#a blaze of arcane blue

[nevadancitizen]

-> CH. 1: DIRECTIONLESS GENESIS

synopsis: you wake up in a lab with two strange men. they explain who they are, and where you are -- and how you got there. you find everything hard to believe.

word count: 3k

ships: Viktor/isekai!Reader, Jayce Talis & isekai!Reader

notes: small trigger warning for this chapter for brief misguided suicidal ideation

A BLAZE OF ARCANE BLUE MASTERLIST

Bzzt. Bzzt. “Hit or miss!” Bzzt. “I guess they never miss, huh?” 

You groan and reach out for your phone to turn off your alarm. You palm at the covers, trying to search for the source of the grating music without lifting your head. 

Bzzt. “You got a boyfriend –” Bzzt. “– I bet he doesn’t kiss ya!” 

You sit up in your bed – only to find out that it isn’t your bed. It’s a couch. A sinking feeling settles in your stomach as you turn over and face the rest of the room. The blinds on the windows are down and it’s kind of dark, but you can still make out two figures.

Two men are quietly panicking, their backs turned to you as one of them tries to (unsuccessfully) shut off the alarm. Their voices are hushed – “Is this supposed to be music?” “I don’t know, just stop it!” “And tell me exactly how to do that.”

It strikes your tired mind and shocks it into awareness when you realize you don’t know these men. Neither of them. And that, well… you don’t know where the hell you are. 

You try your best to quietly get off the couch, but your legs are tangled in the blankets. Instead, you roll to the floor with an ungraceful thud. Your shoulder takes the brunt of the impact. 

The two men’s eyes snap over to you. You all look at each other with eyes as wide as dinner plates. The alarm is still going – droning, annoying, but somehow undercutting the seriousness of waking up in an unknown location with unknown men.

You dart up and immediately slip on your blanket when you try to run, falling to the hard floor again. You stand up, staring them both down. (You’re sure you look pathetic, wide-eyed in pajamas and socks, but you don’t really care.)

“Hey, listen,” one of them says. He holds out a hand in what’s meant to be a soothing gesture. “Just… don’t panic, okay?”

He lets out a half-exhale, half-nervous laugh, revealing a tentative, gap-toothed smile. Your eyes dart between him and the other man, who almost looks to be his complete opposite. 

Slowly, you lift your legs from the blankets one at a time, untangling them. You glance around the room, making sure to keep both men in your line of sight. 

A workbench. A hammer. The plan isn’t fully formulated, but it’s there, and you’re enacting it.

You bolt across the room and pounce on the hammer. You quickly turn around, readying the hammer above your shoulder. The two men haven’t moved.

“N-now…” Your voice wavers despite yourself. You point at the men. “Now don’t you come any closer! You – you hear?”

“We are not moving,” the other man says. He’s paler than the other man, with dark undereye-bags and a cane. The handle probably has a knife hidden in there somewhere. He’s the one holding your phone, which is still going off.

Bzzt. “He gon’ skrrt –” Bzzt. “– n’ hit the dab like Wiz Khalifa!”

“Shut up!” You snap. “And turn that goddamn alarm off!”

The bigger man holds up a hand to the one who just spoke. A silent gesture saying, ‘Let me handle this.’ “That’s… what we’ve been trying to figure out.”

That gives you pause. These two men – who are dressed rather smartly, to their credit – can’t figure out how to turn a phone alarm off?

“Press the… grey button,” you say. “Y’know, the one that says ‘stop’?”

The paler man taps your phone screen, and the song turns off. Suddenly, in the semi-silence, everything seems so much more serious. You kind of wish that stupid 2018 TikTok song was still playing so you could continue to downplay the realness of the situation. 

He holds up your phone, almost tilting it towards you. “This is yours?”

“Um…” You readjust your grip on the hammer. “Yeah.”

There’s a silence. You swallow thickly, glancing around the room again. More of your things are on the far side of the workbench, near the men. Whatever. They’re not that high on your list of priorities. 

The bigger man tries to break the silence. “What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?” You parry. “‘Cause I’m goin’ to the cops, soon as I can.”

“Jayce Talis,” he says readily. “And this is my lab partner, Viktor.”

The other man – Viktor – tucks the handle of his cane under his arm and holds his hand up in a wave. A small smile graces his thin lips, like he’s trying to get you to calm down, to see that neither of them mean you any harm. You swear to yourself that you’re not so easily swayed.

“Okay,” you say, almost to yourself. You take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “Okay.”

You roll your shoulder and relax a little, now letting the hammer hang at your side. Both Jayce and Viktor seem to relax a bit, too. 

You steel yourself and nod, almost like you’re giving yourself permission. You introduce yourself, only giving your first name.

“That’s a start,” Jayce says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I couldn’t give a rat’s shit whether it’s nice or not,” you say. “I was fixin’ to cave both your goddamn skulls in. Still gonna, if you don’t tell me where the hell I am.”

Both of them share a glance. Viktor steps forward, his cane clicking against the floor as he does. 

“You are in one of the laboratories of Piltover Academy,” he says, “which is one of the most prestigious universities in all of Runeterra.”

You let out a strained laugh and sarcastically wag your finger at him. “You best start makin’ some sense quick, boy, ‘cause I don’t got a whole lotta patience.”

“It’s… complicated,” Viktor says. “You came from…”

He tilts his head and shifts his gaze over to something on the workbench. It’s… blue, and it’s glowing. It’s a rough but still kind of-circular rock, gently hovering above a small platform. 

“That. A hexstone.”

You pause. “What the fuck?”

“Yes, my thoughts exactly.” Viktor walks over to it, putting your phone down next to it. It moves, independently, a little closer to the hexstone. He pushes it further away, outside its… sphere of influence, you guess. 

“I was conducting a routine experiment to gather more data when the hexstone suddenly turned volatile,” he says. “I cannot describe it exactly, but… there were sparks, a light, and then…”

He looks over at you, a knowing look in his tired eyes. “You.”

You set your jaw and stare at him. He’s not joking. He genuinely believes that you were… birthed, maybe?… from this rock. Like some sort of ancient Greek myth; like how Athena was born, fully grown and armored, from Zeus’ head. 

“I don’t believe that for a split fuckin’ second,” you say, your voice laced with mean laughter. “You really think you can convince me that I was born in some big flash of light? You want me to believe your… goddamn magic rock brought me here?”

“It’s a hexstone,” Jayce says quickly. “Not a magic rock. Though it does have magical properties.”

“Right, right.” You put your hands up, one still holding the hammer. “My sincerest apologies. I do not – cannot – believe that your hexstone brought me to your secret little laboratory.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought you would say,” Viktor says. “You won’t believe us, no matter what we say. Is that not right?”

“Yeah,” you say. “‘Cause everything that comes out your mouth is total bullshit.”

Viktor reaches over to a switch near the edge of the window. He flicks it. You glance at Jayce. He’s watching Viktor.

Slowly, slowly, the blinds on the windows pull up. Light filters through, and the room is suddenly much more bright and inviting. (Not that you’re planning on staying or anything.)

Outside is just… not what you expect. The buildings are tall and the architecture is breathtaking. There’s an amazing clocktower in the distance, with an art piece sitting on top of it, composed entirely of golden, self-rotating cogs. 

And there’s zeppelins. Or airships, or blimps – you don’t know. You’ve only seen the Goodyear blimp on TV, and you’ve only heard of zeppelins when your daddy or one of his friends mentioned Led Zeppelin. But still – there’s a few of them, roaming the airspace mere hundreds of feet above the city like it was no big deal.

The hammer falling from your grip and banging against the floor pulls you from your thoughts. You flinch and jump back, jerking the foot you almost hit in the air with an exclamation of “Christ alive!”

Both men tense and turn towards you at the sound. You exhale sharply and put both feet firmly on the floor, trying to brush the little incident off as smoothly as you can.

“This is just… this’s just a trick of the light, that’s all!” You say. “Or TVs that look like windows, some-something like that.”

You pick up the hammer and brace a hand on the workbench, then hoist yourself up so that you’re standing on it. Jayce and Viktor are saying something, insisting you get down. You’re not paying attention. 

You raise the hammer, swing your arm, and –

It’s glass. 

It’s clear, thin glass that’s raining down in the streets below. You step back, almost tripping and falling off the workbench backwards in the process.

“No,” you say softly, almost like an exhale. Then, you raise your voice: “No! What the hell is this? You…”

You look back at Viktor and Jayce. They both look shocked, and stay quiet. You look at where the window meets the edge of the workbench. 

This must be some… some dream. That’s it. When you were a kid, you used to have these dreams where you were tiny, and fell in the crack between the edge of the mattress and the wall. The dream ended when you hit the ground. It didn’t really click in your kid-mind that falling from a tall height plus hitting the ground equals death, but still. You woke up. The end result was still the same.

You toe through the broken glass, sweeping it away with the side of your foot. You can feel a small prick in your skin. (This dream is very intricate. It impresses you, really.)

“Wait!” “Stop!”

You glance over your shoulder at them, then promptly continue what you were doing, smashing the hammer through the rest of the glass in the pane to clear it. 

“What’re you doing?” Jayce asks, his voice panicked. You feel his hand wrap around your ankle but give it no mind.

“It’s a dream,” you say. “If I die, I’ll get outta the dream. That’s simple logic, don’t you know?”

You lift your foot, trying to shake Jayce off. He doesn’t let go.

“What if we recreate the event?” Viktor asks. “Would that prevent you from jumping?”

You look over your shoulder at him and put your foot down. Jayce is still holding on. “What event?”

“The event that brought you here,” he says. “A… a rift in the universes, as I understand it.”

You pause. “That’s just plumb stupid.”

“Stupid enough to work,” Jayce says. His grip around your ankle tightens. “Right?”

“This ain’t some movie,” you snap. “We can’t conquer all with the power of love and Christ.”

“You do not seem like a stupid person,” Viktor says. “You know that jumping would guarantee your death. Or a painful stay in the hospital, at the very least.”

You glance down at the street below. Viktor’s right – it is a long way down. And even though it’s a dream, your heart is still beating wildly. The people below are so busy that they haven’t even stopped walking, or even noticed the glass on the street. They continue on with their day, smiling and sipping their seven-dollar coffees… or whatever it is rich people do in rich cities like this.

And then, everything you thought kind of just… comes crashing down. There’s people down there. You can see two people hugging. There’s a man holding a baby. A little family out on the town, doing their midday shopping. Your dream of this being a dream is just that – a dream. Your stomach drops a little and you can feel a cold sweat coming on.

“I – I got a life,” you say. “I got shit I gotta take care of – responsibilities. I go to college.”

“We can find supplemental instruction,” Jayce says quickly.

“I’m an art major,” you say. “I study Jewelry and Metal Arts! This’s gotta be a STEM school… the lab, how y’all ‘re dressed…”

“We can figure this out,” he says. “You can keep making jewelry. I – I can find a sponsor for you to keep going to school. Just… step away from the ledge. Okay?”

You breathe out a sigh and back away from the edge. Jayce’s grip around your ankle loosens. Even if this is a dream, it’s… it’s a nice dream. The skyline is nice, the men you woke up to are nice – well, they seem nice enough. The architecture of the clocktower is nice and so is the statue idly spinning atop it, the golden cogs rotating and catching the light, the resol so bright it may just blind someone…

You can feel the adrenaline in your blood drop and your hands start to shake. Jayce slowly, carefully takes the hammer from you, then helps you down off the workbench, almost guiding your body like a doll.

“Are you feeling alright?” He asks. 

You open your mouth, then close it with a breathy exhale that kind of resembles a laugh. You lean back against the edge of the workbench. “I’m… I’m worn slap out.”

Viktor looks you over with a scrutinizing gaze, then turns and walks into a sideroom, his cane clicking against the floor as he does. 

“You should take a seat,” Jayce says. 

Without your input, he takes your wrist and guides you back to the couch you woke up on. You practically collapse on it as you sit down.

“I…” Your eyes rake over the workbench. The broken window, the shards of glass. There’s a little blood where you cut your foot. You feel awful. “I caused one hell of a mess, didn’t I?”

A look crosses Jayce’s face that, in essence, says ‘Yes. Yes, you did.’ But if he has anything to say, he doesn’t.

Viktor comes back, a steaming mug in one hand, a small box in the other. The handle of his cane is tucked underneath his arm, but he manages to walk fine without using it. (You’re sure walking without it is taxing, but if there’s any indication, Viktor doesn’t let it show.)

He sits next to you on the couch, making sure to keep a polite distance. He holds out both the mug and the box towards you. “Sweetmilk to help with the adrenaline drop, and a first aid kit for your foot.”

“Oh.” You take them from him. Your fingers brush his, and it almost sends a shock through you – his skin is cold. “Thank you, sir.”

“There is no need for your formalities here,” Viktor says. He sounds kinder now that you aren’t acting like a total tweaker. 

“My momma raised me with manners in mind,” you say. 

You set the first aid kit in your lap, then raise the mug to your mouth and test the temperature with your lips. It’s hot, but it won’t burn you. You take a tentative sip, and it’s heaven. It’s a little bit of heaven consolidated into a mug of milk, sweet and spiced.

“That’s nice,” you say. “What’d you say this was again?”

“Sweetmilk,” Viktor says. 

You nod and take another sip. It warms you from the inside and washes away Viktor’s cold touch. The spices are warm and autumn-ish – like cinnamon and nutmeg and allspice, but not quite.

“I never, um…” You tap your fingers against the side of the mug. “I should give y’all a proper apology. So, I apologize. For…” You tilt your head and point at the mess you made with your eyes. “… that. I behaved inappropriately, and I should’a thought ‘fore actin’ like a fool.”

“I understand it. Well, kind of,” Jayce says. “You woke up in a strange place with strange men. It’s understandable that you would act like that.”

“Still. That was, uh…” You laugh breathily. “That was somethin’ else, weren’t it?”

“It was,” Viktor says, then his voice takes on an almost teasing lilt. “Hopefully you know how to behave yourself in the future.”

“Yessir, I do,” you say. A small smile makes its way onto your face. You know Viktor’s giving you hell just for the sake of it, and it’s a comfortable feeling. “Like I said, my momma beat them manners into me ‘til I wasn’t a toe outta line.”

Viktor and Jayce give you odd looks, and you can feel a warmth in your face. Perhaps corporal punishment involving children isn’t as prevalent here as it is back home.

“Never mind all that,” you excuse. “Was more like… verbal beatin’s than anything else.”

You can feel the newfound tension in the room relax a little. You just sip your sweetmilk (which may be your new favorite drink, honestly) and pretend as if nothing’s wrong. You’re good at that.

You take a mental note that you’ll have to watch your tongue in the future – you don’t want these young men’s patience to run out. This is a strange world, and you’re a stranger to it. Piltover seems like a rich city, and rich cities don’t take kindly to poor folk… You’re a Southerner. The South is nothing but poor.

Whatever. You’ll make it work. You always have. How can this be any different…?

[http-tokki]

have you ever tried this one?

and it’s just you ontop of viktor

look, i’m not saying he hasn’t fucked (look at him, he has had partners before but never like you, never someone who puts his pleasure before their own) so when you slide a pillow beneath his hips and make sure he is comfy over everything else, oh how his heart stutters in his chest. Viktor already looks at you like you hold the universe in your hands but as you perch yourself above him, hands braced on either side of his head as you grind your sopping cunt over his cock before sinking down on his aching length, he swears you begin to fade into starlight. the edges of his vision blurs as heat blooms in his stomach, pure indulgent undiluted ecstasy fills his veins and tingles in the tips of his fingers. mans is TRANSFIXED on the sight before him as your hips begin to move, slick dripping down your thighs in pearls of opalescent blue in the lowlight of the hexcore (the cot that had been set up in the corner of the lab for when he is too tired to go back to his room has been getting a little more action that it had originally been intended for) Viktor has no idea where to put his hands, what to grab or how hard to hold so you guide his hands to your hips, squeezing his fingers beneath your own before settling your palms on his chest. his heart thumps beneath your skin in a steady rhythm, his breaths shallow as his body adjusts to pleasure coursing through his veins.

“are you okay? nothing hurts?” you’re quick to check in, brows furrowed as your eyes slip down the pillow beneath his hips.

he nods, pushing his head back into the plush cushions as you tense your muscles, squeezing him so deliciously tight he might pass out.

“don’t worry about me, love. just-“ words fail him as his breathing turns ragged, your hips grinding in slow circles above his. “fuck…i-“

Viktor has always been quick of wit, a retort poised on the tip of his tongue at all times but as you begin to drag your hips up and down, cunt sliding over his pulsing cock in slow strokes that has his jaw slackening and eyes rolling, the concept of language leaves him entirely. for a moment it’s as if it is his first time all over again. awkward hands and quick breaths, unable to tear his eyes away from your perfect form as you bounce and grind above him. it’s cute, how innocent he looks beneath you, how bright his cheeks blaze, how red his lips bloom as he bites on the flesh.

“you’ve never done this?” your question is breathless, cheat tightening as the angle has your stomach twisting.

Viktor shakes his head, afraid that if he opens his mouth it would be nothing but whimpers and moans.

“do you feel good?”

another wordless answer in the form of a nod and he thinks he has retained some sense of dignity for the time being, but as you tense your muscles again, his mouth opens and his answer is a whimper.

your body stills above him as your brain registers the sound that has just spilt from your lover’s mouth.

“did you just- was that-?”

“shut up. This is a new thing for me,” Viktor grumbles but he can’t stop the grin that has spread over his cheeks. his hand reaches for your, wrapping around the nape of your neck to pull your face to his. “no one’s ever treated me like this. I can’t expect to know how I might react.”

a/n: pls be nice this is my first arcane fic i just love viktor so much gimmie a hair tie, a pillow for his hips and five minutes i’ll show piltover the real arcane

[acid-ixx]

brutus: the only fucked up thing in the world is you

— masterlist !

let me pitch in another idea before i forget about it, but picture this: a oneshot (or mini-series) based off of "ma meilleure ennemie" where it's platonic yandere batfam x brutus! reader (inspired by jinx in arcane though) x yandere! conner kent. don't mind this at all, i'm trying to flesh out the reader's past in a shorter post 😭

you guys get the general gist. you get adopted by bruce wayne, neglected by the same father all throughout, hurt yet desperate to please your family. though instead of giving up and moving out; you take it in yourself to try to become a vigilante like them, without bruce's supervision you'd be out at night in your stupid costume and determine smile—

fighting crime with an (unsure) grin like your idol, nightwing, in gotham of all places.

in your measly trial of becoming a hero, you fuck up and nearly die at your first try by a criminal attempting to gun you down, if not for the familiar face of tim's best friend, a man you occasionally find yourself staring in awe at every time he visits.

you meet superboy face to face, he charms and saves you from nearly dying. it is him who helps and supports you with your journey, and for the first time in a while you feel seen.

not by your family, not by the vigilantes you idolize— but by the same hero seen as only a mere clone by most.

you quickly fall in love with him, he does so too. that's how your typical romance with the hero goes. it's through his willingness to always assure you that he's yours and that you'll never be alone with him that you dismiss the ache in your chest at another day being ignored by your family, by the flutter in your heart at how you met the one.

he kisses you like you mean the world, he holds your hand every time the doubt becomes too much, it's him who swipes your hair away from your sweaty forehead and tear-stained cheeks, just to let you nuzzle into his leather jacket; to feel and melt into warmth of his blazing chest.

and through it all, you're unaware of just how much he truly loves you from the start, how his heart beats for you and only you.

then one night, in a time where you're without your boyfriend who was in a mission in another dimension, is when you finally see them, your family, huddled together in one of the corners of the alleyway, struggling with a particular fight, that you decide it's high time that you disrupt the flow and help.

you try so, with one of your handmade weapons, but instead of it exploding successfully, out of reach in your family's perimeters, it inadvertently causes the buildings in the alleyway to collapse with its impact. it kills not only the criminals they're fighting, but countless of civilians in the process, and you're the perpetrator of it all.

... standing in front of the mess you made, blood on your makeshift combat boots. you always make a mess of things, that's why you don't belong, that's why you nearly died at your first night if not for your boyfriend saving you. and now, under the cast of the moonlight—

you're the villain in their eyes.

they don't even acknowledge how you share the same glinting orbs of the ghost that always stares at each and every one of them sullenly. they don't notice the familiar shadow your hair casts, or how you're shaking and silent all throughout the entire scene.

... as if it's the first time you bare witness to such a gruesome sight of gore and scattered flesh.

they don't see that, they don't see you, as always.

all they see is red.

red that stains at the crown of your head, all throughout the soles of your shoes.

bruce doesn't hesitate to beat you black and blue once he gets his hands on you, uncaring for the loud wails (he doesn't know you're crying for the people you killed...) and tiny whimpers that escape your throat, the others don't even pull him back, watching the scene unfold like they're mere bystanders rather than... heroes who could've saved you.

and just when you're about to make a run with one of the openings, he rips at your clumsily disguised mask and comes face to face with you, hoping that he finally sees his child.

but he doesn't flinch back, he doesn't even recognize you, let alone how young and naive you truly are to the cruelty of the world. he sees a monster, he doesn't hear you call him 'father' the meek apologies, or the sorry way your hand braces itself on the merciless impacts on your face.

only for your nose to crack and drip with blood either way, for your eyes to bruise into disgusting shades of purples, blues and yellows, until you're a mess of pierced, delicate skin and impalpable flesh.

you want to die the harder you feel your bones crack under the pressure, you want to die, even when someone finally ripped him out of his clutches and you, and when you had released another one of your smoke bombs that was actually miscalculated toxic fumes, forcing your legs to carry you to your vehicle, adrenaline consuming your entire being despite the tears and the pain that wreck at your body.

ever since then, you've run away. to a world unknown, a city you couldn't recognize, broken heart, broken dreams, broken body. every part of you feels broken.

you couldn't even confront conner in fear that tim has already told him of your situation, you break up with him through a burner phone and change your entire appearance afterwards in fear of being recognized by the very same people who destroyed your life. you try to overcorrect by wearing the opposite of what your vigilante persona wore. you want a fresh new start, a new lease on life.

you still want to be a hero like them.

yet there's a small voice in your head telling you violent thoughts that turn into harsh screaming, criticism, insults, yells at your pathetic being.

they rip and mock at you, the voices of the damned in that wretched day became silhouettes, your tormentors who grate at your ears every time you try to sleep in your molded bed in some shitty apartment in a shitty new city. they tell you it's your fault — it is, god, everything is your fault...! — you're nothing but a worthless mistake if it meant the bat was willing enough to nearly break his moral code just to teach you a leasson.

but you're not only a mistake, but also a monster who killed people too.

suddenly, it's hatred that dictates your actions and not misdirected hope. suddenly, the line between self-hatred and the burning jealousy at how easy it was for bruce to forgive his other children's mistakes as compared to yours; it all blurs into one intangible urge to hurt once more.

the longer the voices went on, the longer you stared at the twisting shadows and were condemned to paralysis in a rotting bed to repeat that scene of carnage over and over again— the more your head feels like it's splitting apart at the seams and you forget what love, what forgiveness, what grace feels like.

suddenly, you're adopted by a villain in one of your nightly escapades.

he knows of your crimes, of your misery and struggles, and he wants to transform you into his perfect sidekick, an easily manipulated puppet in the ruse of his crimes: you let him, you've nothing worth losing for anyways.

no family, no lover, nothing worth fighting for.

you're trained mercilessly, you wear a new face that speaks of only violence and havoc brought upon the plains of every known existing thing. you learn what it's like to let go, to only cherish people who find a use in you, who reward you through your attempts. if it means causing blood and pain to the world for praise, in a man who's willing to not condemn you but ro applaud you instead.

and all throughout, you slowly start to forget about conner kent, superboy, your first love, your only one. either by the hidden shame that torments your thoughts of what your ex-boyfriend would've seen in you, or the genuine thrill of the chase from policemen ready to gun down the new threat, you.

you forget what his touch feels like, the ghost of his fingertips pressing against your waist, his featherlight kisses on your shoulders, the texture of his jacket that wraps around your body like a hug, his raven hair tangled on your fingers, and even the feel and taste of his tongue on your mouth.

every intimate moment with him is replaced by the thirst for vengeance, by the still growing need to satisfy your new mentor, just to satiate the looming parts in the back of your head wishing for a semblance of a family member loving you back.

everything was fine, it was normal and you felt the sense of twisted love and satisfaction. you could live in this moment forever, but even villains accustomed to chaos need a new change of pace—

or rather, to relive what has triggered them to become who they are now.

so it's only when you step foot in gotham, yet again, to bring true carnage into the wretched city, with enough of your protege's convincing despite the concealed fear in the corner of your eyes, that you begin to fuck up even once more.

a/n: this is shit like dumpster fire trash conpared to my other works, and it's really short too uhm, but i need to establish smth in my drabbles because i'm prone to forgetting things a lot, courtesy of my dissociative amnesia LMAO. idk half of what i wrote, i speedran it, added tags and pictures and i already forgot about what i wrote. but this is just the flow of it all so i might cringe at this once i reread it tomorrow and possibly even delete this thing if i hate it enough. hope u guys enjoy this before it might go in the dumpster ���

[ornii]

Arcane, Chapter 4: Things have changed, you? No..

The endless darkness had been inviting for so long, but finally there is a chance to return.

Sitting on a floating island upon the endless cosmos, (Y/n) was still alive, years had passed, he had grown. Mastering the crystal that exploded and had infused his body with this unstable power.

Standing at the edge of the island, covered in rags and robes, he extended his metal arm, sigils etched into the rusted metal hummed blue energy and began to shake, evoking what power his body had, the fabric of the world itself began to warp at a disturbing rate. It was trying to tear itself back to the real world, but no avail. The blue light fizzled and he slumped down exhausted, he punched the ground out of more frustration itself, and escape so far away, until the darkness begin to crackle with blue electricity, a large amount of energy was being used, somewhere. It didn’t matter, it was time.

(Y/n) stood up and put his hand in the air, he begins to use said energy, opening his arm up like a lighting rod, as the electricity stuck his arm, his eyes begin to shift to a soaring bright blue, power surged further and further until his arm was shaking, barely containing the energy like a bottle about to burst, with one movement, he then threw his hand forward, the force made a shockwave of energy so intense it made a small but visible tear, into a laboratory. it didn’t matter where, just not here.. (Y/n) leapt into it without hesitation, his body felt the rush of light, pressure and heat, and swiftly landed on the ground of a cool laboratory.

Placing his feet on the cold floor (Y/n) looked around, his eyes dimly lit by the light, he saw two men, stunned by his arrival, it’s obvious he’s still in Piltover. If he’s back, then he only has one goal, find powder and Vi, turning to the large glass window he extended his arm and the energy began to gather once more, with a single snap of his finger, he blasted another shockwave of blue energy hits the glass and shattered it, he leapt out of the window, regardless of how far the fall is, and it was far, as he fell he slammed his hand into the wall and began to slow his descent scarring the tower he slowed down and leapt into the waters, taking him away to hide in piltover.

Gasping for air, he washes up near the sewer pipe leading down to piltover, before he can be swept up he gripped the platform above and pulled himself up next to the pipe, and rested, seeing the blue sky, vibrant colors, finally. Leaning against the pipe, he fell asleep for hours. His eyes open to the smell of smoke, something was burning, his eyes dart upwards to the smoke rising further in Piltover. He rushed to the location, flames consume a tent, blazing. His eyes quickly shifted to the drawing made of the fire into the tent, it was a monkey, just like.. Powders.

“Is… is that?” He stepped closer, deep rooted memories began to replay, fear, anger and frustration all began to flow once more, but the coughing of a woman caught him off guard. He peered in and saw her, on the ground, flames around her. With little hesitation he ran in, he saw a wooden beam had fallen upon her chest, He gripped the beam with his arm and hurled it off and put the woman on his shoulders and ran with her out of the fire. Lying her on the ground he looked her up and down, besides the smoke and slight burns, she’ll be fine. She was dressed as an officer, Footsteps storm near his direction and he can assume the others are here. (Y/n) ran off, leaving the woman to be tended by the officers.

That woman, was Caitlyn, Lady of House Kiramman. The next morning came and She was knelling down. looking at a board of plans, all sticking together to a singular goal -a goal she just hasn’t been able to piece together, twirling a pistol she overlooks them, and hears a shuffling behind her.

“I said leave me, Jayce.” She sounded upset, and when the figure didn’t reply, she quickly turned around and aimed her gun, it was (Y/n), reading the note from the large bouquet of flowers. “To Lady Kiramman.” He said, and turned his hooded face to her.

“Who are you? How did you get it?” She demanded to know, (Y/n) calmly turned to face her, “Your windows, and could you please put you gun down? If I wanted you dead I would have let you die in that tent.” He said, and Cait was caught off guard.

“It was.. you.” She huffed, (Y/n) nodded. “Yes, you were investigating it, I want to help.”

“And why should I believe that?”

“Saving your life wasn’t enough?” He replied, and sighed, “The man you’re looking for is part of Silco’s gang. Probably using the explosives someone I know…” he said, and it began to piece together.

“I've suspected there is a single mind

behind the undercity's violence…I think whoever attacked the square

is our suspect.” Cait lowered her gun and showed him the display she had, all plans link together.

“The same symbols showed up at the botched smuggling operation at the Hexgates.”

“The Hexgates?” He had no idea what that was.

“Keep up.” She points to the maps dark end.

“All this time, they've kept their dealings

localized to the undercity. Low priority. The attack on the square changes things. They've overstepped. If I can figure who made the explosives, it could lead me directly to whoever's behind it all. The answer is here, staring me in the face.” Cat droned on, and (Y/n) smugly folds his arms.

“I guess that would be me..” (Y/n) walked over, and knelt down to look at the map. “It’s been a while since I was there, but I can remember a few faces.. especially ones that work with Silco, if what you’re saying is true.. we find the guy, and.. “chat” with him.

(Y/n) made the offer and extended his metal arm. “(Y/n)” he said, Cait reluctantly shook the cool metal hand.

“..Caitlyn, and fine, but you are going dressed like that, and you reek.”

“I haven’t taken a decent shower in years..” he said, Cait folds her arms as well. “Then you’re going to, and get a new assortment of clothes, my father could spare some, you look to fit the size. Cait took his hood off and she got a good look at his face, half of it had a scar along from the eyebrow down to his lip. His eye now glistening like a crystal is behind it. Cait was quickly surprised and stepped back. “I’m sorry I didn’t—“

“Don’t worry about it, where your shower or whatever.” He put his hood back on, Cait lead him to it, without her parents knowing of course.

Now dressed in a more casually style, ankle high boots, thick leather leggings and a button up navy blue shirt and vest combo, he tops it off with a black tie and overcoat, taking a single glove he puts it on his metal arm to avoid suspicion. Cait peers into the room.

“Done? We have to go..” she saw him in the moonlight, the way his eyes shine so beautifully, he nods, “yeah.. let’s go.”

Standing before the warden, (Y/n) kept his hood on and allowed Cait to speak.

“I need to speak with one of the inmates.” She said, the Warden at the desk looked them up and down, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, folks in here aren't usually very talkative…” he said, scribbling on his paper

“This one was hit by friendly fire. He's got reason to talk. Must have been sent in today?” She asked and he thought.

“Oh. Inmate 2135. Yeah, I'm, uh, afraid that's not possible.” He admits, (Y/n)’ jerked his head up to the Warden.

“Why not?” (Y/n) asked, the Warden looks at his papers, and taps on one.

“Uh, well, there's been...an incident.” He said, Cait and (Y/n) glance at each other and then back to him.

“What kind of incident?” Caitlyn asks.

“The...not so pretty kind.”

“You don't understand, we have to talk to him.” Caitlyn attempts to use some form of reason with the warden, whose hands were tied.

“Oh, you'll be able to. As soon as he can move his jaw again.” He replied, and (Y/n) thought, “this guy… he just got to the prison, couldn’t have made any enemies, so who did it must have known…” (Y/n) grasped what his brain was trying to relay.. whoever attacked the man must have known who he already was.. one of Silco’s men.”

“Who assaulted him?” (Y/n) asked. And the Warden could oblige with that.

The Duo entered the cell block and calmly but carefully walked down the hall to the Cell of the assailant. Loud thuds echo down the hall, sounds like someone’s taking their frustrations out on someone, or something. The pounding grew closer and closer, until the final cell door it was beating with force. (Y/n) and Caitlyn reached the cell block, and the pink hair in the dim room said enough to who it is. (Y/n)’s eyes couldn’t believe it and leaned forward his face reaching the cell bars. Vi turned around, and looked at them both.

“…Who the hell are you?”

[yeet-me-dad-dy]

The Arcane - Chapter Six - Old Wounds

Summary: Viktor gets a little look at the things that haunt you, and you and he work on the designs for his back brace.

Characters: Viktor x Male Reader (Doctor Raven) x Jayce eventually maybe

Warnings: Nightmares

Words: 1,947

You were lying on your back on the hospital bed in your lab, tossing a small metal device into the air while you considered Viktor's dilemma. You had managed to get all of the scans you needed within a week, and while it was a grueling and often painful process for him, he hadn't complained even once. After receiving the scans, you had studied them until your eyes burned, mind racing with questions, theories, and ideas.

You caught the device and set it on the mattress beside you, then rubbed your tired eyes. Vampires didn't need as much sleep as humans, but they did still need sleep; six or seven hours each week. You had managed exactly thirty-two minutes for this week, and exhaustion was beginning to set in. You knew you needed to rest, and you honestly had tried, but calming your racing mind enough to fall asleep was an achievement not often reached.

You sighed and closed your eyes. If you could just get five minutes… Your consciousness hung in the abyss between waking and sleeping, and then, slowly, you began to drift off.

The trees were burning, the snow was stained red. Everywhere you looked, bodies with missing limbs and guts spilling from their bellies littered the battlefield, the heat of their corpses sending steam rising into biting midnight air. The blood painting your hands and face and drenching your clothes was pleasantly warm...

“Doctor?”

You whirled around, eyes blazing, teeth bared, to see a skinny young man with golden eyes reaching toward you.

I know you, the little voice in your head said. You’d known all of them. It didn’t matter. You lunged, teeth meeting the soft flesh of his throat.

“Doctor!”

You bolted upright in bed, eyes wide and searching, chest heaving. You weren’t sure where you were. Octagonal room, blue walls, tall ceiling… Familiarity sparked in your nightmare-addled mind.

The lab. You had fallen asleep in your lab.

There was a gentle touch on your shoulder, and you jerked away. That same skinny young man from your dream was watching you with concern. You looked him up and down, allowing your mind to match the face to a name.

“Viktor…” you breathed.

You flopped back onto the bed, covering your eyes with your arm, and pulled in a few lungfuls of air to steady yourself.

“What time is it?” you asked.

“Just after dinner,” he said quietly.

You swallowed hard, then tossed your legs over to sit on the edge of the bed with your back to Viktor.

“I came to show you the sketch of the back brace I’m working on… and to check on you. It seems it’s a good thing I did.”

“The brace, yes…” you mumbled. “I’ll need to take a look at that.”

You rubbed your eyes, ran a hand down your face.

“Are you alright, Doctor?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes, I just… had a bad dream.” You rose suddenly, smoothed down your shirt, and rounded the bed to stand beside Viktor. “Let’s see it.”

You couldn’t seem to look at him, not without remembering the look of fear in the eyes of his dream-self and the feeling of your teeth sinking into his flesh. He handed you a piece of paper. Drawn in graphite were sketches of a mechanical back brace from different angles, as well as smaller drawings of individual pieces and some of the more technical aspects.

“Hmm…” your gaze flit from one drawing to the next, intrigued. “Have you eaten?” you asked, glancing at him for only a moment.

“No. You had been bringing me my dinner, so I was waiting for you. That’s why I came to check on you. You’re not usually late.”

You chuckled dryly.

“Sorry…”

“It’s alright. You needed sleep.”

“If only I had actually gotten some…” you let out another dry chuckle.

You returned his sketches to him, retrieved his file from your desk, then gently led him out of the lab with a hand on his lower back. You could feel the metal medical corset beneath his shirt.

“Let’s head down to the kitchen. We can talk about your design while you eat.”

He looked as tired as you felt as he shuffled along beside you. It must have been a long day for him, too.

“I thought vampires don’t sleep,” he said as you called the elevator.

“We don’t sleep much, but we do sleep. Seven hours a week is fine.”

“An hour a night,” Viktor nodded. “Or do you prefer to do it all in one lump?”

“Honestly, I’m lucky to get three hours a month.”

“I know how that feels,” Viktor sighed.

There was a comfortable momentary silence before he spoke again.

“Do you want to talk about your dream, Doctor?”

You considered a moment.

“There’s not much to talk about… There were a lot of bodies and a lot of blood. People I knew and loved.”

“I see.”

The elevator dinged and let you off on the bottom floor of the academy, where you wound your way through the wide halls to the kitchen. Viktor had a lot of questions he wanted to ask you, but there were certain things that there was never a good moment to bring up. Doctor Sammor had said “I know what you’ve done.” What did he mean by that? Was he referring to the unsavory ends of the people you’d tested your blood on, or was there something else? He’d gotten a glimpse of a darker side of you that day, and he knew nothing of your past. There was no telling what kind of things you’d done in your long life. What kind of horrors you’d seen… or perhaps even caused.

The kitchen was empty, but there were a few people in the cafeteria still doing school work. You made Viktor a sandwich with some carrots on the side and poured him a glass of orange juice, then sat with him at an empty table in the corner near a big window. Thankfully, the sun was on the other side of the building and couldn’t reach you here. You spread the scans of his body and his brace design out in front of you so you could see them all at once. You both gave the spread a once-over. Viktor’s eyes lingered on the x-ray of his spine.

“How does one go about straightening a spine, exactly?”

You pulled the x-ray closer.

“Rather forcefully. Two straight metal bars bolted to either side will force it into a more natural position.”

“That sounds… unpleasant.”

“Yes, but don’t worry.” You offered him a comforting smile. “You’ll be asleep, and you’ll be given the best pain medication available to help you through recovery.”

“And you’ll be the one doing the surgery?”

“Yes. Unless you’d rather have someone else?”

“No. No, I think I’d be most comfortable if it’s you.”

“I don’t think I could trust anyone else to do it,” you admitted. “I have about one-hundred-and-fifty years more experience than the most experienced doctor. I was around when this surgery was still in its testing stages. I know what to do, but I also know what not to do.”

“I know I’m in good hands,” Viktor smiled.

You returned the smile, eyes lingering on his lips before turning your attention to the sketch of the back brace.

“The problem with our current methods is that it doesn’t leave much flexibility in the spine. The bars are rigid, so you won’t be able to bend. I’m hoping we can design something to replace the bars that will allow you more movement.”

You pointed to the main sketch.

“Honestly, this design looks really promising. This long spine piece here is articulated, right? One piece for each vertebrae… That could definitely work.”

Viktor nodded.

“Yes, and then the panels on the side and the chest piece will keep my ribs where they need to be.”

“Good,” you grinned at him, excited at the prospect of giving Viktor something more functional to wear.

The two of you lingered in the cafeteria for quite some time, going over the details of the sketch and the scans, tossing around ideas for different designs, and making sure that you could both work with what you’d come up with. The moon was well into the sky by the time you finally got Viktor to drop his pencil. You stretched and pushed yourself to your feet. A sharp pain ran up your hip and you stumbled forward, catching yourself on the edge of the table.

“Are you alright, Doctor?” Viktor asked, hand hovering just inches from your arm in case he should need to try and catch you.

“Yes,” you chuckled dryly and composed yourself.

“You are in pain,” he stated plainly.

You sighed and massaged your hip.

“Only sometimes,” you smiled softly, trying to reassure him. “Usually when I move too quickly.”

“Have you considered a cane?” he asked.

“I have, but I feel like I don’t need one enough to warrant getting one. I just need to move more carefully.”

He hummed, thoughtful.

“May I ask what causes the pain? I thought vampires were supposed to heal their injuries.”

You nodded and crossed your arms over your chest.

“We do heal, but sometimes old wounds still hurt.”

He was watching you with great interest, waiting for you to tell your story. You sighed and cleared your throat.

“It was during the Blood War,” you started. “There was an explosion and a building fell on me. Crushed me. I healed, yes, but I still have problems with my back and hips. Some days are worse than others.”

“I see.”

He felt stupid for not realizing that you were actually in the war four-hundred years ago. Had you been a doctor then, too, or had you been a warrior, fighting on the front lines?

“Viktor?”

“Hmm?” he blinked a few times. “Ah, sorry, I was lost in thought.”

“That’s alright.” You touched him gently on the shoulder.

Usually, he was averse to being touched. Your touch, though, he had come to find comfort in.

“Let’s head home, shall we?” you asked. “You need sleep.”

He chuckled and allowed you to lead him out of the cafeteria.

“I’ll sleep if you promise to, as well,” he said.

You sighed, but nodded.

“I’ll try.”

Viktor lived right across the hall from you, which it took you far too long to realize. You’d only figured it out when he was exiting his apartment at the same time as you one morning. You thought you could smell him in the hallway when you came and went, but you figured it was just his scent lingering on your clothes. To say you were delighted that he was so close was an understatement. You stopped him before he disappeared into his home.

“One more thing, Viktor. I almost forgot to tell you. I’m going to be heading up north in a few days to harvest more Snowbell root. I’ll be gone for… maybe two months?”

“Oh…” He didn’t like the thought of you leaving, though he couldn’t place exactly why. “You’ll… be safe, I hope?”

“Of course,” you smiled. “I’ll try not to be gone the whole two months, but those flowers are a pain to harvest, and even more of a pain to find.”

“I understand. I’ll be fine while you’re away, Doctor, you don’t have to worry about me.”

You nodded. You were worried. What if something happened while you were gone? What if he needed you and you weren’t there for him?

“Goodnight, Viktor,” you smiled.

He touched your forearm gently, mimicking a gesture he’d learned from you.

“Goodnight, Doctor.”

[t0xicn30n]

Hey...psst.

Would you like Arcane characters as sonic fandub quotes in these trying times?

/////

Sevika:"It would seem that you bitches have come to a standstill in the Under city trenches. You have thirteen seconds before the sewers fucking explodes, you Hot Topic wannabe and you blue gumball son of a bitch! You have done nothing but destroy my life, I hope you both die."

Jinx:"Hot Topic?"

Vi:"No! My secret!"

////

In her emo era

Vi:"I miss my wife, Jinx. I miss her a lot. I'll be back."

////

Caitlyn:"Ambessa you're an asshole, woman!"

Ambessa:"You are what you eat Caitlyn."

Caitlyn:"WOAH-"

////

Viktor seeing ekko blazing towards him in episode 9

Viktor:"He's faster than Viktor! ......he's faster than Viktor! WHAT!?"

////

Jinx:"That's right everybody. It's your favorite girl!"

...

Caitlyn:"GET THE FUCK OUT-"

////

Viktor:"Will you pop this piss rock?"

Jayce:"Put the piss stone down right now, you know what hexcore does to your ᵇˡᵉⁿᶦˢ"

Viktor:"I like what it does to my ᵇˡᵉⁿᶦˢ jayce!"

////

Jayce:"All around me are familiar Jayce's, worn-out Jayce's, worn-out Ja-a-yce's, bright and-"

teleports to the bad universe

"I’M BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING AGAIN!!! OH. MY. GOD."

////

Ekko:“Going uuuuuUUUUUUUUUUP!"

proceeds to jump down

////

Vi: "I don't think so, Ambessa! You have to do what I say or else you're done for, Amdumb! Ambussy! Amb poopy, poopy butt!"

Ambessa: "You may be the- don't you ever FUCKING call me that ever again, I'LL KILL YOU-"

ambessa laying on the table defeated

////

Isha starting a la jinx revolution and getting kidnapped

Jinx:".......something just happened..."

[karniss-bg3]

Ya bring up a point I’m sure not all monster lovers consider—- turning Kar’niss back being a goal of his would mean sacrificing my love for the freaky and remembering he’s just a guy with needs too. I imagine if there was a WISH spell, given their open-ended nature to do Anything with reality, you’d probably get access to one with only a few options of what to use it for in a limited game context. Probably it’d give you the offer to fix your other companions, or your own lingering plot issues—- could we see some Kar’niss reaction to Tav, after mulling it over (alone or among companions), truly deciding to use the WISH for him and/or let him use it (one of those ‘trust your companion will do the right thing’ moments). Bet they find the spell after robbing Lorroakan or somethin. (Though it’s a Wish Spell—- imagine a man so short sighted as to just wish to be without pain but not change so he can still ‘be of use’. Hopefully he’d have learned better about his worthiness by the time you found a WISH though).

Title: A Wish Come True

Word Count: 3,667

Spoiler Warning: Spoilers for Act 2 and Act 3

Characters: Gale, Astarion, gender-neutral Tav and Kar'niss

Summary: After a hard battle in the sorcerer's tower, Gale uncovers a hidden Wish spell scroll. Kar'niss is now faced with a tough decision; Use the rare scroll to break the drider's curse or remain as he is forever more?

***

It had been a hard fought battle in the sorcerer's tower but the group came out victorious. Lorroakan had been bested and his lifeless body had settled in the middle of the floor. Astarion was the first to root around the wizard’s quarters with Gale not far behind, both searching for powerful items and weapons they could pilfer for their journey. Gale’s sharp eye spotted a peculiar rosewood box in a corner with intricate swirls carved into the lid. He leaned in for a closer look and sensed that the chest was locked tight. Astarion also picked up on the notion and casually nudged Gale aside with his shoulder.

“Allow me,” Astarion said, chuffed.

Gale held up his hands and gave Astarion the chance to unlock the mysterious vessel. Retrieving his trusty lock picking tools he went to work. As he began to fiddle with it a magical aura pulsed from the box and a blast of magical fire surged from the base and onto the fumbling thief. Astarion’s clothes caught alight and made the vampire lurch from surprise and pain. He spun in circles, frantically slapping at the blaze that threatened to consume his clothes whole.

“AH! Hot, hot, HOT!” Astarion screeched.

Gale stood by, his blank expression mirroring his annoyance. He’d flick two fingers aside, a blue aura shrouding them before a downpour of water crashed over the ignited fop. This doused the fire as well as Astarion who now stood there, soaked but free from danger.

“Now, what have we learned, Astarion?” Gale asked.

The vampire’s upper lip rose, exposing his fangs, shooting the wizard a miffed glare.

“That’s right. When exploring a tower of sorcery, maaaybe let the seasoned wizard do the poking, hm?” Gale said, gesturing to himself.

Astarion rolled his eyes, his hands hurriedly squeezing out his hair before flinging his arms side to side to rid them of excess moisture.

“Fine. I doubt there is aught of interest in that chest anyway. Likely moth eaten robes and naughty paintings. Have at it, oh ‘mighty’ wizard.” Astarion gave a disingenuous bow in Gale’s direction, abandoning the chest in an effort to fix his drenched appearance.

Gale wasn’t put off by Astarion’s complaining, rather accustomed to it by this stage in their journey. Instead he put his focus on examining the chest with a more nuanced look. His keen arcane senses were able to detect the sheen of an enchantment that shimmered over the item as a whole. He outstretched his hands toward it, palms hovering inches above the lid, putting his full concentration in breaking the troublesome spell. His eyes took on a purple hue, his robes kicking out at his ankles crackling with magical energy. He called out a single word, willing the weave to do his bidding, assaulting the enchantment in an effort to break it. His determination paid off. The energy pushed from his palms covered the box and the shimmer that once dominated it’s surface shattered like fiberglass removing the danger.

“Ah, there we are.” Gale swung open the lid to peer inside curiously.

The coffer, at first, didn’t seem to contain anything of note just like Astarion predicted. A pile of old robes of various hues sat in a neatly folded pile. Gale picked them up to look them over and while they were of a fine make, they didn’t seem to have any significance beyond that. He frowned with the discovery, continuing to dig in hopes he’d discover more.

“Ah-ha! Utter trash, certainly not worth getting burned over,” Astarion said while wringing out his shirt.

“Mm no, there must be more. A sorcerer wouldn’t go through so much effort to protect worthless robes,” Gale replied.

This prompted Astarion to come closer to investigate once more. Gale cleared out everything leaving an empty chest. The vampire smirked as he leaned over, a knowing gleam twinkling in the corner of his eye.

“Oh darling, it seems we’ve been done in by a red herring. Cazador had many items of value, ones he’d not leave wittingly out in the open.” Astarion reached into the box and ran his smooth fingertips along the wooden walls of the container. He did so until he felt a discrepancy in the wood grain; An indent. “There you are.” He’d press the hidden button, a quiet double click of mechanisms heard within its walls. Both men watched while the false bottom of the box slid open revealing the true treasure beneath.

Astarion’s lips curled in a self-satisfied grin, leaning in closer to Gale to make cocky eye contact with him. “I suppose a rogue isn’t as useless in a tower of sorcery as you thought, HM?”

Gale side eyed his proud companion, palming the side of his face to gently push him away. “You’ve made your point, good work.”

Inside was a pouch of gold coin, a bizarre wooden wand painted red and gold with floral accents and a short stack of scrolls. Gale filtered through the items with some fascination, going through each scroll with fierce scrutiny. His snooping came to a halt when he read over one scroll in particular, his eyes increasing in size as the shock took hold. Astarion was in the process of dumping water from his boots when he noticed Gale’s frozen demeanor.

“What is it, what did you find?”

Gale didn’t answer his curious companion, instead whirling around to call down to the floor below. “TAV! You need to see this!”

All this time Tav was situated on the lower floor with Kar’niss who had sustained injuries during the battle. The drider had lowered himself to the ground so Tav had ease of access to his wounds. They were bandaging a cut on his arm when they heard Gale shouting from above. Tav’s brow crinkled in confusion and Kar’niss followed suit, both exchanging a glance. Before Tav could rush to Gale’s side the wizard was already climbing down the ladder with some urgency. Astarion followed behind, half dressed and damp but equally as curious as to his discovery.

“What’s going on?” Tav asked.

Gale handed over the scroll to them. “Here.”

They took the parchment and scanned over the text inscribed upon it, a creeping realization hitting them the further they read along. Their eyes darted to Gale, then to Kar’niss and back to the scroll, their fingers beginning to tremble.

“A wish spell,” they whispered.

This revelation sucked the air out of the room. Astarion’s jaw dropped with amazement while Kar’niss’ breath hitched in his throat. A silence fell over the massive study, each companion eyeing off the other, uncertainty and excitement palpable in their immediate vicinity.

Gale broke the silence first. “What do we do?

Tav pressed their lips into a thin line, soon turning to Kar’niss. “This is it, what we’ve been searching for. You can return to your true form, Kar’niss. Your suffering could come to an end, right here, right now.”

Kar’niss rose from his crouched position, his hand rubbing over his arm in a self-soothing gesture. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat while legs shuffled beneath him in an anxious dance.

“But...this spell, it’s incredibly rare and powerful, is it not? Why waste it on me? So much could be done with this power. If I suffer it is due to my own folly,” Kar’niss said.

Astarion bolted forward as if angered by the statement, his crimson eyes glaring up at the drider. “Have you learned nothing after traveling with us? I know it’s a difficult lesson to learn, it took me far too long as it was. But what happened to you is not your doing. You were a victim, same as I. Take the scroll and reclaim your life.”

Kar’niss shrunk when he was chided so, unable to maintain his gaze on Astarion for too long. His nervous energy didn’t seem to wane, undecided and skeptical of his own worth.

“It’s true, this spell is not easy to come by. We can only use it once. With that said, I know first hand what it is like to be toyed with by the divine. Yours is a particularly cruel case, Kar’niss. As far as we know this is the only way to undo what has been done. I think we can all agree that despite our myriad of problems, this is your best chance at freedom,” Gale said. “We have alternatives to tackle our afflictions, you do not.”

Tav looked between Gale and Astarion, mulling over their words and watching Kar’niss shuffle about nearby. They took time to think and finally made their approach. They stepped toward Kar’niss, lifting an arm to gently rest their palm at the center of his chest.

“This isn’t a choice for any of us to make. You know better than anyone what is in your better interest and I trust in your judgment. If you need time to think it through then take it, you don’t have to decide this very moment.” Tav took a step closer, a warm smile on their face. “What is important is that you make the choice, that it is of your free will. Know that we will support you no matter the road you take. You are not a waste, Kar’niss, not by a long shot.”

Kar’niss listened to what everyone had to say, observing all present with some trepidation. He glanced down at Tav, resting his clawed hand atop of the one pressed to his chest. Without a word he stepped away from the group needing a moment to think by himself.

The others afforded Kar’niss his much needed space, retreating to another part of the tower to continue their search for other useful items. He was still in shock, scarcely believing that they had found such a rare item, something that could change his life moving forward. He came to a stop near a large standing mirror propped on a nearby wall. The drider turned to face the reflective surface, seeing his own image projected right back at him. He jolted from the surprise of it, as if it was the first time he truly saw himself since his change. His legs carried him closer, crouching down to get a better look.

His torso was bloodied from the recent battle, bandages placed over his arms where he’d suffered ice damage. Those details were the easiest to ignore, instead focusing on how twisted his once beautiful visage had become. His fingers reached to feather across the many eyes scattered across his forehead, trailing down to the scarred gash across his lip, finally reaching the hardened chitin sealed along his jawline. His gnarled hand reached out to caress the surface of the mirror as if trying to console the reflection within, his gaze meeting the pair staring back at him. His eyes tread lower, spotting the spider body his torso was haphazardly melded to, his pedipalps trembling beneath his belly button. He snarled and jerked his head away from the mirror, the biting sting of tears starting to collect at the corners of his eyes.

Was he worthy of salvation? He thought back to all of the atrocities he had committed both under Lolth and the Absolute, complacent in the part he played, a willing puppet for their unspeakable crimes. Astarion’s words rang in his mind, the notion that he was a victim rather than a fervent contributor. Should he be punished forever for actions of his past, or could he move beyond it and become the person he was meant to be? Gale’s statements came to mind next, the idea that he had been toyed with by those he worshiped, that he had the opportunity for freedom. What did that mean for someone like him? He could never return to the Underdark, not as a drider or a drow. That home was forever lost to him. Did the surface offer him something more, something greater? Or would he know the same abuse just with different faces?

Tav’s statement crashed through the walls of self doubt and hesitation. This was...his choice? Could he trust himself to make it? He realized he knew one thing for certain, he wanted to stay with Tav at any cost. He didn’t wish to be a burden on them, forever doomed to defend a drider from the gawking and cruel masses who didn’t understand him. Their life together would never know peace so long as Tav had to play protector. There were many other things they couldn’t do as he was now, things he’d long since thought about but was too afraid to voice. He wanted to know love, to know happiness, two things that were always short of his grasp, just out of reach.

Kar’niss turned to look back at the mirror but with more determination in his expression. He examined himself once more, for the final time, his head lifting as if in defiance of what Lolth had made him. He’d give the mirror a shove, pushing it over and letting it shatter on the floor below.

“Never again.”

During this time the group had pilfered much of the area. Gale had taken to reading the many texts stored on the bookshelves while Astarion hung his clothes on the balcony to dry, parading around in his underwear with no shame. Tav rolled their eyes at the display.

“There are many robes scattered about you could wear in the meantime,” Tav grumbled.

“Yes but they’re old, and ugly. Besides I look stunning au naturel. Really, you should be thanking me for providing your eyes with such a feast.” Astarion swished his arm in an effeminate arc.

Tav groaned and slumped deeper in the chair they had sat upon. “I’m going to regurgitate that feast onto Lorroakan’s carpet if you don’t stop.”

Their prattling was interrupted when they heard the clicking steps of the driders return. Gale closed his book and Tav stood up, Astarion joining the pair to look upon Kar’niss, the air of expectation heavy around them.

“Have you made a choice?” Tav asked.

Kar’niss rubbed his hands together nervously, looking between the three so as to work up the courage to make such an announcement.

“I thought about what you’ve said, all of you. While I still...struggle to believe I am worthy of this gift, I don’t want to spend the remainder of my life in hiding. You found me at the worst point in my life. You could’ve killed me without a second thought, you spared me instead. You showed endless kindness and patience while I struggled to contend with my own mind, feelings I thought to be genuine. I can’t return to the Underdark and Lolth’s shadow will forever follow me. At least with this spell I have the chance to live on the surface with a modicum of peace. I—“ He trailed off, his expression twisted while he searched for the right words. “I want to be happy. I don’t know what that really means for someone like me but I’m willing to find out.” He’d take in a shaken breath. “Use it.”

All three spared a glance to one another, seeming pleased with his conclusion. Tav stepped forward to hold the scroll out to Kar’niss but the drider raised both hands in refusal.

“I think since Gale found the scroll, he should do the honors. That and I am worried I’ll word it wrong and botch the entire thing. I don’t want to make my condition worse,” Kar’niss said.

Gale chuckled and took the scroll from Tav. “A fair concern, I will be diligent with my phrasing. Are you ready?”

Kar’niss inhaled a deep chest full of air, his legs dancing shuffling beneath him once more. “I think so, yes.”

Tav wandered over, issuing a comforting squeeze to his hip. “Everything will be fine. We’re right here.” They’d then back away to give distance for the spell to work its magic.

Astarion and Tav kept their distance, the vampire taking Tav’s hand into his own to give it a reassuring squeeze. Despite all his fanfare he realized the importance of this moment for all involved. Gale stepped forward keeping a gap between himself and the anxious drider, holding up the scroll to focus on arcane concentration.

“I wish for the drider known as Kar’niss to be restored to his true form, complete and whole as the drow he was before Lolth’s cruel curse kissed his essence. Memories hale and intact, body rich and vibrant, freed of the evil rendered upon him against his will.”

As soon as the last word left Gale’s lips the scroll in his hands crumbled to dust, their particles glittering in the air. They floated over to Kar’niss and began to dance in a shimmering ring around him. Kar’niss looked around with an urgent jerk of his head, lifting his arms due to a tinge of fear striking his core. The particles grew in size and number until they formed a continuous beam of golden light, expanding to form a dome of radiance that concealed the drider in full. Gale, Astarion and Tav stood by, their eyes wide and breath baited. They couldn’t look away even as the light increased in intensity, unable to see what was happening within. Loose papers in the tower went flying, carried away by the breeze radiating from the churning sphere in the center of the room. All of them could feel the force of this magic and it’s near infinite power, crackling and buzzing with arcane energy of a grand magnitude. The swirling golden light started to shrink in on itself, a notion that made Tav step forward with concern. Was Kar’niss alright, what was happening to him?

Soon the sphere shrunk to half the size it had been prior to its conjuring, the shell cracking down the center and breaking away, portions of the dome flaking away and disintegrating from sight. Once the shell had all but faded away the only thing that was left behind was the glowing silhouette of a man on the floor, doubled over on his hands and knees. The aura steadily peeled away revealing the changed individual beneath. A doubled over drow male was left behind, his form naked and vulnerable. The trio nearby watched in stunned silence, waiting for a sign that the spell had truly done as advertised.

A soft groan rumbled from the man on the floor, his hands pushing himself up into a seated position. He was dazed but alive and healthy by all appearances. Shoulder length white hair curtained around his pale face, now cleansed of the eyes which had once dotted his brow. The hard carapace that once molded over his arms, chest and jawline were no where to be seen, leaving behind smooth flesh and darkened nipples. Most notable were the presence of legs, two instead of eight, thighs muscular and firm. Kar’niss held up his hands which had begun to shake, looking them over in awe. His fingers were smooth rather than jagged and rough, able to bend his fingers with more flexibility than he had prior. He ran his palms across his face, particularly his forehead, noting the absence of the additional orbs he once carried. Finally, he glanced down to see his legs and genitals, all as they had been once upon a time. A choked gasp surged from his throat as the reality of it all began to set in. He was back to himself.

Tav rushed into action once they assessed the situation. They ran over and grabbed a loose blanket draped over a nearby chair, darting to Kar’niss’ side. They dropped to their knees in front of him, draping the garment over his shoulders to stave off the incoming chill.

“Kar’niss, are you alright? How do you feel?” Tav asked.

The drow didn’t know what to say at first, still patting over his torso and thighs in an effort to make sure this wasn’t a dream. He shook his head, mouth hanging agape, a swell of something building in his chest that he hadn’t felt in an age; Joy. His trembling lips pulled into an emotional smile, throwing his arms out to wrap them around Tav. Pulled into the vice grip of a hug Tav promptly laughed from surprise and relief, their arms threading around his torso to return the gesture enthusiastically.

“Th-Thank you...thank you…” Kar’niss whimpered, his face buried in Tav’s neck.

Tav bit their lower lip while stroking the back of his hair, leaning more into the embrace.

“You did most of the work, Kar’niss. This is your victory as much as it is ours. I’m proud of you.”

He bit back a sob from such a heartfelt statement, fingers curled into the small of Tav’s back. He leaned away enough to make eye contact with them, his body radiating overwhelming emotion. He cupped Tav’s face and brought them in for a kiss, one that he put every ounce of his body and soul into. Tav returned the affection with equal vigor, clinging to the man they adored so.

As the pair embraced Gale and Astarion stood by, looking on with their own sense of pride and joy at the outcome. Gale glanced Astarion’s way.

“You really couldn’t have put on some clothes for this monumental, once in a lifetime moment?” Gale grunted.

Astarion scoffed and waved a hand about dismissively. “Darling, they’re not paying one speck of attention to me. For once, that’s a good thing, mw-ha! Besides, my near nudity will likely help Kar’niss feel less self conscious about his own.”

Gale chuckled and propped his arm on Astarion’s shoulder, leaning into him while looking Tav and Kar’niss’ way.

“True enough, Astarion. True enough.”

Tav and Kar’niss continued to hold and kiss one another, filled with relief and hope for what future lay ahead. This was the beginning of a new journey for the pair, one that they were ready to face together.

To the very end.

[misseviehyde]

FINDING THE MEAN

Laura had never found the social aspects of school easy, but she at least always had the protection of her favourite teacher Ms Bloom.

Ms Bloom taught Math and she was everything Laura aspired to be. Clever, kind and friendly - the inspirational teacher had taken Laura under her wing and helped her survive against the bullies and mean girls that seemed to thrive in the school.

She had taken to giving Laura additional Math lessons in advanced concepts and the two of them would spend many hours after school solving equations, discussing problems and hanging out together.

Laura had realised that Ms Bloom was mentoring her and she felt her confidence and her ambitions begin to grow and swell. One day she would get out of this small town and go on to be successful - she would owe much of that success to her mentor.

One night after school Laura and Ms Bloom were pouring over a very strange equation that no one had ever solved.

Hyde's Divergent Mean was a curiosity that went back nearly a hundred years. No one had ever been able to balance the equation which appeared to be an attempt to work out the average amount of evil and toxicity in any given population.

"How about we apply it to the school?" asked Laura excitedly and the two of them began to work on balancing the numbers.

Ms Bloom sighed, "See - there's a missing component and no one has ever been able to work it out. The value of X remains unknown."

Laura frowned as she examined the equation. It was central to everything, it was almost as if the entire formula was more than math - like it was some sort of arcane formula. Perhaps it wasn't designed to work out the amount of evil in a population, but instead to harness and drain that toxicity and do something with it.

"Miss - have you ever thought X is meant to represent a person, not a number?"

Ms Bloom's eyes widened in amazement, "Why yes - that's incredible. I wonder what would happen if I put my name down as X and complete the formula."

"Wait!" gasped Laura, but she was too slow to stop her enthusiastic teacher who had written down 'Ms Isabella Bloom' next to X.

The formula suddenly blazed with pink light and Laura gasped and stepped back. Ms Bloom gasped and tried to stand back too, but she was yanked forward by an invisible force then lifted screaming into the air.

The teacher now levitated in the air surrounded by a sinister pink light. Laura gasped and tried to rush forward to help, but she was repelled by an invisible force.

On the board, the formula began to change. The name in the middle began to alter. "Ms Isablla Bloom" began to warp and alter to become "Bella Bloom."

The teachers eyes burned with pink fire and she gasped in amazement.

"Ohhhh fuck yes! I can see it all now, I can see how all the popular girls are connected - how they and their victims fit into this school. It's all so fucking OBVIOUS!"

She giggled, a strange sound coming from her usually sensible mouth. Her kind lips twisted into an uncharacteristically malicious smile as she stretched her floating body luxuriously and wiggled her fingers.

"Mmmmmh, I see how to get everything I always wanted. I can be reborn thanks to the equation, I can take the toxic femininity from those fucking losers and make myself queen bitch. No more being some sad-sac teacher, instead I can be a fucking princess!"

"Noooooo," gasped Laura. "Ms Bloom, you have to stop this, the formula is corrupting you. The equation is making you mean."

"Hahah shut up you pathetic loser, you have no idea how GOOD this feels. Ms Bloom is dead - I am BELLA BLOOM."

Throwing back her head, Ms Bloom moaned in ecstasy and splayed her fingers out. Long sharp gel nails shot from each finger as her bones cracked and her body shrunk in on itself.

Her skin became younger looking and her warm brown hair began to turn bright bitchy blonde. Ms Bloom's kind eyes turned a cold blue and her face became more beautiful, but mean and spoiled.

Her clothing shrunk to fit her now tiny frame, a tight red crop top and daisy dukes leaving little to the imagination as she floated down and landed on the ground with a clop of expensive high heels.

"Like, this is sooooo much better," giggled Bella as she arranged her hair and admired her nails. "Being a fucking thirty six year old teacher was sooooo boring. What a loser. I'd rather be an eighteen year old bitch any day."

Laura was shaking her head in horror as Bella strutted over to the whiteboard and laughed at the formula. It had taken the two of them hours to complete the formula and Laura wasn't sure she could even do it on her own.

A hand shot out and grabbed her hair and she screamed as Bella cruelly pulled her over and smashed her up against the board. Laughing, the new bully used Laura's hair to wipe the board - destroying the delicate formula and making sure that no one could ever copy the work and reverse the transformation, or ascend themselves.

"Like, that's better. Now I can't change back. You're the only one who remembers the old me anyway, the equation has altered reality and everyone else's memories of me. As far as the school is concerned, there never was an Isabella Bloom - only the Head Cheerleader and richest brat in town, Bella Bloom existed."

Releasing Laura's hair, Bella threw her to the floor and looked down with contempt.

"Fucking pathetic. You're so fucking pathetic and weak. You better stay out of my way loser, you don't form part of my equations at the moment - but that could change."

Laura sobbed as she watched her once favourite teacher striding off to start her new life as a bully and a mean girl. Bella would soon have all the big cock, money and riches she could ever want.

As for Laura, without her mentor and her inspiration - she would lapse into despair and any chance for a bright future she had would decay to nothing.

Ms Bloom had found the mean and there was no going back for either of them.

THE END

[embersoftheorder]

DWC - August - Day 1 - Melee

Blue light blazed across the wet stones of the claustrophobic tunnel of Stormwind's sewer system. Light was a valued and rare commodity down in the depths of the city, but it was thanked and enjoyed by those who tread it's foul waters. Tonight's wanderers included the Inquisitor Cheryl Duun.

Her green tinged goggles glowing with soft translucence as they cut through the dark to light her hindered sight, as much as she wished the glowing blue axe in her hands would brighten the darkness more. Her armor was tightly pulled to her muscular body to keep from snagging on anything, a piecemeal of chain and plate to protect as much as offer her speed. Her boots, soles tight and thick to keep from slipping into the slow flowing muck below her, gripped to the stone floor as she swung the stone blade of her weapon into the body of another kobold.

Most would consider the kobolds an easy foe, if even that as above the ground they were considered more of a minor inconvenience to the small folk of Elwynn and beyond. But here, here they were something different. Sinister, strong, and cunning in their movements and plans. Wielding weapons far superior to the crude stone or stolen steel, these were forged with a knowledge that they should not have. It was unnerving to see at first, but now after so many months of this vicious dirty work it was dangerous.

Beside her Cheryl heard Ramses give the order to hit the wall, the soft hum of his charged up weapon roaring to life behind her. The inquisitor gave a nod, not knowing if he saw it but she focused hard into the Tre's energy and caused it to flare bright watching the rats raise their hands at the sudden flash. Her own vision dazed from her bang, but she knew what to do as she flattened against the slimy stone wall.

There was a whine, a burst, and then the cheap smell of ozone as the arcane cannon went off. There was no fire or heat, but there was force and it was enough to hammer into the clump of foe rats ahead of the small band of catchers. They didn't even scream as they were blown back and smashed into the walls, the bodies gently folding and thumping down into the murky depths below them.

"Tides," murmured the woman as she blinked a few times behind the frame of her goggles. Her hand reaching up to pull them down and around her neck as he looked back to Ramses. The draenei smiling as he stood up and shouldered the cannon, even though he needed to duck a bit to keep his horns from scrapping the top.

"I think I got them," Ramses added with a hint of humor as he smiled with his softly glowing blue eyes.

Cheryl let out her own laugh as she tried to blink her vision clearer, not daring to touch her face down here again as she had when she first started. "I think so too. Come on, we got tunnel 17-C to go."

"Always, commander."

"Just Cheryl, Ramses."

"Very good, Just Cheryl," the draenei replied back, a wide smile on his face at his own joke.

Cheryl Duun rolled her eyes with her own smile before fishing her goggles back up before they pressed on into the under dark.

@daily-writing-challenge

[scuttlingcrab]

Mortals

A Warlock is Born

Summary: Korrilla summons Raphael to aid her in a fight at the Devil’s Fee. Raphael recruits a new warlock to his cause.

Notes: This is part of an ongoing collection of short stories focusing on Raphael and the mortals who have impacted him throughout his existence. Each little story loosely ties into the main plot of Baldur’s Gate 3. The second part will be out soon! 

The first story, The Curse of Lady Luck, can be found here. You do not need to read them in order, as each story is stand-alone.

Part 2: A Warlock’s Sacrifice is here!

(Image via breadandbloodybutter)

Raphael’s spine tingled when he felt Korrilla’s summons. There was a sharp tug at his chest, attempting to pull him towards her requested destination. Not now, imprudent creature. He anchored himself in his chair, falling back into a trance as he stared at his latest painting. His eyes danced over the thick swirling brush strokes and the vibrant oranges and reds of the setting sun.

He had positioned his easel on a hill near Neverwinter, a superb location overlooking the Trackless Sea. Raphael’s preferred spot for seclusion and indulging in mortal leisure pursuits, one of his many guilty pleasures.

The sky was ablaze around Raphael but there was no blistering heat. Instead it was juxtaposed with a gentle breeze that cooled his skin as he watched the sun disappear behind the horizon. There was no equivalent in Avernus, where the raging skies barely changed save for a sparse cloud or two that brought iron rain and the occasional arcane thunderstorm.

Fiery oranges clashed with dark blues and light purples as they fought for the dying attention of the sun. The ocean waves were calm, mirroring the chaos in the skies so perfectly that it looked like an infinite void. Raphael’s mouth salivated as he took it in. He must capture it all, a perfect addition to his ever growing art collection.

Raphael carefully picked up his paintbrush, as if it might crumble with the slightest change of pressure, and dabbed the tip of it in paint. The final stroke. As Raphael brought the brush to his canvas, Korrilla’s second summons tore through his body. He winced as his chest heaved forward, nearly sending him tumbling down the hill. His body flickered between both locations, a loud ringing pierced the air as he got glimpses of Korrilla’s face and the Devil’s Fee; her eyes frenzied, lips tight, she tried shouting something at him but Raphael snarled in response. Her image dissolved as he fought to stay centred in Neverwinter.

When Raphael blinked again, he found himself on the ground and the canvas in tatters beneath him. Raphael had punched a hole through the painting during his struggle against Korrilla’s beckoning. His hands trembled as he picked up the demolished canvas. He could fix it with a snap but that would simply be cheating. Raphael’s jaw locked and he dug his heels into the grass, the soil beneath him bubbling like lava.

“Will this infernal torment ever cease!” 

Raphael roared, his voice booming throughout the deserted beach, louder than any thaumaturgy spell could ever hope to achieve. His canvas caught fire; his work, his precious sunset, dissolving in an instant. Whatever was left of his wasted afternoon blew away with the next breeze.

Raphael rose, his footsteps scorching the grass as he turned away from the ocean. He raised his arm, preparing to furiously snap his fingers but halted, eyes darting to his sleeves, then to his entire doublet, and trousers. He was covered in paint and dirt, his outfit wrinkled and soiled, as if he was a petty commoner. He huffed, disgusted with himself. How very mortal. 

With a snap, Raphael undefiled his clothes, rectifying any hint of failure. He narrowed his eyes, unsure yet of the punishment he would bestow on Korrilla as he vanished into a deafening inferno. 

––

“Korrilla! Did I not explicitly–”

Raphael emerged from his fiery portal and was immediately met with a blaze not of his making. Chaos and disorder welcomed him as he stood agape in the entranceway of the Devil’s Fee. 

The diabolist shop was in ruin. A massive bookshelf on the far left of the room was the main source of fire; the flames grew, slowly licking their way across the ceiling. Raphael stepped forward, his feet crunching against broken glass and stone rubble from the shattered infernal statues that had once proudly stood high. 

One of Helsik’s gilded imps lay mangled in the centre of the room, its body tangled in silk rugs and surrounded by deep claw marks on the parquet flooring. The reception desk was nonexistent, the only remains of the rich mahogany panelling were the sharp splinters scattered across on the floor. 

Raphael’s imagination spun like dice as he observed Helsik’s unconscious body discarded in the far back of the shop, a fallen shelf sat atop her small frame. No amateur could get the better of Helsik, surely? Raphael’s interest had piqued, however he found himself gritting his teeth in frustration as he looked around for Korrilla. She would not get out of this so easily, even in death. 

There was a loud crash from the second floor, glass shattering and muted sounds of struggling; grunting, kicking, the wood creaking above him with every faint movement. In a heartbeat, Raphael was up the stairs. He crept towards Helsik’s quarters, the door to her room falling off its hinges. 

Korrilla was pushed into the far corner of the dining area, her face battered and bruised and her dress nearly burnt to a crisp. A scrawny half-elf gripped a curved dagger at Korrilla’s throat, drawing blood that trailed down her neck. The half-elf had a round youthful face and donned a messy bob. Korrilla outsmarted by that half-breed? A runt of the litter, at best. 

Korrilla’s eyes lit up when she spotted Raphael lurking at the threshold. He did not acknowledge her in return, but continued to focus on the half-elf. His pupils dilated, exuberance simmering inside him as he observed this potential new investment. 

“What an interesting turn of events.” Raphael proclaimed, as he entered the stage with a swagger. 

The half-elf jumped like a spooked rabbit at Raphael’s words, quickly shimmying so that Korrilla’s body was now in front of her. The half-elf squeezed the dagger a bit more into Korrilla’s neck, causing her to grimace. 

“Please, don’t let me stop you.” Raphael guffawed, “I do love a good show.”

Korrilla’s brows furrowed and she bit her lip, any ounce of relief Raphael had brought quickly drained from her face. 

“What I find most curious… is if Korrilla couldn’t kill you, then you must have some talent. Yes? And besting Helsik? She will not be happy when she wakes. Even so, it is amusing to see the Devil’s Fee in such shambles. I’ve often dreamed of this day.” Raphael suppressed another chuckle.

The half-elf met Raphael’s calm visage with fierce eyes and determination. A creature yet to be tamed. This will be most enjoyable. 

“Cat got your tongue? No bother. You will drop that weapon, pretty little thing, before we continue our game.”

“And if I don’t?” The half-elf responded, voice low and quivering.

“I’m afraid you’ll find a very unpleasant end to your miserable little existence. And it will be such a waste, as I hope to make some use out of you.”

The half-elf stared at Raphael, her expression unchanging. 

“Did I forget to note that my patience is wearing thin?” Raphael spoke through pursed lips.

Korrilla’s face twisted as Raphael folded his arms, sensing his impending outburst. 

The wood underneath Raphael’s feet started to smoke as he took a step forward, leaving charred marks in his wake. The half-elf sniffed the air as Raphael approached, her eyes growing in size. Raphael took another step and transfigured into his cambion form, loosening his neck as his wings filled the available space. His tail thrashed and his horns grated against the ceiling like nails on a chalkboard.  

“Drop the weapon.” 

The half-elf released the dagger, kicking it across the room. She raised her hands and backed away from Raphael. 

“I yield.” 

Raphael simpered.

“Wise.” 

Korrilla stumbled forward at her release. She held a hand to the wound in her neck muttering a healing spell to seal it. 

“And YOU!” Raphael rumbled, louring to Korrilla. “You simply couldn’t take care of this creature? You do not know what I have sacrificed to come to your beck and call. Your worth is diminishing, Korrilla.” 

“Please accept my sincerest apologies, Raphael. I await whatever punishment you see fit for my errors.” Korrilla immediately bent the knee, staying submissive and daring not to move even a muscle. 

“We will discuss your punishment later.” 

Raphael stepped away from Korrilla, edging closer to the half-elf. 

“Your name. Now.” 

“Dolofina.” 

“Dolofina…” Raphael repeated, chewing her name in his mouth. 

Raphael raised his hand dramatically above Dolofina. She watched his movement, shrinking away in anticipation. Raphael bared his claws and paused, leaving his hand extended. Just one more moment… let her think it’s the end… Then with a sly smirk, he snapped his fingers and the pair vanished.

––

Raphael and Dolofina materialised in a rain of sparks, dropping into the central chamber of the House of Hope. The large circular table in the middle of the room, usually decorated with platters of delectable food and drink, was bare. A boring sight no less, but he had no time to waste on formalities today.

Dolofina fell to her knees on the polished marble floor, her thump reverberating throughout the vacant halls. Raphael saunted past her, moving towards the wall near the open hearth. He pressed his palm against one of the paintings and it popped open, revealing a hidden bar behind it. 

“Your poison of choice?” Raphael asked, as he uncorked a bottle of Jasmarim Shadow, letting it breathe while readying a glass for himself. 

Dolofina remained on her knees, panting heavily, her hair slick with sweat. Her face grew paler as she shook her head vigorously at Raphael’s hospitality. 

“Oh? Are we not up for celebratory drinks?”

Dolofina floundered to her feet, retching over the balcony. 

“Poor creature. Some get used to the sweltering heat of Avernus. Others simply learn to tolerate it. I can’t make any guarantees.” 

Raphael poured the wine into his glass, savouring the glugging sound that issued from the bottle. Ah, sweet music. He swirled the beverage gently before bringing his nose close to the rim. He inhaled, smiling to himself before taking a sip. 

“Exquisite. Rich and delicate, teases your senses, and makes you crave more, even after the bottle is finished. You can’t find an intoxicant like this anymore.”

Dolofina clung to the railing, dry heaving. 

Raphael closed the painting and sat down on the studded leather couch underneath it, crossing his legs. His eyes surveyed Dolofina, observing every inch of her taut body, her once tall figure now reduced from the heat. What a gaunt little thing, and yet with so much joie de vivre.

He never tired of a mortal’s first introduction to the Hells. Most creatures reacted the same way, with their slight variations. Weeping, laughing hysterically at their fates, one poor sod even had a heart attack and expired in front of Raphael; luckily he had been expeditious to secure the deal so the soul wasn’t squandered. Yes, it was quite cruel, but his infernal blood thirst for the entertainment, the anguish. And oh, the mortal perspiration was mouth-watering. 

“Pray tell, what was so important in the Devil’s Fee that you had to risk it all?”

Dolofina wiped her lips with the back of her hand before steadying herself against the balcony. She hesitantly removed a large diamond from her pocket, holding it between her thumb and index finger. Raphael lazily flicked a wrist and the diamond flew into his hands. Dolofina shrieked, attempting to grab it back.

“Oh, you’re joking?”  

Raphael observed the diamond in his palm, rolling his eyes. 

“I… needed money. They said the Devil’s Fee was an easy target.” 

Raphael squeezed the diamond and his hand was suddenly engulfed in a white inferno. He watched the fire dance around his hands, the sensation tickling his knuckles, before it turned into a striking blue flame that somehow burned even brighter. He released his fist, the blaze dissolved and the diamond vanished, without even a trace of ash. Raphael rubbed his hands together, that was that.

“Twas worthless anyways. Mortals, always attracted to shiny little things of almost no importance.” 

Dolofina stared at Raphael, her face contorted with rage, nostrils flaring. There she is. There’s the fight.

“That was mine. I nearly died retrieving it.” 

“Nothing belongs to you anymore. I am not in a generous mood today, yet your antics have inspired me. I can make use of someone like you. Under my employment, you won’t be resorted to thievery.”

“I don’t work with devils.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Dolofina’s new contract appeared on the table with a low hiss, a quill floating beside it. Raphael didn’t even bother snapping his fingers, his painting, or the lack thereof, lurked at the back of his mind; taunting him, the wound stinging his ego.

“Today’s your lucky day. Refuse, and I strike you down where you stand and consume your soul as a measly canapé. Accept, and you get patronage. Power. Proficiency. And a longer life expectancy.”

“And you want what exactly? My soul?”

“Your soul and your cooperation. You will answer to me and act as my agent. There is a war of the millenia brewing and I need all the strongest fighters. You could become a champion, you know, there is a lot of potential.” 

Dolofina peered over her shoulder, her eyes darting for any possible escape, a window, a door… that glimmer of hope Raphael loved to see sucked away from mortals still lingered on her face. Say goodbye to hope, little pet.

“Signature please, and your life will begin anew.”

Dolofina bit the side of her lip as she inhaled, looking up at the ceiling, as if pleading to the Gods for a last minute intervention. Her green eyes met his as she dragged her feet towards the table. 

“Fucking Nine-Fingers…” Dolofina whispered to herself, “I’ll ring her bloody neck the next time I see her.” 

Dolofina sank into one of the leather chairs in defeat, then signed herself away to Raphael. 

“I will say this only once. In my house there is decorum. There are rules. There is a balance to uphold. If you make the same mistake as you did above, steal from me, even think about breaking the terms of our contract, you will wish for the sweet release of death by the time I am finished with you. Do not make me regret this decision.”

Raphael waved away the contract and Dolofina instantaneously fell to the floor, screaming in agony. Her body convulsed as if she was bewitched and she writhed in pain, tears pouring down her red cheeks. The veins in her legs briefly pulsed, turning dark purple as it continued to grow, slowly travelling up her body. Her hand reached out, as if seeking Raphael’s aid and instead, shot out a crackling bolt of purple lightning at the ceiling, shattering one of the metal chandeliers. It came crashing down next to Raphael, missing him by mere inches. He titled his head to the floor, eagerly watching his new pet, as he took a sip of wine.

“What the–!”  Dolofina screamed again as her body accepted the new torrent of power. 

“You will need training. I know the perfect teacher, and I think you’d get along splendidly.” 

Will be continued.

[skxrbrand]

Prev / 𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒 𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐇 - 𝐈𝐈𝐈

"Now?"

"No. They've only just arrived. Be patient!" The Trickster of Tzeentch hissed to the servants he was assigned, watching from the lip of the Black Pit. His master's grand plan, of which he was afforded a key place as Unleasher of the project constructed on the Changer's orders, was commencing.

The Changeling could see it from here-- the great red river of ruin Skarbrand and his pet god were carving through the land. Rare were the times Tzeentch directly commanded his Trickster, but this would be one such occasion and all could see the merits of it.

" That's going to take eons to rebuild. So many hopes, dreams, lies-- captured and made solid." The Horror groused, twirling his Trickster's staff in his hands. Behind him, pink and blue horrors capered.

" Now?" One ask, impatient, literally vibrating with it.

"No, not now!" The taller Daemon hissed at it, for what must've been the hundredth time. A loud clatter caught their attention-- the Impossible Fortress had fallen. The Maze Thralls were out in full frenzied force. Tzeentch slithered from the wounds wrought in the walls of his home to face his attackers.

"....Now?" The Horror asked again, hopeful.

"Wait. Wait..." The Changeling watched the Fused God and his own size one another up. Then they pounced, and he turned to his fellow Horrors. "Now!"

The incantation began. And something rose from the center of the Black Pit...

---

Tzeentch rarely left the Hidden Library, secreted at the heart of the Impossible Fortress, itself situated in the nigh-impassable Maze of Crystals. All the gods had dozens and dozens of battle legends to their names; times when they were forced to intervene personally and duel a force greater than any of their daemons. But as he watched the two gods size each other up, Skarbrand could recall no such tales about Tzeentch.

He was not a god of warriors. The Changer was patron to revolutionaries, politicians, magic users, and mutants. Battle was not in his portfolio.

And yet none could deny how he held his own against Malal-Khade, a combination of magic, strength, duplicity, and agility making for a formidable enemy. Just watching the clash had become dangerous, as Tzeentch rained down magic in wanton quantities: storms of shredding wind and hails of blazing wyrdflame. Malal-Khade shook these attacks off well enough, but Skarbrand and his daemons were just that: daemons. Daemons and the regretful mortals who had followed them into the mouth of hell itself to bear witness to two of it's Fell rulers dueling to the death.

" We should leave." Kha'xanzyr hissed to Skarbrand among the carnage. The Reaper snarled and shot him a look. " You would pass up watching the Changer die, Architect?"

" When he dies, this realm will unravel. And we shall perish alongside him. Tzeentch is no match for my Patron."

As Kha'xanzyr said this, Malal-Khade struck with his pilfered blade. He pushed the weapon into the serpentine guts of the great avian-marine god, wrenching a horrid sound from the faces on his chest. Tzeentch responded by lurching forward with his tentacles, squeezing and choking Malal-Khade about the throne, but the War God roared and lit up his skin with black lightning. It singed across the Change-Lords body, the God's flesh running like tallow as he shrieked and pulled away. With each hit he took, the Realm of Tzeentch trembled, the pain of the Changer trembling through it.

Skarbrand saw reason then and there, though he allowed himself a final look at the Supreme Lord of Change, crossed and pierced with wounds, dripping his arcane ichor. "We leave." He agreed, looking at Kha'xanzyr and Khazaan, who nodded and shouted the order. Skarbrand's army pulled back, abandoning the Maze Crazed to their own insane devices, reticent of the world itself cracking beneath their hooves.

If Malal-Khade noticed Skarbrand's retreat, he said nothing. His own forces fought on, until they were ground to blood and bones beneath the relentless onslaught of Tzeentch's ravening hordes. Tzeentch himself was no easy score, but Malal-Khade was the Firstling and the Misbegotten-- the Firstborn and the Feared. He had stumbled and Tzeentch had disappeared into flame at the moment, reappearing behind the challenger. But Malal-Khade had predicted this, spinning on his hooves and wrenching his warped blade upwards with quicksilver perfection and brutal strength. The blade sliced through Tzeentch's chest-face, then bisected his beak-mouth, severing no few tentacles in it's wake.

The Great Lord of Change, each eye blown wide, lurched and choked, spewing arcane rich blood from both mouths. Malal-Khade watched him die with cool, cruel satisfaction.

"Iͥ s͛hͪoͦuͧldͩ hͪaͣvͮeͤ s͛leͤw yoͦuͧ whͪeͤn Iͥ hͪaͣdͩ ᴛⷮhͪeͤ oͦррoͦrͬᴛⷮuͧniͥᴛⷮy." The Windlord cursed.

"𝐀𝐄. 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄. 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐍𝐎 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒, 𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑, 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘. 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈 𝐀𝐌 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄." The younger god growled, watching Tzeentch collapse and quite literally shatter to pieces among the remains of his labyrinth and fortress. Malal-Khade basked in his victory, in the destruction he had wrought. His army was gone, killed to a daemon and a man, but it had been a worth trade to destroy one of the four. He looked at the blade in his hands-- warped and twisted beyond use. Extending an arm, Malal-Khade went to discard to weapon, but found his fists tight and unwilling to drop it.

"𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆?" Malal bullied his way to the fore of the joining, hissing at his other-self.

"𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄? 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃. 𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒. 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄 𝐔𝐒 𝐍𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐔𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐄."

"𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋! 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐌𝐘 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃! 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐆𝐎𝐃-𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐏𝐎𝐍, 𝐀𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐒𝐄𝐄. 𝐖𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐅𝐈𝐗 𝐈𝐓, 𝐖𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐈𝐓!" Malal argued back. "𝐖𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐑𝐔𝐍 𝐈𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐇'𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓, 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐑 𝐍𝐎."

"𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐊𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒. 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐆𝐎𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏 𝐔𝐒." Khade responded. They must've looked quite mad then, arguing with themselves. They must've fit in quite well with the rest of the daemons there, who saw them. " 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐇 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐓. 𝐊𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓."

"𝐖𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒! 𝐖𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐔𝐒." Malal snarled and the joined form agitated.

"𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍, 𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐁𝐄 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐀𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑."

"𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍? 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄! 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘, 𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 𝐔𝐏 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐔𝐒. 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒! 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄, 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆!" Another ripple. The Gods bickered and bickered. They argued and fought about who was next on their list to be slain. They argued so fervently that they did not see that Changer was not so dead.

That killing him was never going to be so simple.

---

Millenniums had passed since Tzeentch had been reduced to Fractals. He remembered it still-- Khorne, Nurgle, and Slaanesh heaving him off of the Endless Mountains after an expertly laid trap. It wasn't one of his finest moments...but unlike then, this shattering was quite purposeful. Another step, as always, in the Great Scheme.

For the Changer was not as dead as the two bickering gods might've hoped. Oh, Khorne's blade with it's vehemence against his very being would take time to repair from, but he would. He would come back, more or less the same, but the same could not be said of these fools. All around him, the Changer could feel the minute consequences of his Labyrinth being shattered. The Realms were drifting, the winds were rising to a tempest in the mortal world, and countless realities had risen with each swing of Malal-Khade sword against the Crystal Maze. Possibility, potentialities, alternative worlds-- all unleashed and so haphazardly.

But he would investigate those later, when he had proper eyes and body to do such with. Right now, he could only see from his realm; a million eyes ensconced in the very earth and sky, spying and prying. And what he saw pleased him greatly.

His project, completed, striding over the realms to deal with this interloper. Tzeentch hadn't had an allusions about how he would fair against the kin of Khorne, let alone two. But his sentinel, his weapon.

His Collar of Khade was a different story entirely. It had been fitted with the Rage Pox, the roiling red liquid sloshing around in vials on it's frame like obscene growths. It had been stolen from Nurgle's lands at great pains, the machine further scored with runes of domination. But there was something Tzeentch hadn't known-- that those runes had been tampered with, sabotaged by a servant of Khade and one of his own feathered brood...

---

Malal-Khade hadn't seen the giant skeletal beast of metal that had approached the aftermath of the battle. Due their own lack of oversight or perhaps the lingering will of the slain Tzeentch, they hadn't heard it or sensed it, not until it was upon them. With metal fists forged by daemon-smiths, it pummeled the injured god with one hand and wrenched the wrap blade from his grip with the other. Off it went flying, too far to reach. Malal-Khade made to defend, but the Collar of Khade lunged and undid itself. Like a straight-jacket of divine metal, it caged the Fused God within itself and the runes of domination blazed to life.

Malal-Khade screamed, feeling the acid of control bending and corroding his will. But he was two gods, not one, and Malal was a horrid thing that should not have been. In that battle of wills, the runes had failed; burned themselves out and left an exhausted hybrid in it's wake.

But if anyone had contingencies, it was Tzeentch, and into the body of the joint god, the Rage Pox drained. It had killed Slaanesh's spawn, which Malal was, but Khade was the God of Unmaking and the pox was a thing of magic. And so when Malal-Khade fell, he was not stricken with death.

"нuͧs͛hͪ liͥᴛⷮᴛⷮleͤ вaͣвy dͩoͦn'́ᴛⷮ s͛aͣy aͣ woͦrͬdͩ,̓ ᴛⷮcͨhͪaͣrͬ'́s͛ goͦiͥng ᴛⷮoͦ mͫaͣᴋⷦeͤ yoͦuͧ aͣ mͫoͦcͨᴋⷦiͥng вiͥrͬdͩ~." Tzeentch crooned the song as Malal-Khade tried, and failed, to keep his eyes open.

It had been a risky gambit, but one that would pay off in the future...

[nevadancitizen]

A BLAZE OF ARCANE BLUE MASTERLIST

synopsis: You're perfectly content with your life as a college student, but for some reason, the universe isn't. You wake up in a strange lab in someplace called Piltover. You're trying your best to get back, but this Viktor fella is awful distracting. Maybe it won't be so bad to stay awhile...

ships: Viktor/isekai!Reader, Jayce Talis & isekai!Reader

tags: Isekai and Transmigration, Slow Burn, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, POV Second Person

AO3 link, if you prefer to read there

note: Reader is from the American Deep South, because I'm from Texas and I hardly see any fics with Southerner self-inserts. Please, be respectful and don't talk about stereotypes, as most, if not all, are completely false.

CH. 1: Directionless Genesis

CH. 2: <currently being written...>

[darlingdespairstims]

My Fictional CG list

Marvel -

Storm / ororo munroe

Wolverine / James "Logan" Howlett

Cyclops / Scott Summers

Rouge / Anna Marie

Gambit / Remy Lebeau

Professor X / Charles Xavier

Magneto / Erik lehnsherr

Deadpool / Wade Wilson

Yukio

Spiderman / Peter Parker

Spider-Man 2099 / miguel o'hara

Starfire

Mystique / Raven Darkhölme

Jean grey

Pavitr Prabhakar

Scarlett witch / Wanda Maximoff

Thor

Loki

Captain America / Steve Rogers

Winter soldier / Bucky Barnes

DC -

Black widow / Natasha Romanoff

Batman / Bruce Wayne

Harley Quinn / Harleen Quinzel

Poison ivy / Pamela Isley

Bat girl / Barbara Gordon

Nightwing / dick Grayson

Red hood / Jason Todd

Wonder woman / Diana of Themyscira

Superman / Clark Kent

Twisted wonderland -

Leona Kingscolar

Lilia Vanrouge

Azul Ashengrotto

Jamil viper

Divus crewel

Malleus draconia

vil schoenheit

Baldur's gate 3 -

Karlach

Astarion

Halsin

Minthara

Creepypasta -

Jane the killer

Eyeless jack

Jeff the killer

Homicidal Liu

Ticci toby

Ben drowned

Clockwork

Nina the killer

Monster high -

Clawdeen wolf

Venus mcflytrap

Twyla boogieman

Spectra Vondergeist

Lagoona blue

scarah screams

Sirena Von Boo

Robecca Steam

Operetta

Jinafire Long

Catty Noir

Mystic messenger -

ZEN / Hyun Ryu

V / Jihyun Kim

Jaehee Kang

Jumin Han

Identity V -

The photographer / Joseph desaulniers

The violinist / Antonio

The prospector / Norton campbell

The mercenary / Naib Subedar

The Professor / Luchino Diruse

Weeping clown / Joker

The novelist / Orpheus

The Batter / Ganji Gupta

Bloody queen / Mary

"Prisoner" / Luca Balsa

Call of duty -

Valeria Garza

Kate Laswell

König

Simon "Ghost" Reily

Obey me! Shall we date? -

Lucifer

Belphegor

Diavolo

Leviathan

Genshin Impact -

Kaeya Alberich

Diluc Ragnvindr

Amber

Jean

Lisa

Venti

Zhongli

Neuvillete

Wriothesley

Alhaitham

Kaveh

Ningguang

Beidou

Candace

Dehya

Yae Miko

Arlecchino

Black butler -

Grell Sutcliff

Ciel phantomhive

Sebastian Michaelis

Alois Trancy

Sonic the hedgehog -

Rouge the bat

Amy rose

Blaze the cat

Shadow the hedgehog

Knuckles

Vanillia T. Rabbit

Tikal

Sally acorn

My little pony -

Princess Luna

Princess celestia

Fluttershy

Lyra heartstring

Queen chrysalis

Princess Cadance

Octavia Melody

Mrs. Cup Cake

Sugar belle

Rarity

Apple jack

Zecora

Steven universe -

Garnet

Pearl

Sapphire

Blue Diamond

Mouthwashing -

Curly

Anya

Daisuke

Star vs the forces of evil -

Star

Jackie

Eclipsa

Ever after high -

Madeline Hatter

Briar Beauty

Raven Queen

Blondie Lockes

Ashlynn Ella

Cerise Hood

Arcane -

Vi

Mel

Sevika

Caitlyn

House MD -

Gregory house

Lisa Cuddy

Allison Cameron

James Wilson

Robert Chase

Disney -

Aurora

Jasmin

Ariel

Tiana

Cinderella

Megara

Cookie Run -

Blackberry Cookie

Linzer Cookie

Frilled Jellyfish Cookie

Kouign-Amann Cookie

Royal Margarine Cookie

Tarte Tatin Cookie

Lilac Cookie

Latte Cookie

Almond Cookie

Pomegranate Cookie

Shining Glitter Cookie

Camellia Cookie

Elder Faerie Cookie

Oyster Cookie

Moonlight Cookie

Black Pearl Cookie

Financier Cookie

Carol Cookie

Red Osmanthus Cookie

Golden Osmanthus Cookie

Peach Blossom Cookie

Hollyberry Cookie

Affogato Cookie

Eclair Cookie

Caramel Arrow Cookie

Prune Juice Cookie

Blueberry Pie Cookie

Vampire cookie

White Lily Cookie

Frost Queen Cookie

Sea Fairy Cookie

Raspberry cookie

Miscellaneous characters -

Sally face / sal fisher

Steven Stoughton (strangled red)

The huntress (dead by daylight)

Aren Kuboyasu (Saiki K)

Kenny McCormick (South park)

Kyle Broflovski (South park)

Harry Potter

Draco Malfoy {sorta}

Paracelsus (guilty gear)

Testament (guilty gear)

Zane ro'meave (Aphmau)

Aaron Lycan (Aphmau)

Daphne Blake (Scooby Doo)

Gallagher (Honkai : star rail)

Boothill (Honkai : star rail)

Howl (howls moving castle)

Wednesday Adams

Lydia Deetz (Beetlejuice)

Barbra Maitland (Beetlejuice)

Lady dimitrescu (residents evil)

Masky/Tim (marble Hornets)

Morticia Adams

The end..! (≡^∇^≡)

[yandere-wishes]

◃◃◃ Comedic Tragedy▹▹▹

Synopsis: The reader is a burnt-out Akademiya student that has the misfortune of bumping into Dottore while he's working on his Scaramouche-god project. After learning of her peculiar interests Dottore makes her an offer. One she very soon regrets accepting.

Note: There is like one reference to the Sumeru archon quest so spoilers, but in this universe, Lumine was taken captive by Dottore a while ago and the residents of Sumeru were able to foil the mad doctor's plans and free Nahida without the traveler's help. Also, Paimon is dead.

Warnings: ANGST, GORE, extreme body horror, Dottore has feelings and that ain't a good thing. Lumine is the traveler. Dottore x Lumine is mentioned a lot but never really shown until the end. Death. the reader is suicidal but she defiantly didn't want this. non-con but no smut if that makes sense.

Requested by: The lovely @nasidibakar​

Back then you had romanticized dying. Dreamed of having your arteries nicked by the person you loved. It had all come so naturally to you, the desperation to fall in love with the macabre. 

The thrill you got as you slid your palm across the jagged end of your desk. The rapid beat of your heart as you drove your fist into your dormitory wall. Gleefully staring as crimson beads slipped from your purpling knuckles. 

It had been so fun back then. So exhilarating, so enticing. 

But then you met him. 

Fell in love with him actually. 

A slight run-in during the second-period rush. 

A light brush of his freezing blue lips to your bruised hand.

That had been all it took really. The next thing you knew the grand sage had awarded you the position of assistant to the "most benevolent scholar of Snezhnaya ." 

Of course back then the scholar from Snezhnaya had looked every bit the glacious prince from a foreign land. He'd been gentle and sweet...

Permitting you to watch as he performed another thoracotomy on the humanoid robot. Pulling you close as he observed the harvested dreams from the grand Akasha terminal. Sat under the blazing moon with you. Ever so gently crabling your hand in his, as he traced skin-deep hearts into your palm with his scalpel.

You'd been so utterly in love back then. Too blinded by bleeding hearts and gory love poems to notice the distant look in his eyes. The way he'd pause so irregularly when he was about to speak your name. In hindsight maybe you should have known his heart was with another. 

Then one night, one gloriously blurry night. As you both sat on the Akadimiya's roof. Your head laying tiredly in his lap. You'd uttered those damned words. Those jarring, life-altering words

"I want to die" 

 Words spoken so softly from chapped lips as your eyes closed and you fell into a sweet, sweet, sleep. 

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

Dottore finds it quite odd how he'd fallen so deeply, so consumingly, so manically in love with you in such a short time. 

You'd simply fallen right out of the sky. Straight in his path. A miracle granted by whichever archon was doltish and self-righteous enough to still acknowledges his existence. Celestia knows he's made an enemy of every self-proclaimed God in Teyvat. Even the Tsaritsa was weary of him on good days. Downright loathed him on bad ones. 

Yet this time divinity had pulled through and led you straight to him. Such a blessed thing, he'd surely take great joy in ravaging.

Sacred marvel or not, Dottore had admittingly taken a wholly interest in you. Your vision had haunted him. Plaguing him for endless nights as he succumbed to finish building the Archon of arcane wisdom. He found it rather silly how he'd secretly seek out your hand during meetings with the grand sage. Constantly pinning to be in your obsolete presence. 

 It had been fun, or failing that, insightful at the very least. He knew he had conjured feelings towards you and couldn't so easily permit you to leave. Even when his work in Sumeru had been cut short, all due to that meddling team of ignorant vision wielders and their pesky archon. 

Yet the night before he left, he knew you had to come with him. 

He'd paid great attention to your love of the macabre. Enjoyed indulging you in his temporary laboratory. Drawing little doodles on your flawless flesh with his medical instruments. You would only giggle, blush and glance away timidly. So endearing, so foolish. 

You were accustomed to agony - albeit self-inflicted he postulated-Treating it as nothing more than a guilty pleasure. Nevertheless, Dottore knew it would take time for you to adjust to his ruthlessness. His variation of pain was utterly appalling. He'd be sure to turn your previous wounds into child's play. 

Surely you'd love it.  

looking back on it all you'd most definitely been burnt out. Unable to string together logical thoughts outside the realm of your chosen field. Yet another scholar so caught up in their research and studies that they'd forgotten how the real world actually works. 

The academic world is like an all-consuming fire. 

At least that's what Dottore has concluded, since his expulsion from the Akademiya.

Taking and taking, from those who all so willing worship its perpetual light. Blooming their dermises with blisters and decaying nerves. So greedy, yet every ardent scholar welcomes the mental anguish and self-loss as one would welcome spring with open arms. You, little dove, his little dove, were no better. Foolish and blessed all at the same time. You'd played the only role you'd ever known. Perfected the part of the scholar to be, all while hiding the only outlet you had. The only waypoint to what might just be your undisputed self. Hiding razors between pages of quadratic equations and simultaneous equations. Hiding the swelling galaxies of bruises you'd painted on your thighs. It's all quite forgivable really. Admirable if nothing else. You'd found your true self in the mists of academic misery. Taken the reign and decided to welcome the aches and stings. 

Oh, how he'd generously taken you away from your tormentors. 

How graciously he'd shown you what true pain was really like. 

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

You never truly understood it, never have, and never will. Can't comprehend this desperate mesmeric feeling whenever he's near. You're ever so utterly infatuated with him. You love him, your tormentor, your capturer, the doctor, Dottre, with all that's left of your beating heart. Although now that it's been months since you departed to Snezhnaya with him. You've come to realize that love, for all its hypnotic trances and rose-tinted terms, is rather over-glorified. For you may love someone with every fiber of your body, yet they may be well engrossed with someone else. 

Does he even love you?

It's the question of the hour, the day, the month, the millennia...

Does Dottore truly love you? 

Your eyes trace over the severed limbs littering the pristine floor. Connecting them like stars in a constellation. This particular operating room was always in shambles. Very much like how you'd turned out...

He'd been taking you apart, ripping away appendages and giving them to her. The Traveler. The eldritch being of light who'd been forced into a mortal's body. He's been patching up wherever her primordial glow was seeping through the cracks of such a weak body. with your ever-so-human corpse. 

How Dottore had ever managed to tame and capture a primordial

 creature such as she was beyond you. Although you liked to ponder the possibility that infusing the two of you meant that part of her divinity would be substituted for humanity thus rendering her more submissive. More malleable. Easier for the mad doctor to control. 

And yet, despite all this, you can't seem to let go of those horrid feelings you have for him. 

Maybe you'd never even been lovers. Just a fool and a scientist

trapped in fate's webs. 

No, that wasn't quite right either. Instead, the two of you were more akin to desperate souls who needed each other more than the earth needed the sun. It's rather humorous to consider that Dottore would ever need someone. To think of him as anything less than a natural cataclysm sent by the Tsaritsa herself to destroy everything that is good and holy. 

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

You lay motionless on the cold metal slap, eyes unfocused as you try a process which limb has gone missing now. Or maybe it's an organ this time. It's always all so hard to recall what it is exactly that he took, in the hours following the operation. 

Phantom pain pounds in your right eye, or rather the right socket that used to house your right eye. You stare up at the ceiling trying to tune out the pain and the numbness all at once. 

Has he ever loved you?

You can't help but circle back to the heart wrenching question every so often. 

Has he ever said he loves you? You're not sure, brain too cluttered from the last operation to fully recall anything specific. Too damaged to be conscious enough to tell the difference between reality and fantasies.

 "Let's make a deal, my dear. You help me with my research  and in return, I shall grant your ghastly fantasy as best I can" 

You remember that conversation despite your mangled mind. Remember it was his perfect response that night when the two of you lay in the moonlight. You'd told him you wanted to die. How naive you'd been back then. You had started this whole mess and that madman you had so easily given your heart to had been all too eager to oblige. 

Not like this.

This hadn't been what you'd meant.

You didn't want any of this. 

The severed body, the other women, the cold empty lab. 

You didn't want this. 

"Oh, I see you're awake" His voice is chilling. Analytical rather than affectionate. "Maybe you're body is beginning to build up a form of resistance to the anesthesia." He sighs, an unnerving noise that hints at the permanent exhaustion he always seems to feel. "I'll have to start upping your doses, although I figure it'd be better to invest my time in fabricating some new suppressants altogether." His steps reverberate through the air as he saunters over to where you lie. gloved hands running through your matted locks, curling strands around his fingers as he mutters gleefully. "Look at all the trouble I go to for you darling. You really are quite lucky, that I'm so fond of you." his words hit deep, reopening the old wounds you clumsily stitched close with strings of denial. 

He lays down next to you, unbothered by the sharp cold of the metal table. His eyes melt into yours, looking at you like you are the love of his life. A bitter lie and you know it and yet you still relish in the fictitious proclivity of it all. His fingers trace open lacerations. His mouth busied itself with nipping at raw scar tissue adorning your neck. Working around to kiss at the stumps of amputated appendages. You lay there enjoying the kisses and empty promises. It feels like he loves you. In the end, isn't that all that matters? 

"You know I'm only doing this because I care about you, right?" You wonder if that lie tastes bitter on his tongue. You fight the urge to scream that it's evident he loves her more. Adores her. Worshipers her

 Dottore carries on disregarding the pain so clearly plastered on your face. "The traveler will live for much longer than you ever could. By taking you apart and sewing you into her, I'm doing you both a favor. Although I'll admit the true victor in this little experiment is I. 

I'll have both my lovers at my side forevermore." You hate how his statement makes your heart beat ever quicker and your cheeks darken in color. You turn, catching his lips in an uncharacteristically bold kiss. Hoping it'll shut him up for now.

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

There's a code red. Even from your isolated room, you can tell that something's going on with the Traveler. That's what a code red is in this hellish place. Anytime the darling Traveler goes through something more major than a headache, the whole medical bay is on emergency standby. Clones running left and right fetching medical equipment and pain suppressants. 

You see the state Dottore is in over her. Hate how he risks his own well-being over her. Or rather, failing that, you're jealous over how much he cares about her. Dottore is naturally destructive, to those around him, to himself, to any and everything.  It's not a particularly hard thing to take note of. He's not exactly a gentle lover or even a good one at that.  Yet as of late, he's gone even further - if that's even possible- tearing himself to shreds trying to squeeze out the last bits of divinity still plaguing his ever-precious Traveler. 

Deep in your bones you just know he's ever more forbearing with her. never "forgetting" to administer her anesthetics to see how "well" she'd take the pain. Always putting in the extra time to make sure her wounds were thoroughly sterilized. With you it's different he'll cut where ever he pleases, tear off anything and everything. He'll cut and cut and you fear that one day there'll be nothing left to cut. 

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

As of late, the Doctor has been more present. Visiting you daily -or at least you think. It's hard to tell time in a windowless, clockless room- his advances have been sweeter, bordering on loving if that was even possible. His lips linger where ever he kisses and he's even taken to spending the night. 

There's trouble in the air, you can feel it. 

It's on one of these particular nights that his clones are tasked with taking you to a new operating room. One with a window that permits the moon's rays to sweep in. His clones release you onto the plush operation table, a stark contrast to the metal slab you've grown accustomed to. 

Something's not right. 

Minutes later Dottore walks in. He discards his mask on a nearby table revealing bloodshot eyes with deep black bags underneath. "Too many late nights" you jab, prying for any reaction, anything that feels normal. He hovers above you, arms placed firmly on either side of your head. He let out a loud breath, followed by an onslaught of mirthless giggles. "It's time" he mutters. "Time for what?" you ask, searching his eyes for any clue as to what's going on. Dottore gulps curls a strand of pale blue hair around his finger and pulls. "Tonight I'll be taking your heart..." He pauses for a minute and you wonder if he hears the irony as you do. "I'll merge it with the Traveler's. Half and half, sounds fair right?"

 "no" 

"From then on you and her will be one. A single entity meant to serve me and only me. I told you I was the luckiest man in all of Teyvat."

You think you detect a sliver of sadness in his hoarse voice. 

Wonder if all this insanity has finally caught up with him...

Improbable. 

It's funny how now when you're all so close to getting what you've dreamed of for so long, reality decides to kick in. How regret settles deep in your gut as warm tears begin to flow freely. 

"Please don't do this.."

"I have to"

"Dottore plea-"

"Shhh"

He settles himself on the bed, straddling your hips. "I want you to be awake for this one." He reaches over for the scalpel and goes straight for the cut. A thoracotomy, just like the ones you used to watch him perform on Scaramouch. You scream out in pain, begging him to stop. All too soon everything goes numb and you're left hanging between the borders of life and death. 

Dottore leans down and kisses your heart. Laughing at how the blood mares his lips. A delighted shiver runs down his spine as he feels the rhythmical beats under his tongue. He looks so happy you note in your delirious state. It fills your heart with warmth as you bask in his excited, handsome face. Observing complacently as he watches you bleed out. 

"Dottore?"

"Yes my dove" 

"Please just say it...say it just once..."

You're not sure if it's the blood loss or a cruel joke by fate. But for a fraction of a second, you think you see his lips turn downwards and a single tear falls from his eye.

"I love you" He finally says. 

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

Bonus: 

Sometimes the Traveler is shaken from her slumber by a blazing ache in her heart and in her right eye and her left leg, right thigh, left arm... Sometimes she's reminded that there was another girl. A poor soul who loved Dottore and paid for it with her body and her life. Tears fall freely from her eyes before she's pulled back into the mattress by her "lover". The mad doctor, Dottore. He kisses her, right on the border of her scars. Right where she ends and the other starts. He got his wish, he created some perfect hybrid of the only two things he's ever loved. 

Damn him.

Damn him to Celestia and back

[jokeringcutio]

Truthfully (Edwin Payne x Charles Rowland, Ratting: Teen)

Also on AO3: [JokeringCutio]

Summary:

During one of their cases, Charles gets affected by a truth spell.

Notes:

For The_IPRE.

(See the end of the work for notes.)

~ * ~

The musty scent of old books and arcane potions assaulted Edwin's senses as he surveyed the cluttered study. Dust motes danced in the dim light filtering through grimy windows, lending an ethereal quality to the haphazard piles of tomes and vials scattered about. His companions, Charles, Niko, and Crystal, stood beside him. The ghostly form of Charles emitted a comforting afterlife glow that Edwin knew he shouldn’t be gawking at. And so he tore his gaze from his best friend and forced himself to focus on the task ahead.

His ethereal hands drifted past the many knickknacks on a caved-in desk. He knew how Charles thought of him. Nothing had changed since his confession. They were still as they were before.

He should be joyful about that.

Still…

Charles's voice cut through the oppressive silence, tinged with a hint of exasperation. "How in the blazes are we supposed to find anything in this mess?" His smile belied the frustration evident in his tone. It wasn’t a proper, honest smile – as Edwin instantly and silently noted. Knowing what he did now about his friend’s troubled past, it was a miracle that Charles always managed to maintain that cheerful countenance. That mask of joy – of ‘do not worry’. Edwin could not help but admire that – and silently worship his friend for it.

Edwin straightened his blue bowtie, a habit born of his Edwardian upbringing, and responded with characteristic precision. "The evidence we seek pertains to the haunting of Mister Shrewburry. He can’t rest until we find proof that his business partner, Madame Lefebvre, was somehow responsible for the misfortune that led to Mister Shrewburry’s untimely death.”

“At the hands of criminals,” Niko helpfully provided.

Edwin cast her a short but reprimanding glance. “Yes. At the hands of common criminals collecting a debt.”

“Which he wasn’t responsible for,” Crystal supplied. She frowned and worried her lip with her teeth, pensively wandering between the rubble. “In his life, he never got to snoop around her house. And as a ghost, he hasn’t been able to pass the threshold. But he’s convinced there must be some incriminating evidence lying around here.” She hesitated. “Madame Lefebvre went missing a year before his death. Probably not murdered or we would have run into her already. Eloped with the money?” She suggested, looking up at Edwin and the others.

“Possibly,” Edwin answered, pushing himself away from the collapsed desk he’d been standing in front of. He looked around, studying his surroundings.

“Well, since Mister Shrewburry’s death was decades ago, and Madame Lefebvre never returned, we’re left grasping for straws,” Crystal sighed.

“I don’t think so,” Niko murmured in her sing-song voice. Crystal turned to look at her questioningly, and it was enough encouragement for Niko to continue. “Madame Lefebvre’s been very helpful really. Leaving in haste and leaving so much of her stuff behind.”

“She was a witch,” Edwin stated, not minding at all that he interrupted Niko’s speech.

“Huh?” Crystal titled her head and Edwin was aware of how Charles’s eyes had drifted to the curl of her lips. A cute pout, probably. Not that Edwin could tell. He tried to ignore the implication of his best friend’s gaze.

Just friends, remember, he told himself.

“Look,” he pointed a gloved hand at a shelf that remained upright through all the years – mostly because that part of the wall hadn’t crumbled down yet.

“Labels,” Crystal muttered as she stepped closer and studied the many bottles and jars on the shelf.

A pitiful sound came from Niko before she spoke, “I don’t like witches.”

“You and me both,” Charles added. He had folded his arms in front of his chest and looked anything but comfortable between the rubble in the rundown home.

“A witch she might have been,” Edwin said, “but whatever wards might have once been on her home clearly have gone.”

“How can you be so sure?” Crystal, always the skeptical one, asked.

“Because,” Edwin said as he looked at her from over his shoulder. “We would have set them off if they’d still been functioning.”

“Hence, the wicked witch is dead,” Niko summarized before a big smile of relief appeared on her face. “Okay, let’s do this, team!’

The excitement was infectious, though Edwin tried not to let it influence him too much.

“Whatever happened, Mister Shrewburry was certain the key to his haunting must be here. Let us help him find a way to pass into the afterlife more peacefully,” as he spoke, Edwin's mind raced, cataloging potential hiding spots and deciphering the faded labels on nearby bottles. The thrill of the chase, the puzzle waiting to be solved, sent a shiver of excitement through his incorporeal form.

Charles let out a resigned sigh. "Sure, we'll find it. Eventually." He leaned back against an ornate cabinet, his ethereal body barely making contact with the physical world. A small flask teetered precariously on the edge before tumbling to the floor with a resounding crash.

Crystal's sharp gaze snapped to Charles while Edwin pretended not to notice. "For heaven's sake, Charles,” Crystal snapped, slightly more irritated today than usual. Edwin knew she was hiding something again. Another demon visit perhaps? But he pretended not to have noticed, respecting her wish for secrecy. She’d come to them when the time was right – when she felt comfortable enough to entrust them with whatever had come across her path. He knew that today’s task was straining her mortal form. “Do be careful,” she continued. “We're here to investigate, not demolish the place."

"I didn't touch anything!" Charles protested, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Ghost, remember? Incorporeal and all that jazz."

Crystal rolled her eyes. “As if that ever stopped you.”

Right…

Edwin noticed the exchange from the corner of his eye but forced himself to focus on the task at hand. His fingers ghosted over the spines of ancient tomes, searching for any sign that could incriminate Madame Lefebvre.

“That’s not fair, mate,” he heard Charles complain. “Oi, Edwin, Tell her that isn’t fair.”

As he worked, a small smile played at the corners of Edwin’s mouth. Charles's antics never failed to inject a bit of levity into even the most serious of investigations.

"Perhaps," Edwin said, "that's why we make such an effective team. My analytical nature balanced by your irrepressible spirit." He paused, chuckling softly at his own unintentional pun. Even in death, it seemed, wordplay was inescapable.

He didn’t need to look at Charles to see him roll his eyes while he heard Crystal let out a triumphant little ‘hah!’

At the other side of – what once used to be a brilliant and spacious room – Niko shrugged and resumed her search. Edwin admired her attitude in all this. And for someone who always appeared to be so easily distracted, she always managed to keep her focus – fooling others into thinking she had none. She made a good detective, Edwin thought. He should not forget to remind her.

Edwin allowed himself a moment of quiet optimism as he dove back into his search, keenly aware of the others moving about the room. The weight of their shared purpose hung in the air, a tangible reminder of the importance of their spectral detective work. There must be a clue. Evidence. A hint. A letter. A knife. Anything that bound Mister Shrewburry’s ghost to this world and solved his violent death.

A thunderous crash shattered Edwin's concentration. He whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat – a purely metaphorical sensation, given his ghostly state. Through a haze of swirling dust, he spotted Charles sprawled on the floor, coughing and sputtering.

"Charles!" Edwin cried, rushing to his friend's side. The others converged as well, concern etched on their faces. Edwin knelt beside Charles, his hands hovering uncertainly. "Are you all right? What happened?"

Charles waved a hand dismissively, still coughing. "I'm fine, mate. Just took a bit of a tumble, that's all." He flashed a weak smile, but Edwin couldn't shake the worry gnawing at him.

"Let me help you up," Edwin insisted, grasping Charles's arm. As he pulled his friend to his feet, he took in the sight of the mess. Dust, particles, broken glass, shattered papers. As the ancient cabinet had come down, so had everything that had been on top of it. The wooden legs were rotten, Edwin noted. No wonder it gave away.  

Niko's voice cut through the settling dust. She was on her haunches between the rubble, holding something in her hands that she had picked up from the fallen mess around Charles’s feet.

"Hey guys," she called, her tone a mix of curiosity and apprehension, "you don't think this could cause any harm, do you?"

Edwin turned to her fully, eyebrows furrowing. "Why? What have you found?"

Niko bit her lip, hesitating. In her hand, he spotted a broken vial. "Just... It’s probably nothing."

Charles, seemingly recovered, puffed out his chest. "I'm a ghost, remember? I can handle a dusty old bottle."

Niko's lips quirked into a smile as she turned, holding up the shattered vial. "Sure," she said, her voice laced with an odd mix of amusement and concern.

Edwin's eyes narrowed as he focused on the label. His stomach dropped as he read the words ‘Truth Serum’ scrawled in faded ink. Well, that was a new thing. A witchy thing, but still. And who was to say such a concoction would cause any damage? It probably only worked when drunk by someone. It might not even work at all after having lain around for so many years. Did magical potions have expiration dates?

A chill ran through him as he glanced back at Charles, who was now grinning broadly, completely oblivious to the potential danger. Edwin's heart raced as he studied Charles, searching for any signs of distress. His friend's usually mischievous brown eyes seemed slightly glazed, and there was an uncharacteristic looseness to his posture.

"Are you absolutely certain you're all right?" Edwin asked, unable to keep the worry from his voice.

Charles waved him off with a lazy grin. "Oh, stop fussing, Ed. I'm right as rain, mate. Didn't I tell you? Ghosts are made of sterner stuff."

Edwin's brow furrowed. Ed? He decided to let that one slide. "You do realize that makes absolutely no sense, don't you?"

"When has that ever stopped me?" Charles quipped, his grin widening.

Reluctantly, Edwin turned back to the cluttered study. His mind raced, torn between concern for Charles and the pressing need to find evidence. The sooner they got out of here, the better. Something about this all just… didn’t feel right. He began rifling through stacks of ancient tomes and scattered parchments, all while keeping one ear tuned to Charles's movements behind him.

"This is madness," he heard Crystal say while she carefully examined a dusty ledger. “There’s just too much old junk. Most of it is moldy, rotting, or broken. How are we to find something that makes sense-“ She broke off her sentence, making Edwin believe that she must have somehow gotten hold of something that had given her a vision. But when he turned to look at her, he could see she had abandoned her quest to wave a hand in front of Charles’s eyes. And he could see why.

Charles stood with a smile plastered on his face, his eyes a million miles away. “Hey, earth to Charles,” Crystal said, her voice slightly higher. “Care to help us?”

Good grief, Edwin thought, his mind already racing through the possible implications. What if Charles was actually affected by the truth serum? This case just got infinitely more complicated.

Edwin groaned as he turned away from the display. How am I supposed to focus on the case when Charles might be... compromised? He paused, a chill running down his spine. And what if he starts speaking truths better left unsaid?

He wasn’t prepared to listen to a rant about how they were ‘just friends’. He could picture it now. ‘I really appreciate you, Edwin, but that’s why we’re buddies. Best mates. Never more.’ He shook the imagined scenario away.

Yes, he was grateful that Charles still wanted to be around him after everything that had occurred. But still, being reminded that his love – an emotion he was unexperienced with – was not reciprocated... that would surely kill him. Again. It might even be worse than any torture he had been through during all his times in hell.

God knows what else might come tumbling down from Charles’s lips.

Compliments for Crystal probably. How beautiful she looked.

A shiver ran down Edwin’s incorporeal spine. Pushing these thoughts aside, Edwin redoubled his efforts. He methodically combed through shelves and drawers, acutely aware of every shuffling step and muffled giggle from Charles.

Just as Edwin's frustration peaked, his fingers brushed against something unusual. Buried beneath a pile of moldering scrolls was a small, leather-bound book. As he pulled it free, a slip of paper fluttered to the floor.

"Aha!" Edwin exclaimed, triumph surging through him. He snatched up the fallen paper, his eyes widening as he scanned its contents.

The others crowded around, their earlier concerns momentarily forgotten. Edwin felt Charles's presence at his shoulder, the familiar scent of his friend mingling with the musty air of the study.

"Well?" Crystal prodded. "Don't keep us in suspense, Edwin. What have you found?"

Edwin cleared his throat, acutely aware of Charles's proximity. "It appears to be a confession," he explained, his voice steady despite the tumult of emotions within. "Our spectral client was right – his business partner was embezzling funds. This ledger," he held up the small book, "contains the falsified accounts. And this note... well, it's a rather detailed admission of guilt."

Seemed like the witch got away with the money after all and had Mister Shrewburry die for a crime she had committed and money that he hadn’t stolen. Tragic, really.

Niko whistled low. "Talk about smoking gun evidence. Nice work, Edwin!"

As the others murmured their agreement, Edwin felt a warm pressure on his shoulder. He turned to find Charles beaming at him, eyes shining with what looked suspiciously like pride.

"Brills as always, Edwin," Charles said softly. "You never cease to amaze me."

Edwin felt a blush creeping up his neck, his heart hammering in his chest. "Yes, well," he stammered, "we should probably inform our client post-haste."

As he spoke, Edwin couldn't help but wonder if the warmth in Charles's voice was genuine admiration or simply an effect of the truth serum. And more troublingly, he wasn't sure which possibility frightened him more.

Edwin's thoughts were interrupted by Charles's face contorting into an exaggerated grimace. It was as if his friend was trying to communicate in some bizarre, wordless language. It didn’t help that the other ghost’s shoulder was pressed against his own as he leaned in close.

It was… almost nice.

Too nice.

"Charles," Edwin said, brow furrowing, "are you quite all right?"

Charles's expression snapped back to normal, a lopsided grin replacing the strange contortion. "Yeah, man, I'm fine," he replied, leaning back just enough for their bodies to no longer touch. His voice was slightly slurred as he tried to convince Edwin. "Never better!"

Edwin exchanged a worried glance with Crystal. "Perhaps we should discuss who will fetch our client," he suggested, trying to keep his voice steady. "Given Charles's... current state, I believe—"

"I said I'm fine!" Charles interrupted, his face twisting into another comical expression. “What’s this current state you’re on about? I’m still me, ain’t I? I’m still normal.”

At seeing the doubtful stares of his friends, Charles’s shoulders sagged and he spread his arms, palms upward. “Unless I’ve grown another head or leg.” He paused, suddenly sounding doubtful. “Have I?”

Edwin opened his mouth to protest, but Crystal beat him to it. "Yeah, you're not fine," she said flatly, crossing her arms, leaving Charles to tug at the hem of his shirt and feel around for a second head. When he couldn’t find one, he continued his explorations to find an extra limb.

It was adorable, really, Edwin thought. But even without a physical second head, Charles was definitely having a different head on right now. If the truth serum was the only bottle to have broken and affected him.

He made a mental note to check the floor for more remnants. But first…

A tense silence fell over the group. Edwin's mind raced, torn between concern for Charles and the pressing need to complete their case. He cleared his throat. "I propose Niko and Crystal retrieve our spectral employer. They can brief him on our findings while I tend to Charles."

Niko nodded. "Sounds like a plan. We'll handle the ghost, you handle... whatever this is," she said, gesturing vaguely at Charles, who was now attempting to balance a dusty tome on his nose. Yep, Edwin should definitely check if there was more magical powder dust or liquid that had somehow affected his poor friend.

“Don’t worry,” he said, not quite certain who he was trying to reassure here. “I’ll take him home where he can recover.”

As Crystal and Niko prepared to leave, Edwin found himself simultaneously relieved and terrified at the prospect of being alone with Charles. What if the truth serum prompted his friend to reveal something that would irreparably alter their relationship?

"We'll be back soon," Crystal said, pausing at the door of the derelict house. It was fitting that walls next to the door still stood, creating a semblance of the home this place used to be. While all the walls around it had severely crumbled. To be truthful, the girls could easily step over one of the collapsed walls. That they took the door was… thoughtful, Edwin thought.

"Try not to let him swallow any more potions while we're gone," Crystal said, sharply. She pointed at Charles, the door already opened by her other hand. Edwin quickly glanced over his shoulder to find Charles staring at another bottle in his hands, and he quickly grabbed and confiscated it.

Charles let out a soft huff while Edwin turned back to Crystal and Niko. He managed a weak smile. "I shall do my utmost to prevent further alchemical mishaps."

As the door closed behind them, Edwin turned to face Charles, his heart pounding with a mixture of anticipation and dread. His brow furrowed as he studied Charles's flushed face. "Right then, I believe it's high time we got you home."

“It was a potion that fell upon me?” Charles asked, more demure than Edwin thought he ever heard him. “Some kind of witchy brew fell upon my hands. That it?”

Edwin followed Charles’s gaze, ready to deny and even lie to make his friend feel more at ease. He knew how their experiences with Esther and the other witches had changed him. But then he saw what Charles was looking at.

Charles’s eyes darted up to meet his as he showed the palms of his hands. “Got me hands all sticky,” he said with a scoff. “Thought it wouldn’t matter since I was a ghost. So what is it? Making me all light-headed.”

And making it impossible for me to lie, Edwin thought as he bit his cheek to keep from commenting. Instead of answering his best friend – being fully aware that Charles would keep pressing him until he had his answer – he grasped him by the elbow and started to lead him away.

He let go, only for a moment and only so he could take a last glance at the fallen vials and bottles as he had promised himself he’d do. The truth serum bottle was there. But nothing else that would alarm him.

Charles grinned lopsidedly. "Aw, come on, Eddie. I can walk just fine!" He took a wobbly step forward, nearly toppling over a stack of moldering grimoires.

Edwin instinctively reached out to steady him, his hands grasping Charles's shoulders. The contact sent a jolt through his incorporeal form, a reminder of the complex emotions he'd been struggling to suppress.

"Perhaps it would be wise if I carried you," he suggested, his voice wavering slightly.

As Edwin moved to scoop Charles up bridal-style, his friend's eyes widened with surprise and... was that delight?

While Edwin cursed Charles’s weight – wasn’t he the one supposed to be the brawns and carry Edwin? – he managed to pick him up. Charles wasn’t that heavy, but Edwin wasn’t that practiced. Still, he complimented himself mentally for succeeding in lifting his friend up in both arms.

"Oh! This is actually quite nice," Charles confessed, nestling into Edwin's arms with unexpected ease.

The words sent a wave of concern through Edwin. "Good lord, that is most unlike you. I fear this potion has addled your wits more severely than we initially surmised."

Edwin's gaze locked with Charles's, and he found himself drowning in those warm brown eyes. There was an emotion there, raw and unguarded, that he couldn't quite place. It stole his metaphorical breath away, leaving him feeling more alive than he had since, well, dying.

"You have such pretty eyes, Edwin," Charles mumbled, reaching up to trace the line of Edwin's jaw with his fingertips. Apparently, Charles had been doing the same, studying his eyes. Admiring. He should have known, should have recognized that penetrating gaze with an intensity that would, in life, have taken his breath away.

Edwin nearly dropped him in shock. "Now I'm absolutely certain something's amiss with you," he sputtered, gently setting Charles back on his feet. "Come on, up you get. We need to depart post-haste."

Charles pouted, swaying slightly. "But weren't you going to carry me? I rather liked that."

"I'm afraid you're far too heavy for such prolonged transportation," Edwin lied, desperately trying to maintain some semblance of composure. "Besides, a brisk walk will do you good. Help purge those nefarious juices from your system."

Charles stumbled forward, his legs wobbling like a newborn fawn's, though Edwin was fairly certain now that Charles did it on purpose. The boy took too much pleasure in being picked up in Edwin’s arms. He was sure of it. Yet, Edwin's arm shot out instinctively, wrapping around his friend's waist to keep him upright. The warmth of Charles's body against his side sent a jolt through Edwin's spectral form.

"Blimey," Charles groaned, leaning heavily on Edwin. "I feel bloody bewitched, mate. Like I'm under some barmy spell or summat."

Edwin grunted, adjusting his grip to better support Charles's weight. "That's likely because you are," he replied, his tone a mixture of concern and exasperation. "The truth serum appears to have some rather potent side effects."

“Ah, truth serum, eh?” Charles said, but then remained quiet.

As they shuffled along, Edwin's mind raced. He'd never seen Charles so vulnerable, so open. It was both thrilling and terrifying.

How, Edwin couldn’t tell. But they made their way back to familiar grounds. Away from the witch’s crumbling home. It felt good to be in the city again, to see their own home at the end of the street.

Just a few more steps and then…

Suddenly, Charles jerked to a stop, nearly toppling them both. "Wait, Edwin," he slurred, gripping Edwin's shoulders. "I need to tell you something. Something dead important."

Edwin's nonexistent heart leaped into his throat. "Charles, I'm not certain this is the most opportune moment for—"

"No, no, you don't understand," Charles interrupted, his eyes wide and earnest. "I never had the courage before but if anything, the time’s now. I love you, Edwin Payne. I love everything about you. Your posh way of talking, how you always know everything, the way your brow furrows when you're thinking really hard."

Edwin froze, shock coursing through him. Was this real, or merely the potion talking? Was another spell in place? Had there been a love potion he’d overseen? Anything else that he missed that could cause his friend to confess such a lie?

Charles continued, his words tumbling out in a rush. "I love how you're always there for me, how you make me feel safe even when we're knee-deep in ghostly nonsense. I love your stupid bow tie and your even stupider knickerbockers."

Okay, now that sounded like it could be right. Offensive, but sweet. Edwin felt his throat become dry, lips parched, as he listened to Charles’s rant. Perhaps Charles sounded more like himself than Edwin had wanted to admit.

Only then did he notice that his friend – his crush and afterlife-long companion – had paused, a look of wonder crossing Charles’s face. "Blimey, I don't know why I kept all this hidden for so long. It feels brilliant to say it out loud."

Edwin stood there, utterly flabbergasted, as Charles's confession washed over him. He'd dreamed of hearing these words, but never dared hope they'd become reality. Now, faced with the raw truth of Charles's feelings, he found himself at a complete loss for words.

Charles… loved him? Him?

Edwin cleared his throat, his analytical mind kicking into overdrive despite the emotional turmoil within. "Charles, I... I appreciate the sentiment, truly. However, this isn't quite the appropriate venue for such a conversation." Plus, it’s the witch who makes you say this, he thought with a pang of regret. Surely, it must be the spells talking. His eyes softened as he gazed at his friend's earnest face, unable to resist reaching out to brush a gentle hand past Charles's cheek. "Though I must admit, your words are... rather touching."

Charles leaned into Edwin's touch, a dreamy smile playing on his lips. "There you go again, Eds. All cold and aloof with your big words. It's funny, you know? It should put me right off, but instead, it just gets me all hot and bothered."

Edwin's eyebrows shot up, his cheeks burning with a ghostly blush. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me," Charles grinned, taking a wobbly step closer. "Your prim and proper act. It's dead sexy, mate."

Confusion swirled in Edwin's mind as he instinctively backed away. This was Charles, his best friend, under the influence of a truth serum. Only a truth serum? It wasn't right to... to what? Take advantage? But oh, how he wanted to believe every word.

"Charles, I really think we should—" Edwin's words were cut short as Charles lunged forward, enveloping him in a tight embrace. The familiar scent of his friend – a mix of old books and something uniquely Charles – filled his senses, making his head spin.

As he stood there, frozen in Charles's arms, Edwin's thoughts raced. Was this real? Did Charles truly harbor these feelings, or was it merely the potion speaking? And more importantly, what in the world was he supposed to do now?

Charles's lips brushed against Edwin's ear, sending a shiver down his spectral spine. "I've been such a bloody coward, Edwin," he whispered, his voice husky and raw. "But I can't hide it anymore. Everything I feel for you... it's all real. It's always been real."

Edwin's eyes widened, his mind reeling from the confession. Could it be true? The rational part of his brain fought to make sense of it all. "Charles, I... I don't know if—"

But then he remembered. The vial. The label. Truth serum. Charles could only speak the truth now. Why did he keep doubting? Why couldn't he accept that these feelings might be real? Because every word, every sentiment... it was all genuine.

Charles loved him.

Edwin's arms, which had been hanging limply at his sides, slowly rose to encircle Charles. He pulled his friend closer, feeling the solid warmth of Charles's form against his own ethereal one. It was a peculiar sensation, two ghosts embracing, but it felt more real than anything Edwin had experienced in his afterlife.

They stood there, basking in the moment, the musty air of the old study forgotten. Edwin's thoughts whirled like a maelstrom. He'd spent so long burying his own feelings, convincing himself that Charles could never reciprocate. And now...

"I say, this is rather nice," Edwin murmured, surprising himself with the casualness of his tone. "Though I must admit, I'm having a bit of trouble processing it all."

Charles chuckled softly, the sound vibrating through Edwin's chest. "You and me both, mate. Who'd have thought it'd take a dodgy potion to get us here?"

Edwin smiled despite himself. Leave it to Charles to find humor in the situation. It was one of the many things he adored about him. As they stood there, wrapped in each other's arms, Edwin felt a warmth blooming in his chest – a feeling he'd thought long lost to the grave.

When he finally pulled away, his analytical mind whirring with possibilities. A mischievous glint sparked in his eyes, so uncharacteristic that it made Charles raise an eyebrow.

"Well, my dear Charles," Edwin began, adjusting his bowtie with an air of faux formality, "since you're under the influence of a truth serum, it would be remiss of me not to take advantage of this unique opportunity for some... investigative questioning."

Charles let out a snort. "Blimey, Ed. You make it sound like an interrogation."

As they began to walk closer to their house, Edwin's curiosity got the better of him. "Tell me, what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done as a ghost?"

Charles's face contorted comically as he fought against the serum, but the truth spilled out. "I once tried to possess a suit of armor at a museum. Got stuck for three days. Had to endure countless children poking me and saying 'Ew, this knight smells funny.’" He let out an embarrassed little chuckle. "Was when you were gone on the Candy case," he clarified at Edwin's bewildered expression. "Don’t know if you remember.”

“I was gone for five days,” Edwin mused. “And you’d been stuck for three?” He knew one of his eyebrows quirked at that. Charles must have noticed it too for his cheeks flushed and he quickly looked away.

“Yeah well, glad you never noticed. Made such a fool of myself.”

“Pity I couldn’t come and rescue you.”

Charles chuckled. “You’ve rescued me so many times. I feel like a darn princess.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Edwin said.

“What?” Charles loudly said as they both morphed through the walls of their home and entered it. “You feel like a princess?”

Edwin rolled his eyes. “With how many times you came to save me, perhaps I should. But no,” he paused, allowing a small grin to curl his lips. “I meant, I agreed with you being the princess.”

“Princess my arse,” Charles scoffed, plopping down on their desk once they entered their study. “I’m the brawls here. I do the protecting,” then he lowered his voice and leaned closer to Edwin – who had sat down on the chair behind the desk, as always. Coming real close, he whispered to him, “I protect you, you got it, mate?”

“Got it.” Edwin couldn’t help the smile that showed a glimpse of itself for just a moment.

“Good,” Charles said, “Otherwise I’ll show you how well this princess can kick arse.”

Edwin burst into laughter, a rare sound that filled their study. "Oh, that's priceless! Well, here's another: were you jealous when Monty asked me on a date?”

“You ask me that while you didn’t even notice he was asking you on a date!” Charles cried out, undignified. “You didn’t even notice he was flirting his arse off.”

“You and arses today,” Edwin commented, shaking his head as if in distaste – but clearly making a show of it. “Now, answer the question, Charles.” Edwin stared at him, their eyes connecting, his gaze stern.

“I,” Charles swallowed. “Bloody jealous.” He finally settled for. Then let out a deep sigh. “But not as madly jealous as when that bloody cat King got you chained.”

Edwin reached for his wrist, unaware of the movements he made, and gently started rubbing the now unbound skin. “You… You didn’t like that?”

“Didn’t like that?” Charles’s eyes were ablaze with a dark fire. An emotion that Edwin had seldom seen in his best friend. Only when his emotions ran high.

Exceptionally high.

“That’d be an understatement,” Charles said through gritted teeth. “Once I found out what was going on… I wanted to murder that bloody cat.”

Edwin hummed, pursing his lips as he placed both of his hands on top of the desk and tapped his fingers to the surface. “That would have been a challenge, I imagine.”

“Could have easily taken one of his nine lives,” Charles scoffed as he kicked one of his legs against the empty chair at the other side of the desk, nearly making it topple. He said with his arms folded in front of his chest, a stormy expression twisting his features.

“You’re free to take one of his six remaining lives,” Edwin casually stated, turning over a torn-out leaf on the desk and frowning at the scribbled words on the other side of the paper.

“He’s got only six left?” Charles sounded honestly surprised as he faced his friend, arms still folded but posture relaxing somewhat.

“If my memory serves me correctly,” Edwin muttered.

Charles’s gaze drifted to a point on the wall, falling into deep a thought. “Bloody well wouldn’t have minded it,” he muttered.

"So, no male crushes on him?" Edwin probed, carefully. "Or Monty?"

Charles let out another chuckle while he rubbed a finger past his chin. "Nah. Monty's pretty, I suppose. But that Cat King, he's got something. I dunno. Something like passion, determination. Control? Was dead scared you'd fall for him." "So a competitor," Edwin edged him on, but Charles only hummed and leaned back on the desk.

"He's got something," Charles finally relented. "But nothing more but curiosity. No boyfriend material, him."

“Crystal,” Edwin started, not looking up from the papers on the desk – not even when Charles’s attention was fully upon him. “You like her?”

“Do I like her?” Charles deflected. “Sure! What is not to like? She’s nice, a good friend, clever-“

“Pretty,” Edwin hated how small his voice sounded and hoped Charles hadn’t heard the little nuance – the slip-up.

“Yeah, well, she is attractive,” Charles started, then brought himself to a halt and frowned, eyeing Edwin with an aggrieved frown. “You’re making me say that!”

“It’s the truth,” Edwin stated flatly, still avoiding eye contact with his friend. Colleague. Crush.

Lover?

What was the best word right now?

“And yet you said you are in love with me,” finally, his eyes darted up to meet Charles’s brown ones, only to find concern in them.

“That’s not fair,” Charles winced. “Love is not exclusive.”

“Isn’t it?” Edwin flatly stated. He wouldn’t know, would he? Had he ever truly loved anyone before? Not in the way he felt toward Charles, that’s one thing he knew for certain.

“Mate,” Charles started, leaning onto one hand on the desk, inching closer to him. “Edwin. What I feel is…”

“Attraction,” Edwin stated. “To her.”

It took Charles a moment to collect his thoughts, parting his lips and licking them a few times before he finally got to reply. “Yes, but, it’s different. It’s like. If I had to choose..”

“You don’t have to,” Edwin said, clearly puzzling his friend.

“I don’t have to?” Charles asked, confused.

“No,” Edwin said, sharper than he intended. He stacked papers into a pile and tapped them onto the desk, his eyes leaving Charles’s. “Because, like you said, we can still be friends. Nothing's changed. There's no need for choosing.”

That caught Charles’s tongue, and for a moment, both young men sat in silence. Edwin feigned to organize paper and leaflets, Charles stared at his hands as he lost himself in his thoughts.

“What if I want to choose?”

“What?” Edwin’s gaze snapped up at his friend.

“What,” Charles said again, “if I wanted to make a choice? What if I wanted to choose you?”

Edwin stared at Charles, his lips slightly parted in shock. “You... want to choose me? Whyever would you do that?”

Because he could not imagine it. Of all the possible sensible choices, Edwin knew he wasn’t the one. Not only was he damaged goods – being dragged to hell (twice!) and in need of being rescued – but he also wasn’t… well… perfect. He wasn’t like Crystal – a beautiful young woman. And most importantly, he wasn’t alive.

He could see many flaws in Charles choosing him. No matter how much he wanted it.

Charles fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve, apparently aware of Edwin’s train of thought. His cheeks flushed despite his spectral nature. “I know it sounds mad, but hear me out. I’ve always known I could fall in love with women. I’ve done it before—or thought I had, anyway.” He glanced up nervously, catching Edwin’s sharp gaze. “Crystal’s brilliant, and yes, I liked her. A lot. But it was... fleeting, I think. She’s alive,” he finished with a laugh.

“Alive,” Edwin stated flatly. “You mean to say that any affair with a living being would be fleeting?”

“No, no,” Charles quickly said, raising his hands. “I don’t mean it like that. I know the living die.”

“And then you’d have eternity with her,” Edwin hesitated, “or however long any afterlife would last...” His voice trailed off.

“I meant,” Charles pressed on, not easily derailed by Edwin’s cynicism. “I’ve fancied lots of gals before. That was easy, you know?”

He didn’t.

Charles seemed to realize this and his voice softened. “It was what was expected of me. My dad would have hit home a lot harder if he’d found out… if he’d known…” Charles's voice dwindled and Edwin found himself wanting to reach for his friend’s hand, to show some form of support. But as he contemplated on how to do this, how to show Charles that he cared, the other boy had already continued.

“Well, I suppose boys were off the agenda,” Charles laughed, bitterly. Pain-filled. Edwin felt it in his phantom heart. He looked up, locking eyes with Charles, only to see the embers within them. Passionate. Burning bright.

So full of warmth.

“In other words, I’ve never let myself go as far. Never allowed myself to think about it. Even with you.”

Edwin’s brow furrowed. “So you’re saying—”

“I’m saying,” Charles interrupted, his voice firming as he leaned forward, “that while I was busy chasing things that didn’t matter, I didn’t see what was right in front of me. You, Edwin. You’ve been there through everything. All the stupid mistakes, the bickering, the disasters, the close calls. I—I can’t picture my afterlife without you. And I’d very much like us to be an item.”

“An... item,�� Edwin repeated, confused but clearly trying to hide it. “An item of what?”

This made Charles laugh, an unbridled and carefree laugh. “Of course, you wouldn’t understand,” he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eyes. “I want us to try being something more.”

Edwin blinked several times, as if processing this required the same mental energy he used for solving their toughest cases. “Something more?”

“A couple,” Charles clarified, his lips quirking in a tentative smile. “Boyfriends. Partners. An item, as they say.”

“An... item,” Edwin repeated, his voice flat but his eyes sparkling faintly.

“Yes! I know you’re terribly repressed and probably about to tell me you don’t ‘do items,’ but I’m pretty sure I can get you to 'do boyfriends'.”

When Edwin merely blinked at him, Charles’s grin grew. “That was an innuendo, in case you were wondering,” he added. “I could explain it to you in more detail if you’d like—”

“I think I’m catching the drift,” Edwin cut in, his tone measured. But the corner of his mouth twitched. “You might have to explain how you’re imagining things to be between us. Since I have, well,” he paused, swallowing, “little experience in this field.”

“Oh, you know.” Charles grinned, finally finding his footing. “The usual: solving mysteries together, keeping each other alive—or, well, less dead. Annoying each other endlessly. And kissing, of course. Lots of kissing.”

Edwin gave him a level look. “You’re not joking?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Charles spread his arms dramatically. “I’ve just spilled my spectral guts to you, Edwin. I’d very much like to seal the deal, so to speak.”

That earned him a rare, genuine laugh from Edwin, who shook his head as if baffled by his friend’s audacity. “You’re absolutely insufferable.”

“Ah, but you love that about me, don’t you?” Charles teased, winking.

Edwin paused, his lips forming a small, almost imperceptible smile. “I suppose I do.”

“Well, then,” Charles said, leaning back in mock triumph. “That settles it. We’re an item. Boyfriends. A bona fide thing.”

The two laughed, the tension melting away between them. It was the kind of laughter that felt lighter than air, untethered by fear or doubt.

Such a rollercoaster this day has been.

When the laughter subsided, Edwin’s expression softened into something rare and vulnerable. “Charles,” he said quietly, “what do you really think of my bowtie collection?”

The truth serum worked faster than Charles’s brain. “Bloody hideous, the lot of them,” he blurted out, then slapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes widening in horror. “I mean, they’re... very you?”

Edwin raised an eyebrow, his calm veneer cracking just enough to reveal a glimmer of amusement. “I see.”

Charles groaned, sinking onto the desk. “This is going to be held against me forever, isn’t it?”

Edwin’s lips twitched as he stood, straightened his bowtie, and patted Charles on the shoulder. “Oh, absolutely. Boyfriends or not, some things will never change.”

Charles chuckled despite himself, watching Edwin move to organize their case notes. And for the first time in a long while, everything felt exactly as it should be.

Notes:

~FIN ~ Written as a fill for the prompt: put a truth spell on charles! king of ignoring every non-positive emotion he's ever had, lets see what comes out when he isn't able to push it aside! would love if they dont know that a truth spell has been cast on him at first and aren't sure exactly why he is saying the things he is saying :3c pre-ship leading to them getting together hopefully, although i would love a bit of non-edwin-crush truths to be revealed as well!

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Meet me at midnight to see how dark we can take this crackship

Only, not as dark as I thought it could be? Oh well, @elder-dragon-reposes REALLY liked it! I mean really.

ao3 | masterlist

Her footsteps on the stair were not the first inkling he had of her presence in his tomb.

There was a shift in the air, a whisper through the stagnant corridors hissing of a presence that had not been in the halls of Forelhost since the Traitor was a young acolyte in the Order. But as alike as her presence was to that lir, there was something light that was entirely this being, this volaan that was all her own.

He would handle her. Did he not handle the Nordic invaders long ago?

"You know how you dealt with the last wave of volaan."

Froda's ghost sneers in his hollow ear, a draft that persisted in invading his chamber even after millennia. He snarls into the darkness, and silence falls again.

Tremors worble through the air, sometimes brushing the stones and at others, pressing against his ears. The volaan's encroachment into the catacombs was neither explosive nor vivid. If he weren't so attuned to the wards and runes of Forelhost, he would not have known she was there until it was too late.

Time passes. It creeps forward, frost covering the ground with the advancing winter. A chill curls down his withered spine, coiling in his chest with the harshness of a cold drake. He could taste the blizzard building in the air the closer the volaan came. He would last through her winter, just as he did others before.

"You call this outlasting the winter? It has broken you, wuth jul."

The whisper dissipates, but the growing chill does not. It permeates the stone so that frostbite threatens the dead nerves of his skin. The temperture continues to drop.

Hours pass.

Then, with a gust of icy wind, the doors open. The volaan arrives.

"Will you kill her, then?" Yes. "What a shame."

He prepared to rise, to release the ward sealing his sarcophagus, and burst into the room in a blaze of glory. But then Froda's words touched him. Why was it a shame?

Power coiled in the air, the crick shrrr hiss of ice crystals drifting through the air and shattering on the dusty stone. Dusty stones in a broken temple at the heart of a fallen city, dedicated to dead gods and a forgotten religion. Long ago, was Forelhost not the last remnant of the Dragon Cult's power? And now what was left, but dust and bone and shattered stone? Yes, yes, it would be a shame. It would be a great shame to meet such power, only to incinerate it.

Rahgot would not join the ashes on the altar to his god.

He feels her skirt the room, her chill pushing back against the heat of his wards. Closer and closer she came to him. What to do when she arrived?

Her hand on the lid was a shard of arctic ice. In life, he was familiar with the clever men and mages' magic lurking under their skin, leaving tell tale signs of each person's strngths--and weakness--in the arcane. But hers was not subtle; it was a raging storm.

IF he concentrates hard enough, he can recall a similar potency in the Traitor's presence, electric and biting in its intensity.

Both are a storm.

Dovahkiin . . .

His whisper is kiss of warmth through the coolness. He can feel her hesitate above him, and he thinks he moved in error. She was leaving. He should have remained silent.

But then the lid is sliding, solid and heavy, to the floor. Snowflakes flutter into his sarcophagus, and Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin for the first time.

He is struck by her resemblance to the Traitor, chestnut curls framing an almost golden face, wherein sat a pair of eyes so blue that the sky would weep with envy.

But yet, there is a softness in her face that wasn't present in the Traitor's, a light in the eye and draw of the mouth that spoke of exhaustion and perseverance. Where the Traitor was full of pride, this woman, this fahlil was patiance.

Where the Traitor came and went with the flash of a summer storm, hers was the long cold that seized Atmora and threatened to outlast the world.

"She'll outlast you."

But Froda's warning goes ignored.

Her hand is on the staff. Though he has not wielded it since beyond the reach of mortal memory, its heart of flame still burns like an inferno. Her mouth purses when her hand grips the stave, its heat daring to thaw the permafrost under her skin.

It is as she draws her hand back, steam curling around her finger tips, that he takes the staff in familiar hands and rises from the grave.

The Dovahkiin stumbles back, her ring-clad hand held to her chest as his presence looms before her. He can taste the power trailing from his staff to her hand.

It is quick. It is almost easy. Vahlok did not have such a fortunate confrontation. Rahgot is up and over her in a vengeful blaze.

She drops to the floor, not in defeat, but to escape his fire, and Rahgot descends--

--but she is not there. In a whirl of smoke, he turns to find her poised on the side of his coffin, ice gathered in her hands. Her face is hard, her eyes frozen.

YOL TOR SHUL! "FO KRAH DIIN!"

The songs of fire and ice meet and burst against each other, dousing the chamber in a blanket of steam. He hears her gasp at the heavy air.

But a lich does not need air, nor does he need to see.

As she stumbles backward into his sarcophagus, Rahgot falls on her, a smothering shadow. She screams when his spidery hands find the collar of her armor and the pillar of golden skin above it.

"FEIM—"

But his hand crushes her windpipe, silencing the Thu'um in her mouth. Her eyes are blown wide, sightless in the dark.

How simple, how exquisite it was to have a creature so full of power within his hands.

She is bound up in a hard shell of silver ice, but Rahgot would see to that later. His hand still on her throat, he traces the other over her face, cresting over sharp elven bones and soft mannish cheeks. He reaches her ear, and feels a tremor in her throat when his finger catches on the leaftip.

Long ago, they said Traitor's power was born from dovah sos in his veins. At the time, Rahgot did not, would not believe such a blasphemy to the gods. But over the long ages in rumination with nothing but Froda's ghost and the mountain winds to haunt his ears, he pondered the possibility of a true Dovahkiin.

Now he believed, and now he holds one in his hands. A goddess in a mortal's skin. The power of the gods could be, would be his!

"You are a fool, Rahgot."

His hiss is ghastly, banishing Froda's ghost to the fringes and washing over the Dovahkiin's face in a cloud of decay. She gags beneath him. In retaliation, he pinches her ear between two bony fingers, and she chokes, gasping.

But it wouldn't do to kill the goddess of his new religion before he's preached his message. He would seal her in his own coffin as he prepared his ascension to a new priesthood.

His wards hold the lid in place, sealing the Dovahkiin without suffocating her. He would return for her soon, but first—

There is a gasp, a brush of frost, and then from the confines of the coffin, a whispy voice Shouts, her Thu'um penetrating through stone and death.

Rahgot rounds on the tomb, pivoting from his place on the stairs from his funerary dias. But it is too late. The Shout has burst from the air into the bones of Nirn itself.

"OD AH VIING!"

Odahviing tugs at a distant thread in the long tapestry of Rahgot's memory with the strength of iron tongs pulling teeth.

Odahviing. His old master.

But how did—?

"You've sworn fealty to your own doom."

Froda's taunting voice dances in his ears as thunder rumbles in the distance. The sarcophagus on the dias is still, but dust and debris fall from the ceiling like rain. Rahgot draws back, his staff raised to meet whatever new being threatened his sanctum.

"You know what's coming."

There was a crack! followed by a heavy crash. Dust choked the air, bitter in the cold and lingering smoke steam. Then, early morning light filters in, thin and golden. In its midst is a horned head and sharpened claw. Claws that would destroy Forelhost.

"Rahgot, mey! My teeth to your neck!"

THe roof was gone, and morning sun flooded the chambers, catching on the dust motes like magicka in the air. The smoke and steam dispersed quickly, and Rahgot, for the first time in nearly five thousand years, saw his god face to face.

Of all the dov, Odahviing was always a fierce and active ruler. Always quick to action and swift to speak his thoughts. Rahgot always knew his recklessness was why he fell in the war with the Nords. But before, Odahviing was a stalwart supporter of Alduin Thuri. His priesthood followed the example set by the High Priests in Bromjunaar. He sent lesser dov to heed Alduin's call against the Traitor.

Yet here he was, heeding the call of a weak fahlil with the blood of the gods. Why—?

But Rahgot could not ponder it any longer. His master was in the chamber. A large, brilliantly formed dovah, Odahviing's size forced Rahgot to sweep back across the cracked floor, all too aware of the heat and strength of a dragon's body. But his god did not look at him.

Odahviing's claws were prying open the lid. It fell away and he lowered his snout. Rahgot could just see small golden hands grasp at the crimson scales.

"Odahviing, I can't breathe—"

Her voice, faint, speaks a language Rahgot doesn't know. But whatever she says to the dovah turns the horned head in his direction. Odahviing is snarling.

"Mey lir, Rahgot! Ruth hi!" Odahviing, thur—

But the jaws are on him. As his bones are broken by his god's teeth, Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin sitting up. in his coffin, her arms draped over the side as she tries to catch her breath. Her hair is a whirlwind and her eyes crystal. What a ravishing goddess she would have made!

Her eyes catch his through the slits of his mask. Her face is as green as the cold orichalcum. But then her mouth turns up, a sneer, and she resembles the Traitor so utterly that Rahgot, for the first time in countless ages, grew truly cold.

"Save his mask for me, won't you, darling?" "Geh, Judsedov."

Rahgot doesn't know what the Dovahkiin says to Odahviing, but his god calls the fahlil the Queen of the Dov. The Queen.

His last thought was that she was already a goddess, and Odahviing, a god in his own right, was her loyal priest.

Froda's laughter is the last thing Rahgot hears over the rumble of the dovah's throat and the crunch of his own bones.

When the mask falls to the floor, bereft of its priest, it is several long minutes before Leara can muster the strength to retrieve it. Even then, Odahviing offers his head to help support her, and he guides her across the floor.

Picking it up, Leara fingers the cold orichalcum, tired.

"What happened?" "Well . . ."

She trailed off, warm and comfortable against Odahviing but embarrassed to continue. At Odahviing's gentle huff, she relents.

"He caught me off guard. I tried to stand on the coffin for leverage, and then the bloody lich tripped me up." "Lech." "What was that?" "Nothing, Kunziiyol."

Sighing, Leara turns her face into the warmth of Odahviing's snout.

"Let's go home."

Guiding the Dragonborn to the safe hollow at the base of his neck, Odahviing takes flight, leaving the ruins of Forelhost and the Dragon Cult behind.

"Drat, I forgot about the Word Wall!" "Ruth, vahdin."

fin