#ababa's masterlist

[ababanerb]

Soldier On [4]

masterlist AO3

Winter comes and goes too quickly, for Safiya, because as soon as the snow’s melted, Magnus is at her door. Well, more accurately, at the South gate to her property, his magic banging against her carefully crafted shields. 

Let me in, He demands, voice booming in her head, his magic stinging at her nose even without being anywhere near his visage. Gilmore Girls is playing in the background on her old TV. She’d found the whole collection on CD in the attic - wrapped in gift paper for a Winter Star she hadn’t been around to see.

No, She fires back, but drops her shields anyway. 

Magnus is at her door only seconds later, and he knocks once before her door swings open for him and he strolls into her home. The door slamming shut behind him so hard it makes the windows rattle and Safiya flinch.

“You have been here for nearly two months,” Magnus starts, and Safiya pauses the CD player just as Luke shoves Jess into the lake, “And you’ve been to the store three times, you’ve interacted with no one, and your mailbox is full beyond full.” 

Safiya blinks at him, expecting more.

“Child.”

“Magnus.”

“You need to get out of the house,” Magnus says, and it’s more of an order than it is a suggestion, “There are people here who care about you. Who have known you since you were a little girl.”

“Who haven’t seen me for more than a decade,” Safiya retorts, “I haven’t lived here since I was like, six, Magnus.”

“That is not an excuse.”

Safiya sighs, long-suffering, and meets Magnus’ bright purple gaze, “First,” She begins, holding up her index finger, “Do not slam my door. Second,” Another finger goes up, “I have left home on more than one occasion. I go sit on the docks and I’ve been waiting for Joja to clear the landslide so I can go check out the old mines.”

“You haven’t interacted with anyone, Safiya.”

“I’ve interacted with you, and Caroline, and Pierre,” She says, lips a flat line of disinterest, “I’ve burned two of those people, and almost burned the other. That’s a pretty shit ratio, isn’t it?”

Magnus purses his lips, sighs through his nose, and says, “Leave your shields down, at least.” His tone leaves no room for argument, and if not for the fact that he’d made it very clear - despite his attraction for her mother - he wasn’t her father, it almost sounds like he could be her father.

Safiya sighs, “Fine.”

—

Sam, despite his knowing that Jodi and Vincent rely so heavily on him with his father gone, often finds himself wishing that his number had been called in any of the previous drafts since he’d turned eighteen. He knows that he should count himself lucky, to be twenty-four, twenty-five in Summer, and never had his number called for the draft. Six years, going on seven, of luck that he knows other people would have killed for.

If it weren’t for the fact that Jodi and Vincent needed him, he would have enlisted as soon as he’d been able. He knows, logically, that he would hate being in the military, he’s wild in a way that the military would quickly squash out of him. Knows his mind is scattered. So scattered that he wears different colored hair ties on his wrist in an attempt to keep his mental to-do list in order. 

He knows that if he ever told his mom that he had even an inkling of desire to enlist, join his fathers fight, that she’d laugh. Would remind him that he leads the town in community service hours, his short-term memory is crap, and that he can’t leave. Because, who would take care of Vince if you weren’t here, Sammy?

So, he’d stayed, worked some twenty hours a week at JojaMart, prayed to Yoba his number would be called during Sunday service, and taken Vincent down to the beach every Tuesday, Thursday, and weekend during Summer since he was seventeen. He’d gotten into all the trouble he possibly could without getting arrested, and worked hundreds of hours of community service.

He’d handled every single one of Vincent’s tantrums since his dad was deployed, had also been crossing his fingers and counting down the days until their dad came home. He’d been checking the mailbox every day for the last seven years, hoping to bring in a letter to soothe Jodi and Vincent’s nerves. 

He’d forget everything else. Forget to buy more milk, or put the eggs back in the fridge. But he’d never, not once in seven years, forgotten to check the mailbox. And he’d never forget the day his dad was allowed to come back home.

—

It’s only a few days after Safiya lets her shields drop that she really regrets the decision. She’s outside, on her hands and knees in freshly tilled dirt, trowel in hand and digging pockets into the earth to haphazardly dump strawberry seeds into.

She wonders, as she covers the seeds and holds her hand above the small pile of dirt to douse the soil with water magic, if this was what her grandfather had done with his time when she’d been gone. There are several large sheds next to the old greenhouse, which needs several panes of glass to be replaced, and each shed is packed full of equipment. 

She knows, that when she was little and she and her mother used to live with him, that he’d start his mornings with coffee and the portable radio blasting classic hits. He used to start his mornings by greeting the animals, radio left to play on the front porch, and then he’d spend the rest of his day tending to his fields. He’d had a state of the art sprinkler system then, and only half of it remains now, but he’d still taken the time to examine all of his crops with the utmost care.

She shakes the thought away, moving to the next patch of dirt, dumping more strawberry seeds into the little hole she’d dug, and dousing it with water. It’s repetitive and boring, but she can’t bring herself to put music on. Still too paranoid to let her guard down. So she listens to the birds sing in the trees that line her property, a sound that she hadn’t realized she’d missed.

She plants the last of her strawberry seeds, and rocks back onto haunches. Tilting her head up to the sky, she breathes. For the first time in nine years, Safiya lets herself breathe.

She must look stupid, she thinks, sitting in the middle of her field and covered in dirt. Must look ridiculous staring up at the sky with her hands in her lap.

“Excuse me,” A voice calls, a hand knocking against the metal gate to her farm, “D’you mind if I come in?”

Safiya shoots to her feet, body moving before she can even think, and her boots scuffle through soil as she puts more distance between herself and the gate to her farm. 

You’re safe, She reminds herself, and there’s a little spark of pride that she’d managed to keep her magic simmering just below the surface, rather than exploding out of her hands, There’s nobody here to hurt you.

“Uh,” She hesitates, squinting against the sun as she approaches the gate, avoiding trampling her fields anymore than she already has, “Sure,” She agrees, Magnus’ words buzzing in the back of her brain, “Come on in.”

The metal gate squeaks open, and she approaches the stranger just as they come through the gate. She holds a hand above her eyes, blocking the sun from her eyes as she takes in the new person - man, rather. He’s dressed in a military uniform and a spike of panic races up her spine, her brain immediately jumping to the assumption that Ferngill’s military wasn't as done with her as she’d thought. 

But she recognizes this man. Could never forget the face peering down at her, his hand held to his forehead in a salute.

“Colonel Atwood,” He says stiffly, apparently having also recognized her.

Safiya’s eyes go wide, brain stumbling for words before she gets to, “At ease.” Her hand raised, palm out, in a gesture she hopes is casual.

This man, she swore she’d never forget. Her forever numb fingers a guarantee that his service would never be forgotten in her mind. After all, how could she forget the man who’d abandoned his squadron just to escort her back to the nearest outpost.

“I remember you,” She says after a moment, when he says nothing else, “Your squad saved my life.”

He chuckles, a little stilted, just like she does. The sound having been lost some time ago. “I’m glad to see you soldiered through.”

This pulls a bark of laughter from Safiya, and she wonders somewhere in the back of her brain how screwed up she must be if it’s crappy barracks jokes that have her laughing, “It was either that or die, right?” She chuckles back, lips pulling in an awkward half-smile.

“Right,” He nods, and his shoulders loosen into a slow curve instead of the square line they’d been, “I’m Kent,” He introduces, and he doesn’t offer his hand to her - knows better than to shake the hand of a military mage.

“Safiya,” She returns, nodding politely at him. There’s another beat of awkward silence, “Right,” She clears her throat, “Was there anything you needed?”

“Right,” He coughs, and they’re just two soldiers standing across from each other in Safiya’s yard again, “My wife, Jodi, had told me there was a new farmer out here. I figured I’d come by and introduce myself.”

Safiya chuckles, awkward and unsure of what to say next, “Well,” She dredges the words up, “Thanks for coming by. It was a pleasure to meet you. Again.”

He dips his head, and she watches his hand come halfway up for a salute before he forces it back down at his sides, “My wife is hosting a dinner party,” He tells her, and she blinks at him, “It would be my honor to have you there, Colonel.”

Safiya blinks again, brain struggling to process his request. But she finds herself nodding dumbly anyway, unsure how to say no to the man that had saved her life when she was only fifteen. “I’ll be there,” She promises, as he tells her his address and to come by around six.

He salutes her one last time from the other side of her gate, and she dismisses him with a salute and quick nod of her head. She returns to her dirt and her strawberry seeds, ready to fix what she’d trampled over, and she tries to let the tension bleed out of her again.

—

Sebastian doesn’t know why Sam would invite him over for dinner. Not when Kent had just gotten home. He’d assumed the Freeman family would have wanted more time to themselves.

“Mom’s makin’ a big deal ‘bout it.” Sam had explained to him, sprawled across the couch in Sebastian’s room as the two of them passed a joint back and forth, “Dad was goin’ round town this mornin’ to say hi to all the neighbors.”

Sebastian hummed noncommittally as he took another deep drag off the joint, and he’d wondered absently how the hell Sam’s got more of a country drawl than he does despite being from the city. 

“Anyway,” Sam continued, and Sebastian had blinked blearily at him. Sam’s red-rimmed blue eyes blinked back at him, “Mom said I gotta ask a friend over…”

Sam was often smarter than Sebastian gave him credit for, he had to admit. Because his best friend had him figured out a little too well. If Sebastian had been sober, he would’ve told Sam to fuck right off and have Abi over for dinner. Leave him out of it. 

But he’d been high. 

And now he’s in one of his nicer pairs of jeans, a clean jacket fished from his closet, smoking a cigarette on his way to Sam’s house. He actually can’t remember the last time he’d met Sam’s dad. If Kent would even remember him. 

It doesn’t matter. Not like Kent would remember him after so many years away. 

“Dude’s brain is probably fried,” He mutters to himself, smoke billowing from his lips before he takes another drag of his cigarette. 

Sebastian stubs out his cigarette at the end of Sam’s street, chucks the butt into Haley and Emily’s garbage can. He hopes that the early Spring breeze is enough to get most of the cigarette smell off of him, and loops towards the river in front of Sam’s house to buy himself some time. 

But the riverbank is occupied. And by someone he doesn’t know. 

She’s dressed in a formal military coat he’s only ever seen on TV, thick swatches of deep black embroidered with gold - a mages coat. Her dark hair a sort of blue-black he hasn’t seen before spilling across her back as she lights up a cigarette.

Her eyes cut briefly towards him, and he feels a little like he’s being hunted in the quick second she drags her gaze over his body. He silently curses at the jolt it sends through him, his dick twitching in his pants over a girl who’d looked at him like he was gnat.

He realizes that holy shit Abi wasn’t lying, because there’s no tell-tale click of a lighter. Just a tiny flame dancing on her index finger as she lights up. He blinks at her, before he turns sharply on his heel and heads towards Sam's house.

Jodi shouts at him from the kitchen to take off his shoes and coat at the door, and he knows better than to ignore her. He’d been on the receiving end of her wrath after walking across her clean floors with dirty shoes only once before, and he wasn’t in a hurry to relive it anytime soon. 

“Hey, man,” Sam greets, and it must be Sebastian’s imagination, but the blonde’s smile is strained when he claps him on the back as Seb toes off his shoes, “Thanks for coming.”

Sebastian nods, shrugging Sam’s hand off of him and he lets his best friend drag him into the cramped dining room kitchen combo, where Vincent is sitting proudly in his father’s lap and chattering away.

“And yesterday, I found this super huge bug in the woods with Miss Penny and Jas,” He can hear the little boy saying, Vincent’s arms splaying wide to emphasize the size of the bug he’d caught. Kent nods along, and he looks a little pained when he smiles at his youngest son.

Jodi is at the stove, mashing a massive pot of potatoes as three other things continue warming on the stove, and there’s a roast in the oven. Or, he thinks it’s a roast. It smells like a roast. 

“Sebastian’s here,” Sam announces as he shoves Seb into the middle of the room, and Vincent cheers as he leaps from his dad’s lap to grab Sebastian by the hand to tug him towards Kent. 

Jodi looks up from her pot of mashed potatoes just long enough to say hello, and he offers a strained smile in return when he sees the poorly veiled anxiety in her eyes at the fuller house. 

“Look, look, Seb,” Vincent cheers as he pulls him along, “Dad’s home!”

Sebastian nods, and he watches Sam approach his mom with his hands splayed out and gesturing at the stove from the corner of his eye, “I see that, Vince,” He chuckles, nodding at Kent as Vincent climbs back into the older man's lap. 

Jodi curses quietly by the stove, and Sebastian turns his head just in time to catch the sight of Sam backing away from her, saying something he can’t hear. And while Sebastian could admit that his home life wasn’t short of arguments, his house was never this chaotic. 

Not when Sam is stumbling over one of Vincent’s toy cars and gripping the door jam to keep himself from falling on his face. Or with how Kent seems to be getting increasingly uncomfortable with every pop of the stove. Or with how Jodi seems to be getting increasingly frustrated with the potatoes on the stove.

Yeah, Sebastian’s house has got its own share of crazy. But it’s nothing like this. He can handle his mom and Demetrius going at it and yelling at each other for hours on end. Can handle arguing with Demetrius, especially now that he and Maru are on better terms. 

But this. 

He’s not built for this. 

The doorbell rings, and Kent is on his feet in an instant, depositing Vincent at Sebastian’s feet as he beelines for the door. Yelling over his shoulder, “I’ll get it.”

“Okay-!” Jodi huffs, nudging past Sebastian and Sam as she begins depositing dish after dish onto the table. More than usual, for some reason. 

“Thanks again,” Sam mutters to Sebastian as they move out of Jodi’s way, Sam redirecting Vincent into the living room to play for a minute while Jodi fusses over the table settings.

“It’s a fu-freaking madhouse in here,” Sebastian responds, keeping his voice low as they take up space in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “I’ve never seen your mom so worked up, dude.”

Sam nods, and Sebastian’s attention finds its way to the front door. Where Kent is helping the same girl he’d seen smoking by the river out of her coat, leaving her in ill-fitting dark jeans and a pale blue t-shirt with faded graphics on it. 

Not what he’d expected to be under that military coat.

“Is she…?” Sebastian asks, leaning towards Sam as he nods at her, and the faintly glowing and pulsing scars on her arms.

“Military?” Sam finishes for him, “Yes.”

Holy fucking shit, He thinks, watching as Kent seems to relax at another military presence in the house, he and the new farmer speaking in low tones as the older man gestures at Vincent, Abi wasn’t fucking lying. Yoba damn it.

“Dinner’s ready,” Jodi yells from the kitchen, and then everyone is shuffling into the kitchen, Vincent darting between Sam and Sebastian from where they stand in the entryway to claim his seat next to his dad. 

The mage takes a carefully measured glance around the room, and once everyone else has taken a seat, she finds a place right next to Sebastian. Two outsiders at a family dinner they have no business being a part of. 

Jodi huffs out a smile, as she takes her seat next to Kent, and as she stretches out her hands in a silent request to say grace, Sebastian can only focus on the two unlit candles in the middle of the table. And the stranger sitting on his left, who makes no move to grab his hand for grace when he offers it.

“It’s better that you don’t,” She tells him, her lips pulling taut in what Sebastian thinks is meant to be an apology. Her eyes flick from his hand to his face, and he’s once again startled by the sharpness of her gaze.

“Right, no worries,” He mumbles, his hand falling to the table.

She says nothing else, and if she offers a silent prayer while Jodi says grace, Sebastian can’t tell. Her eyes having fixated on a spot on the table, while his gaze stays on her. 

“Yoba bless us,” Jodi finishes, and he nearly jumps at the thought of having been caught staring at the strange new farmer sitting next to him at his best friend’s dinner table. Vincent is already serving himself as fast as he can, even as Jodi quietly scolds him for not waiting for their guests.

“It’s alright,” The farmer tells Jodi, when she chuckles apologetically in their direction, “He’s still growing.”

“See, Ma,” Vincent says with a proud grin, stacking his plate with more food than he’ll be able to eat - even Sebastian knows. “‘S okay, ‘cuz ‘m growin’!”

Kent grumbles quietly to Vincent as he takes the serving tongs from his youngest son's hands and passes them over to Sebastian. Who promptly offers them to the farmer, who shakes her head no and lets him have first - technically second - go at the food on the table.

She actually makes it a point to go last it seems, even having a polite fight with Jodi over it. And even once every body’s plates had been filled, Sebastian had watched from the corner of his eye as she watched them. Waited for everyone to get at least a few bites down before she began eating her own meal.

Weird, He thought with a shrug, sharing a sidelong glance with Sam before returning his focus to his food before Jodi could start a conversation.

“So,” Jodi starts, looking at the farmer, “Safiya, right? Kent says you served together?”

Sebastian can’t help it, his head whipping towards the farmer, towards Safiya, as Sam chokes on his water next to him. Because, Holy Shit, Abi was right.

if you'd like to be tagged in future updates let me know :)

[silverscribbler]

Obey Me! OC: Boston, Angel of Choice

Thank you to @the-v-lociraptor​ for encouraging me and helping me with his design! 

Inspiration - I’m Irish descended and love the highlands, but I’m American and love the western coast more. Snowy Owls are also my favorite of the owl species and they’re closely followed by the Little Owl species Athene noctua. So, take the Irish in me, take my love of owls, and you have Boston!

General Description:

Eyes - Green Hair Color - Ginger Red Hairstyle - Undercut Skin Tone - Lightly Tanned; Freckled Nails - Black and Blue (ABABA like Asmo’s) Body Type - Athletic; Track and Field Extras - Twin hoops in his ear cartilage (Helixes, one in each ear) and small, closed gauges in his lobes.  Sexuality? - Yes! He’s pansexual! He’s also a softy for romantic cliches, but don’t ever make fun of his Claddagh ring.

Detailed Description: 

He has a bad boy/rebel personality, but he’s incredibly diligent and compassionate. He’s generous with his time and incredibly punctual to meetings, events, and even dates. He also has an Irish accent that slips through and is almost 100% inspired by my love for jacksepticeye. 

Earrings - He wears gold earrings with onyx stones embedded, but does switch them out to skulls (gauges) and emerald stones (both gauges and helixes).

Clothes - He and Simeon have very similar shirts. The turtleneck collar is the same, but Celestial Blue not Grey. The sides of his shirt do have windows in them, only there’s three diamond or oval slits on either side and they don’t expose his sides as much as Simeon’s hip windows do. There’s more fabric to his shirt than Simeon’s overall. His pants are white with a black belt and gold buckle. He has a white cape that is fur lined (white and grey fur), has a Celestial Blue to white ombre inner pleating, and falls over his shoulders similar to Lucifer’s overcoat. The cape is held in place by its own weight because it mimics Boston’s heavy wings and was designed to hug his shoulders. He completes his look with some kick ass, long, black boots that have 1.5 inch heels because he loves the height advantage, but is pretty tall without them, and some finger-less gloves. The gloves have white and grey fur lining the wrist part. (He may also switch his gloves to finger gloves that are held on by either spike studded bracelets or white and grey furred bracelets/bracers. Boi sometimes just can’t decide on what look he prefers.)

Wings - He has large wings that are reminiscent of a snowy owl. (Factoid: Snowy Owls have a 4-5ft wing span) They’re not as dark and patterned as female snowy owls, but not as pure white as male snowy owls. (This is because I headcanon Celestials and Infernals as being able to take on the sex characteristics and anatomy of their choice; especially if they come into a realization that maybe they aren’t the male/female they were originally created to be.) He has gold and silver coloration to his feathers and in the winter he gains a thick downy undercoat of feathers. He doesn’t know why, hasn’t been able to find a way to prevent this, but his wings just do it. As a result he preens CONSTANTLY. Asmodeus and Desmond (oc) have definitely tried to convince Boston to let them help him groom his wings and he has always shot them down. He wouldn’t mind going to Lucifer for help with his wings because demon boi still has feathers and definitely preens like the peacock he is. 

Left is a female snowy owl, right is a male. Boston’s wings are in between the two.

This is a female snowy owl, but I wanted to show what his markings would be like in gold and silver as well as sort of provide a reference to their shape.

OCCUPATION: 

As the Angel of Choice he often tells people that he hasn’t fallen merely because he has chosen not to. He’s chosen to take on the characteristics of the snowy owl, has chosen to serve under Archangel Metatron, and has even chosen to go to the Devildom. His job is to literally provide choices to everyone. The choice to rebel or remain within the Celestial Realm was one he presented to Lucifer and his brothers. It was a choice that couldn’t be made lightly just as he gave Lilith the choice to try and save her human or let him go. It’s because of those choices that he sometimes hates his job. He serves Metatron because the Archangel acts as the scribe for angels, demons, and humans. He is seen as one of the highest angels if not THE highest angel because what he scribes is not just the history of the worlds, but the spoken and unspoken word of all. 

Both Boston and Metatron have to work in complete secrecy. They cannot reveal the words they have written or choices they have given to those not involved in the conversations or decisions. It’s believed by many that Metatron was once considered the Angel of Choice because he “wrote the choices of others and the choices they made” before Boston was created to fill that role. Whatever the case, Boston didn’t ask Metatron for help or agree to work under/alongside him until 1,000 years before Obey Me begins, but has lived for far longer than that. 

Bonus Fact:  

Boston is totally okay with getting married to a demon, human, or fellow angel. He’d “just choose” to not fall, but even if he did fall he’d still be stuck as “The Avatar of Choice” as choices can be good, bad, or neutral. They will always have consequences regardless of who makes them and regardless of what choice was made. To him, it doesn’t matter if he’s an angel or demon, but he prefers being an Angel and working with Metatron. 

Masterlist 

[ababanerb]

Reaping the Benefits

inspired by @slowpoli 's day 31 sebtober art. i might one day make this a full fledged thing- but we'll see.

warnings: friends with benefits, some sexual content (no actual smut tho), angst no comfort (yet)

The music is painfully loud, and the floor is sticky with spilled beer. There are people everywhere, all in costume, and you recognize some, but don't know most.

You wade through the crowd of people, trying your damndest to weave through the packed house. If you were even half as drunk as the majority at people in the Zuzu University frat house, you wouldn't even care.

Wouldn't care that you're not in costume. Or that the music is too loud, and the strobe lights too bright.

But you're not here for the party.

You're here for him.

You should be embarrassed, honestly. That all it took was a simple text from Sebastian to have you come running to meet him at a party neither of you even care about.

Even worse, you shouldn't be letting him wrap an arm around your waist when he finds you in the crowded kitchen. Murmuring low in your ear, "Hey, Baby." As he mouths softly at the column of your neck.

Because he's not yours. At all.

He's occasionally yours for a few hours at a time. When you let yourself be his, and he reduces you to a babbling mess on his cock.

"Hey," You murmur, letting him pull you in close as you take in his costume, "Grim reaper?" You question, waving a vague hand at the mask on the side of his head and his all black ensemble.

He nods, huffing a soft laugh through his nose, "Would you let me reap you if I was?"

You can't help but laugh, smiling softly as he tugs you even closer. His hands gripping firmly at your hips.

"Wanna get outta here, pretty?" He hums lowly, ducking his head to rest to his chin on your shoulder.

You shouldn't say yes, as quick as you do. Knowing that you're setting yourself up for a world of hurt you're all too familiar with. But you do, you always do.

He's aptly dressed, you think, as he tugs you into a spare bedroom. Because he's certainly reaping the benefits.

[ababanerb]

Soldier On

summary: Freshly discharged from the Ferngill military should be a relief, now that the war is over. But Safiya finds that surviving nine hellish years as a child soldier and battle mage is only half the fight in life. With nowhere to go but her dead grandfather's farm, and no family to speak of, she arrives in Pelican Town. Armed with nothing but PTSD and a fierce will to survive, she goes through the painstaking ordeal of relearning how to live.

note: this is a multi-chapter fic, you can find the master list for this fic here

read on AO3

Here’s the thing about war –- there are no more orders to follow when the fighting’s stopped. And for Safiya, that’s an entirely new war. Ferngill and Gotoro were both guilty of using child soldiers to make up squads of battle mages and field medics, finding and using children as young as fourteen.

When the war ends, albeit on tense terms, the world is surprised, and most of the people Safiya knew during her time in the military know exactly where home is for them now that they’ve been sent home for reunion and reintegration.

But Safiya is set adrift.

“Here you are, Colonel,” Her commanding officer says, smacking her in the face with her release papers where she’s laying on her cot in the barracks, “You’re free to go.”

Safiya nods her thanks, nine years of disuse outside of barking orders and short briefings has rendered her voice useless. She reads her dismissal papers soundlessly, and even though she’s glad to be going home - especially when she knows that most infantry won’t be going home for another six months at least - she doesn’t even know where home is anymore.

She packs her things quietly, her personal belongings are military issued uniforms and a ceremonial saber, everything else she’d brought with her as a fourteen year old girl lost to the person she’d become in the war. Her pack had been light when she’d been drafted and deployed as a girl, and it was even lighter now. The feel of her half empty pack bouncing against her back as she leaves the military base has a pang of melancholy racing through her, made even worse when she collects a stack of letters from the administrative office on her way out.

Most of them are from her grandfather, her mom’s dad, and she tears open the newest one right there in the administrative office, then quickly wishes she’d waited to get on a bus to open it.

To my dearest Saf,

It pains me to know that you did not get to see your mother again before she passed, that this war has taken so much from you at such a young age. Even moreso, I am sorry that I do not get to see the woman you’ve grown into.

In the event that you’re reading this, it means that I have passed and joined your mother on the other side of the veil. I hope that I do not see you there anytime soon.

My dear girl, you have always been strong, but you’re allowed to be weak in the peace. I know you haven’t known peace in many years now, and I cannot imagine how long you’ve gone without a moment's respite by the time this war comes to an end. So, assuming the war has ended by the time you read this, do this old man a favor— enjoy the peace, my girl. Revel in it as I know you haven’t in many years, and then find peace for yourself.

Enclosed in this letter is the deed to the farm. Our farm. The Valley is full of magic, if you remember, and Atwood Farms is rich with it. I think, like Yoba, that the magic in the Valley is benevolent, and you will find exactly what it is that you need. I can only hope that I’m right about this, but as you know all too well, my dear Saf, magic is fickle.

Perhaps you should ask Rasmodious about it should you move to Pelican Town? I’m sure he’d be delighted to indulge you.

If you do choose to come to the farm, know that it’s still being maintained. Rasmodious has been kind enough to make sure that all of Atwood Farms will be taken care of. It shall remain exactly as it did when you were a girl, and as it does now.

Find peace here as I did, and as your mother did.

All my love,

Grandpa

PS — Call Lewis and let him know you’re coming, dear girl. And tell him and Willy I say hello.

She really wishes she’d stepped away to read it as tears brim in her eyes, but they do not fall. She takes the first bus she can out into the Valley, and she curses at the price of the ticket for the connecting bus ride into Pelican Town. But she forks the fifty dollars over anyway, and she sits and has the worst lunch she’s ever had in the bus station terminal.

It’s all vending machine food, stale trail mix and a flat cola, and she realizes how strange she must look, still dressed in her combat uniform as she hunches over her crappy meal as she dials the number listed on the town’s website she’d found on her phone.

She’s half-tempted to turn to the few people in the terminal and tell them that if they think she’s strange now, then they should also know that this is her first time using a cellphone since she was fourteen. The technology has changed since then, and while she’d had a touch screen as a girl, flip phones had still been pretty much the norm when she was drafted. Now, her phone scans her face to unlock, and the touchscreen is nowhere near as clunky as she’d remembered them being as a kid.

The line rings maybe three times before Lewis picks up, his gruff voice jovial as he answers, “This is Lewis, with whom am I speaking to?”

Safiya has to clear her throat before she starts - get her vocal chords at least a little warm to save Lewis from the grate of her voice, “This is Safiya Atwood, I’m calling in regards to Atwood Farms. My grandfather, William, left me the deed.”

She hears a quiet clattering over the line, and as she strains her ears, it sounds like he might be in a bar, “My goodness, Safiya, it’s good to hear your voice! Are you looking to sell the old farm?”

Safiya nods, humming into the receiver as she chews on a handful of stale nuts, “Thank you, but no, I’m actually looking to move onto the property. I’ll likely be there by sundown today. I was hoping you might have the keys?”

There’s another scuffling in the background, a door creaks and shuts, “Uh- Yes, I do. I’ll meet you at the bus stop around sundown, Miss Atwood.”

She mutters her thanks, and the call ends with a quiet beeping in her ear. She leans back on the bench as she picks at the crappy trail mix, sighing as she waits for the bus. The silence is weird, now, having spent so many years listening to the sound of gunfire and combat going on around her.

It’s unsettling, really, as she watches people walk past her, just living their lives. Most of them not even batting an eye at her appearance, or even really caring that it’s so quiet. Hell, the hissing of the bus’ hydraulic brakes has Safiya jumping in her seat when it pulls into the bus stop. But nobody else bats an eye at her.

She takes a seat near the back of the bus, which is empty save for the maybe ten people scattered about, and they all give her as much of a wide berth as she gives them. She ignores the odd stares she gets, settling in to look absently out of the window. She knows she must look strange, still in her military issued mages combat uniform, the deep black and brilliant gold detailing would give away her status in the chain of command if any of these people cared. But it’s the dead of winter, and most of these people have either just finished up some last minute Winter Star shopping or are heading home to spend the holiday with their families.

Safiya hasn’t celebrated any holiday since she was thirteen, but she can still remember the distinct joy of unwrapping gifts so painstakingly wrapped by her mother and grandfather. And though she’d never participated in the yearly tradition of brewing a hot cup of tea to drink out of their finest china, she had burnt her tongue on many cups of hot cocoa as a girl.

It feels like forever ago now, a glimpse of the past through the break in the treeline as the bus flies down the highway — another piece of her lost to the war. Shot to pieces and left to be buried in the mud of the battlefield.

The world moves on though, and the bus comes to a halt at its first and only stop between Grampleton and Pelican Town, in another rural town called Pine Valley. Where Grampleton is quaint and cozy in a touristy way, with all of its original downton architecture intact and well maintained; Pine Valley is Grampleton’s pothead cousin. Safiya had heard her mother make the joke a hundred times over as a girl, when she hadn’t quite understood the joke, but as an adult, the joke is an apt comparison.

There’s nobody left when the bus pulls out of Pine Valley, Safiya the lone passenger on yet another lonely journey.

It reminds her vaguely of when she’d first been drafted. Most mages lived out in the countryside in larger towns, or out in the boonies. But Safiya had spent most of her childhood in Zuzu, with her mother. Smaller towns and villages might have a few mages, or even whole families, but most anybody with any affinity for the arcane tended to stay away from cities — where the magic became too muddied with other people's energies to do anything useful with it. But Safiya had felt the magic strongly in Zuzu, not as strongly as she did out in the valley, but she’d felt it there — humming just below the surface, some wild untamed thing, so different from the smooth flowing calm that mages were used to out in the valley.

So, she’d been a rare breed in a breed already rare in its own right. One of the few mages that the government had been able to find in cities, and she had been the only passenger for that bus ride too. Armed with nothing but the shaky promise she’d made to her mother.

I will not relent.

The promise had followed her through her brief military training, and at some point in her training, the mantra had changed to soldier on.

It plays in her head even now. As the sun begins to set and paints the sky alight with brilliant shades of red and gold, and as the bus rolls to a stop next to a beaten down bus at a bus stop that looks more like a patch of dirt on the side of the road. There’s no need for those words now, she reminds herself, as she collects her few things and steps off of the bus, but it repeats regardless.

There is no one waiting to greet her at the bus stop when she steps off of the bus, the driver wasting no time to shut the doors and make a sharp u-turn back to where he came from, but she doesn’t mind. She knows that if she were to follow the path West she’d stumble across Atwood Farms, and the tiny village center is off to the East.

She doesn’t move. Instead, she opens the side pocket of her bag, grabbing for the carton of cigarettes she’s been carefully smoking her way through for the last two seasons. For every mage she knew, every single one of them had their fix in the military. The single pack was the first she’d ever laid hands on, given to her by her commanding officer just before the war had come to a ceasefire. The first time in years since their barracks had seen any real use outside of the bare necessities for living.

She’s been savoring them since.

The sun has only just begun to set, but Safiya knows it only takes forty-five minutes at best for the sky to go completely dark, and she keeps an eye on the dirt road leading into the village square as she holds the cigarette between her lips and lights it up with a small flame on her fingertip. The smoke burns on the way down, particularly bad in the cold, even worse with so much snow on the ground.

Snow is good, the colonel, the soldier, inside of her says, Harder for the enemies to sneak up on us. Crunchy. Visibility is high with the snow.

She tells the colonel to shut up and let her enjoy one of her last few cigarettes before the carton is empty and she goes back to living the cigarette free life she’d been living before. The colonel doesn’t shut up, she smokes her cigarette anyway and sends it off in a plume of smoke and ash when she’s finished with it, letting the wind carry away the remnants for her.

It’s as she watches the tiny specks of black and gray be carried off by the wind that the crunching of footsteps meets her ears. The colonel yells for her to get low, to grab for a rifle, raise a shield, shoot off a quick blast of fire, anything, and she forces herself to ignore it. To curl her hands up tight at her sides and just observe the squat old man walking down the dirt road.

“Miss Atwood?” He calls to her, the same jovially gruff voice she’d heard over the phone some hours ago, and it takes her a moment to realize that this must be Lewis. So much older than she remembers him being.

“Yes, sir,” She addresses him stiffly, though she does not salute, her hands relaxing at her sides, “Am I right to assume you’re Lewis?”

“That would be me,” He nods happily at her, stretching his hand out towards her for a handshake when he reaches her, she just puts her hand over his, gently pushing his outstretched hand back towards him.

“I’m rather jumpy with my recent dismissal,” She says, tone apologetic, and she hopes that is enough explanation for him, not wanting to get into the details of how she could very well accidentally kill him with how on edge her magic is. Not knowing friend or foe in this new battlefield off of the battlefield.

Lewis nods again, smiling wider, and she relaxes upon seeing he takes no offense to it. It’s maybe the most pleasant interaction she’s had all day, not having to worry or explain away the quirks of war, “Thank you for your service, Miss Atwood.”

Scratch that.

Safiya internally cringes to her grave and back, “Ah, sure,” She mutters, and her fingers tap at her palms, “It, ah, it’s really not anything you need to thank me for.”

Especially not when it hadn’t exactly been her choice to go out and fight in a war she didn’t care about. Not when she was fourteen, and especially not now, not when the war is over. The casualties on both sides had been brutal. Good people had been lost for a conflict that hadn’t needed the force either side had responded with.

But—

“Here we are,” Lewis says, rifling through the pockets of his well-worn coat, pulling out a keychain she immediately recognizes as her grandfathers, the Junimo charm handcarved by her grandmother some decades ago, “Billy left these in my care. He’d always hoped you’d be ‘round some day to get ‘em.”

Safiya clears her throat, finding it suddenly hard to swallow around the thick, viscous, lump in her throat as she eyes the little Junimo keychain. Originally painted granny smith green but faded with time and chipped in places from being dropped, and the small chip of yellow paint from when her grandfather had set his keys on the still wet paint of her childhood paintings.

“Well,” She manages to get out, voice gone thin and reedy, “I’m sure he’d be pleased that I came back at all.”

It’s a morbid joke, one that usually gets laughs in the barracks in the warzone, but Lewis doesn’t laugh. He just chuckles awkwardly, handing the keys to her and avoiding touching her bare hands with any part of him.

“Billy loved you dearly, Miss Atwood,” Lewis says after clearing his throat, “He’d be happy you’re here, no matter where you were.”

Here. Not here, here.

Here. Like, alive, here.

“Ah, right,” Safiya agrees, and she wonders how much bigger the lump in her throat can get, “I suppose you’re right.”

“O’ course I am,” Lewis laughs, a hand on his belly like he’s Santa off the clock, “Your grandpa was my best friend, you know!” Her lips tilt up in the smallest of watery smiles, and Lewis smiles at her from beneath his thick mustache, “Anyway, Miss Atwood, I must be gettin’ back now. Have a happy Winter Star.”

She watches him go, snow crunching under his boots as he walks away, and she stares at the faded Junimo charm on her keychain. It’s weighty, if only in sentimental value, and she rubs her thumb over the faded green wood and the yellow spot of paint, a bruise of color.

She sighs, turns on her heel and makes the short walk through the snow to Atwood Farms.

[ababanerb]

soldier on [3]

masterlist

AO3

Safiya manages to hide away in her farmhouse for another three days, dodging Magnus’ attempts to force her into socializing against her will with the most powerful warding spells she knows. Her house and the majority of the property covered in layer upon layer of invisible shields, designed to steer people away without even a thought about where they’d been going in the first place.

Three days of paranoia ridden solitude.

Three days of nearly burning the house down when the foundation settles, every shadowy corner has her jumping with magic crackling in her palms. She can’t make toast, not after she’d accidentally shot a hole through it when her toast had popped up the other day. Three days of falling asleep sitting up, her back pressed to the door drifting asleep and startling awake at every noise. Three days of begrudgingly eating the leftovers in her fridge, belly bloating with fullness for the first time since she was fourteen. Three days of searching through the attic, an actual flashlight in her hand, because she can’t trust herself to not set the dusty space on fire when something shifts in the corner of the dark room. Three days of avoiding her reflection in the bathroom mirror because she sees someone else in the glass.

It’s miserable, and she feels worse than she did when she was a frontline soldier. 

The only upside is having an actual bathroom. With a shower that she doesn’t have to share with twenty other women at a time. Not to mention taking an actual bath. 

The bath that she’d fallen asleep in. And then woken up with her teeth chattering when she’d turned the water to slush in her sleep, when she’d dreamed of a Gotorran mage who’d tried to melt the flesh clean from her bones. There’s still a bright red scar down her left forearm from where he’d managed to get his fire to pierce through her ice, pulsing and glowing erratically. 

Three days of holing herself away, Magnus tapping incessantly on her shields, before the old wizard in his not as old tower gets his way and Safiya has to make the short trek into town so she doesn’t starve to death.

“Can’t fucking stand you,” She curses in the direction of the tower, middle finger raised spitefully as she zips her mom’s old coat all the way up to beneath her chin. The stiff collar brushing awkwardly against her jaw as she pulls her long dark hair out from the jacket, the loose waves falling limply in the cold.

The farm is still covered in a thick blanket of snow, and whether Magnus actually followed through on maintaining the farm since her grandfather’s passing has yet to be seen. Not that it really matters, she knows she’ll have work to do either way. The coop and barn are still standing off in the distance, also covered in snow, and there’s a pang of sadness as she envisions the animals her grandpa used to keep when she was a girl. 

Can still remember the two black and white Holstein cows he’d gone through the painstaking process of teaching her how to milk, can still remember processing jug upon jug of milk with her mom. Can remember the two meat cows he’d had - and then never again when she’d cried into a bowl of beef stew - beautiful Herefords. Named Bread and Butter, because her grandpa thought it was funny. 

It had been so lively here, when she was a girl. Atwood Farm was never short of life, always chock full of it. Even in Winter, it had never been quiet. She’d had snowball fights with her mom on days like this, the two of them slinging snow back and forth without any magic until he grandpa came barreling towards them, magic brimming in his hands to make the game all that more fun.

It’s silent now, though. Only Safiya’s quiet sigh and the crunching of her boots through the snow and the creaking of the metal gate at the end of her driveway as she leaves, dropping the shields around her property as she does. Swearing that she can hear the ghost of laughter behind her.

Pelican Town remains relatively unchanged in the nearly ten years it’s been since she’d last seen it. There’s a new doctor in the same old clinic, Pierre’s is right where it had always been, and the Saloon still wafts the smell of something mouthwateringly good through the square, even when Gus hasn’t opened for the day.

It’s different all the same, though. Safiya trying not to flinch when Pierre’s door rattles loudly shut behind her as she waves the snow off her boots with a flick of her hand. The clumps of white dissipating into thin air as she grabs a wire shopping basket and swallows hard.

When’s the last time I was in a grocery store?

The thought fills her head, a little too abruptly for her comfort, as she picks an aisle - packed full things in colorful packaging. Nine years of MREs in beige and white packaging, and food so bland she’d forgotten all about this . 

Forgotten all about fresh fruit, laid out in neatly done displays in the produce aisle. And chips, in flavors that didn’t even exist before she’d been drafted.

And-

“Naomi?” A voice chimes politely from behind her, a hand tapping against her shoulder. 

Safiya startles, body suddenly cold and heart somewhere in her throat as she leaps halfway across the aisle, hands blooming with color and basket forgotten on the floor. She suddenly regrets wearing her moms old coat, even though she hates the military issued coat she’d arrived here in. Because at least in her coat, she has full range of motion. Unhindered ability to kill.

Enemy. Enemy. Enemy. Her mind screams at her in the voice of the drill instructor who’d hated her and she’d hated right back. Kill or be killed. Kill them first. 

And in her own voice, I don’t wanna die. 

“Oh!” The voice says again, and Safiya’s eyes clear, mind calming as she focuses on the woman who stands on the other end of the aisle. She’s got the most vibrant green hair Safiya’s ever seen, and a face stretched tight with fear as Safiya remains on guard.

“Caroline?” Another voice calls, male, footsteps rushing towards the commotion. 

It takes Safiya another few seconds to extinguish her glowing hands, the absolute terror on the face of the woman across from her is the same as the Gottoran girl she’d killed one muggy summer. A girl who’d been even younger than her, but trying to kill Safiya with all she’d had. Safiya was seventeen, then, and her hands had tingled with lightning still sparking over her fingertips, the girl seizing on the muddy battlefield below her. 

She’d also had green hair, though not as vibrant. Probably due to the same reason most people dulled in active combat. Safiya could still hear her choking on her own blood, wide, pale eyes staring desperately up at Safiya, mouthing words in a language she didn’t understand. 

“Naomi?” The male voice cuts through, and Safiya blinks, and she’s back in the aisle of a grocery store, shopping basket on the ground with her things scattered around it. And the green haired woman from before peering at her from behind a brown haired man in glasses.

“Naomi?” The man asks again, like he can’t believe his eyes, head tilting as she stares back at them. Shame curling like a hot iron in her gut.

“That was my mom,” Safiya says, quietly, afraid that if she speaks any louder her magic will make even her voice a deadly weapon, “I’m Safiya.”

Safiya creeps forward, hands kept splayed low as she approaches her abandoned basket, like she’s approaching a wild animal. Her hands shake as she puts her few things back into the wire basket, and her hands still feel tingly as she fumbles a jar of dill pickles back into the basket.

“I’m sorry,” Safiya says, addressing the green haired woman from where she remains crouched in the middle of the aisle, “You startled me. I hadn’t meant to scare you.”

Safiya pulls her face into what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

“It’s alright,” The green haired woman says, stepping out from behind her husband - or, Safiya thinks he’s her husband - waving a gentle hand through the air as she approaches Safiya, “You just got here a week or so ago, right? I’d be jumpy in a new place, too.”

Safiya gives the woman a tight-lipped smile, standing up with her basket gripped tightly in her hands, “Yes. I’m taking over Atwood Farm.”

“That’s perfect!” The man interjects, striding forward and jutting his hand towards her, “I’m Pierre. If you're looking for seeds, my shop is the place to go. I'll also buy produce from you for a good price! A little agriculture could really inject new life into the local economy! ”

And resell them for double the price. Safiya thinks, watching as Pierre’s eyes gleam with desire that is uncannily similar to bloodlust. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Safiya says, nudging his hand back towards him the back of her hand, “It’d be smarter if we don’t shake hands,” She tells him, a little apologetically, but he ignores her, grabbing her hand in both of his and shaking vigorously.

“Don’t be silly,” He chuckles, and Safiya can feel her magic roaring beneath her skin. Can taste in the back of her throat and smell it in the air around her. Her instincts screaming at her.

Safiya’s lip curls as she snatches her hand back from him, the man yelping when she discharges a short burst of fire from her fingertips. “Do not touch me,” She snarls in the same voice she’d used as a colonel, her voice a blade of its own. “Understand?”

Pierre nods, cursing beneath his breath as he cradles his singed hand to his chest. He turns sharply on his heel, pushing past the green haired woman who’s staring with wide eyes at Safiya.

“I’m Caroline,” The woman says after a long moment, Safiya turning towards one of the shelves with her eyes screwed shut as she mentally berates herself. “Our town doctor, Harvey, next door, he served seven or so years ago.”

“Thanks.” Safiya responds, breathless, as she rests her forehead against one of the cool metal shelves, “How did you know my mom?” She asks, grasping for anything to fill the awkward silence and pull her mind away from the barely-there smell of burnt skin.

“You don’t remember?” Caroline asks, and Safiya’s dares to glance at her, “Your mom and I were good friends before the two of you moved away to Zuzu.”

“Well, it’s been a long nine years for me,” Safiya supplies, only a little bitter as she skirts her way around Caroline and towards the singular check-out counter, “There’s a lot I don’t remember anymore.”

Caroline says nothing else, just purses her lips and gets Safiya checked out. And Safiya stares at the counter, refusing to look Caroline in the eye, afraid of what either of them might see in the other’s face. 

Caroline slides her two bags of groceries over the counter, and Safiya swipes her card through the card reader that’s probably been there since she was a girl.

“It’s okay,” Caroline utters softly. Safiya’s fingers curl gingerly around the plastic handles of her bags, unsure if she can trust herself. “Pierre’s ego is probably more hurt than his hand, Nao- Safiya,” Safiya cringes at the stumble, and her regret for wearing her mom’s old jacket only grows, “Pelican Town’s glad to have you. And… I just want to say, thank you for your service.”

Safiya wants to set herself on fire as she nods politely at Caroline, shoves her card into the back pocket of her ill-fitting jeans - also her moms - as she thanks Caroline as quickly as she can and ducks back out into the cold. Grocery bags clutched tight in her fingers.

She vows to not go back into Pierre’s until it's Spring, and she doesn’t have to wade through the snow if she needs to make a terribly executed escape again.

—

It’s Tuesday, Sebastian notes absently as he types through yet another line of code, dying for a cigarette - or a blunt, either’s fine at this point. Or, he thinks it’s Tuesday. He can’t be sure, time and sleep lost on him as he pounds out his larger fourth project in two weeks.

But, it must be Tuesday. Because he can hear Abigail upstairs, blabbering some benign thing to his mom about something her mom told her to pass along before she’d left her house. So, it’s Tuesday, he reasons, because Abigail always comes over on Tuesday at one o’clock, like clockwork, to pester him. 

But- No, it is, He assures himself, tapping his phone awake just to check the date. A little annoyed that his life is so routine that he knows the date and time solely on when one of his friends comes over to cure her own boredom. 

“I fucking hate that I’m right, sometimes,” He curses under his breath, flicking his tongue against his teeth just to hear the piercing there clack. Forcing his attention back to his code for the few precious moments he has before Abi comes clomping down the stairs in her platform boots that are shit for any weather other than pleasantly warm and sunny. He downs another gulp of cold coffee, shuddering as it goes down and fingers flying across his keyboard, desperately trying to get a few more lines done when he hears the telltale noise of Abi’s boots hitting the top of the basement steps. 

He gets two more lines of code before Abi comes crashing through his door, reminding him of why he’d become such a stickler for locking his door when he wanted some alone time. She doesn’t knock, never has, probably never will, and if she cares that he’s working, it doesn’t show. 

He just barely manages to save his work by the time Abigail’s got both hands on the back of his gaming chair, pulling him away from his desk and spinning him towards her. “Seb!” She exclaims, her face inches away from his, “You’ll never believe this,” She laughs, squealing with glee as she lets him go to dance around his room. Her boots thumping loudly on the wooden floor of his basement room.

Sebastian sighs, pushing himself back towards his desk to fish a cigarette from his desk drawer, “What won’t I believe?” He asks begrudgingly, spinning the spark wheel of his lighter with practiced ease, holding his cigarette between his lips as he shuts his computer down.

“The new farmer burned the shit outta my dad this morning!” Abigail squeals, jumping wildly with glee until her foot wobbles on the landing, “Oh my Yoba, Seb! It’s incredible. Dad was bein’ a real dick this morning, too.” Abigail continues, surging forward as his eyebrows raise, “Oh,” She laughs, nearly cackling, “Karma is real, Seb. This is the greatest day of my life!”

There was a time, back when the two of them were in high school, and Sebastian was shamelessly horny, and Abigail wanted nothing more than to piss off her parents, that he would actually give a shit about whatever Abi has to say. Partly because he had enjoyed her company more, then, but mostly for sex.

He also hadn’t had a job, then. 

But Sebastian indulges her anyway, one of his closest friends, because she is Abigail and he is Sebastian, and he will indulge her the same way she indulges him and Sam, “What d’you mean, the farmer burned your dad? Must’ve been spitting fucking fire if it got to good ol’ Pierre.” He drawls, sounding just interested enough to keep her from complaining as he takes another deep drag of his cigarette. Relishing in the way it burns on the way down.

“No, Seb,” She says, on her feet again, hands pressed to the arms of his chair as she leans over him. Grinning so hard it’s a wonder her face hasn’t split in two, “The farmer literally burned my dad! Like-” She squeals, reeling back and gesturing wildly at her right hand, “ Burned , burned. Flames- Came from the farmer’s hands!”

“Get out,” Sebastian says pointedly, actually pointing at his bedroom door as his lips pull into an annoyed frown, “Don’t waste my fucking time on this kinda shit, Abi. You know I have shit I need to get done.”

“No, you fucking do not ,” She snorts, pulling away from him in a huff as he blows a puff of smoke in her face, and falling back onto his bed, “And I’m serious , Sebby!”

He glares sharply at the nickname, something reserved only for his mom to call him.

“ Sebastian ,” She quickly corrects, holding her hands up in faux surrender, “And I’m serious.”

He raises a skeptical brow at her, ashing his cigarette in the broken bottom half of what was his favorite coffee cup turned ashtray, “The other week you said you saw a shadow person.” He reminds.

“And I did ,” She protests.

“Abi,” Sebastian sighs, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together over his stomach, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and flicking his tongue piercing over the backs of his teeth. “Not that I don’t believe you. But everyone knows that anyone who can channel magic is off fighting against Gotoro. It’s just not even fucking possible, Abs. And even if there were some random new mage , of all fucking things, in town. You’d think more people would know by now. Because that would mean soldiers are coming home. 

“And you and I both know they’re not, because Sam hasn’t said jack shit about it. And don’t go mentioning this to him, either.” He says harshly, jabbing in her direction with the index and pointer fingers of his right hand, “Don’t go getting his hopes up when nothing’s been made official.”

“Fucking-” Abi sighs, exasperated as she meets his hard gaze, “Fine. Whatever.”

He nods once, turning his chair around and booting his computer back up, a silent demand for her to leave.

“... Wanna have sex?” She offers after a moment, trying to peer over his shoulder as he opens up his coding program.

He points to the door without looking away from his screen, “No. Now get out so I can work.”

[ababanerb]

Soldier On [2]

chapter one

AO3

Sebastian, for all the shit he talks about Winter Star and how much he hates the holiday, loves Winter. So much, in fact, that when he was younger, a teenager freshly burdened with the costs of insurance and a license, had dated a girl he met in Zuzu solely for her name - Winter. It hadn’t mattered that he didn’t really even know her, or like her, but her name was Winter, and at the time, it had seemed it would all work out based only on the fact that she was named after his favorite season.

He enjoys the crunch of snow under his feet, and the way his cigarettes particularly burn down his throat and into his lungs, filling him with heat, and he loves being able to don layer upon layer of swathes of black fabric. 

A true emo, as Sam and Abi would tease.

They tell him as much, the night before Winter Star, when he comes traipsing into the saloon, shaking snow from his hair because he doesn’t believe in wearing a hat to keep his head and ears warm when his hair is long enough to do the job. 

“Yoba, Sebastian,” Abi laughs when he joins up with them in the game room, a lukewarm beer waiting for him on the small table next to the couch, still capped, “If it weren’t for the fact I see you all the time, I’d think high school you just walked through the door!”

She makes the same joke every Friday, and every time, Sam laughs, and Sebastian indulges her teasing with a soft upward curl of his lips and a roll of his eyes.

And maybe, back when he was in junior high, and even his freshman and sophomore years of high school, he would agree, and say that he was emo. Mostly because at the time he thought it was cool to be emo and edgy. Now, though, it was mostly just long outgrown angst and the comfort that the varying shades of black and grays brought him. That, and it fit his aesthetic. 

After all, he’d reasoned, what girl doesn’t like a guy who knows how to play the dark and mysterious angle? There are plenty of girls out there with broken bird syndrome who’d love to have sex with him if they think it’ll fix him. 

And it does, for the thirty minutes it takes him to cum. 

“Uh-huh,” Sebastian says with a brief roll of his eyes, uncapping his lukewarm beer and taking a swig. It's as awful as it always is, beer never his favorite, but it's cheap, and he can't be picky if he wants to move out to the city, “At least I don't look like I only shop at Hot Topic,” He snarks back at them, gesturing to Abi’s alt-goth aesthetic and dyed hair and Sam’s band tee and ripped jeans.

Abi folds her arms across her chest defiantly, glaring at him as she begins to berate him for his commentary. But Sebastian shrugs it off, chuckling lowly as he maneuvers around her to grab his cue off of the wall. Sam groans, knowing what’s coming when Sebastian racks the balls, the blonde’s inevitable beat down for the night rapidly approaching as Sebastian takes another swig of his beer.

“Whatever, man,” Sam groans to him as he grabs his own cue and leans against the pool table, “We can’t all attract girls who are fucked in the head.”

“And we can’t all be good at pool,” Sebastian snarks back as Abi sniggers on the couch behind Sam, chiming in on Sebastian’s generally poor taste in the girls he likes to fuck. It’s a poor jab, Sebastian knows, because Sam has made it clear that he expects his Friday night to go pretty much the same every week. 

With Sebastian ever victorious, a proud, but subtle smirk on his face while Sam gets himself a consolation drink. 

But tonight’s a little different, because for as willing as Sam is to play pool, the blonde has bigger things happening in his life. The world has bigger things happening. Come Spring, all frontline infantry get to go home. Come Spring, his dad will be home. 

So, tonight, Sam gives Sebastian no fight, he lets Sebastian steamroll him, the blonde not giving any mind to his sloppy shots. 

“C’mon,” Sebastian groans when he pockets another winning shot, “You’re making this too easy, man.”

“Like the girls you fuck?” Abigail teases from where she’s hunched over the Journey of the Prairie King game console, her purple hair spilling over her shoulder as she furiously mashes buttons. Sebastian sneers at her, his lips curling over his canines as she ignores him while Sam chuckles quietly and nurses a beer – the best alcohol his crappy wages at JojaMart can buy in Pelican Town.

“Exactly like the girls I fuck,” Sebastian drawls, and she shifts her focus away from the old arcade game long enough to flip him off.

“Sorry,” Sam laughs as his closest friends begin waving their middle fingers in the air at each other. Almost reminiscent of their high school days. “I’ve just got stuff on my mind right now. I’m not here.”

“Whatever, man,” Sebastian says, an imperceptible smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he slaps a hand over Sam’s back, “I’ll just kick your ass next week,” He chuckles, the tiny smile that is his trademark breaking into a half-smile. 

“Sure.” Sam agrees, and his beer is bitter all the way down.

—

When Safiya was still in an active combat zone, she’d learned all too quickly the killer that Winter is. That the cold is a far more miserable way to go than the heat of Summer. She could still remember creeping through the snow, her belly pressed to the freezing powder as it kept coming down, her gun over her back and the cold melting and seeping through the front of her uniform as she hunted desperately for rabbits. Or just a rabbit. Even a bunny. Just something to fill her belly for the night.

She’d been fifteen then, and her mom had still been alive. Her fingers had turned purple with cold, and it was only luck and a good healer that kept her from getting frostbite and losing her fingers entirely. But she’ll never forget the cold of those first few weeks on the frontline, when she’d been separated from her squadron in the middle of the woods across enemy lines. 

She’d sworn to herself that if she lived to see the next morning, that she’d find a way home. Even if it meant deserting her post. Even if it meant dying at the hands of a government that could care less about her.

But she’d actually made it through several mornings after that, several rabbits caught and eaten. Her fingers stained with blood and fire sputtering weakly in her palms in a last ditch effort to keep herself from dying. She’d lost most of the feeling in her fingertips, and no amount of healing had been able to fix it.

Not that it mattered to her. She’d made it out. Made it back and regrouped with a ballistics squadron that wasn’t hers by any means. They’d sent her back to where she belonged, escorted by a man who’d taken pity on her because he had a son her age. 

So, yes, Winter is brutal. But even more brutal is stifling the urge to go out into the snow and hunt down every piece of game she can find until the wilderness within a three mile radius is picked clean. 

It’s Magnus that stops her, with meals that magically appear in her fridge. Even though she doesn’t need them. Though, he’d said something similar when she’d made her way to his tower on her second day in town to thank him. 

And she finds herself trudging through the snow to Magnus’ again, when she’s found yet another meal in her fridge. A serving of pasta so large it could feed a whole squadron for a day.

“Magnus,” She demands to his door, and she doesn’t knock, her hands shoved deep into the old winter coat that had once been her moms, because she knows that he knows exactly who’s at his door, “Let me in. Now.”

The door creaks open, and Magnus’s magic stings her nose, smelling like old parchment and ink. It’s invitation enough, and she tromps through the door, magicking her boots dry as she kicks them off at the door. Because she’d almost killed him when he’d yelled at her the first time she tried wearing her shoes into his home. 

One side of Magnus’ mustache is still shorter than the other from where she’d singed it off. 

Whoops.

“What are you doing here?” Magnus demands as she steps into his living room, a massive cauldron bubbling in one corner of the room, and he materializes in a swirl of purple and flash of light on his couch. 

Safiya quirks a brow at him as he crosses one leg over the other, and whatever lingering feelings of superiority he had over her dissipates when she sees his socks on display.

“You know why I’m here,” She says simply, shrugging off her coat and draping it over the back of one of his chairs before she takes her own seat.

“Indulge me, child.”

“My fridge has become increasingly cluttered.”

Mostly true. She’s been steadily eating what he gives her, but not at a rate to keep up with the three plus meals a day he magically piles into her fridge. Because no matter how good the food he sends her is, nine years of the limited diet she had doesn’t go away in a week.

“Then you aren’t eating well, clearly,” He brushes off, a hand waving minutely through the air, and the cauldron bubbles loudly in the corner as it’s stirred by an invisible force. 

“Magnus,” Safiya begins, her sharp gaze fixating on him, “I appreciate your concern. But I have it handled from here. I’d call you if I needed you.”

“No, you would not.”

No, she would not.

“You and your mother,” He tuts, shaking his head, his hat wiggling just slightly without his magic to hold it down, “Always refusing help from others.”

Safiya has to physically bite her tongue, swallowing down the words that are bubbling up in her throat the same way the cauldron bubbles ferociously in the corner and wafts a haze of fragrant smoke through Magnus’ tower. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that she would have taken any help she could get, anything to get home. 

But now, she is home. And there’s no one left.

“I don’t need it, Magnus,” Is what she says instead, her jaw a hard line, schooled into the same cold hard-faced expression she’d worn as a Colonel. The same face she’d worn to give orders, her voice a soft bark in the quiet of the tower.

Magnus’ face goes slack for a moment, and she wonders if his face looked the same when she and her mom had moved to Zuzu, or when her grandpa died. Then his face is as it always is, a cool surface of wise indifference, but Safiya knows his eyes. Knows her grandpa’s best friend, knows her mom’s would-be savior, her would-be savior.

The guilt hits her like a bullet to the gut, knocking the wind out of her and leaving her laid out flat on her back. 

“But I do appreciate it,” Safiya amends, voice gone soft, and she feels all thrown out of balance as she meets Magnus’ eyes again.

He only heaves a sigh, a hand pinching at his nose as he squeezes his eyes closed, “You and your mother, child…” He mutters, opening his eyes again and Safiya can feel his mind trying to prod at hers. Like a dry paintbrush feathering over a canvas – touching, but never leaving anything behind. 

“Magnus,” She growls sharply, tossing her mind at him in pointed barbs, but not touching, “Get out of my head.”

“You’ll forgive me if I’m curious,” Magnus chides, chuckling softly as he withdraws from her mind, “I only want to know what happened to the girl that used to beg me to take her down to see the Lunaloos every Summer. I just want to make sure you're taken care of.

“The same way I wanted to make sure your mother was taken care of. I cannot… I failed your mother. I cannot fail you, too.”

Safiya sighs, all the anger bleeding from her, as the wizard who is - from what he’d told her as a girl - a few centuries her senior hits her right in the gut again, “What happened to Mom… that was no one’s fault,” Safiya says stiffly, but her voice wavers, a watery undertone as she swallows down the lump in her throat. “What can I do to ease your concerns, Magnus?”

“Eat the food I send you,” He chuckles softly, and if there’s a watery glint to his eyes, Safiya pretends to not to see, “And go introduce yourself to the villagers.”

“Technically, they’re townspeople,” She interjects.

“However you’d like to call them,” He sighs, pointing a finger at her, “I want you to make it a point to talk to them. Many of them had been good friends with your mother and grandfather. And I refuse to let you hermit yourself away from the world.”

“I have already seen much of the world,” Safiya says softly, “I have lost a good piece of me to it. It is no one’s fault but my own should I choose to make a hermit of myself.”

“Safiya,” He says sternly, and he’s suddenly standing only a few feet in front of her. His bright purple gaze piercing through her soul, “I do not ask things, not of anyone. But please—”

“Fine,” She agrees sharply, the palm of her hand to him, “Make me a list or something. But quit sending me food. Got it?”

So, Safiya trudges back to the farm, lighting up a cigarette - leaving only ten more in the carton - to burn its way down her throat as she tucks the journal Magnus had given her against her ribs beneath her mother’s old coat. There are twenty-eight names, and it’s disturbing that Magnus knows enough about all of them to be able to give each person in such a tiny town their own pages.

But it’s also endearing, if only because he’d given her the information in hopes it would help her.

[ababanerb]

Soldier On Masterlist

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

[ababanerb]

sdv masterlist

Sebastian

The Sign meet me in the rain

[ababanerb]

Izuku Midoriya

“so this is where it ends” izuku midoriya

“why are you avoiding me” izuku midoriya

lemongrass and sleep 

Katsuki Bakugo

“so this is where it begins” katsuki bakugo (part two to “so this is where it ends”)

aspartame - katsuki bakugo

Shoto Todoroki

“when the pillars fall” shoto todoroki

Denki Kaminari

dopamine - denki kaminari