Exactly! She can look for information about them in the library, or, as she managed to christen her, "The Main Branch of Paradise." Of course, she had many favorite places in the Temple, but the library is definitely in the first place.

Santal studied the schedule thoroughly. I also asked the curator about the youngling's life. Some facts she already knew, and some frightened.

So, Santal already knew that the morning began with a study of the Force, then the children went to classrooms for a lesson in politics, as well as the history of many worlds and cultures. After lunch, the clans began physical education, acquiring the necessary skills and reflexes. In addition to theory, the Younglings had to find time for five daily meditations. Each clan began their training with the study of the Jedi Code and three important disciplines: Strength, Knowledge, and Self-Control. It was these foundations that became the foundation for further development. In addition to the required course materials, each youngling received a copy of The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force. Students had to know the layout of the Temple by heart, as well as the names and history of the Jedi who had memorials in the Temple, so as not to forget their history and become better acquainted with the traditions and philosophy of the Order.

     The children studied and practiced together, which made them very close and learned to trust. Younglings often helped each other and followed an example from a comrade. While comprehending the Force and its capabilities, they simultaneously learned self-control, which was an important step on the path to mastery. Before starting to comprehend the art of lightsaber fencing, children had to prove themselves in other areas, otherwise they will not progress in the possession of weapons. In the third discipline (self-control), younglings were taught for the first time more sophisticated meditation techniques that helped keep their minds under control during battle. After mastering the six levels of lightsaber combat, they were challenged. Refusal was not accepted. If the child did not pass the tests, then he could repeat them. Youngling was either making progress or abandoning the path of the Jedi.

The tests were scheduled when the younglings were undergoing initial training at the academy. They consisted of three main tests: demonstration of knowledge of the Code, meditation, mastery of the lightsaber, and control of the Force. All junior Jedi were required to pass the exam, but not all passed the test. If in the future the younglings were not taken as Padawans, then the Council assigned the child to one of the Service Corps, where he would perform the tasks of the Order, which did not require skills in using a lightsaber and the Force. There was a third option for the Younglings, which the High Council deemed unsuitable for the Jedi path. Such children could leave the Order and use their skills to find a good place in the galaxy.

The last girl, to put it mildly, scared. And it gave rise to many questions and thoughts. What if it doesn't work? No, though. There is an answer to this question. But it doesn't make it any easier. It turns out that if Santal fails, then Corpus or a return to her aunt is waiting for her. Neither the first nor the second perspective seduced her. The girl more or less imagined her fate in case of returning to Ryloth. But my aunt wanted to be away from her. Or maybe she was joking? Or maybe not? If not, what should she do? Become like the Evil Hat? Could she do that? Santal did not know the answer to the question, because she considered what he was doing, impossible for her, beyond understanding. Santal just didn't understand how one could be so cruel. And if you imagine that she was expelled from the Order, would she be able to find him? Ask to take to yourself? Make friends? Although the girl did not understand the meaning of the word "friendship" well. But maybe he will teach her something. Although no, I have already taught.

Then a strange thought occurred to the girl. And if this uncle is an inanimate creature? A droid who pulled on someone else's skin so as not to frighten others? Maybe. So Santal decided to find this blue. Anyway. Either for training or revenge. All the same, there is nowhere else to go.

Стоит отметить, что, despite good relations with the Younglings, Santal did not become very close to anyone. She politely communicated with everyone, if someone asked for help, tried to help, and the classmates themselves helped her out more than once and invited her to play. But Santal kept the other children at a distance. Adults, strangers, were still afraid like the plague. But with the Jedi it was just the opposite. Santal was always looking for the company of her elders and enjoyed communicating with them. So she once met the Twi'lek Jedi Anun Bondara. In principle, Santal liked to communicate more with Twi'leks, even more than with people. Because when she spoke to them, she felt at home. 

  Bondara was also happy and at the same time surprised to meet a human girl who was raised by representatives of his race. You don't see that every day. Therefore, two Jedi from the same home planet quickly found common topics of conversation. Santal talked about her past and learned a lot about a stranger. Her new acquaintance was born into the Dara clan, was admitted to the Order at a young age, and eventually attained the rank of Master, following the path of a Jedi Guardian. Most importantly, Santal was amazed when she learned that he was a sentinel in the Ryloth system! It turns out that he could find her! Wow!     

    - I really want to travel the world. I have already visited some of the planets, namely Tatooine, Corellia, Devarone, Naboo, ”Santal admitted with childish ease. And casually added: - Although my aunt told me: "Do not go to Tatooine, or the giant slugs will eat you."      

   The elder Jedi's face turned sad.     

  - Did I say something wrong? - Santal was frightened.      

   Twi'lek hurried to smile and answered:    

  - No, baby, it's okay. You just know, I also like to travel the Galaxy, I visit Hutt space with a feeling of awkwardness, seeing how many Twi'leks were slaves or servants of the Hutts. It upsets me that my clan members have become either poor or criminals, but as a Jedi, I must remain cool and impartial, even when negotiating with the Hutts.     

  - It turns out that we need to talk politely with everyone, even with those who we don't like and who don't like us?     

  - Yes. Unfortunately, yes, - answered Bondara honestly and directly.      

  - I understand you perfectly. My aunt was once a Hutt thing. She would have been her to this day if one Jedi had not saved her. Maybe I'll save someone.      The man nodded approvingly. And then Santal plucked up courage and voiced her concerns:      

  - We will soon begin to master the sword. I'm afraid I can't do it. I heard that it is difficult. I will be among the laggards, and then they will expel me or ...   

  Bondara made a gesture so familiar to the girl, meaning that he would not tolerate such thoughts.      

- But the majority, on the contrary, are looking forward to such a moment. They can wave their arms, imagining themselves to be great warriors. And I think we need to let the Force guide the sword, throw away all possible fears about the outcome of the fight. Get rid of your thoughts. Don't expect victory. Don't expect defeat. Don't expect anything. The lightsaber is not meant to defeat enemies or rivals. We must use it to destroy our own greed, anger and stupidity. The one who created the lightsaber and walks with it through life must live in such a way that he himself can be a weapon against everything that is directed against peace and justice. And most importantly, be honest in your feelings, this is the surest road to knowing yourself and the Force.      

    These words gave Santal a tiny bit of hope.      

    As the days passed, training became more difficult. Santal was in trouble. The first is acrobatics. The girl was afraid to perform various techniques. Everything seemed to her that she would fall or be crippled. Somersaults were especially difficult. More precisely, they were not given at all.      

    Second, the senior Jedi sounded the alarm because a month had passed since enrollment in the Order, and Santal had still not become close to anyone. Yoda even approached her and talked about this topic. Santal answered the truth. That she communicates normally with everyone, but does not feel the need for friendship. Then the master replied that if she did not try to open up, then she would never have friends.      

   Other children also tried to make friends with the girl, talked to her and invited her to play even more often than before.     

   - Well, how can you sit and read all the time? - Max was sincerely surprised, unlike Landa, who treated this daily routine with much more approval.      

   Although it was not true. Santal not only sat, but also walked wherever possible. I studied the new house, where everything is. She enjoyed the conversation, but she was in no hurry to sign up as friends. She considered her fellow clansmen to be exceptionally good friends with whom she could communicate. And friends, real friends in the full sense of the word, she simply did not need. She was used to being alone, she was so comfortable. When you sit alone, you don't have to give in to anyone, everything is only according to your own rules. Or you sit in the library, not bothering anyone. Nobody distracts. No, Santal loved to help, but sometimes she just needed to be alone and reflect. Think. And she began to think almost every second after the story with her uncle.     

    And then, after some time, unexpectedly for everyone, including herself, Santal found herself a friend, more precisely, a girlfriend. She was a girl only a year older than her and the Mrialan race. Her name was Barriss.      

   They met in the library. Then Santal wanted to know more about her parents and went there. At this time, Barriss was sitting at a long table and reading something. It was she who became interested in Santal, drawing attention to a girl with olive skin, black hair, very beautiful blue eyes (Santal admired, she could not even take her eyes off) and with a strange pattern on her face, like freckles.      

    First Santal sat on the opposite corner of the table, then a little closer. And then she took courage and sat down very close. Left.      

      “Hi,” the reader replied quietly.      Santal was surprised, she thought she would have to take the first step. Well, okay. So even better.      

     - Hi.      

    - What is your name?      

    - I am Youngling Santal Sabura. And you?      

    - Barriss Offee. Also youngling. Mirialanka.      

    - Nice to meet you. Santal paused and added, “You don’t… don’t… mind if I sit with you?” Do you read?     

    - Yes. One text.      

    - So you like to read? So do I.      

   - Yeah. Barriss answered calmly, monotonously and reluctantly, as if the lesson was answering. Only at the last word she smiled.      

    - I'm also looking for information. About two Jedi.     

    Then Santal went to Jocasta, who had become her favorite librarian, and asked for a CD with information about Bastian and Adir Shan. And she provided what was needed without question. The girl returned to her seat, feeling her bursting with curiosity. Finally, she will make her dream come true. She finally finds out what her mother and father looked like. Suddenly she wanted to question Barriss.      

   “Barriss, were you, like everyone, found and taken to the Temple?      

    - Yes. 

   - And you don’t remember your parents either?”      

   - No. The girl shook her head. - I was born on board an unknown passenger liner and never knew my parents. However, my connection to the Force was quickly discovered and I was taken away.      

   Santal's pupils were dilated.      

   - Wow! - she exclaimed. - I was also born on a ship. - And mentally added: “But, unlike the others, I was lucky. I know who my parents are. And I can look at them right now. "    

    And now the long-awaited moment has come. Santal looked at the photo, and warmth spread throughout her body. As if wrapped in a soft blanket. How she looks like them! For everyone. Dad got the eyes. From mom - hair.     

   So the girl sat there, unable to tear herself away from the faces of her parents.      

   “What eyes they have! There is so much power in them! And smiles! Probably, when they were taking pictures, none of them suspected that they would have a girl, and something would happen to them. Well, I don't believe such talented Jedi would die. Surely they just got lost. Either they went on an expedition, wishing to discover or have already discovered many new plants, or animals, or even a new planet, system. Galaxy! But something went wrong and they got stuck. Or maybe this is what happened: my parents crashed on an unknown planet, saved its inhabitants, and they made them their rulers. King and queen Or the chancellor and the chancellor's wife. "

    Dreaming, the girl did not notice how an hour had passed, although it seemed to her that it was less. And from the next day they began to take acrobatics. This is where the problems began. Santal was scared. Because in the classroom they had to do somersaults, jump, get up in different poses. The algorithm most often was this: you jump and move your arms and legs in the air. Left, right or something else. There was also such an exercise: you need to run up to the wall, push off from it with your feet and roll back, landing on your feet. This exercise in the Temple was considered one of the easiest. But Santal was afraid to do it. What if she falls, breaks her leg and ends up in the infirmary? No, she had a good relationship with Vokara, she just didn't like being sick.      

   For many of the clan members, most of the exercises worked. Yes, and the daughter of the Jedi herself, in principle, tried, it just did not work out most often because of fear. But in other subjects, things were much better. Just fine. On history, politics, she regularly crammed the material and answered questions more than once during the lesson. So her teachers were praised and considered the best in the clan in this matter.      

   Barriss and Santal became inseparable. Often they could be seen in the library communicating with each other, studying texts, discussing material. One explains one, and vice versa. Soul mates found each other.     

    And so a month passed. And soon Santal and her clan prepared a surprise. On that day, instead of the usual classes, they were expected to show Yoda's training duel with one of the masters. Of course, everyone was waiting for her with eagerly. Especially Max. Three days before the upcoming event, he was worn during the break. It will jump to the left to Adrian, then to the right to Dasha. When he jumped up to Landa, she scolded him:      

   - Behave yourself! A future Jedi after all! I hope you will sit still during the duel.  

    - Do not swear, teacher, - as always the boy answered with a joke. - But the rest, at least someone, tell me, are you burning with impatience? Adrian? Nick? Santal?      

   “A little, yes,” Santal replied, hoping that he would calm down a little.      

   Her words had little effect. At least he stopped jumping. But Landa did not surprise her at all. Santal was also not happy with Max's behavior, but, unlike the twilight, she was calmer about it. And if such active and sociable children as Grace or Max said that she and Landa studied longer together, but still did not understand what was wrong with her (she was like that almost from the first day), then Santal was not at all worried , because she herself is the same. But there was a difference. Sabura was never hard on others. And Landa sometimes loved to educate. Of course, Santal understood that this was not just that, but others from the beginning of their acquaintance almost immediately gave up. That's why they joked at times. 

    And Santal suddenly remembered that when Dasha began to talk about the twilight, she abruptly stopped the attempt. And the girl might just have forgotten about it, but it didn't work. Curiosity burned like acid. And for obvious reasons, Santal did not dare to ask, and she considered it tactless to climb into someone else's soul without asking. When Landa herself wants to share with someone, then she will find out. And if he doesn't want with anyone, nothing. Santal will not be offended. She herself has secrets. One is scarier than the other. Here's another reason not to intrude. You yourself will ask a secret, you will have to tell yours. And Santal with anyone, even peers, was afraid to share secrets. You never know what. Enough time passed, and I was still afraid of strangers like fire, only less. I was not afraid of children at all, but all the same. Suddenly they are someone's spies, sent by adults to find out more about her than she said.      Oh Sila, she seems to have begun to understand that uncle. Maybe that's why he didn't believe? Thought Santal was a secret agent sent to spy on him or even kill him. Although ... it cannot, and it is so! He said something like that. Maybe he has secrets himself. And he was afraid that she would find out? But Strength, she's honest. And besides, a Jedi. And the Jedi try to keep their word.      

   The girl learned an important lesson. When speaking, try to understand what the other person is thinking. You should not easily trust those whom you see for the first time or whom you know little. When you meet someone, you have no idea if this is your future enemy or your friend. Anything can be. Therefore, you need to be on your guard.     

    But, despite this, Santal remained unconvinced. No, she was beginning to understand her uncle's fears, to guess what he was thinking. But his guilt in her eyes did not diminish. She's just a girl! Doesn't she deserve mercy? Why is it obligatory to take it somewhere? Or maybe he guessed she was Force sensitive? But this is not an argument. Is it her fault that she was born this way? And he could check that she was really a child? In a word, the uncle is inadequate. From whatever angle you look.      

   - Santal. - The voice pulled the girl out of prostration.      

   Santal stopped looking at the floor and raised her head. Landa was standing near the wall.      

  - Hi. Something happened?     

   - Nothing. I just want to talk, ”the twilight said mysteriously. “But not here.      - Shall we go to me or to you?      

   - Let me think. Come on to me. It's somehow easier for me on my territory.      Santal grew more and more terrifying with every word spoken. So what happened that Landa wants to talk in private? And this word is "easier." It smacks of something serious. It is now clear that a serious conversation awaits her, and not some girlish gossip.      

   Entering the room, Landa sank onto the bed. Legs together, eyes on hands. Santal pricked up her ears, prepared to listen.      

  - Everything, I'm ready. Santal sat down beside her. Not too close, not too far.   

   At first Landa could not get herself together, she looked at her fingers, flexing them. At first, the daughter of the Jedi waited patiently, but when several minutes had passed, she braced herself and said:      

   - If you don't know where to start, start from afar.      

   Landa thought for two more minutes and began:      

   - You know, I thought for a long time whether to say or not. Initially, even before you came here, I generally planned to keep to myself. I think you can understand why.     

   - Well, I understand. Each of us has secrets ...      

   - Right. Landa smiled without showing her teeth. Santal also smiled with emotion. - It's good that you understand that. So I made the right choice.      

  - About what?      

  - About what I will tell later. What you just said is good. It's true. But, unfortunately, not all are like that. For example, Daria and Maxim. They, if you noticed, often annoy me. One of the reasons is they are not like that. They love to share everything. Therefore, when I first came to this clan, I was "attacked by them." In the sense that they started asking personal questions. Well, you understand. How did I get to the Temple, who brought it. And Max in general climbed into the jungle, - the clan member complained.     

   - Well, I haven't been "attacked". As far as I remember.      

  - This experience of communicating with me taught them something. Lucky you. But I do not. I still remember that Max pestered the most with questions.      - It's curiosity. - Santal tried to stand in the place of the boy. Try to understand what he would say.      

   “You know, you can die of curiosity,” the twilight replied sharply and very seriously, her eyes flashing.     

     Santal froze immediately. Landa said to the point. How you guessed!      

    - Hey, what are you? Santal, Santal, where are you? Did I say something wrong?      

    - Well no. Your last phrase ... right to the point. Should I not know about this.   

   - Come on! - Landa was shocked. From the next grimace, it became clear that she also wanted to know what had happened, but almost immediately faded away. - Although it’s me ... If you don’t want to talk, don’t. I understand perfectly well, I myself have never told anyone anything.      

   - So we are here only for this? - Santal was surprised.      

   - Yes. What? You thought ...      

   - No no no. I didn't think about anything. It's just that when you started, I thought there was some terrible secret awaiting me. But I also liked this frank conversation. That you generally agreed to this. You know me worse than the rest. And I understand you. I myself do not like those who cannot, without a large circle of friends, not share information, who constantly ask questions such as “what happened?”, “Please, can I help?”, And just harassment. For example, "where are you going?" Why do some people get involved in their own business? You know, before the Order, I enjoyed being alone. Fair. Communicated only with my uncle and aunt. Played most often in the backyard. That's why I want to spend time alone. True, a friend appeared recently. And that's enough for me. Everyone was perplexed that I often sit alone. And I'm so comfortable. Peers are not needed. Only if there are a lot of them. I don't know how else to explain.      

   - In my opinion, you explained clearly enough.      

   - OK, bye.     

   Santal turned around and was about to leave when she heard a soft whisper:   

   - I don't remember my parents at all. More precisely, I would like to forget them. If they loved me, they wouldn't sell me to some syndicate. Not rations, if you've thought about them. They made me serve. At first glance, nothing complicated. Bring trays of food and drinks. But in reality, everything is much worse. When you are pulled, pushed, kicked, spanked a hundred times a day. I could not stand it and wanted to run away. But it's hard to escape when a chip is put in you that explodes when you try to leave the territory. But I tried. At first I wore a collar with an electric leash. Hardly found a way to turn it off. But I was caught and this chip was planted. Then I was resold. I ran away on the way, transferring to another ship. But he was captured by pirates. So I changed five masters, until a Jedi accidentally found me and brought me here. - Landa spoke with difficulty. And it was clear from the intonation that the story was not complete. But even without that, it was terrifying.     

    Santal was shocked. For a short time I stopped hearing altogether. A veil covered his eyes. This is what she did not expect to hear. No, she had thoughts that there was something unpleasant in Selmura's life. But she didn't even think about it.     

   “Now it's clear why you ... I wouldn't tell anyone either. And yet you shared with me. It is with me. Why? The girl asked just as quietly.      

   - It is not that simple. See, you told me to start from afar. I started. Through the conversation, I realized that you and I are kindred spirits. This is how I learned that you can be trusted. And I entrusted you with the main terrible secret, without fear of what you will reveal. I know. No offense.      

    And Santal was not at all offended. Moreover, she was going to take this technique into service in the future. Thank you, Landa. What a fine fellow she is! Despite everything, she continued to live on! Probably Santal could not do that. Previously, she considered herself a sufferer, but now she learned that, it turns out, there are people who are unhappy than she.      

    - You know, I also want to tell the main terrible secret.      

   Santal told how she got to the Temple. About everything. To which Landa replied:     

    - Oh, you're still lucky. In general, I noticed long ago that you are very lucky. Was born in a shirt. And you know what else?      

   - What?     

    “I also chose you because you are from Ryloth.     

   - Yes. And there is. I was raised by Twi'leks. It's strange that I understand why I have no processes. I know that I am human. But I consider myself a semi-tweelek. It is clear why.     

    For the first time in the evening, and for the entire acquaintance, Landa laughed. But this laugh was light, quick, but memorable.     

  - And I still wondered why you try to hold on representatives of my race, not my own. I noticed that you feel more confident with twi'leks. Not every day you come across such a phenomenon.     

     - Yes, that is right. Probably. Okay, if you don't mind, I'll go now. If we've discussed everything.      

  - Of course. I don't hold you anymore. Until.      

  - Until.      

  Reaching her room, Santal fell on the bed, digesting the whole evening, after which she felt different. New. As if she was older. She had never before had such a serious conversation. Santal also felt that she was close to another girl. And it's great! Brought together on similar secrets and problems. Indeed, soul mates. The girl sincerely believed that Landa would not tell anyone her secret. As well as today's conversation.      

  The world for Santal Sabura began to lose its pink color. And she will carry the secret of Landa to the grave!