#adventures of a blaze boy and fish girl

[lizcameron]

Part of His World | Part Two

Pairing: JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summary: Y/n was just trying to get out of town, running from her family and her past. When her dirt bike breaks down in Kildare, JJ Maybank swoops in to help her. Forced to stick around for a while, Y/n begins to fall in love with JJ and his tight-knit family of outcasts. The longer she stays, the harder it becomes to leave OBX as she knows she must.

Word Count: 1707

Warning(s): slight angst

Entering the chateau to a crowd of friendly strangers who all jumped up to greet you and JJ upon your arrival had been almost overwhelming but somewhat warming.

JJ had vaguely introduced you as the door swung shut. “This is my new friend, Y/N. She’s just passing through town.”

John B. had given you a genuine smile and light side-hug. “Welcome to my humble abode. We’re just about to hit the water,” he’d said.

Sarah had pulled you into a long, tight embrace. “It’s so lovely to meet you. It’ll be nice to have another girl along for the day,” she squealed, a glint of something in her eye as she looked at JJ after releasing you.

Kiara was less friendly than the others. She waved two fingers at you from across the room with what looked like a forced smile. She looked just as wary as you felt.

Pope extended a hand toward you, which you gladly took, much preferring this formal greeting to those from the more tactilely-inclined. “Nice to meet you, Y/N. I’m Pope. Any friend of JJ’s is a friend of ours,” he offered.

Now you sat on the bow of the HMS Pogue as JJ and his friends all sipped beers. Sarah and Kie had their feet in the water, and John B. and Pope were casting fishing lines off the other side of the boat. JJ sat several feet away from you just enjoying the conversation. You had been listening to stories of their adventures, learning a bit more about each of them personally.

From what you gathered, they were all orphaned in some way or another. Pope, Kie, and Sarah had each had a falling out with their families and adopted this group as their only family. John B. was actually orphaned, and JJ had been abandoned by both parents, each in their own turn.

JJ had looked down at his hands sullenly after sharing that bit of his history since everyone else was practically offering their entire life story. You stared at his profile, your soul reaching out just barely to this boy who just might understand you if you could ever let anyone in. When JJ felt your stare he looked up, flashing you a smile, and you quickly turned away.

JJ seemed to be the type of person who made friends easily, and judging by the stories his friends had been relaying to you, he also loved unconditionally and protected fiercely. You almost remembered what that was like, but the last person you thought truly cared for you had walked out your front door eight months ago and hadn’t been heard from since.

A loud splash brought you back to the present. You looked over to see the last of the others jumping into the water. JJ removed his shirt before reaching a hand out to you.

“C’mon. It’s blazing out here. Let’s cool off,” he proposed. You couldn’t help but smile at the giggles and playful shouts coming from the water. You slipped off your shoes, took JJ’s hand, and followed him off the edge of the boat.

After swimming for a while and laying out on the boat to dry, the group returned to the dock to clean the fish the boys had caught and grill an early dinner. As soon as the Pogue had docked, everyone went their separate ways to fulfill their respective duties in preparing for dinner. You stayed behind with JJ as he ensured the boat was clean before he left it. The group of friends seemed to have a nice routine, as if they spent days all together like this all the time. You longed for that sense of belonging.

“Do all the others live here together?” you asked casually.

“Nah, just JB and Sarah. Pope and Kie are roommates at the only decent apartment complex on The Cut, and I live alone. The Chateau has just always been our gathering place,” JJ explained.

He gave you a hand up onto the dock and began loading your arms with gear before grabbing his own haul. “You got it?” he asked, and you nodded. 

Just as he stacked the last tackle under your chin, you dropped a pole. As you reached to catch it with your foot so it wouldn’t fall into the water, you lost your footing on an uneven board. You fell backward into the water, all the gear you were carrying toppling over onto the dock and some in the water with you.

“Oh shit,” JJ exclaimed as he leapt into the water to help you chuck the floating items onto the dock two feet above your head. Once everything was retrieved, JJ swam to you.

“Y/N, are you okay?” JJ asked, a little panic in his voice.

You began to laugh, and JJ joined in with you. The two of you were unable to stop for a couple of minutes before the laughter subsided. When you were finally able to catch your breath, JJ reached out to you, fingering something in your hair.

“Here, you’ve got a weed in your hair,” he says, pulling it out. His fingers brush your cheek as he pulled away, and you gave a small gasp. Your eyes locked on his, and his gaze was an intense ocean blue, holding you captive for a moment. JJ’s hand reached back up to touch your cheek just as the trance was broken.

“You guys finished messin’ around? Grill is hot,” Kiara barked out before storming back up the dock.

After a very delicious dinner of grilled fish, corn, and potatoes, you followed Sarah inside to help with the dishes. You dried while she washed and told you where everything went. Halfway through the job and some small talk, Sarah decided to try to break through your mystery.

“So what’s your story, Y/N? JJ said you’re just passing through?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m headed for the mainland. JJ just happened to be driving by when my dirt bike broke down. He patched it up for me,” you explained.

She smirked, thinking of the chances JJ would happen upon a damsel on a dirt bike. “Oh, you’re just vacationing down here?”

“No, I’m from the OBX. There’s just nothing left for me here, and I’ve never left the island,” you trailed off.

Sarah gave a concerned look. “Where’s your family? Surely you’ll come back to visit them,” she presumed.

You shook your head, contemplating how much to share. After a moment of silence, you figured there was no point to your secrecy. You’d never see Sarah again, and it was nice to have someone to confide in for once.

“My mom died six years ago. My dad is,” you paused, trying to think of a mild way to put it. “Completely different, I guess. It was kind of my older brother and I against the world until he left almost a year ago. I can’t stay here taking care of that… drunken idiot anymore. I’m leaving for myself,” you spewed.

Sarah was quiet for a long minute. Your cheeks began to burn from your embarrassment. Nobody was interested in your sob story. You should have made up another lie.

“You know,” Sarah began, pulling you from your self-deprecating thoughts. “Your past is not unlike JJ’s. His family is complicated too; all of ours are. Maybe there’s a reason it was JJ who happened to find you,” she suggested.

You snickered, pretending to be oblivious to what she was insinuating. “Yeah, I’d probably still be tinkering with that bike or walking by now,” you uttered with an unconvincing laugh.

Just then, JJ appeared in the entrance of the kitchen. “Ya’ ready to head back, Y/N? Be dark soon,” he said, pointing a thumb behind him toward the door.

On the way back to JJ’s house, you slid some money into his cup holder since he insisted you didn’t need to pay him for his help.

“It took all of three minutes, and I already have the oil,” he’d said resolutely.

Now in the little shop behind his house, he topped off the oil in the crankcase of your dirt bike. He took a few steps toward you as he wiped his hands on a shop rag before setting it down on the workbench you were leaning on.

“Thanks for spending the day with us. It was nice to have someone new tag along,” JJ said, stalling for time, not wanting to be out of your company just yet.

You held up your hands in gratitude. “Thank you for everything - the bike, dinner, a great day. It felt so nice to be carefree for a while. Your friends are great,” you mused. “I really should be going, though. Can you point me in the direction of the ferry terminal? This detour has me a little turned around,” you admitted.

JJ glanced at the clock on the wall. “Sure but the last ferry left an hour ago. There’s not another one until 7 in the morning,” he said.

You closed your eyes and clenched your fist, whispering, “Fuck.”

Your mind raced a mile a minute. It’d be okay, right? You’d been gone all day. You were 50 miles away. There’s no way your dad would find you in the backwoods of Kildare. You could camp out and hop on the first ferry out of there.

JJ sensed your panic and placed a hand on your shoulder, pulling you from your despair. “Hey, relax. Why don’t you stay here tonight? You can thank me by having breakfast with me in the morning, then I’ll drop you off at the ferry as early as you want,” he offered.

You visibly relaxed as you looked into those ocean eyes. JJ was right. What was a few more hours? It was entirely possible that your dad didn’t care enough to look for you anyway.

“You’re sure I’m not imposing?” you ask cautiously.

JJ smirked. “I would not pass up a chance to have you in my bed,” he joked, laughing when your eyes went wide. “C’mon, I’ll take the floor,” he said as he pulled you along by the hand, electricity shooting up your arm at his touch.

@obaex @pankowperfection

[vinora-nyghtshayde]

List of anime, a majority of them dubbed, I've watched over the years

1 .Hack//Legend of the Twilight

2 .Hack//Roots

3 .Hack//Sign

4 A centaur's life

5 A lull in the sea

6 A Whisker Away

7 Accel World

8 Ah! My Goddess

9 Akame Ga Kill

10 Amnesia

11 Android Kikaider the animation

12 Angel Sanctuary

13 Angels of Death

14 Armitage III

15 Arrietty

16 Assassination Classroom

17 Attack on Titan

18 Attack on Titan Junior High

19 B: The Beginning

20 Baccano

21 Banner of the stars

22 Basilisk

23 Bastard

24 Battle B-Daman

25 Beastars

26 Betterman

27 Beyblade

28 Beyond the Boundary

29 Big Fish & Begonia

30 Black Blood Brothers

31 Black Butler

32 Black Clover

33 Black Lagoon

34 Bleach

35 Blood Blockade Battlefront

36 Blood+

37 Blue Exorcist

38 Blue Seed

39 BNA: Brand New Animal

40 Boogiepop Phantom

41 Boruto

42 Bungo Stray Dogs

43 Cardcaptor Sakura

44 Carole & Tuesday

45 Case Closed

46 Casshern Sins

47 Castlevania

48 Castle in the Sky

49 Cells at work

50 Ceres, Celestial Legend

51 Charlotte

52 Cheer Boys

53 Chobits

54 Chrono Crusade

55 Code Geass: Lelouch of the rebellion

56 Code Geass: Akito the exiled

57 Code: Realize

58 Code: Breaker

59 Coppelion

60 Cowboy Bebop

61 Crest of the stars

62 Cyborg 009

63 D.Gray-Man

64 D.N.Angel

65 Dance with Devils

66 Deadman Wonderland

67 Death Note

68 Diabolik Lovers

69 Digimon

70 Dr. Stone

71 Dragon Ball Z

72 Dragon Ball GT

73 Dramatical Murder

74 Durarara

75 Erased

76 Ergo Proxy

77 Fooly Cooly

78 Fafner

79 Fairy Tail

80 Fire Force

81 Fist of the North Star

82 Flint the Time Detective

83 Free

84 From the new world

85 From up on Poppy Hill

86 Fruits Basket

87 Fullmetal Alchemist

88 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

89 Fushigi Yugi

90 Gad Guard

91 Gate Keepers

92 Gate Keepers 21

93 Ghost Hunt

94 Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

95 Ginga Densetsu Weed

96 Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin

97 Gravitation

98 Gungrave

99 Gunslinger Girl

100 Gurren Lagann

101 Haikyu

102 Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East

103 Hakuoki

104 Hamtaro

105 Hell Girl

106 Hellsing

107 Hellsing Ultimate

108 Hetalia

109 Hitorijime My Hero

110 Howl's Moving Castle

111 Hyperdimension Neptunia

112 IGPX Immortal Grand Prix

113 Inuyasha

114 Isekai Quartet

115 Izetta: The Last Witch

116 Japan Sinks

117 Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

118 K

119 K-On

120 Kamigami no Asobi

121 Kamisama Kiss

122 Karas

123 Karneval

124 Kekkaishi

125 Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple

126 Kiki's Delivery Service

127 Kill La Kill

128 Kiss him, not me

129 Kiznaiver

130 Knight's & Magic

131 Konosuba

132 Kuroko's Basketball

133 Kyo Kara Maoh

134 Laughing Under the Clouds

135 Last Exile

136 Little Nemo

137 Little Witch Academia

138 Love Stage

139 Lupin III

140 Medabots

141 Megaman

142 Megaman NT Warrior

143 Mekakucity Actors

144 Mirage of Blaze

145 Mirai

146 Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

147 Mobile Fighter G Gundam

148 Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team

149 Mobile Suit Gundam 00

150 Mobile Suit Gundam Seed

151 Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny

152 Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

153 Monster Rancher

154 Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit

155 My Hero Academia

156 My Neighbor Totoro

157 My Love Story

158 My roommate is a cat

159 Nanbaka

160 Naruto

161 Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

162 Nekopara

163 No. 6

164 Noein To your other self

165 Noragami

166 Noragami Aragoto

167 Oban Star-Racers

168 One Piece

169 One-Punch Man

170 Ouran High School Host Club

171 Outlaw Star

172 Paranoia Agent

173 Peacemaker Kurogane

174 Please Teacher

175 Please Twins

176 Pom Poko

177 Ponyo

178 Porco Rosso

179 Pretear

180 Prince of Stride Alternative

181 Princess Mononoke

182 Prison School

183 Promare

184 RaXephon

185 Re:Zero

186 R.O.D the TV

187 Ronin Warriors

188 Rosario + Vampire

189 Rurouni Kenshin

190 RWBY: Ice Queendom

191 Servamp

192 Sk♾️ The Infinity

193 Sailor Moon R

194 Sailor Moon

195 Saint Seiya

196 Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas

197 Saiyuki

198 Samurai 7

199 Samurai Champloo

200 Samurai Deeper Kyo

201 Sankarea

202 Say I Love You

203 s-CRY-ed

204 Sensitive Pornograph

205 Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

206 Serial Experiments Lain

207 Servamp

208 Shaman King

209 Shinzo

210 Shonen Maid

211 Show By Rock

212 Silent Mobius

213 Sirius the Jaeger

214 Snow White with the Red Hair

215 Sorcerous Stabber Orphen

216 Soul Eater

217 Soul Eater Not

218 Spice and Wolf

219 Spirited Away

220 Stars Align

221 Sukisho

222 Sword Art Online

223 Tactics

224 Tales of Zestiria the X

225 Tenchi Muyo

226 Tenjou Tenge

227 The Ancient Magus's Bride

228 The Boy and the Beast

229 The Cat Returns

230 The Devil is a Part-Timer

231 The Morose Mononokean

232 The Prince of Tennis

233 The Promised Neverland

234 The Rising of the Shield Hero

235 The Royal Tutor

236 The Seven Deadly Sins

237 The Vision of Escaflowne

238 The Way of the Househusband

239 The Wind Rises

240 Tiger & Bunny

241 Tokko

242 Tokyo Ghoul

243 Toradora

244 Trigun

245 Trinity Blood

246 Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle

247 Uta No Prince-sama

248 Vampire Hunter D

249 Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust

250 Vandread

251 Violet Evergarden

252 When Marnie Was There

253 Whisper of the Heart

254 Wise Man's Grandchild

255 Witchblade

256 Witch Hunter Robin

257 Wolf Children

258 Wolf's Rain

259 X

260 Yamada & the Seven Witches

261 Yami No Matsuei

262 Yashahime

263 Yona of the Dawn

264 Your Name

265 Your lie in April

266 Yu-Gi-Oh

267 Yu Yu Hakusho

268 Yuri!! On Ice

269 Zatch Bell

270 Zoids

[fallow-foot]

Wait does anyone remember that that time I think on one of Hbombs streams (it was the one we’re he first brought up the idea of a spelling bee) were Niki made a passing comment about calling a drowned her Brethren/brother or something and no one ever has acknowledged this? (Or I’ve never herd it being brought up by anyone ever) Also how we know for a fact something is up with Shy (Niki’s endermen room mate) because of abbafg we know they were the creature to find Niki and the first thing she can ever remember. So what are the chances abbafg Niki and dsmp Niki are extremely similar in background or literally the same creature. But then that opens up its own can of what the heck worms.

[definitelynotsuzumi]

Zapped to Another World [Chapter 3]

[Masterlist]

Chapter 3 is finally up! T-T I am really sorry for the delays and future delays since I am juggling between school and Genshin. 

Despite the roof over your head and the cushy bed beneath you, you could not sleep.

You heaved a sigh as you reached your hand into your chest, detaching your Gnosis. If your knowledge was right, you were basically the 8th Archon. A phantom one, judging by Venti’s reaction.

“Oh good, you have not lost it yet.” A familiar voice echoed. You nearly rolled off the bed in surprise as you turned to face Artem.

“How? But I? Huh? What are you doing here?” You stuttered.

“Oh silly head. Or maybe I am the silly one for not letting you know. A Gnosis is a way that Archons can communicate with the Celestia. In other words, me!” Artem threw you a mischievous smile. He seemed a lot more easy-going. Was it because I agreed to this life? Or is it because his sister isn’t here?

You suspected both as Artem kicked back in the air.

“I am aware of that but…Doesn’t this make me…Irrelevant in this world? Weren’t there supposed to be just 7 Archons?” You knitted your brows as he casually floated around the giant room.

“Well, originally, yes. But things change!”

“So, what exactly am I an Archon of?” You looked back onto your Gnosis. As you had agreed to the “contract” when you fell, the Gnosis had transformed into what looked like a chess piece, with a sphere adorning the top of it.

“This world! Isn’t that exciting?”

Figures. The shape atop your Gnosis was shaped like a planet after all.

“…Honestly, not with the Fatui out to get people like me.” You sighed.

“Oh, if they try anything funny with the Order I have made, rest assured, us gods will deal with it.” Artem’s easy-going aura turned bloodthirsty.

You held your tongue instinctively as Artem laughed humourlessly.

“I am well aware of the Tsaritsa straying from her path and interfering. But I have faith in that Outworlder.” Artem hummed as he messed around in your room. He somehow managed to find lipstick paper in the drawers and had put it on. 

“And me. Surely there is more to my existence in this world. Am I right in saying that?” You grasped your Gnosis tightly in your hand.

“Well yes, you are the failsafe I have created. It was pure chance that I lost that game and my temper ehe~” He blew you a kiss with his extremely pigmented lips. 

You were tempted to shout. A pure chance that I got killed by that lightning volt, you mean!

“Aren’t you glad that it worked out?,” Artem closed the gap between the two of you, his eyes staring into yours. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes, as if he could hear your thoughts.

“I am glad for this second chance in life. But it is honestly concerning for someone like me…” You gulped back your fear of the god.

“Understandable. By the way, try to keep your existence as an Archon as downlow as possible. While the Archons may be aware of another one, they will not be able to pinpoint who it is exactly until they meet you. If they got rid of the failsafe, I will be forced to get someone to step in.” 

“…Do you mean the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles?” Artem blinked in surprise.

“Wow, I’m surprised a human from Earth knows about her.  Yes, yes you are right. Clever girl.”

You felt the cold claws of dread grip your heart.

“Communication is a 2-way street. If they can observe and interact with the Celestia, they can interfere with it. That means, if they tried hard enough, they can very well overthrow the gods of the Celestia.” Artem turned serious.

“That is why you exist now. The original plan was to summon a hero from Elysium as a failsafe but seeing as to how things turn out, well, here we are.”

“You talk as if it is my fault that we are here now…” You frowned, “You raged during a game of Uno. Uno, of all games! And caused a whole lightning to zap me into the afterlife. Not to mention, the guilt trip that you pulled just to bring me here.”

Artem rolled his eyes, as if you were snapping over a trivial issue.

“Now you just sound like Solaria. Blegh.” Artem faked a retch before returning to his serious expression.

“Sorry if I made it sound bad that you are here. I mean no ill-intentions. You didn’t deserve to die because of my temper.” Artem patted your head, exhaling heavily through his nose.

You heard footsteps come by your door. Artem gave you a wink as he disappeared into a burst of golden sparks. You hurriedly stored your gnosis to your chest again.

“Miss (L/N), I apologize for the disturbance. Master Diluc has instructed me to provide you with clothing.” A maid came by, a set of clothes and shoes in her hands.

“How kind. Leave them by the dresser. And send him my…thanks.” You watched as the maid bowed her head, putting them down on the oak dresser before scurrying out of your room.

Rising and feeling the silken fabric of a simple red frock, black shirt and a matching cape, you exhaled through your nose. You knew that you were caught up in something complicated and the feeling of helplessness came back to you.

Artem’s voice then echoed in your ears.

‘Find the Outworlder and see to it that he saves this world. If not, well…’ A vision of Mondstadt in flames with the familiar black-red cubes flashed in your eyes.

‘Let’s just say, the option of going into Elysium will be open.’

You did not know when you had drifted off to sleep, but you were glad for those few hours of rest. You slipped out of your day-old school uniform and donned the fresh clothes Diluc had given. They felt light and soft, perfect for traveling under the sun. Given how the sun was blazing through the morning dew, you decided against the cape and slipped it into your bag as well.

Preparing your things, you were not a fan of how the bag of mora you had received from Solaria was getting lighter. Maybe I should become an Adventurer as well…

Walking down the wooden stairs of the Winery, you were surprised to see a huge spread of food on the table, with Diluc leisurely eating his way through a pile of steaks, potatoes and cheese.

“Have some, the people of Mondstadt call this Pile Em Up.” Diluc pushed over a steaming plate. You swore you saw it sparkle in the candlelight.

You tentatively sliced a piece. Meat and cheese at this time of the day seemed a little rich, but as the warm ribs melted in your mouth, you could not hold back a satisfied sigh.

“Your maids are excellent cooks.”

“…I cooked it.”

“…Really?”

“Do you not believe that I can cook?”

Diluc gave you a bemused smile. You looked back down onto your steak. You mentally yelled at yourself to quit blushing.

“I-well, you don’t seem the type to cook so…I just thought…”You stumbled over your words. You could feel his eyes on you. You noticed a small, genuine smile forming on his lips. You have landed on one of the topics he admits pride in.

“Well, I do work as a bartender in the tavern at times, naturally I will need to be able to cook.”

A soft warmth formed in your chest as you smiled back. Finishing off the delicious plate of the juicy meat, you blinked in surprise as he offered you a pack of dried sunsettias and apples.

“The journey will be long. Please be safe on your travels.”

Huh. You always had the impression that he was cold and aloof, but Diluc seemed different than what you have seen in the game.

“Uhm, thank you for everything you have done. I will pay it back some day!” You bowed before turning towards the path leading out of Dawn Winery.  

“Uh…Uhmm….” You murmured in growing panic. Solaria had forgotten to pack a map! You were incredibly lost. A boy with white hair bolted past as you heard the sound of gibberish following behind him. You had a bad feeling about this.

“…Uh oh.”

You looked back. A group of very angry Hilichurls were running towards you and the boy.

“UH OH!”

You sprinted in the direction of the boy but you soon found yourself face-to-face with a cliff. The boy was nowhere to be seen.

You had to fight.

You turned around, grabbing an arrow that flew past your face. Everything seemed slower than you thought it would be.

Gritting your teeth, you pushed your arms in front of you. Your eyes shut themselves tightly as you willed for the area around you to freeze over. The screams of the Hilichurls stopped as you felt the icy winds against your cheek.

Cautiously, you opened your eyes to see them frozen solid. You walked up, tapping the ice with your knuckles.

It was as if they were made out of ice rather than being flash-frozen.

Whatever had happened, you were certain that you would be safe. Looking around, you noticed a blob of white hair in the bush near you.

“You alright there?” You called out. The boy poked his head out of the bush.

“A…Are they gone -AH!” The boy jumped as he saw the Hilichurls’ angry expressions before realizing that they are frozen solid.

“It should be safe and anyways, what is the use of a sword if you don’t use it to defend yourself?” You sighed, noticing a sword strapped to his side.

“They kind of caught me off-guard…” His expression of guilt made you feel bad as you awkwardly patted his head.

He reminded you of a little brother.

“What’s your name?” You asked as you took in the familiar garb he was wearing.

“I’m Bennett! I had a commission to retrieve treasure from the Hilichurls but…well…”He stole a glance at the Hilichurls, who remained frozen solid in their spots.

“I’m (Y/N) but I got lost…I forgot to pack in a map…” You sighed, scratching the back of your head awkwardly.

“Oh! I can help with that!”

Bennet fished out a crumpled piece of paper. It was a map! You were saved!

But just as you were about to thank Artem for his kindness, an arrow ripped through the middle.

The Hilichurls you froze over must have melted as you heard their angered screaming.

“Oh for f-“

Bennett drew his sword. You were familiar with his skill in the game as you saw him charging energy into his sword. Raising your hand, you willed for your power to protect him as he swung his sword. Flames rose as he struck down the Shield Hilichurl.

“Huh?” Bennett was confused when he realized he was not sent flying.

“Focus, Bennett, focus!” You yelled as you blasted the Hilichurls away from him. As much as you hated how his unluckiness seemed contagious, you did not want him to be hurt.

“Thanks!” Bennett beamed at you as he slashed down the Hilichurls. That seemed to be last of them as you finished off the Shield Hilichurl.

“Wow, thanks for saving me back there. Seriously, I owe you one.” Bennett made his gratitude known, thanking you profusely.  You sighed as you sat down on the grass.

Bennett took out the torn map and looked extremely sheepish.

“Don’t suppose you have an extra one?” You sighed again. Bennett shook his head in response.

“Hey, are you two okay? I just saw the bodies of the Hilichurls and I came by to investigate- Oh hey Bennett!” A girl’s voice greeted you both.

“Hey Amber! Yeah, I kinda got into a fight with them but she saved me!” Bennett excitedly introduced you to the Outrider.

“She’s uh…What’s your name again?”

“I’m (Y/N) and I’m trying to get to Liyue but I got lost. Bennett was showing me his map until they ripped it. Don’t suppose you have an extra in your pockets?” You wiped off the sweat as you stood up to greet Amber.

“Oh! I can help with that!” Amber gave you a neatly folded piece of paper.

“Please take care on your travels then. There is a rise in Hilichurl sightings in the area.” Amber saluted.

“Don’t suppose you’d like to join Bennett’s Adventure Team?” Bennett gave you a puppy-eyed dog look.

“Uhm…Well, I really need to make my way to Liyue…Unless you’d want to come with me and abandon everything you have here…”Bennett’s face fell. You instantly felt bad for the poor adventurer. You knew it was a tall order for you to ask him to come along. 

“Hey hey…I’ll be back soon. We can do more adventuring once I fulfil my mission, okay?” You smiled at Bennett, who brightened at your promise.

‘If I am still alive, afterwards,’ A dark thought flashed through your head.

Waving good bye to the two, you continued on your path, leaving Mondstadt behind.

Meanwhile

Diluc’s servant gulped as he approached a small cottage in the bamboo forest. Knocking the wooden door, he cleared his throat.

“Diluc sends his regards.” The door immediately opened to reveal a girl with dark brown hair.

“Oho! Finally! He calls! Did he happen to include an engagement ring by any chance?”

“U-Uh no, just this letter-“

“Oh how boring.” The door slammed shut.

“He includes payment with this letter.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” The door swung open again. The girl swiped off the bag of mora the servant had prepared and wax-sealed letter smoothly.

Ripping the letter open, the girl scanned its contents carefully.

“As straightforward as always. Thanks for your hard work, I guess.” Waving off the servant casually, the girl smiled to herself.

“A recon mission for a stranger in red and black, huh? Well, well, well. Time to dust off the old umbrella.”

[cuuno-moved]

Fun Ori headcannon if you’d like it. If your watched adventure of a blaze boy and fish girl (it’s the origins series niki and Ori did) but you probably have a slight idea we’re I’m going with this then but Ori has never been human as much as he wants to say he was but he instead was born/ created as a blaze born and also Niki was originally Merling. And to quickly summarize abbafg Niki breaks Ori out of the nether and they build a home and shenanigans of teaching Ori about the overworld ensue in which they find a book by a mysterious sender which they learn how to help Niki breath on land and after Ori shows Niki we’re he comes from and she gets pretty upset and they both realize neither of them can’t really remember anything before meeting and then Ori starts to confess his wishes to be a human because he won’t have to be what he hates which after a bit of Niki trying to make him see he doesn’t have to change and they’ll find a way to help him with his no touch water thing he gets more mad himself and runs away to the only place Niki can’t follow him the nether summary over. So he ends up becoming one of mumza’s angels after he and Niki find a way to become “human” and he is killed by something (most likely the author of the water beating book boo) defending Niki and she has to just keeping going with their plan which she manages to complete and turn into something close to human (tho probably keeps a few more fish esk features like her ears look kinda finny and she has some pinker scales dotted on her arms) but she eventually ends up in the perfect smp after that and Ori wakes right in front of Mumza who decides to give him a chance after having seen him give up his well-being so many times for her and in the end his life to protect her, and offers him a place as one of her angels which he accepts which ends up getting rid of almost all his blazebornness with the exception of a few things like him still having small spots on him that glow with strong emotions like rings in his eyes and markings down his arms and legs and he also keeps all his scars specifically his tear and killing blow scars.

WHAT. DUDE. WHAT.

[castrateurfate]

Alright, guys.

Here's a list of the DVDs in my room.

Rate My Taste

Here:

13 Assassins

2001: A Space Odyssey

300

47 Ronin

8 Mile

A Fistful of Dollars

AVP2: Requiem

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Account Rendered

Adaptation

Afro Samurai: The Complete Murder Sessions

Airplane!

Akira

Alien vs. Predator

Alley Cats

Amadeus

Amelie

Anastasia

Arachnophobia

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Back To The Future

Barry Lyndon

Batman

Batman Ninja

Batman TAS: Secrets of The Caped Crusaders

Batman TAS: Tales Of The Dark Knight

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

Batman: Mask of The Phantasm

Battle Royale

Beetlejuice

Being John Malkovich

Ben-Hur

Big Eyes

Big Fish

Big Time Rush: Halfway There

Bill

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Birdman: (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Black Dynamite

Black Mama White Mama

Black Swan

Blackkklansman

Blade Runner: The Director's Cut

Blazing Saddles

Bonnie and Clyde

Boogeyman

Bowling For Columbine

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Breaking Bad

Breaking Glass

Brexit: The Uncivil War

Brokeback Mountain

Bubba Ho-Tep

Bugsy Malone

Bula Quo

Capitalism: A Love Story

Capote

Casablanca

Chicago

Children of Men

Churchill: The Hollywood Years

Citizen Kane

Clash Of The Titans

Clash of The Titans

Cleopatra Jones

Cloud Atlas

Clueless

Coffy

Commando

Conan The Barbarian

Control

Coraline

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Curse of The Golden Flower

David Brent: Life On The Road

Dazed And Confused

Deadpool

Deadpool 2

Death Note

Death Proof

Demolition Man

Descendants

Dirty Harry

Django Unchained

Doctor Zhivago

Dodgeball

Dog Soldiers

Double Indemnity

Dowton Abbey: Series One

Dr Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

Dr Suess' How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Dr. No

Drunken Angel

Drunken Master

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Ed Wood

Edward Scissorhands

Elfie Hopkins

Escape Plan

Evil Dead

Evolution

Extras: The Complete First Series

Fahrenheit 9/11

Falling Down

Fame

Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest

Family Guy: Season Nine

Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Finding Netherland

Flashdance

Footloose

Forrest Gump

Forrest Warriors

Foxy Brown

From Dusk Till Dawn

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter

From Here to Eternity

Frost/Nixon

Frozen

Funny Face

Gatsby

Ghost Dog: The Way if The Samurai

Ghost In The Shell

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Vol. 1

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Vol. 2

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Vol. 5

Ghostwatch

Gnomeo & Juliet

Godzilla

Gone With The Wind

Grave of The Fireflies

Gremlins

Groundhog Day

Hail, Caesar

Happy Gilmore

Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold

Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold 2

Harry Potter And The Order of The Phoenix

Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone

Hero

Hideo Nakata's Dark Water

High and Low

Highlander

History: Poltergeists

History: Spontaneous Human Combustion

History: Vampires

Hobo With a Shotgun

Horrible Histories: Series One

Hot Fuzz

Hot Rod

House of Flying Daggers

I Know What You Did Last Summer

I, Tonya

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown

In Bruges

Inglorious Basterds

Insomnia

Iron Man

Isle of Dogs

JFK

Jackie Brown

Jaws

Johnny English

Joker

Julie & Julia

Jumanji

Jurassic Park

Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass 2

Kill Bill Volume 1

Kill Bill Volume 2

King Kong vs. Godzilla

Kingsman: The Secret Service

LEGO Batman: The Movie (DC Super Heroes Unite)

LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles

Labyrinth

Lady Vengeance

Last Action Hero

Lawrence of Arabia

Legends of The Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

Leon: The Professional

Les Miserables: In Concert (The 25th Anniversary)

Let The Right One In

Life of Pi

Limitless

Lost In Translation

Loving Vincent

Macbeth

Mad Max

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

Marvel's Original Spiderman: Season 3 Vol. 1

Mean Girls

Megamind

Memoirs of a Geisha

Metropolis

Michael Jackson: Moon Walker

Miller's Crossing

Miranda Hart: My, What I Call, Live Show

Monster House

Monster in Paris

Monty Python and The Holy Grail

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Moulin Rouge

Mrs. Brown's Boys: Season One

Mulan

Mulan 2

My Week With Marilyn

Mythbusters: Season 1

Napoleon Dynamite

Naruto Shippuden: Box Set 1

Naruto Shippuden: Box Set 2

Nausicaä of The Valley of The Wind

Night of The Living Dead

Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation Vol. 1

Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation Vol. 3

No Country for Old Men

North by Northwest

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Oldboy

Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood

One Hour Photo

Open Season 2

Osama

Pan's Labyrinth

Paper Towns

Parasite

Paris When It Sizzles

Patton

Persepolis

Pleasantvile

Pokémon The Movie: Hoopa And The Clash of Ages

Pokémon: 4 Ever

Precious

Predator

Psycho

Pulp Fiction

Pumpkin Scissors

Rain Man

Rare Exports

Red Riding Hood

Reefer Madness

Requiem For A Dream

Reservoir Dogs

[abluescarfonwaston]

Did someone ask for a quick and angsty immortal jaskier prompt? "It was supposed to be the music," he whispered, voice breaking. Heart breaking. "The songs. I wanted my songs to be remembered forever. I never wanted this."

Why would you do this to me anon. i’m already crying over the fact dandelion outlives everyone he loves. Major Character Death Warning. Obviously. Literally everyone dies. Uuuh also this kinda turns into Lambert/Jaskier at the end but like. They’re both Centuries old so nothing Happens.

When the wasting sickness swept through Lettenhove it killed his Mother and his Father and his Sisters and left him untouched. 

He was ten and the world was over. Except he kept waking up in the morning.

At thirteen a girl at Oxenfurt, Essi Daven, played her Lute in the commons and sang and had the most beautiful cornflower blue eyes. And for the first time in years he sang a duet with her and suddenly he was a bard and he had a little sister again. 

Maybe the world hadn’t ended. Maybe it finally restart.

At seventeen he met a man with white hair and seemly as many scars on his body as his heart and fell in love. Because Bards fell in love easily and he was impossibly easy to love.

The witcher plead for his life. Plead for them to let the bard go.

“No. Both of us or neither.” He was done outliving those he loved. At seventeen he was already done with that. “You kill him and let me go and i’ll destroy your mountain. Kill every last one of you in revenge.”

He’d leave behind a song. The one he’d written as a child and had swept the town more devastating than even the scarlet fever had been. It would live on past him. He would be remembered. The people he loved would be too. Toss a coin to your Witcher. The people he loved immortalized in song.

It wasn’t supposed to make him immortal.

“Give it a rest Jaskier.” Danity snapped. “It’s not you that has to be afraid of anything. No one ever touches a troubadour. For unfathomable reasons you’re inviolable.”

He’d still feared then. Chappelle could have had him killed. He was pretty sure he could die. Mostly he feared the pain. Or dying alone.

“When an old woman gets tired of life she walks into the woods without a weapon. The results are guaranteed.” He’d told Geralt when he’d moaned about how the world was changing and -more importantly- that he had no work.

Remember how I don’t even carry a knife when I follow you out on an adventure? No weapons at all. Ever. Just me and my lute.

He’d brushed death. A thousand times he’d almost met her. He followed Geralt- who was prophesied to always have death follow after him. You’d think at some point they’d meet.

Essi and Geralt fell in love on the coast. He wrote a ballad for them. About how their love was so powerful not even death could come between them.

He never played it. Not to anyone. He didn’t think it was actually about Essi and Geralt.

When rash appeared on Essi’s face in Vizima during the quarantine his hands shook.

“Not her.” He’d screamed at the gods. They didn’t exist of course. If they had then they’d abandoned them all long ago. “Not her.”

“Jaskier?” She shivered violently. “I don’t want to be burned.”

“You won’t be. You’re going to be fine.” He promised. Clutching her hand. “Promise Poppet. You’re going to be fine.”

The cremation fires blazed outside.

“I want to be buried in the woods. With my lute and-” She hurled mostly into the bucket. “My necklace. Please Jaskier.”

“Course Poppet. When you’re old and grey I will bury you out in the forest.”

“Thank you.” She clutched the little pearl. “For giving me him. I love him.”

“I never saw him happier than when he was with you Poppet.”

“What about when he was with you?”

“Oh come now.” He shifted her in his arms and moved the bucket a little further away. “You know me. I’m insufferable.”

“I love you Jaskier.” She cried as she shivered with less and less energy.

“I love you too Poppet.”

He carried her from the city. Into the forest. Her heart stopped beating before they arrived. He dug her grave and buried her with her lute and her pearl necklace.

With the pearl he’d given to her as a birthday gift. From him and Geralt.

When Regis passed it felt absurd. Humans weren’t supposed to outlive goddamn vampires in their fifth fucking century.

And then there was Geralt. Died in Yennefer’s arms along with her.

“It was supposed to be me.” He told no one as Ciri led their bodies out to the lake. “I was supposed to die with him.” Love so great not even death can part us.

But the story was never really about him was it?

Nenneke had a garden full of plants that grew under a crystal skylight. They didn’t grow anywhere else in the world anymore.

He’d asked Geralt about it. She’d said something about the sun and how it was changing. Apparently Geralt had asked why they all didn’t live under crystal skylights then, if it was so deadly.

“It’s already too late for us.” She’d said.

She talked liked the world was ending but the world ended all the time. And he still woke up in the morning.

Zoltan’s beard turned grey. He supposed he should have been thankful that Zoltan got to turn grey. It was better than most of the people he’d loved.

“How’s your fucking hair still Gold. You’re supposed to be getting old too!”

“I dye it.” He lied with a roll of the eyes. He’d stopped dying it years ago.

That winter he buried Zoltan too.

Golden eyes stared at him in confusion. “You look just like.” He started. His thin hair was grey. His wolf medallion gleamed in the sunlight that streaked into the bar.

“You’re one of the last Witchers i think.” He told him as the waves crashed outside. “Might even be the last.”

“Fucking hope so.” He sat down across from him and stole his beer. “Shitty job and a shitty life.” He squinted at him- which Jaskier knew was entirely unnecessary. He just forgotten to adjust his eyes. “What’s your name bard?”

“Dandelion.” He answered. It had been for the last century. “Yours?”

“Lambert.” He downed the drink. “You really think i’m the last? That worth a song? One of my brothers had a lot of songs.”

“Yes I suppose he did.” He waved for another drink. “And look what it got him.”

“Died surrounded by people who loved him.”

“Are you sure you know what a pogrom is?”

That got him a sharp toothy grin.

“I could write you a song but-” He was tired of burying people he loved.

“But?”

“I’m cursed you see.” It was definitely a curse these days. “I’ll live until the last of my songs is forgotten. I really don’t need anymore material.”

Lambert leaned forward curiously. “Doesn’t sound like a curse.”

“You don’t think it sounds like a curse?” He sneered. Lambert’s face faltered. “To outlive everyone you love?”

Lambert paused. Thinking. “Write me a song then. Play it just for me. So if my song’s the last we’ll go together.”

“And what’s my payment for this song?”

“Company.” Lambert’s grey eyes glittered. “You look like you need it.”

“Not as much as you. I bet you talk to your horse.”

“Well i know you do pretty boy. Heard you in the stable.”

He leaned back on the bench. “So what’s a Witcher do in a world without monsters?”

He shrugged. “Fish mostly.”

“I can do that. Once almost snagged a catfish the size of you. Got a djinn instead. Very bad deal honestly.”

“You expect me to believe that? I know about Bards and Ballads and how you’re all rotten liars.”

“Don’t forget about fisherman and their tales.”

The boat leaked worse than an old drunkard but it was small enough and the lake calm enough that it didn’t make him sick.

“I could just kill you. Curse probably can’t fix decapitation.” Lambert offered with his stick in the water. He claimed were bombs they could use instead if they got desperate. Or bored.

He smiled and shook his head. “Give it a try.”

Lambert raised an eyebrow but pulled a silver blade from it’s sheath.

His pole reeled and the boat tilted to the side, plunging him and the sword into the water.

He laughed as the attempted to drag the monstrous fish to the boat. Lambert cursed and climbed in. Yanking at the rod until the line snapped and they fell back into the boat in a painful pile. Laughing.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d laughed.

“Sing me a song bard.” Lambert would request from under his floppy sun brimmed hat. “No else up here but me.”

“There’s an entire stone keep on the hill.”

“No ones lived there in centuries. No one can hear you up here but me.”

He frowned at the ruins on the hill. Lambert kicked him.

He grinned and for the first time in decades - sang.

Maybe. Maybe the world hadn’t ended. Maybe it had finally restart.

“What was this place called?” He asked as they wandered through the crumbled ruin, covered in moss and ivy.

“Kaer Morhen.” He said like the words hurt him.

They hurt him too. He laughed.

He laughed some more.

He couldn’t stop laughing until Lambert smacked him hard enough to see stars.

“I never got to come here. Geralt.” He caught the flinch but moved past it. “Never trusted me enough to even let me know which country it was in.”

“So you were his bard.”

He nodded as Lambert kicked a stone apart. “He was right not to tell me of course. But.” It still hurt that his best friend hadn’t trusted him with his home. He’d taken Yennefer here. But not him. Never him.

He didn’t deserve Geralt’s trust. A thief, a liar, a spy, a bard. It still hurt.

“Well a wolf finally took you here. Is it everything you fucking dreamed?”

He took it in. “Nah. It’s rubbish.”

Lambert smirked. “Yeah. At least that hasn’t changed.”

“You’re hairs getting grey bard.”

“What?” He nearly leaped into the water in his haste to look.

Grey strands streaked his beard.

“Thank you.” He cried. “Thank you.”

“Still owe me that song Dandy.”

He wrote Lambert a lot of songs. Performed for an audience of one.

“Are you really okay with the fact no one will ever hear them? I mean what’s the point in being immortalized in song if-”

“Yeah. Didn’t give a shit about the songs.”

“Hey!” He protested. Kicking him where he lounged in front of the fire. “They’re good songs!”

He grunted in fake pain. Wiggled out of range. “Did Geralt ever tell you why he liked having you around?”

“My charming personality I assume.”

Lambert snorted.

He sat down on the floor and poke him. “Don’t fall asleep. Tell me why you think he did.”

“No one tells Witchers bedtime stories.”

“Oh.” Lambert was halfway to sleep already. “Would you like one?”

“Yeah.”

“What you think happens after?” They were huddled together. Old and grey as a storm raged outside. “We die.”

“I gave up on gods when i was a child.”

“So did i.”

“Then.” He paused. Listened to the howl. “Whatever’s next at least neither of us is going alone.”

Lambert squeezed his bony hand. “What’s the chance we see them again?”

“Hm.” He pretended to consider. “Well we’re definitely going to hell so-”

“Like anyone we gave a shit about wouldn’t be.”

“Point.”

He closed his golden eyes. “Hey Dandy.”

“Yeah?”

“Sing me out.”

“It’d be my pleasure.”

And quite singing filled the drafty cabin until the song stopped.

The world ended.

And at long last no one woke up in the morning.

[permanentreverie]

I'll sit around your hearth and drop a coin for the story of the boy in the moon and the girl who sang of starlight 😍 (although I'd gladly sit for any of them!)

traveller, you are weary; come, and rest your feet by my fire, let the embers warm you as you rest, and I will spin for you a tale, a tale of youth and love and magic rarely seen . . .

Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in the moon. A boy, really, with silver hair and a young face. During the day, when the sun’s rays obscured him from view, he would turn around and gaze at the constellations that adorned the universe; reach out his long fingers to graze Saturn’s rings, his fingertips coming away dusted with stardust. During the night, however, he stretched out his glory and turned it towards Earth, moonlit beams illuminating the world beneath him. Resting his chin on his hands, he’d lay on his stomach and sigh as the Earth rolled in sleep, twinkling city lights blinking up at him as if they shared a secret. And certainly they did; for it was he alone and the the waning glow of their windows that revealed their desires, their aches, their nightmares. He watched adventures of lust and heartbreak, of drunken laughter and violent crime, all without flinching. For how beautiful it would be, to be a human.

It was then that she caught his eye. A girl, of no more years than he - he, with his centuries of wonder, matched by a girl with hair that fell around her shoulders like streams of water. She caught his eye, and he was awestruck. He couldn’t help himself, and crept closer. During the day, she toiled, the hot sun burning her neck her hands roughened with the hard yard work, her arms shaking with the holding of her many brothers and sisters that fumbled about her aching feet like wolf pups, each howling for attention and food.

It was at night, though, he saw that she came alive. One room to house her rambunctious siblings, and through their open curtain the boy saw her smooth away worried lines from her brothers’ foreheads, kiss the hairlines of the two youngest. Through the open window her heard her sing, soft and true, and she sang of him. But they did not understand, and her family slipped into slumber. But she did not follow them.

Instead, the boy saw her open the window further, and she gazed up at him with eyes that reflected his image. Careening on the edge, the boy ached as he stretched further to gaze at her as she crept out the open window to escape into the wood. She walked with reverence between the trees, fingers tracing the leaves tipped in silver. Her voice stilted the quiet, hymns to the moon watching over her as the night creatures stopped to listen in wonder.

The path in the forest seemed to be shaped to her bare feet, leading her to a willow tree by a stream that glowed in the moonlight. The boy shone brightest down upon her as she knelt by the branches, her voice of stars unfailing as she dipped her fingers in the cool water, the fish tempted from their depths to listen as she crooned softly.

It was one of these nights that the boy fell. She was by the pool, and her voice was lulling, bewitching, enchanting; and he leaned further over the edge, gazing at her red lips that called to him, and he tipped over the edge. In a blaze of light, he fell to earth, the cosmos slipping past his skin as he flew down, down, down to where she was waiting by the willow tree.

She did not start as he looked at her now eye-to-eye. Instead, she laughed, and the sound was like the falling of fresh water to a man dying from thirst. She took his hand, and he stood before her, and the nocturnal animals bowed their heads at the lord and lady who had looked over them, reunited at last.

Strands from the willow tree served as crowns, reeds were twisted into rings, and they were content in clothes of night and the moon dust that clung to his skin.

So they were married, and remained king and queen of the night, and ruled over their kin with grace and love. It is told that if you crack open your window late at night, and past the prowl of animals and the creak of nocturnal insects, you can hear her song in the cool breeze, now more full of love for the man by her side at long last.

Tagging @lxncelot because idk if this is good or not but she hasn’t read much of my writing!

[potentialpedant]

Don’t test me, I would die for Niki and Ori in The Adventures of Blaze Boy and Fish Girl

[miss-kittys-magical-library]

The Ides Of March

(A Darren Treacy x Jeanie Turner mini-series)

Prologue - Bad Romance

Word Count: 1815

Warnings: language, violence, murder, mention of sexual assault, angst

A/N: On Saint Patrick's Day, Darren and Jeanie start receiving ominous, cryptic text messages claiming to be from the future. Play the game; save Darren. Jeanie's rules are simple enough: If Dazz can catch her out in Dublin, he can have her any way and anywhere he wants. So how did a night of wild sex and whiskey lead to murder? *Spoilers for Love/Hate series 3*

Sequel to “The Sinner’s Prayer” Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

There are tiny moments that contain millions of choices we all make. It's not a choose your own adventure; there's not always time to think cohesively. Add in copious amounts of liquor and sex and a person may become impulsive. As Jeanie cocked the gun pointed in Nidge’s direction, she found herself in the middle of one of those flip-of-the-coin situations.

She followed every hint, every cryptic text from a burner phone that was meant to prevent this exact instant. But the vile leader of an IRA faction lay slowly dying from internal injuries at her feet. Siobhan, softly sobbing hid her face in Tommy’s shoulder. Darren, behind her, still held the keg by the handle. Nidge was the only one who could square up. He was pacing like a trapped animal, enraged and seething. Jeanie never faltered in her aim.

“We're done here, Delaney,” the words came out distorted. “Right now. This was a nice night. I saw a great concert. I drank loads of fucking liquor. I have had more sex in the last few hours than I have in the last few years. I literally got eaten out in a pub loo. I'm getting divorced, and if Trish was smart she'd get a divorce too.”

“Red-” Darren tried.

Jeanie spun on him, the gun pointed too close for either’s comfort. Darren’s eyes like a deer in headlights. “I'm not losing you. I'm not letting this life eat anymore of you. Siobhan already paid the price.”

“Just put the gun down please. I'm only trying t’put him out, love. Look at the bastard.”

“It's a butterfly effect, Dazz. You're already too much for them.” Tears threatened Jeanie’s eyes.

Darren put his hand on the muzzle of the gun cautiously and pointed it down to the floor. “What the fuck are ye talking about? Jeanie, you've been barking all night. Not that I don't appreciate the craic,” he smirked, “Or the shaggin’. The panic attack when we walked through the door earlier. How did ye know about Git?”

Jeanie fished in her cleavage for her mobile and tossed it to Darren. He opened it up and used his own for comparison. He studied the texts on both screens with confusion in his eyes.

“You've been getting them too, right?”

“But how?”

Only Darren and Jeanie existed right now. And the soft gurgling of Git as he drowned in his own blood. The choked crying of a young woman who had been assaulted. They were alone, but aware. So deeply aware of their situation.

“Oh please, can ye even fire a fucking gun?” Nidge’s voice broke through.

Jeanie whirled again, her arm around the side of Darren's friend. It was all fluid. Her arms moved with resistance like underwater. The gun aimed somewhere towards the back of the basement or front. No one was sure. It was just where she pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.

One by one dominos topped in a new pattern. Siobhan screamed, but the sound was deafening so her panic was muted. The gun kicked back causing Jeanie’s elbow to vibrate. Almost like someone checked her reflexes with a small hammer. A burst of concrete where the bullet hit a wall, and Darren dropped the keg with an even louder crash.

In Nidge’s terror, he went to flee from Jeanie's bullet . His entire weight landed on Git’s face. Nidge’s trainer came down with a sickening crunch like a knife in butter. Git’s face was the butter. The gurgle ceased.

The last domino fell. Jeanie dropped the weapon to her side and staggered backwards into Darren’s arms. He tried to take the gun but she jerked it away.

Instead he switched gears and mumbled nonsensical words of comfort. “I've got yous.” and “Jeanie, it'll be ok” She stared up at him as a tremble rolled through her. Darren put his hand on her face and sort of started fixing her hair. Then, with a turn of her head, Jeanie vomited absolutely everywhere.

“Lovely. Just fucking lovely,” Nidge said. “Typical Americans.”

Darren held Jeanie by the arms and bent to look her in the eye. “Alright, sweetheart? Nidge and Tommy and I have t’ take care of this. Why don't ye call Laura or Ewan, and have them come get the pair of ye. Siobhan too? Get her cleaned up and get some sleep. Crash at my gaff, ok?”

Jeanie was numb. Catatonic almost as Darren and Tommy formed a circle. Their heads literally together as they attempted a plan.

Jeanie straightened her back and made her way to Siobhan who held herself tightly. Like she was trying to fade into the background. She put her arms around the young woman who started with a jump but relaxed into Jeanie. The gun finally out of her hands and on the desk beside them.

“Here's what we're gonna do, ok? Do you want me to call Trish or Mary? You aren't gonna clean yourself or even pee. We're gonna take you to hospital. They'll clean you up and take samples. Then we can get you some tea and a warm shower and a nice bed. Dazz has a nice bed. Then I'll get Layton, and bring him to you. That sound good?”

Siobhan nodded softly in agreement, but her uncle wasn't having it. He shoved Darren and Tommy aside to bellow at the two women huddled in the corner together. His finger pointed in Jeanie’s face.

“She’s not gonna do a goddamn thing you say. You're gonna sit right here while Uncle Nidge and the boys clean up this bitch’s mess.”

There was not a single thought that went through Jeanie's head. Was this how Darren's brain was wired to live this lifestyle? Just react and pay for it later while you're trying to live until the next job.

But she was done, she knew that much. Done being left behind. Treated like she was the good little obedient housewife. Having men tell her what she can and can't do. Shut up, sit still and be a good girl. But open your legs. It was being done that caused her to hold the gun up again and point the barrel to Nidge's forehead.

“Darren doesn't work for you anymore, Nigel. Tommy, you can stay here or you can take care of your wife. No one owes him any loyalty.”

“Come on, I didn't mean bitch. We just have to fix it. Then you and Treacy can do whatever.”

Jeanie cocked the gun again until it clicked, “No. You can call Elmo or Fran. Can't call Aido can you? Seeing as you got him shot. Dazz gave you a lung, the love of his life, his sister and his fucking mind. He's not giving you or this bullshit anything else.”

“Red-”

Jeanie swung the gun on Darren without thinking. He flinched and ducked, But she kept her wits about her. She aimed the gun at Nidge once more.

“Dazz, take your shoes off,” she instructed.

“What?”

“You're standing in this cunt’s blood. Take your trainers off and leave them. Socks too, and stand behind me. Then text Ewan and tell him to meet us here with a car. We're going to your flat, then my hotel to pack our bags after we shower and set these clothes on fire. Then we are getting all of our money, our passports and our IDs. Say goodbye to Mary and the girls, and we are going away. Tibet. Phuket. Bali. I don't give a fuck, but we’re flying first class.”

Darren complied. Jeanie couldn't believe it. They shared a look. She couldn't tell if it was relief or the devil in his blazing green eyes, but she was emboldened by it as she bent to take off her own boots. Her focus on Nidge never faltered.

“Ewan said he'll be here in ten or so. Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“I'm not above shooting this bastard in the head for you, Dazz. I'm not saying we are settling down and having babies and happily ever after or some shit. I'm saying I don't want you to die. If we have to run half way around the world to make that happen..” Jeanie's body started to quiver. The adrenaline was running out. “First I need a Bloody Mary and some French Toast.”

-------

Jeanie exhaled for the first time in nearly 24 hours. The exhaustion finally set in as she laid back in the ridiculous bed chair thing from“upper class.” She and Darren were beyond first class, they were elite now. Even if it was only for the twelve hours it took to get to Thailand.

She could see his far too short hair sticking out on the other side of the wall. She knew at one point he would sneak in to be with her if only for a little while. Jeanie made him look a bit nicer than his typical trainers and hoodies and denim. She was in a sundress herself. They both knew dressing up was not fitting in. Neither felt they fit in here.

“You good, Dazz?”

“I t’ink so. Still trying t’figure out how we went from shagging in coat rooms and back rooms and toilets to watching an IRA boss,” Darren raised his eyes, “to being on this plane. We have forty.. Enough money to live, maybe years where we're going.”

“You couldn't keep living that life, Darren. Nidge was off his fucking rocker, and everyone around him is gonna pay for it.”

“Rosie would've never done this, you know that right?” He looked plaintively over at Jeanie as she climbed up onto her knees.

“Her loss is my gain though. I know you love me, but I'm not sure about my own feelings. I do care about you alot. I'm probably a danger junkie, so we could end up bored of each other without the fear of being caught or you not having any jobs. Or you could wear colors and learn to meditate, and I'll get a pet monkey and cut all my hair off.”

“Don't ye dare!” Darren laughed. “I'll become a Buddhist, just don't cut that hair.” He twisted his fingers up in it before reaching up to kiss her sweetly. Just a hint of his tongue.

“Fine,” Jeanie rolled her eyes. “But I still want a monkey. We should get some sleep.”

They kissed one last time before she laid back down and closed her eyes. Jeanie knew Darren would be on his side when he would begin to dream. His hand tucked under his cheek and head, mouth slightly agape. She pictured it in her head as she drifted off herself.

“How DID we get here?” she thought before dreaming herself of a game that started in sex but ended in murder.

Tag list: @sean-falco @robertsheehanownsmyass @nightmonsters @super-unpredictable98 @elliethesuperfruitlover @slutforrobbiebro @frogs--are--bitches @forenschik @bisexualnathanyoung @sugdenyoung

[howlingday]

THE DRAGON-SLAYER

"Aaaaaaah~! Another boring mission complete!" Yang Xiao Long yawned as she walked down the road through the forest. It was still about a day's trip until she returned to the guild hall. She was hoping for some more action, but eh, what could you do? "Least I got to try out that new move I was working on."

Yang couldn't wait to get back and rub it in her sister's face that she completed an B Ranked mission by herself without any help, something Ruby had yet to accomplish. B Ranked or not, though, it was still boring.

She slung her bag forward and fished around until she pulled out the poster to look over it again. It featured a terrifying looking bear on the illustration, with the words "TERROR BEAR" emboldened on the bottom. Yang scoffed as she crumpled the poster and shoved it back into her bag.

"Terror wuss is more like it." She looked to the sky and noticed the sun was blazing overhead through the trees, and she was grateful for the protection it offered. Tanning was fine, but a sunburn was the last thing she wanted. Well, a sunburn and another awful mission.

A rustle in the bushes caught her attention, causing her to stop and step into a combative stance. After that last dud of a fight, she was itching for a real fight.

If she wanted to fight a bunny, that is. A small, brown bunny hopped out, sniffing the dirt in the road, hoping to find roots or whatever rabbits ate out here.

"Aw!" Yang cooed as she squatted. "Well, aren't you just the cutest? I wish I had a carrot for ya, but I'm all out. I hope you're not- HOPPING mad about that!" Yang fell on her back and rolled around laughing, kicking her feet at her own joke. The rabbit gave a deadpan expression and jumped back into the bush. "What? Was it not a good pun? C'mon, be honest! No need to- beat around the BUSH!" Yang fell into another fit of laughter.

She sighed, then poked her head into the bush to look for the rabbit. It must have ran through it because the bush was empty. Yang stood up to see where her furriest critic ran off to.

The forest was dense with trees, tall grass, and bushes. It was alive with deer, butterflies, and songbirds. Yang smiled at the view. She wished she could see something as beautiful as this every day.

Looking closer, she spotted a waterfall crashing in the distance. She reached for her flask and gave it a shake. Not empty, but also not full. No harm in a refill.

Another thought came as she lifted her arm higher and took a quick whiff of herself. "Urp! Yeah, a shower wouldn't hurt, either!"

Yang stepped over the bush and deeper into the treeline. She stepped carefully around the barbed vines growing in the tall grass, and waved away at the biting insects that also called this forest home. In a few moments, she reached her destination at the beautiful, glistening blue pond, complete with a crashing waterfall.

"Any perverts out there?" Yang dropped her bag and looked behind her; then to her left; then to the right. "Alright then. Either you're quiet, or you're not there. Either way," Yang took off her yellow jacket, "don't bother me."

"Aaaaaah! I'm so lost!" Jaune Arc was lost. Scratch that; lost implied he had no idea where he was, and he did know. He was in a forest. What he didn't know was where the nearest town was.

He had been wandering through this forest for days, but he always makes a wrong turn every time he reaches a split path. Right now, though, he was out of the treeline and following creekbed. He really wished his mom was here; she knew all about directions.

'No! Stop it! You're a big boy now, Jaune. Big boys don't need their moms!' Jaune's stomach growled. 'But what I wouldn't give for a hot meal right about now.'

Jaune looked to the sky. No clouds, which meant no rain, which meant only Sun for another few days, which meant more wandering around in the blistering heat. Jaune wasn't normally one for cursing things, but for the Sun, he was willing to make an exception.

The creekbed flowed with water, about ankle-deep, and Jaune was banking on this crystal-clear cascade flowed to a town water-wheel. Hopefully the water-wheel was attached to a house with food, like grilled fish, or a tasty pie. He could almost smell it now! He sniffed the air and it smelled like...

Coconut?

What were coconuts doing in the forest? Did coconuts grow in forests? No, that's not what his mom taught him. Coconuts grow on islands in the middle of the ocean. But weren't continents technically giant islands? He'd have to ask his mom later, but for now, he followed the scent.

Jaune almost walked off a cliff, and found the creek led to a glistening waterfall. At the bottom, where the waterfall pooled, Jaune saw a girl scrubbing her hair. Maybe she knew the way to town!

"Excuse me!" Jaune caught her attention. "Do you know the way to town?" Oh, neat! She was a wizard, too; and a pretty strong one at that, if the incantation circle told him anything.

"FIRE MAGIC: FIRECRACKER!" Yang blasted a set of five fireballs at her peeping tom. What was this guy's deal?! Didn't he know better than to sneak up on a girl in the shower?! Once her spell was cast, she bolted from the water, it's cool temptations dragging her in more than the actual water resistance. She toweled off and quickly put her clothes on. Once her jacket was on, however, the pervert was already halfway towards her! How does a creep like that move so fast?! And without so much as a scorch mark on him?!

He was clearly a powerful wizard, probably as strong as Uncle Qrow! She got into a combative stance as he stopped. He reached his hand out, probably in an attempt to grab her.

"Hi, I'm-"

"FIRE MAGIC: BOTTLE-ROCKET!" Yang launched herself away while simultaneously hurling three fireballs at her pursuer; much larger ones than her previous attack. Yet again, however, he shrugged it off like it was nothing! She might have to resort to punching the creep, but she wasn't going to rush in without thinking before doing that. "Okay; who are you, creep? You from a dark guild, or something?"

"A dark guild?" He gave her a confused look. Clearly, he was playing the ignorant and innocent card. It wasn't going to work on her. "No, I'm not from any guild. I'm Jaune Arc, from Argus."

"Argus? Across the water of the other side of the continent?"

"Yeah, have you heard of it?"

"Uh, only from what one of the other guild members told me. She said she grew up there."

"Oh, really? What's her name?" His smile did little to ease her fears. This guy was dangerous, and that was the only thing she knew about him besides his name and hometown.

"I'll answer you if you answer me, deal?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure."

"Okay, then, first question: why were you spying on me?"

"Uh, I wasn't spying on you."

"Then why were you on top of the waterfall?" Yang cracked her fingers, ready to launch another fire attack.

"I got lost, so I was just following the stream." He looked behind him towards the waterfall. "I was kind of hoping to find a water-wheel."

"A water-wheel? In the middle of the forest?"

"Yeah, I mean, it isn't the craziest thing I've heard of."

Yang looked him up and down. He definitely looked like an adventurer. He was wearing a plate mail cover on his chest and shoulder; a belt with a canteen and a pouch attached; and he was wearing a leather backpack over both shoulders. "Uh, can I ask you something?"

Yang blinked. "Uh, I guess."

"Am I in trouble?" Yang deadpanned. What was his first clue, the first attack, the follow-up, or that she was glaring daggers at him while in a combat stance? "Because if I am, I'd like to apologize for anything wrong I did."

"Yeah, no, pal. I don't let peeping toms get away scot-free, y'know?" Her muscles tensed like a coiled spring, ready to burst forward. Nothing was going to stop her from stomping this creep."

"Peeping tom? Were you naked?"

Yang suddenly felt the ground give beneath her, landing on her face. She stood up and nearly breathed fire on him. "Yes, you moron! How else would a girl be under a waterfall?!"

"I don't know. I thought you were doing some kind of monk training."

"Do I look like a monk to you?!" Yang growled, but then sighed. She gave up on this. There was no point. He's not a threat, not while being this stupid. "Look, I need to get back my guild. If I bring you to town, will that be enough for you to leave me alone?"

"Oh, uh, sure, but I didn't know I was bothering you. I'm sorry!"

Yang sighed. "This is going to be a long trip."

"So, you're from Argus?" Yang asked, trying to make small talk.

"Not originally, but I lived there for a while with my sister and her wife and son." Jaune was going to miss Adrien, but he could leech off his family for too long. He had to go out and make something of himself, like that girl who left before he showed up. What was her name Pina Nolada, or something? "I'm trying to find a guild to join."

"Where'd you live before that?"

"I was kind of wandering around for a little while."

"You didn't live anywhere?"

"Not since my mom left." Yang made a pained face. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just..." Yang sighed. "My mom left when I was young, too. My dad raised me and my sister all on his own."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Jaune felt a sympathetic sadness from hearing this; or maybe it was empathetic? In either case, Jaune made her feel sad, so he should cheer her up. "Hey, uh, check this out!"

Yang looked over to see Jaune pull the large sheath from his side. With the click of a button, the sheath expanded into a shield. Yang's eyes were wide with surprise.

"Wow," she said, "that's gotta be heavy!"

"Uh, yeah, it kind of is," Jaune groaned, "but it's a handy tool! I can block just about anything with it!"

"What about my fireballs?"

"Your what?"

"My fireballs. The magic I was shooting at you?"

Jaune's eyes went wide this time. "You were shooting magic at me?!"

"Uh, yeah, why?"

"Oh, um, don't take this the wrong way, but-" Luckily, Jaune's comment was cut off by a cry of terror. Yang must have heard it, too, since she sprinted towards the scream. Jaune returned to the shield to it's sheath form. "Yup, still just as heavy."

"Come on, sweetie; just one little kiss?" The petite girl was overshadowed by the taller, scruffy-faced man towering over her. The tanned skin of his arms were covered in scars, his long, greasy, black hair poured like thick oil from his white bandana on his head. The cackling demon image on the cloth seemed to sneer from it's perch above his brow.

"No! I already told I'm not interested!" The girl's rejection was met with a snapping finger, which signalled the three individuals behind him to continue their work.

The shortest of the trio had pale skin, and long white moustache. He stood no higher than the girl's knees, and seemed to delight in the fact as he passed by her to enter the back room. He began throwing supplies into the lobby, smashing containers and ripping bags while doing so.

The windows were worked over by a flat-nosed woman with round body. She took a deep breath and blew onto the window, melting the glass and the wood in the frame around it. She laughed, causing her belly to jiggle.

The third member, a tall man with dark skin and wearing black shades, placed his hands on the ceiling. He then grunted, flexing as he pushed on the ceiling, tearing it from the walls.

"So..." The scarred man said, grabbing the girl's chin and forcing her to look at him again. "About that kiss?"

The girl trembled. She wanted to look away, but her captor kept an iron grip on her head. She shut her eyes and clenched her jaw, wishing this nightmare would be over. That someone would save her!

"Hello?" Everyone in the room turned to see the blonde woman in the doorway. "Hi! Can I get some snacks for the road? Got a long trip ahead." The woman was followed a more blonde man, who seemed to actually take note of the carnage inside, if his shocked face was any indication. "Is the manager here?"

"Beeeeeeeeeat iiiiiiiiiit, blooooooondiiiiiiiie." the tall man said slowly, drawing the syllables out of every word as he spoke. As he turned to face her, the ceiling and roof over the store spun with him. "Stooooooorrrrrre's clooooooossssssssed."

"Really? Looks open to me." She cocked a smirked. "In fact, I'd say sales are "through the roof!" Eh? Eh?" She finger-gunned at her audience. No one was laughing. "Nothing? Eh, you must be more of a slapstick crowd, huh?"

The large, round woman waddled her way over to would-be comedienne, sneering at her. "Hmph! Such an ugly sense of humor befits a woman such as yourself."

"Huh?" The blonde woman looked up at her critic. "If you don't like it, that's fine, but there's no need to insult my looks."

"Hmph! With ratty locks, and a twig of a shape your form retains, you are hardly fit to be considered a full-figured maiden like moi!"

"Hang on," the blonde man stepped forward now, "Yang's right. You shouldn't be making fun of somebody's looks. Don't you know how rude that is, sir?"

The larger woman flinched, clenching her jaw in anger and grinding her teeth so intensely, you'd think sparks would start flying.

"Jaune," the blonde woman tapped his shoulder, "she's not a man." She whispered.

"Who isn't a man?"

"Hmph! Me!" The rotund madame barked. "I shall gift upon you such a mercy as to repent on your transgressions!"

"Huh?"

"She's telling you to say you're sorry."

"Oh! Uh, I'm sorry I mistook you for a man." Jaune apologized.

"Hmph! As you should be!"

"It's just, you don't look like any woman I've ever seen. To be honest, I thought you were some kind of weird, two-legged boar."

Everyone's jaw dropped. There was dense, and then there was stupid, but this was just downright brainless! Whoever told this guy that "honesty is the best policy" didn't bother to explain little white lies. And from the looks of it, he was going to live to regret it.

The portly woman ground her teeth violently and inhaled so deeply with her nose, she reeled her head back. She then swung forward as an incantation circle appeared behind. "MAIDEN'S KISS!"

A jet of white smoke escaped her mouth as she opened it. The blonde woman jumped out of the way, but the blonde man didn't, choosing instead to lift a white bar up and extend it into a shield. The attack was blocked by the shield, but the white smoke enveloped the man. As it dissipated, the round woman laughed.

"Hmph! Such is the tax of fools who dare question the virtues of a full-figured maiden such as myself!"

The gang of cronies laughed as well, with their leader grinning. These villains weren't going to stop at destroying property, and that suited them just fine. The girl trembled once again as she watched the cloud dissipate into nothing, leaving only a pool of brown sludge where the man stood.

"Phew! That was a close!" A voice said from above. Everyone looked up and saw the man hovering above them and slowly descending. "Good thing you lifted the ceiling, huh, big guy? A foot lower, and I could have been in some real trouble!"

"Hoooooooooooow aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrre yooooooooooou stiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllll aaaaaaaaaaaliiiiiiivvvvvvvvvve?"

"Well," the man said, finally touching ground in the goop, "I saw the melted window, but I didn't smell anything like wood burning, so your ability melts, but it doesn't burn. That requires a lot of heat, and heat rises. Decided to hitch a ride with my glide shield."

"Nice one, Jaune!"

"Thanks, Yang!"

"Yang?" The man in the bandana stepped away from the girl. "As in Yang Xiao Long, the Blonde Bombshell Brawler of Dryad's Tears?!"

Yang chuckled as she scratched an itch on her upper lip with her finger. "Oh, so you've heard of me? Well, glad to know I'm famous around here! Now, since you know who I am, why don't you tell me who you are?"

"Gladly." The man tightened the bandana on his head, making the demon image look more impressive. "The name is Zed, "Sin-Eater" Zed of Imp's Delight. And these are my Sons of Sin; "Luster-Loss" Asma; "Star-Grabber" Cin; and "Hoard-Stealer" Nom. We were just passing by when I decided to do some shopping here. Found me a pretty, little doll I like, so I tried to buy her. Unfortunately, the doll's owner didn't like the look of me, so I decided to take it for myself."

"What doll?" The blonde man asked.

"Excuse me?"

"What doll? This looks more like a farm supply store. I don't think they sell dolls here."

"Not normally, hehehehe, but this little peach right here is just ripe for the taking, hehehehe!" The short man said through giggling, grabbing for the girl with his prehensile moustache. She jumped away, only to end up in a corner. "Now, now, dear! No need to be fussy!"

"No! Stay away! No! No!" The girl cried as the hairs of his moustache wrapped around her legs. Nom cackled as he stepped closer.

"There's no point trying to break free, my dear! My hairs are so full, not even a charging rhino could break through! So just let me have some-"

SWISH!

Nom looked down from the girl's terrified face to her legs where his hairs fell limp. He continued down until he found a break in the line between his facial hairs and their end point.

"I don't know what you people think you're doing," Jaune spoke through gritted teeth, "but a person is a person, not some toy or a piece of fruit." He turned his head and faced Nom, his eyes burning with a blue flame. "Now get the hell out of this store!" Jaune kicked Nom in the face, knocking him out and sending him flying into the wall.

Jaune turned towards the girl and knelt down. "Are you okay, miss? Can you walk?" The girl shook her head to recover, then nodded. "Good. I need you to leave. Go find a friend and stay with them for a while. We'll take care of the guys here. Okay?" The girl nodded again, then ran for the exit. The ceiling shifted overhead.

"Whoooooooooo saaaaaaaaaid yoooooooou coooooould leeeeeeeeavvvvve?" Cin drawled as he shifted his weight to throw the ceiling down.

"I did, bub" Yang shouted as she leapt into his face, "because this party hasn't even started yet, so I need you to keep raising the roof for now!" Yang punched Cin so hard, he staggered, but never fell. "Heh, tough guy, huh?"

"Hmph!" Asma grabbed Yang in a bear hug. "Such a fragile harlot need not concern herself with the whims and wishes of much more fragile harlots! MAIDEN'S KI-!"

"Oh, no you don't! FIRE MAGIC: STRAWBERRY SUNRISE" Yang's entire body glowed in a brilliant golden light as her hair shone like the Sun and her eyes became a flawless ruby red. Not only bright, but hot, too! So hot that Asma stopped her initial attack to let go of Yang, who took advantage of this recoil and launched another attack. "FIRE MAGIC: EMBER BURST!" Yang used both hands to launch a massive fireball twice her size to engulf Asma, sending her flying across the road as the rescued girl escaped.

"Cin! Drop the damn roof on her already!" The giant responded by doing so, a rain of splinters and wood shavings fluttering down as it comes crashing down.

"Hey, Jaune!" Jaune looked to Yang. "Keep your eyes on me!" Yang took a deep breath. "FIRE MAGIC: I BURN!" Yang's entire body, once a shining light, erupted into a now veritable burning star. She stood her ground as she caught it, the wood between her fingers scorching into cinders as she lifted it high above her head, then slammed it back down onto the now crumbling tower. Yang smirked as her flames died, having only one thought as the dust slowly settled. 'I never could stop myself from showing off in front of the boys, huh, Rubes?'

Jaune coughed and blinked as the scent of burning wood and sawdust invaded his senses. It gave him mixed feelings; a combination of warmth and happiness from bonfires with his mother, and dread as it was a bonfire that led to her disappearance.

Jaune waved away the smoke and coughed when a cloud chose his mouth as a suitable home. The coughing led to hacking, and the sawdust decided to invite friends over for a housewarming party. "Water," he cried with a dry voice, "I need water!"

Suddenly a vortex formed a few yards away from him, drawing all the dust and small debris away. Jaune felt the vacuum draw on his clothes, but luckily he was too heavy to be swept away. As he looked closer, he saw a green magic incantation circle rotate at the point where the vortex drew everything in. The wind died, and sunlight returned to blind Jaune.

In front of him, stood Zed, a cocky grin on his face. "I don't know who you are, kid, but I suggest you run. Nobody's ever survived against "Sin-Eater" Zed and lived to tell the tale!"

"Probably because they died when you fought them, right?"

The thug tapped the side of his nose. "You know, I've heard of Dryad's Tears and Yang Xiao Long, but I've never heard of you before. What guild are you from?"

Jaune laxed at the conversation. "Oh, I'm not from a guild."

"That so? A shame you gotta waste it helping out the sleeping dragon there." He nodded his head towards Yang. "Why don't you join up with Imp's Delight? We could use a man like you in our guild. Raiding villages'll be a breeze!"

"And if I say no?" Jaune tightened his grip on his sword and widened his stance.

"Then you won't say anything ever again." Jaune held up his shield. Zed sighed. "Shame. You could have been a real pal." A green incantation circle manifested behind Zed. "WINDS OF OMEN!"

The vortex reappeared, but spun in reverse this time, launching small debris everywhere. Jaune kept his shield close to his face as the wall of wind, debris, and sawdust blinded him. He raised a foot to step forward.

"STARVING GIANT!" Zed cried over the howling wind, and the vortex spun once again in reverse, sucking the sawdust and debris in, as well as the now off-balance Jaune, forcing him to fall forward. Zed cancelled his vortex and rushed towards him. Jaune struggled to regain his balance, only to lose it once again as Zed unleashed an onslaught of punches into Jaune, his unbalanced flailing of his sword and shield to his sides left him wide open. Jaune fell to the ground in pain.

"That's all you going for you, huh? Brains and a blonde girlfriend? It takes more than that to beat me, kid." He crouched down next to his floored opponent. "Tell you what I'll do: you and your friend come back to the guild, you swear your allegiance, and I'll forgive you both for this little interruption we had. What do you say?"

"I say you can take that offer and shove it up your ass." Jaune and Zed looked in surprise as the panting Yang stood up from the rubble. She removed a bandana from her leg, revealing a tattoo of yellow tree with yellow teardrops falling from the canopy. "I don't care how tough you Imp cowards think you are. My guild is the strongest Wizard Guild this side of Fiore. Your little street gang clubhouse has got nothing on us!"

Zed stood up and walked over to Yang, who struggled to get into a fighter's stance. "STARVING GIANT." Yang was pulled into the vortex, her face caught by Zed's hand. He lifted her up, then slammed her into the ground. "WINDS OF OMEN."

Yang screamed as winds with the force of a hurricane blasted her into the ground, but Zed kept his grip on her face as his volley of winds continued, each gale more intense than the last. "This is what happens to those who fight against Imp's Delight! No one is greater than our guild; not while Guildmaster Amon Ripper, the Red Dragonslayer, still breathes! And now, I'm going to drag your sorry hide to his feet, and you'll be his toy for as long as he likes! Because we are-

"GAH!" Jaune crashed into Zed, forcing him to let go of Yang and sending him flying a few yards away. Yang looked up and saw Jaune standing over, his shield in front of him. Zed stood up, growling. "Cheap shot, kid, and the last one, too!" Zed placed both hands in front of him, incantation circles manifesting behind him. Jaune sheathed his sword and took a deep breath. "WINDS OF OMEN!"

A cylinder of wind charged towards Jaune, the young man stepping forward, over Yang. He widened his stance and squatted in place, bringing his fists up to his mouth, one in front of the other.

Yang and Zed both widened their eyes. "You're a-?!" was all Yang could get out before a yellow incantation circle with the head of a dragon in the center appeared.

"YELLOW DRAGON ROAR!" Jaune bellowed as a shining yellow vortex of his own crashed into Zed's, then enveloped and swallowed his gusts of wind, overpowering and launching Zed.

Zed crashed far away. Far from the village and his team of thugs. Said team gathered at the ruined shop, each gawking at the powerful wizard who literally blew their leader away. Jaune turned towards Yang and saw them. They flinched at his gaze. "Your boss flew that way." Jaune pointed in the direction of his blast. The team nodded, then ran off to collect their benefactor. Jaune looked down at Yang. "Do you need help?"

"Just a little." Jaune grabbed her arm by the bicep and helped her stand. "Thanks, but I should be fi- Shit!" Yang stumbled into Jaune's chest. She must have been tired. Jaune could tell by how red her face was getting. "So, uh, a dragonslayer, huh?"

"Yeah." Jaune answered simply.

"So your "mom" is-" Jaune answered the same as before. "Huh. Never would have guest, since you have that sword and shield. Figured you'd be a Requip wizard."

Jaune shook his head. "Nope."

Yang grabbed Jaune by the shoulders and steadied herself. Jaune gave her a worried look. "I'll be fine. I just need a nap."

"Maybe there's an inn nearby."

"Nah! What I really need is grub! Is there a tavern around here?"

Jaune and Yang sat down in the tavern that was only a few buildings away. Yang was scarfing down beef burgers and fries by the handful, while Jaune ate his chicken sandwich in silence. "Sho yur muh effed I yu ur yah?"

"Could you maybe say that again without an entire cow in your face?" Yang chewed and swallowed her sixth helping of burger, then washed it with her stein of cider, finishing with the most ladylike belch in the history of ever.

"BRAAAAAAAAP!!! Ah! So, like I was saying, your mom just up and left while you were young?" Jaune nodded, which Yang replied to with a scoff. "Your mom sounds just like mine, except somehow worse. I had my dad. You didn't have anybody."

"I'm sure she had a reason. That's why I'm looking for her."

"To learn why?" Jaune nodded again. "Be careful, Jaune. You might not like the answer. I sure as hell didn't like mine." Yang reached for her fries. "There's a lot people in this world, Jaune, and the worst ones are always the ones closest to you." Jaune frowned at that. She expected him to. "But enough about that. Let's get back to you joining me."

"What?"

"You and me hooking up! I need you by my side in case what happened back there happens again." Yang extended her hand. "What do you say?"

Jaune blushed and looked away. "My mother warned me about this!"

"Huh?"

"She said she wanted grandkids, but only when I met the right woman. But how will I know if you are the right woman for me? I mean, we've only just met, but maybe this is love at first sight?" Yang was blushing now. "You are strong, but strength isn't what's important in a relationship. What matters is that we love each other, and-"

Yang slammed her hands on the table. "HOLD ON A MINUTE!"

"Um, excuse me?" Yang and Jaune looked to their side, seeing the young girl they saved earlier. "Um, thank you again for saving me. I owe you both so much."

"We were just happy to help." Jaune said with a smile.

"Yeah, so how much are you willing to pay back?" Jaune snapped his head towards Yang, glaring at her. "Relax, shield boy! I'm just messing with her." Yang turned her attention back to the girl. "But really, if you need any help, don't be afraid to ask Dryad's Tears for help. We'll be here as fast as we can, and kick butt as hard as we can."

The poor girl seemed on the verge of tears. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

Yang smiled at the girl's tears. Her smile of gratitude warmed her heart. It almost reminded her of Ruby. "Well, time we get going."

"Already?" Jaune asked.

"Yeah." Yang pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote something down. "My offer still stands, if you're interested. Just swing by the guild if you wanna join."

"Can't I go with you?" Yang gave him a curious look. "I mean, it's like you said earlier, you need me by your side. Besides, if it means I'm closer to finding my mom, then I should join, right?

Yang set her paper face-down on the table, and closed her eyes in thought. She couldn't guarantee that she'd be able to help him find his mom, or any dragons for that matter. Still, he saved her life, so she owed him at least that much. "Okay, you got yourself a deal!"

"Oh, my! It's so big" Yang opened her eyes to see the girl marvel at Jaune's sword, which he was showing off for her.

"Thanks! It was a gift from my mom."

"She must have been quite the craftsman!"

"No, she was a dragon."

"Oh, my! Really? Does that mean you're a dragonslayer?"

"Yup! I'm the son of Bellisa, the Yellow Dragon."

Yang quickly stood up. "All right, Jaune, time to go!" The last thing they needed right now was unwanted attention. "Time to head back to the guild!"

"Okay!" Jaune stood up, and stepped out. "It was nice meeting you-" Jaune tripped over himself and landed on his face. Not hard, though, which was odd when you considered the floor was made of wood. Jaune pushed himself off the floor, into the ruby red eyes of the blushing girl.

"Wow!" someone said.

Jaune immediately leapt up. "Ah! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-!" He felt a tug on his arm. He looked in that direction and saw Yang red in the face and looking away.

"Come on, Lady Killer, we have to go!"

"What about the bill?"

"I left a check, don't worry about it!" As soon as they made it out, Jaune heard shouting behind him. He looked back and saw an elderly man chasing them with a broom, mumbling something loudly that he couldn't understand. He saw the girl following suit, stopping the man and talking to him. Whatever she said seemed to calm him down. As the man turned away, she looked in his direction. She was far away, but he could have sworn she was winking. "C'mon! Pick up the pace, Romeo! We gotta get there before nightfall!"

"To where?"

Yang smiled. "Where else? Beacon, the home of Dryad's Tears!"

The girl went back to her house, and collapsed into a chair. What a day! First some rookie thugs from some no name dark guild try to hustle her, then her cover gets blown, LITERALLY, by a dragonslayer.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a buzz in her dresser drawer. She opened it to find her communications Lacrima vibrating. With a touch, she was answered with the image of a woman with black hair and amber eyes watching her, taking into account her every move. She lifted the Lacrima to the dresser.

The woman spoke first. "Do you have anything to report?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Proceed." The girl took a deep breath and began explaining her encounter today. The slow, early morning, the annoying later morning, the interesting midday, and the unfortunate afternoon. "So your cover is compromised."

"Not completely. However, it doesn't seem there's anything left for me here. If you'd like, ma'am, I can continue my role-"

"That won't be necessary." The woman was silent for a moment. "Return to the guild. Our guildmaster will have another assignment for you ready by that time."

"Yes, Cinder."

"Good." Cinder Fall leaned forward, her bangs parting to show off her web tattoo over her eyes. "Besides, I also would like to hear more about this "dragonslayer" you told me about, Emerald."

[eeveedel]

Hi all, I haven’t recced some fics in awhile but...today is fic writers appreciation day! And there are so many fics that I love so very much and have brought so much happiness into my life. 

And it just so happens I have a personal document where i’ve kept track of fics I’ve read for the past 3-4 years, categorized by tropes. So I thought it would be fun to rec you my all-time favorite fic from each of my personal categories! There are so many good fics so I hope you enjoy. And if you want a full fic rec list for any of these categories, please tell me! 

And a big thank you again to all of the lovely authors out there, I hope you have a lovely day and now how valued your work is. 

A/B/O

Sisterwives by jaerie

This was it, the moment Louis had been waiting for his entire life. Giddy excitement bubbled up as he held hands and stared up at his soon-to-be alpha and husband and grinned. The ceremony was small and simple, but Louis didn’t mind. Fresh flowers pinned into his hair and a brand new outfit was all he needed to feel special in front of their few witnesses. It was just some members of his family and a few of the church elders in attendance as was customary for any marriage beyond the first wife within the faith.

First wives were the ones to have elaborate weddings with the whole community involved. An alpha’s first wedding was a celebration of an their coming of age, his first steps into fulfilling God’s prophecy. There were many glories for an omega that came with being a first wife but also many responsibilities. Louis had never aspired to be a first wife or even a second. He wasn’t experienced enough to be the leader of an alpha’s many wives and children and he didn’t think he’d be up to the task.

Louis was just fine in the position he was stepping into as the seventh.

Or Louis thinks he's getting everything he's ever dreamed of. Harry helps him find what makes him truly happy.

Action/Adventure 

The Dead of July by whimsicule

Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

Age Gap

White Pages, White Lace, Big Hands, Pretty Face by thechesirepussycat

“He touches his sides, his neck, his lips, all the places Harry has just been, all the places that still tingle from Harry’s touch. Such a strange feeling Louis has, so unreal and nerve-racking. He can’t begin to describe what Harry has done to him, what about Harry makes Louis want to call him… Daddy.“

Or, a gratuitous Sugar Daddy!Harry and Student!Louis AU.

Angst

Bot by tomlinsunshine (11k)

Zayn builds robots; Harry is a big fan of his latest model.

Break Up

got the sunshine on my shoulders by hattalove

five years ago, harry styles left his tiny home town to make it big as a recording artist. he didn't have much regard for what he left behind - a life, a family, and a husband, who woke up one morning to find him gone.

now, harry has everything he could possibly want: he's rich, famous, and adored by everyone he meets, including his boyfriend. but when said boyfriend proposes to him, he's forced to face the uncomfortable facts of his past - and louis, who's spent the last five years returning every set of divorce papers harry sent him.

(or, an au based on the movie sweet home alabama.)

Canon

nonstop earthquake dreams of you by lumineres

And there's heat behind it, blazing, plasmatic, like stars crashing together, like an explosion in space, like a supernova, like a black hole--everything else sucked out of existence. There's no bed and there's no pillow and they're not lying down, just floating somewhere, somehow, and there's no room and there's no X Factor house and there's no Niall snuffling or Liam's deep, even breathing and there's no wind or traffic outside and there's no hum of the heating unit and it's all just Louis. All encompassingly Louis.

or, harry falls hard and finds louis already at the bottom

Classics

Love Is A Rebellious Bird by 100percentsassy and gloria_andrews

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

College/Uni 

Could be Kissing My Fruit Punch Lips by thechesirepussycat

Harry happens upon a porn site that specializes in live videos and sort of falls in love with the cute boy he only knows as Kitty.

And then he gets the surprise of his life when he finds out Kitty attends his university...

Crime

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by haroldslouis 

1997 AU where Harry is a bank robber and Louis falls in love with him

Dom/Sub

No Control Club series by SadaVeniren

Harry, a popular BDSM blogger, writes a negative review about Louis’ club. Louis wants to have a chance to make it up to him.

Dunkirk/Alex

Poison & Wine by tilthesundies

Alex comes home from the war to find a stranger living in his flat.

Dystopian/Apocalypse

things have gotten closer to the sun by starseas

when a solar flare is announced to end the world in twelve days, harry reunites with the people that he used to know better than the back of his own hand.

Enemies to Lovers

you flower, you feast by stylinsoncity 

He's King of the Underworld, but don't assume Louis has it all. He could stand for some excitement in his monotonous, eternal life and maybe, even.....a soulmate.

(Despite not having a soul.)

And along came "Harry"

Established Relationship

I Only Ever Want You by itsmiz

Louis and Harry's relationship goes through a series of changes while Liam and Zayn discover new things about themselves, as well.

Or: Louis & Harry and Liam & Zayn begin to have sex in front of each other and a lot of kink-discovery results from that.

Fairy Tale

Red by frosteddream 

Shockwaves were sent through the village after the McPherson family was savagely killed. There were people who feared the beast that did it, and then there was Louis, or, as most people liked to call him, Red. (Little Red Riding Hood AU.)

Fake Dating 

And Then a Bit by infinitelymint

Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.

Famous (non-1D AU)

a million roses (bathed in rock n roll) by deLILah 

au. harry sings in smoky dive bars; louis misses his flight home. they go to coney island in the morning.

(aka - harry is lana del rey, and louis makes him a star.)

Fashion

Just my style by thoughtsickles

Harry is sick, and the only thing that might help him is the pheromones from his mate--problem is, he hasn't got a mate.

Louis' just been disowned, and taking part in a medical study where he has to cuddle with some strange alpha seems to be his only option for earning a bit of cash.

The hippies and Omega Rights campaigners are busy changing the world--but all Harry wants is a chance to live.

Fluff

Dreaming of You by velvetoscar

The Begrudging Starbucks AU.

The world is winter and steamed milk and creamy espresso shots. The world is a never ending queue. The world is a Starbucks logo and a pink-cheeked smile from Niall and a bored scowl from Zayn and the world is Louis watching his best mate, Liam, fall in love with their newest customer, Harry. Who may or may not be in love with Louis. The world is cruel.

Frat

Soft Feet, Fast Hands, Can’t Lose by dolce_piccante

American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

Friends to Lovers

OmegaVision by jaerie 

Tomlin Networks Presents: OmegaVision starring Louis Tomlinson! The world's first 24/7 reality channel available in over 150 countries worldwide following the life of the first male omega born in over a century. Follow Louis through his daily routine, the ups and downs of growing up or just leave him on for comfort. There are many reasons to tune in but, no matter what yours may be, there's always a part of Louis that is just like you!

Or a Truman Show au that nobody asked for where Louis is Truman and Harry just wants to be his mate

Girl Direction

Never Enough by idekboo

Louis couldn't get enough of Harry and that gorgeous body of hers. She wasn't shy about letting her know.

High School

I found a love (darling just dive right in) by wonderlou

Louis, an omega with very little control. Harry, an alpha with a lot of emotion. Neither of them have any idea what do to with this little thing called love, but they'll be damned if they don't put up a good fight.

Historical

Coax the Cold by MediaWhore 

England, 1897.

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

Miscellaneous/Unique

the impossible now by stylinsoncity

A wish on Christmas Eve sends Louis to an alternate dimension where Harry is a member of One Direction.

Mpreg

The Things I’d Do to Wake Up Next to You by dirtymattress (36k)

Harry wakes up to a pregnant Louis Tomlinson and a wedding band on his finger.

Mythology

Say Hallelujah, Say Goodnight by alivingfire

Louis is an angel who is just a little too bad to be good, Harry is a demon who is just a little too good to be bad, and they're both a little too in love to be impartial when angels and demons go to war.

PWP

mr. tomlinson by iwillpaintasongforlou

Louis is a billionaire CEO who makes grown men cry and rival companies crumble. He's also an omega. Harry is the quiet cupcake of a man he calls his alpha and the only one who gets to see Louis as anything less than fearsome.

Roommates

streetwise hercules by bottomlinsons

Uni AU, where Louis pretends to be Harry's boyfriend to scare away his one night stands.

Royalty

feel the chemicals burn in my bloodstream by togetherwecouldbealright 

Harry is a journalist with a lot of secrets and Louis is the future king of the United Kingdom; they live together for 60 days.

Spies

never gonna dance again by togetherwecouldbealright

Louis is a spy and Harry is a dancer. The only real thing they know is each other.

Soulmates

Nameless Night by green_feelings

For their 18th birthday, every person receives a letter that reads a simple date. That is the date you'll meet your soulmate.

Harry and Louis have different beliefs, live in different worlds and have different dreams, hopes and fears. Yet, they're not so different from each other when it comes to love. When their paths cross, there is no doubt they belong together. Except for that one, essential difference: they didn't receive the same date.

Or, a fic about differences that make no difference at all: Harry and Louis are soulmates. In every way possible. Featuring Niall as a role model, and Liam and Zayn as a different kind of role models.

Summer Romance

Rivers til I Reach You by embodied

AU. Louis studies astronomy; Harry studies Louis. They spend their summers on the water and it shouldn't be complicated (spoiler: it is).

Supernatural

Howls Like a Beast (You Flower, You Feast) by indiaalaphawhiskey (16k)

France, 1754. Château de Versailles.

“You don’t love me,” Louis had said, utterly blasé as he callously fractured the heart of a Harry that was just barely eighteen.

“I do,” Harry had insisted pleadingly, green eyes already watering.

Louis had rolled his eyes, exasperated and flippant in the way only beautiful, young boys could be when faced with the affections of a baby prince. He had run his finger down Harry’s cheek then, had forced him to look into his eyes as he delivered the final blow.

“You’ll change your mind once you’ve seen more of the world,” Louis had teased, pressing a brutally delicate kiss onto Harry’s lovely, pure cheek. “Once you’ve been properly defiled.” He had whispered filthily, delighted by the gasp he heard, the frantic pink blush that had rested high on Harry’s cheeks, the power he had felt at knowing he could make the Crown Prince squirm.

[fallow-foot]

Niki (any version of Niki) for the chaarcter playlist thingy?

You don’t just get one niki you get 4!!!

Wisdom. Wisdom? We’re can I get some.

Song: Wisdom (mother mother)

Lord knows I got habits to break.

Song: I’m not a saint (Billy Raffoul)

Yay bearsmp fan art! I miss it.

Kiss that girl.

Song: kiss that grrrl (Kate Nash)

Yes I did do stardew valley streams fan art. It’s such a good few streams and Ori and Emma are the best wing men.

Your here for a reason but you don’t know why.

Song: false confidence (Noah Kahan)

Yeah if you were expecting some abbfg fan art you got it. Forever brain rot for this series.

[agentrouka-blog]

Arya and Weasel - sending your inner child off into the woods

Weasel is an orphaned, traumatized girl of around two years of age whose story is absolutely heartbreaking. We meet her in A Clash of Kings and she accompanies us for the span of three Arya chapters, which takes place over just about a month, most of which takes place off page. 

We meet her at the end of Arya III, she has her first interaction with Arya in Arya IV and then tags along with Arya, Lommy, Hot Pie and Gendry in the woods until she runs off into the unknown at the end of Arya V.

I’ll follow the story and try to give some sense of time and location to justify my time estimates, simply because GRRM chooses to be so vague. 

Gods, Arya’s chapters in ACOK are among the very finest in the entire book series. 

Warning: Long. As always, excessive use of quotes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ACOK, Arya III (chapter 9)

Yoren and his gang have been traveling the Kingsroad since King’s Landing. She beat Hot Pie bloody in Arya I and they had a tense encounter with goldcloaks looking for Gendry in Arya II. Now they change course westward of the Kingsroad close to the beginning of the chapter.

“We’re not far from Gods Eye,” the black brother said one morning. “The kingsroad won’t be safe till we’re across the Trident. So we’ll come up around the lake along the western shore, they’re not like to look for us there.” At the next spot where two ruts cut cross each other, he turned the wagons west. 

Here farmland gave way to forest, the villages and holdfasts were smaller and farther apart, the hills higher and the valleys deeper. Food grew harder to come by.

They spend an unspecified amount of time, likely about two weeks, traveling and living off the land. Enough for two days delay to still matter but long enough to form habits, see landscapes change, have hunting adventures.

Outside a holdfast called Briarwhite, some fieldhands surrounded them in a cornfield, demanding coin for the ears they’d taken. (…)

The next day Koss came racing back to warn Yoren of a camp ahead. (…) “Might be one side, might be t’other. If they’re hurt that bad, likely they’d take our mounts no matter who they are. Might be they’d take more than that. I believe we’ll go wide around them.” It took them miles out of their way, and cost them two days at the least, but the old man said it was cheap at the price. (…) 

Arya saw men guarding the fields more and more when they turned north again. (…) At one place, she spotted a man perched up in a dead tree, with a bow in his hand and a quiver hanging from the branch beside him. (…) 

A day later Dobber spied a red glow against the evening sky. “Either this road went and turned again, or that sun’s setting in the north.”

Weasel’s tragedy begins when her village is put to the torch. The blaze is enough to light up the night sky from half a day’s travel away. Judging from what we see in Arya IV, the violence was likely unspeakable.

By dawn the fire had burned itself out, but none of them slept very well that night. It was midday when they arrived at the place where the village had been.

It’s butchery and desolation. Yoren goes to investigate the destroyed holdfast. 

When they finally returned, Yoren had a little girl in his arms, and Murch and Cutjack were carrying a woman in a sling made of an old torn quilt. The girl was no older than two and she cried all the time, a whimpery sound, like something was caught in her throat. Either she couldn’t talk yet or she had forgotten how. The woman’s right arm ended in a bloody stump at her elbow, and her eyes didn’t seem to see anything, even when she was looking right at it.

I knee-jerk assumed the woman to be Weasel’s mother, but that is never explicitly stated in the text. For all we know, they aren’t related at all. They are not shown to interact, and even if the woman was Weasel’s mother, she is too far gone from her severe injury to be coherent, let alone care for the child. 

 She talked, but she only said one thing. “Please,” she cried, over and over. “Please. Please.” Rorge thought that was funny. He laughed through the hole in his face where his nose had been, and Biter started laughing too, until Murch cursed them and told them to shut up. Yoren had them fix the woman a place in the back of a wagon. “And be quick about it,” he said. “Come dark, there’ll be wolves here, and worse.” “I’m scared,” Hot Pie murmured when he saw the one-armed woman thrashing in the wagon. “Me too,” Arya confessed. He squeezed her shoulder. “I never truly kicked no boy to death, Arry. I just sold my mommy’s pies, is all.” Arya rode as far ahead of the wagons as she dared, so she wouldn’t have to hear the little girl crying or listen to the woman whisper, “Please.” She remembered a story Old Nan had told once, about a man imprisoned in a dark castle by evil giants. He was very brave and smart and he tricked the giants and escaped . . . but no sooner was he outside the castle than the Others took him, and drank his hot red blood. Now she knew how he must have felt. The one-armed woman died at evenfall. Gendry and Cutjack dug her grave on a hillside beneath a weeping willow. When the wind blew, Arya thought she could hear the long trailing branches whispering, “Please. Please. Please.” The little hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she almost ran from the graveside.

I almost inserted a long paragraph about the textual parallels to Lyanna and Sansa here. But I refrained because this is merely meant to document Weasel. 

The woman and the child (and the murdered men I didn’t include in my quotes) are Arya’s first direct confrontation with the vicious of this war. She and Hot Pie are so humbled in the face of it, they forget their original enmity, their posturing. They become children again. They admit their bone-deep fear. 

The human suffering is an unbearable horror and Arya, understandably, tries to block it out and get away from it. 

So this tiny little girl Weasel has just watched every person she has ever known being murdered by scary, angry strangers and then spent that night and half a day among the charred ruins and the bodies. Hungry, thirsty, scared. No one shows up to comfort her until another stranger picks her up and carries her away. 

It goes on:

“No fire tonight,” Yoren told them. Supper was a handful of wild radishes Koss found, a cup of dry beans, water from a nearby brook. The water had a funny taste to it, and Lommy told them it was the taste of bodies, rotting someplace upstream. Hot Pie would have hit him if old Reysen hadn’t pulled them apart.

We’ll return to this lovely image.

Arya encounters wolves as she relieves herself in the woods at night. They do not harm her, but she is clearly shaken by everything that has happened. 

The crying girl travelling alonside her and the wolves prowling the woods. Two sides of Arya.

She tells Yoren she doesn’t care. She just wants to go home. The chapter ends on:

“Go to sleep, boy. Hear me?”

She did try. Yet as she lay under her thin blanket, she could hear the wolves howling . . . and another sound, fainter, no more than a whisper on the wind, that might have been screams.

Followed by a lovely thematic transition at the beginning of Davos I.

The morning air was dark with the smoke of burning gods. They were all afire now, Maid and Mother, Warrior and Smith, the Crone with her Pearl eyes and the Father with his gilded beard; even the Stranger, carved to look more animal than human. The old dry wood and countless layers of paint and varnish blazed with a fierce hungry light. Heat rose shimmering through the chill air; behind, the gargoyles and stone dragons on the castle walls seemed blurred, as if Davos were seeing them through a veil of tears. Or as if the beasts were trembling, stirring . . .

Arya is about to enter the warzone for real.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ACOK, Arya IV (chapter 14)

We open not too far from where we left Yoren’s merry band. They have reached the river flowing straight south from the Gods Eye. 

It seemed a peaceful place . . . until Koss spotted the dead man. “There, in the reeds.” He pointed, and Arya saw it. The body of a soldier, shapeless and swollen. His sodden green cloak had hung up on a rotted log, and a school of tiny silver fishes were nibbling at his face. “I told you there was bodies,” Lommy announced. “I could taste them in that water.”

He tasted them in the brook, this is a river. Usually brooks flow into rivers, not the other way around. But not too much travel time can have passed for Lommy to make that remark. A day? Two days?

We get a location.

It was midday when the others returned. Woth reported a wooden bridge half a mile downstream, but someone had burned it up. Yoren peeled a sourleaf off the bale. “Might be we could swim the horses over, maybe the donkeys, but there’s no way we’ll get those wagons across. And there’s smoke to the north and west, more fires, could be this side o’ the river’s the place we want to be.” He picked up a long stick and drew a circle in the mud, a line trailing down from it. “That’s Gods Eye, with the river flowing south. We’re here.” He poked a hole beside the line of the river, under the circle. “We can’t go round west of the lake, like I thought. East takes us back to the kingsroad.” He moved the stick up to where the line and circle met. “Near as I recall, there’s a town here. The holdfast’s stone, and there’s a lordling got his seat there too, just a towerhouse, but he’ll have a guard, might be a knight or two. We follow the river north, should be there before dark. They’ll have boats, so I mean to sell all we got and hire us one.” He drew the stick up through the circle of the lake, from bottom to top. “Gods be good, we’ll find a wind and sail across the Gods Eye to Harrentown.”

We don’t know what hour the sun sets but it’s early autumn in Westeros and I’m guessing they’re about 7 to 8 hours from the south shore of the God’s Eye, at wagon and donkey travel-speed.

We have our first mention of Weasel among a heartbreaking instance of Arya’s remaining faith in humanity.

Hot Pie was being silly; it wouldn’t be ghosts at Harrenhal, it would be knights. Arya could reveal herself to Lady Whent, and the knights would escort her home and keep her safe. That was what knights did; they kept you safe, especially women. Maybe Lady Whent would even help the crying girl.

Sadly, we don’t hear who has been taking care of the little girl since her mother died. Arya makes no mention of it.

They reach the deserted town.

The black brother left ten to guard the wagons and the whimpery little girl, and split the rest of them into four groups of five to search the town.

There are no boats, they decide to spend the night at the holdfast. Lots of descriptions of the holdfast and the town. No mention of the little girl. Seriously, who is minding this little toddler? 

When the food was ready, Arya ate a chicken leg and a bit of onion. No one talked much, not even Lommy. Gendry went off by himself afterward, polishing his helm with a look on his face like he wasn’t even there. The crying girl whimpered and wept, but when Hot Pie offered her a bit of goose she gobbled it down and looked for more.

Ah, at least someone is feeding her. Thank you, Hot Pie. Weasel is hungry, she wants to live.

Hot Pie went off and let her alone and Arya curled up on her pallet. She could hear the crying girl from the far side of the haven. I wish she’d just be quiet. Why does she have to cry all the time?

Getting some sister parallels in here.

Jeyne Poole had been confined with her, but Jeyne was useless. Her face was puffy from all her crying, and she could not seem to stop sobbing about her father.

"I'm certain your father is well," Sansa told her when she had finally gotten the dress buttoned right. "I'll ask the queen to let you see him." She thought that kindness might lift Jeyne's spirits, but the other girl just looked at her with red, swollen eyes and began to cry all the harder. She was such a child. (AGOT, Sansa IV)

Don’t like others crying around you when you’re scared, Stark Sisters, do you? There’s a Robb parallel, too.

"Rickon needs you," Robb said sharply. "He's only three, he doesn't understand what's happening. He thinks everyone has deserted him, so he follows me around all day, clutching my leg and crying. I don't know what to do with him." He paused a moment, chewing on his lower lip the way he'd done when he was little. "Mother, I need you too. I'm trying but I can't … I can't do it all by myself." His voice broke with sudden emotion, and Catelyn remembered that he was only fourteen. She wanted to get up and go to him, but Bran was still holding her hand and she could not move. (AGOT, Catelyn III)

They tend to have other characters reflect their inner emotions. That crying, overwhelmed child that they are trying to ingore: themselves. 

Arya, likely through warg power, wakes up to warn the others of the imminent attack. Amory Lorch’s riders are putting the town to the torch. Arya is watching from the holdfast parapets.

Something bumped against her leg, and she glanced down to discover the crying girl clutching her. “Get away!” She wrenched her leg free. “What are you doing up here? Run and hide someplace, you stupid.” She shoved the girl away.

No room for soft feelings when you have to function to survive.

Lorch is not inclined to spare Yoren on account of being with the NW. They attack and throw torches, the barn has a secret tunnel and Yoren orders them to escape. But the barn is already on fire.

As they were running toward the barn, Arya spied the crying girl sitting in the middle of the chaos, surrounded by smoke and slaughter. She grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet as the others raced ahead. The girl wouldn’t walk, even when slapped. Arya dragged her with her right hand while she held Needle in the left. Ahead, the night was a sullen red. The barn’s on fire, she thought. Flames were licking up its sides from where a torch had fallen on straw, and she could hear the screaming of the animals trapped within. Hot Pie stepped out of the barn. “Arry, come on! Lommy’s gone, leave her if she won’t come!” Stubbornly, Arya dragged all the harder, pulling the crying girl along. Hot Pie scuttled back inside, abandoning them . . . but Gendry came back, the fire shining so bright on his polished helm that the horns seemed to glow orange. He ran to them, and hoisted the crying girl up over his shoulder. “Run!”  

In this moment of absolute mortal danger, Arya decides to take charge of the traumatized toddler to ensure her survival, stubbornly, violently even. Just like Yoren did with her. Hot Pie would have left her. Ouch. Gendry soon takes over, luckily. 

The open trap was only a few feet ahead, but the fire was spreading fast, consuming the old wood and dry straw faster than she would have believed. Arya remembered the Hound’s horrible burned face. “Tunnel’s narrow,” Gendry shouted. “How do we get her through?” “Pull her,” Arya said. “Push her.” “Good boys, kind boys,” called Jaqen H’ghar, coughing. “Get these fucking chains off!” Rorge screamed. Gendry ignored them. “You go first, then her, then me. Hurry, it’s a long way.” “When you split the firewood,” Arya remembered, “where did you leave the axe?” “Out by the haven.” He spared a glance for the chained men. “I’d save the donkeys first. There’s no time.” “You take her!” she yelled. “You get her out! You do it!” The fire beat at her back with hot red wings as she fled the burning barn.

Even having grabbed the little girl and knowing there is a path to escaping, Arya cannot simply flee. She hands over the charge of Weasel to Gendry and proceeds to save the lives of the three captives from the black cells. Because Arya doesn’t just let people die. Not unless she wants them dead herself. A force of nature.

She gets the axe from outside in the battlezone, walks back into the blazing barn, throws the axe into the wagon and dives down to safety. The chapter ends thus:

Arya rolled headfirst into the tunnel and dropped five feet. She got dirt in her mouth but she didn’t care, the taste was fine, the taste was mud and water and worms and life. Under the earth the air was cool and dark. Above was nothing but blood and roaring red and choking smoke and the screams of dying horses. She moved her belt around so Needle would not be in her way, and began to crawl. A dozen feet down the tunnel she heard the sound, like the roar of some monstrous beast, and a cloud of hot smoke and black dust came billowing up behind her, smelling of hell. Arya held her breath and kissed the mud on the floor of the tunnel and cried. For whom, she could not say.

So that went from dire to catastrophic.

I love how this chapter was structured. It starts out quiet, the unease builds in the empty town, they create a moment of respite eating dinner in the perceived safety of the holdfast, but even there they have doomed themselves by lighting the cookfire. Then it escalates, the howling of the wolves, the phony negotiations, the blaze they saw in the distance the chapter before now comes to them, and everything sinks into cacophony, until the last second of dubious escape. Arya’s helpless tears are such a well-earned release of panic and tension. There is no safety, only momentary escape, only confusion. It’s monstrous.

She cries, like Weasel cried.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ACOK, Arya V (chapter 19)  

We open to Arya high up on a tree observing a village on the Western lakeshore. 

Someone’s there. Arya chewed her lip. All the other places they’d come upon had been empty and desolate. Farms, villages, castles, septs, barns, it made no matter. If it could burn, the Lannisters had burned it; if it could die, they’d killed it. 

They have been traveling in the woods a while since the night of the blaze. Arya remembers them returning the next night, burying Yoren and joining up with three survivors. The route is North along the Western lakeshore.

Cutjack opened the door at Gendry’s shout, and when Kurz said they’d be better pressing on north than going back, Arya had clung to the hope that she still might reach Winterfell. (…)

To the east, Gods Eye was a sheet of sunhammered blue that filled half the world. Some days, as they made their slow way up the muddy shore (Gendry wanted no part of any roads, and even Hot Pie and Lommy saw the sense in that), Arya felt as though the lake were calling her. (…)

North along the shore, past a number of deserted rural settlings. 

At the end of the day she would often sit on a rock and dangle her feet in the cool water. She had finally thrown away her cracked and rotted shoes. Walking barefoot was hard at first, but the blisters had finally broken, the cuts had healed, and her soles had turned to leather. The mud was nice between her toes, and she liked to feel the earth underfoot when she walked. 

This process will have taken some time. A few weeks.

From up here, she could see a small wooded island off to the northeast.

While the Isle of Faces is not truly small, there is no mention of other wooded islands on the lake. This would place Arya less than halfway up the western shore of the lake. This would match the wagon travel speed of a few weeks from the kingsroad to the holdfast on the south shore. They are slow because they avoid roads, trudge through vegetation and mud, and because they are encumbered by injury and a toddler.

The food situation is not great.

She had broken her fast on some acorn paste and a handful of bugs. Bugs weren’t so bad when you got used to them. Worms were worse, but still not as bad as the pain in your belly after days without food. Finding bugs was easy, all you had to do was kick over a rock. Arya had eaten a bug once when she was little, just to make Sansa screech, so she hadn’t been afraid to eat another. Weasel wasn’t either, but Hot Pie retched up the beetle he tried to swallow, and Lommy and Gendry wouldn��t even try. Yesterday Gendry had caught a frog and shared it with Lommy, and, a few days before, Hot Pie had found blackberries and stripped the bush bare, but mostly they had been living on water and acorns.

The kids are on their own. Kurz the poacher was kind to them and gave them some survival training. But he died four days after they set off from an infected wound. The other two adults abandoned them directly after. Echoes of Dany with Drogo and the khalasar. Up and gone when he died, leaving behind the weak and the slaves.

Maybe Tarber and Cutjack figured they would stand a better chance without a gaggle of orphan boys to herd along. They probably would too, but that didn’t stop her hating them for leaving.

This is horrific. Four children between 14 and 9 years old, plus a little toddler. Sneakily abandoned by the two remaining adults. The Hansel and Gretel vibes are strong. Like Hansel and Gretel, they will be captured looking for food. Like Gretel, Arya will free them using cooking as a weapon, eventually. But that’s for later.

Very much of Arya’s chapters echoes Dany, actually. All from opposite sides. The violence, the abandonment, the eventual enslavement, the starving. The comparison to sheep. It all shows the bottom side of Dany’s war at Drogo’s side, and her travels through the desert with the baby dragons. Even Vaes Tolorro mirrors the Gods Eye town. Food and rest, and visitors that will lead them to another large settlement, eventually. But back to the kids in the woods.

Arya rejoins the others and we see Weasel again. 

At the sound of her voice, Weasel came creeping out from the bushes. Lommy had named her that. He said she looked like a weasel, which wasn’t true, but they couldn’t keep on calling her the crying girl after she finally stopped crying. Her mouth was filthy. Arya hoped she hadn’t been eating mud again.

“Did you see people?” asked Gendry. “Mostly just roofs,” Arya admitted, “but some chimneys were smoking, and I heard a horse.” The Weasel put her arms around her leg, clutching tight. Sometimes she did that now.

So Weasel is all cried out. It’s been a month or so since she lost her family after her village was set ablaze, followed soon after by another such violent, fiery attack. She went from a stationary life in a vilage with her family, meal time, bed time, cuddles and playing, to a life of being scared, confused, hungry, dirty and constantly on the move. 

Like Arya, Weasel stopped crying, like Arya, Weasel doesn’t mind mud in her mouth.

“If it’s a fishing village, they’d sell us fish, I bet,” said Hot Pie. The lake teemed with fresh fish, but they had nothing to catch them with. Arya had tried to use her hands, the way she’d seen Koss do, but fish were quicker than pigeons and the water played tricks on her eyes. “I don’t know about fish.” Arya tugged at the Weasel’s matted hair, thinking it might be best to hack it off. “There’s crows down by the water. Something’s dead there.” “Fish, washed up on shore,” Hot Pie said. “If the crows eat it, I bet we could.” “We should catch some crows, we could eat them,” said Lommy. “We could make a fire and roast them like chickens.”

I love these kids. They are hungry and grumpy and irritated and listless, in their way. They have no clue what to do and injured Lommy is the most anxious of them all. His leg was wounded and infection is setting in. He is the most helpless, and it makes him the most annoying of them. Yield, he says. Yield.

Like Yoren did to her, Arya contemplates hacking off Weasel’s hair. Matted, tangled. Like a bird’s nest, perchance? 

A lovely parallel highlighting the role of privilege, with another taumatized orphan cared for by a Stark daughter:

Alayne smoothed his hair. Lady Lysa had never let the servants touch it, and after she had died Robert had suffered terrible shaking fits whenever anyone came near him with a blade, so it had been allowed to grow until it tumbled over his round shoulders and halfway down his flabby white chest. He does have pretty hair. If the gods are good and he lives long enough to wed, his wife will admire his hair, surely. That much she will love about him. (TWOW, Alayne I)

Arya is trying to care for this child, for her inner child, but she does it listlessly, no practice, no plan. She doesn’t talk to Weasel, at all. Numb.

“Whoever it is, you should yield to them,” Lommy whined. “I need some potion for my leg, it hurts bad.” “If we see any leg potion, we’ll bring it,” Gendry said. “Arry, let’s go, I want to get near before the sun is down. Hot Pie, you keep Weasel here, I don’t want her following.” “Last time she kicked me.” “I’ll kick you if you don’t keep her here.” Without waiting for an answer,  Gendry donned his steel helm and walked off.  Arya had to scamper to keep up. Gendry was five years older and a foot taller than she was, and long of leg as well. For a while he said nothing, just plowed on through the trees with an angry look on his face, making too much noise. But finally he stopped and said, “I think Lommy’s going to die.”

Ah. 

Gendry is the “adult” in the group and he’s definitely going through his own “Rickon in tugging on my leg” phase, and presenting Arya with a variant of an offer Dany gets from Xaro in Meereen later: Abandon this doomed, starving lot and take your chances elsewhere. Unlike Dany, Arya is not actually responsible for any of these children, not even little Weasel. Unlike Dany, she is not even close to tempted.

“I’m sick of carrying him, and I’m sick of all his talk about yielding too. If he could stand up, I’d knock his teeth in. Lommy’s no use to anyone. That crying girl’s no use either.” “You leave Weasel alone, she’s just scared and hungry is all.” Arya glanced back, but the girl was not following for once. Hot Pie must have grabbed her, like Gendry had told him. “She’s no use,” Gendry repeated stubbornly. “Her and Hot Pie and Lommy, they’re slowing us down, and they’re going to get us killed. You’re the only one of the bunch who’s good for anything. Even if you are a girl.”

I am cutting out the following super hilarious exchange around revealing her identity, along with the horrible description of the village with the gibbet and the “SS rounds up the villagers for questioning and deportation” imagery.

Gendry gets himself captured and hauled into the warehouse with the other prisoners. Arya will leave no one behind. Arya will defend her pack. 

Lommy and Hot Pie almost shit themselves when she stepped out of the trees behind them. “Quiet,” she told them, putting an arm around Weasel when the little girl came running up.

Hot Pie stared at her with big eyes. “We thought you left us.” He had his shortsword in hand, the one Yoren had taken off the gold cloak. “I was scared you was a wolf.”

She has her arms around Weasel, trying to comfort the child, keeping in touch with the last of her innocence. It’s her final interaction with Weasel. They thought she was a wolf. She will be. 

Hot Pie glanced at Lommy, at Arya, at Lommy again. “I’ll come,” he said reluctantly. “Lommy, you keep Weasel here.” He grabbed the little girl by the hand and pulled her close. “What if the wolves come?” “Yield,” Arya suggested.

Iconic, badass quote. Heartbreaking context. Their rescue mission is unsurprisingly doomed before it truly gets going. Hot Pie “yields” at the first instance and Arya receives a terrible blow to the head. They take Needle. They are made to lead guards to Lommy and Weasel. 

The man with the torch searched around under the trees. “Are you the last? Baker Boy said there was a girl.” “She ran off when she heard you coming,” Lommy said. “You made a lot of noise.” And Arya thought, Run, Weasel, run as far as you can, run and hide and never come back.

Hide, inner child. Run and hide, like Nymeria. Like the wolf.

So that is the last we see of little Weasel. 

Realistically, she will be dead within days. Exposure, poisoning, injury, starvation unless she has absorbed enough from the others to gather enough bugs for herself. Or eaten by wolves. Plus the fear, the feeling of abandonment. It’s a grim picture. It becomes unbearable when you try and picture any toddler you know in the place of Weasel.

I am going to headcanon hardcore that Baby Weasel is going to be found by loving people and taken away to safety, wrapped up warm and fed and gently raised. Alternatively, she is kindly raised by the giant wolf pack. And somehow not freezing to death. *hands over ears* Lalalalaalalalalaalalala!

We end the chapter with one more death, one that we will see avenged four books later:

“Can you walk?” He sounded concerned. “No,” said Lommy. “You got to carry me.” “Think so?” The man lifted his spear casually and drove the point through the boy’s soft throat. Lommy never even had time to yield again. He jerked once, and that was all. When the man pulled his spear loose, blood sprayed out in a dark fountain. “Carry him, he says,” he muttered, chuckling.

The echoes are beautifully done.

"Well," she said, "I don't know how you'll get there, then." "You'll need to carry me." See? thought Mercy. You know your line, and so do I. "Think so?" asked Arya, sweetly. Raff the Sweetling looked up sharply as the long thin blade came sliding from her sleeve. She slipped it through his throat beneath the chin, twisted, and ripped it back out sideways with a single smooth slash. A fine red rain followed, and in his eyes the light went out. "Valar morghulis," Arya whispered, but Raff was dead and did not hear. 

(TWOW, Mercy)

On the one hand, it’s poetic justice. On the other, it screams out that Arya is basically a child concentration camp survivor but the war is not over. She has had no peace, only ever more hiding, no play, only ever more working, no recovery, only ever more killing. She is in exile, still. But she will return home. And she will one day recover. But she will never ever forget.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Arya VI, she chooses a new name herself for the first time. The concentration camp vibes are strong. Just read the chapter.

“Some farmer’s whelp, are you? Well, never you mind, girl, you have a chance to win a higher place in this world if you work hard. If you won’t work hard, you’ll be beaten. And what do they call you?” Arya dared not say her true name, but Arry was no good either, it was a boy’s name and they could see she was no boy. “Weasel,” she said, naming the first girl she could think of. “Lommy called me Weasel.”

Lommy and Weasel. Injured and young. No use. Dead and gone but not forgotten.

Ramsey names his dogs for the girls he killed. Sansa and Jon each want to name her future children for the family they lost. Arya names herself for the women and girls she cared about. Weasel. Cat. Nymeria, Nan. Even little Beth Cassel. Her kill list is one part of her. But the list of names that truly matters is another. She takes up their cause not in a hope for a peaceful future with personal happiness like Jon and Sansa but in the here and now, within the broiling whirlwind of injustices. But the very first name is for the little girl, for herself, essentially. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In conclusion:

Little Weasel is, to me, a personification of Arya’s inner child, as she struggles with her loss of innocence and the abandonment by adults. Because she shows up when they encounter their first hardcore warcrime scene. Arya tries to ignore her wailing and pays little attention to her, but attaches her to her hopes for help from Lady Whent and her Knights. She doesn’t take charge of Weasel until their adult caretakers, such as they are, become unavailable by way of being horribly murdered in battle. She is not really equipped to care for her, but she tries and she is determined not to abandon her. When she has disappeared, Arya doesn’t despair, she wishes her well, she has some remnant of faith and she attaches it to Weasel. Off into the wild, to escape certain death, perchance to survive, like she sent off Nymeria. 

It is no accident that Arya names herself Weasel when she enters the concentration camp hell that is Harrenhal, and it is a truly briliant stroke that her only direct memory of Weasel after that is when Arya enters service in the House of Black and White in AFFC, Arya II, which seems more empowering but draws up many comparisons in her mind to Harrenhal. The inner child has run off, but her spirit remains hovering over Arya, never quite fading. 

[xsparklingravenx]

breathtaking [2]

Title: breathtaking [2]

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Characters: Albedo, Klee

Rating: G

Word Count: 2,278

Summary: When the city burns to a crisp and the fate of Khaenri'ah plays out across humanity once again, will the girl in red stand against the beast, or join it?

AO3

1 / 2

First, there was fire and brimstone. Then, there was ash and blood, chalk and soil, and finally, a speck of scarlet in the midst of it all.

The city burned. Buildings crumbled. Those that still lived screamed for help or in sheer terror. The calamity made monsters of men, tore apart the knights who fought to their deaths, brought to life unspeakable horrors—but the speck did not cry out. It moved through the dying city slowly, fighting against the forces that had been set upon it, explosions ringing out at its behest. Not once did it falter. Not once did it act out of fear.

At the centre of the destruction was a boy who was not quite a boy anymore, who held destruction in his hands as it overwrought his body, and the speck, when it came close, turned out to not be a speck at all. It was a girl, not more than a child, who dressed in red, who wore a backpack with a little doll attached, who held a catalyst in shaking hands as she faced the monster she might have once known.

The not-quite-boy recognized her, but there were no words in his mouth that he could give her. And oh, he wanted to speak, how he wanted to reach out and tell her it would be okay, how he wanted to scream at her to run, but there was not enough left of him to tell her so. She was so small, not meant for such a nightmare, and yet she was still there, alive when so many were not.

She came to a gentle stop before him, hazy vision only showing him her visage, hiding her expression from his view. Why was she here? Why hadn't she left?

“Albedo,” she said, her voice cracking on that sole word. “It's still you, right…?”

The power of a dragon long dead thrummed in Albedo’s veins, and it sang a melody of hate and fury. Khaenri’ah, replaying out in front of their eyes, alchemy taken too far, curses blighting a land undeserving. He reached out with one hand, his other covering his face as the power took its toll on his false body. He could withstand so much. Why could he withstand this much?

“Klee,” he hissed out, straining just for that, and where was their Anemo Archon now, when the world was burning and she didn’t deserve this horror? Barbatos hummed on their winds when it so suited him, when he wished to bestow his freedom and his desire, but where was he now, when his beloved city was wrung out and falling beneath ground?

The clattering of steel drew both their attention, and through his dimming vision, Albedo saw knights, the ones who yet lived. They had only their swords and their courage to wield, and yet they were here to kill him, or at least to try. Maybe he would welcome it, if only to make the dragon’s anger die.

This air was poison. He was certain of it, that Durin’s influence held, and he expected Klee to run at the vision of the knights with their weapons drawn, to dash for safety. He wished she would, he held on to the hope that she would yet find safety even where there was none—and yet she didn’t step back.

Instead, she turned on her heel, turning her catalyst towards them.

“You can’t hurt Albedo,” she said softly, and the knights pointed their weapons at her despite how she was still so tiny, not questioning her or faltering in their mision. “Klee won’t let you. He’s…”

She trailed off, her Vision at the ready, and the knights didn’t hesitate. Albedo threw his hand out as they charged, as Klee threw up her bombs—and awoke with a start.

He didn’t suck in a breath, nor bolt upright, because there was a concerned face leaning down into his, with wide eyes and pale blonde hair that stuck up on all ends. Despite how dark it was still outside, she’d lit a lamp with her Vision, and it now sat blazing on his bedside table.

He blinked, her expression making him feel tight and hideous inside. She was knelt on the side of his bed, he realised. “Klee?”

“Is Albedo okay?” Klee asked, leaning over him. She had Dodoco in her hands, the fluffy little doll flopping on its side. Without her hat and in her bedclothes, she looked even younger than usual. “You look a little pale…”

Did he? He remained deathly still in his bed, the remnants of the dream fading from his memory instantly, but the horrified sensation in his ribcage remaining. His hand found its way to his chest, where he might have felt his rattling heart if his body were normal, and he pressed down against it.

He was not so easily shaken, and yet whatever that had been had shaken him. Klee tilted her head when he didn’t respond, and said, “Um, I heard a big shout, so I came in. Is that okay? Is it?”

“It is,” he replied, willing himself to reorientate himself, to figure out what was going on. He was at home. It was still night. He’d apparently shouted in his sleep and roused Klee from her slumber, and now she was in her room because he’d worried her. “Sorry, Klee. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” she said, and then she paused. “Well. Maybe you shook Klee a little bit. But that’s because you don’t ever shout! Or wake up! Did you have a nightmare?”

“I might have,” he admitted, finally sitting up. His hair fell about his face, loose from its usual tie. “I don’t remember—but, then again, I don’t often have dreams.”

“Lisa told me that people dream every night, we just don’t remember them all. I bet I have a ton of dreams about Hilichurls exploding! I must do.”

“Is that so?” She shuffled as he propped himself up against the pillows, and he pushed his fingers to the dip in his throat, where the star-shaped mark was etched onto his skin. His voice felt a little rusty, a little dry. “Was I shouting long?”

“Nope. Just a little bit. Does your throat hurt?”

“Not exactly—”

“Klee knows just the remedy!” She hopped up before he could stop her, and off she went, bolting out of the room, leaving Dodoco in his care. It was a couple of minutes before she returned, juggling two mugs in hand. “Look at this! Mona was really sick the other day and her throat was hurting real bad so Barbara showed me how to make chamomile tea! She even gave me some to bring back, so now I can give some to you!”

She handed him a mug, and then clambered back up onto his bedside. He peered down into the liquid, feeling the warmth from it seep into his cold fingers. “Thank you, Klee. I didn’t know Mona was ill.”

“You were busy with Sucrose that day, but that’s okay! I know you’re having fun making stuff. I made stuff too. Well. I made it go boom, actually, but I did it out in the fields, so nobody was around!”

She sipped at her tea, and he followed suit, closing his eyes as it soothed his throat. “I’m glad to hear it was out of the city walls, at least. How many fish did you gather this time?”

“Enough for tons and tons of Woodland Dream, but I gave most of them to Fischl! She needed them for something weird she was making with Bennett, and it was better to give them to her because whenever Bennett makes something, he causes even more fires than I do!”

Ah, he knew Bennett, the adventurer with terrible luck. One day, he’d have to ask him if he could run a couple of tests, but that would require several risk assessments that he hadn’t had the time to consider yet. “You’ve made a lot of friends, haven’t you, Klee? Miss Alice would be thrilled.”

“Yeah! I can’t wait to tell mom everything!” She grinned, putting her mug on the bedside table to hug Dodoco close. “I’m gonna tell mom all about your work, and Lumine too! Oh! Do you think she’ll meet her on her travels? Maybe she’ll see her before I do!”

“Maybe. The world is a large place, but that traveller seems to have a knack for getting into every cranny this world has to offer.” His chest twinged as he thought of her and her draconic sword, the reminder of Durin unsettling something within. “This tea is nice. I’d love to break it down to its base structure…”

Klee giggled. “You always wanna do that!”

“And you always want to research new gunpowder, so we’re not all that different.”

“Nope! That’s what makes us such a good pair!” Klee’s cheer was short-lived, for some reason, her face falling. She hugged Dodoco a little tighter, and then said, “You were really still when I came in. I don’t ever get scared, I’m a big girl! But maybe I was a tiny bit worried. Itsy-bitsy. Sort of.”

He paused, his mug half-way to his mouth. “Klee, I’m okay.”

“I know!” She turned her head and looked directly at him, her eyes burning holes into his. “You’re not breathing again.”

Oh. As always, he’d forgotten. He inhaled, raised his hand to his mouth, and carefully blew hot air onto his palm. A gentle exhale, but the first intake of oxygen he’d had in hours. Most people didn’t notice, because he still subconsciously imitated the motions of breathing, but when he was sleeping, there was no need. Did he look dead, when he was unconscious? What an odd thought.

They never spoke about it. She never asked him why, even though that should have been the first question on her mind. Children were inquisitive by nature, and yet she let that one oddity go. Much the same, he never questioned her inability to fear explosives, or why she enjoyed destruction so.

Bathed in the cosy light of the lamp she’d lit, Albedo leant back against his pillows and tipped his head backwards, focusing on each breath he took. His chest rose and fell, and he wondered for himself why they had ended up together, two strange beings in a world that valued normality. Was it that the unconventional attracted? Could he even test for something like that?

“I don’t think I’m going back to sleep,” he said, because in truth, deep down, there was something within that was still shaken by the dream he could not recall. Not even the warmth of the mug he still held could defeat that kind of cold. “Do you want to play a game, Klee?”

“Not a game, but…um…let’s see…” She tapped a finger to her chin, and then jumped up once more. “Let’s read a book! Can you read it? If your voice isn’t too bad, I mean!”

“Go pick something,” he said with a gentle nod. She rushed off to her room, returning with a battered-looking copy of The Fox and the Dandelion Sea’s first volume. When she jumped back onto the bed, she made sure to adjust the covers so she could slip beneath them, carefully leaning against his side.

She was warm—warmer than he was, partially because she was a being built of soil, and partially because she had a Pyro Vision at her command. She ran a little bit hotter than others (especially those of Cryo affinity), and definitely hotter than Albedo, who blamed his slightly lower temperature on his not-quite-conventional genetic makeup. It wasn’t a bad thing by any means.

“You read the boring bits, I’ll do the voices!” Klee said, calling to attention how he never went past monotone when it came to story-time. “Klee likes the little fox. Dandelion, dandelion, ride the wind to a faraway land!”

“If there weren’t any ‘boring’ bits, then there’d be very little story, and there would be no point in me reading it,” Albedo said, and she settled down with a melodic giggle. Tucking Dodoco between them, she took his mug when he gave it to her and put it on the side. When he opened the book, she held onto the side that she was offered. One half each, shared.

Making sure he carried on breathing, he said, “Alright, Klee, off you go. You know the first line, you already said it once.”

“Yup! Dandelion, dandelion, ride the wind to a faraway land!”

Where she was pressed against him, he could feel her heartbeat, thumping along steadily as it was meant to. As he carried on the narration, as she jumped in to do each character’s voice, a little part of him wished for this fragment of time to remain forever, to freeze like a Cryo Regisvine’s vestiges, unmoving and kept safe, untouched by what may come.

But not even he could stop time, so all he could do was look to the future and hope that, if the worst came to pass, that those around him might have the power to stop him. Lumine, Sucrose, Klee herself. Those he’d managed to somehow form attachments to, those he enjoyed the company of, those he loved—they could destroy him, couldn’t they?

Klee’s energetic voice lulled his fears to sleep, and eventually, the two of them drifted off too, the book still held open, Dodoco caught between them—and there were no dreams to rattle his chest this time, no abrupt awakenings or sharp cries.

Not that he remembered, anyway.

[idontworkforsega]

🤔 How about...a Amy vs Omega prompt...with Sonic cheering for Omega in the background just to mess with her!

(This was the only image I could find of the two. lol)

@cutegirlmayra is usually the one who does Prompts… but I can give it a go?

Friendly reminder, Cutegirlmayra is on Prompt Shutdown, meaning I’m also not taking new prompt requests. Please keep your ideas safe and sound until she reopens them on her blog again. :)

How does she start these things off again? Oh right!

Prompt:

The Sonic Heroes blazed a trail into the new era following Metal Overlord’s demise, however, they still had an appetite for adventure and battle! To determined which team was the strongest, they held a competition…

The Team Battles!

One player from each group would be assigned to compete in different activities and sets, and funny enough, Team Rose was down to their last contender, Amy Rose.

With determination in her eyes, she pulled her fists up forward and had a spark flare up in her heart. “This is my chance.” She looked to the screen, seeing that Knuckles had beaten Shadow and Cream in the last arena.

That was simply for tactical advantage though, the game was to find something in record time. Cream was almost going to make it but Shadow Chaos Controlled near the location. Right before reaching for it, Knuckles burst from the ground and clamped down on the item with his mouth, refusing to let it go till he was declared the victor.

It ticked Shadow off, but Cream and Cheese flew back to Amy safe and sound.

“We’re sorry, Miss Amy…” Cream’s eyes bent in submission, clearly disappointed she couldn’t score a point for the team. “I wasn’t quite as fast enough as Mr. Shadow… nor as ingenuitive as Mr. Knuckles…” she hunched forward, her little Chao repeating the same action with his cute remarks as well.

“Chao, Chao…”

“There, there. You two did your very best.” Amy’s compassionate heart couldn’t be limited, and especially not here, with her friend looking so down and blue. “The next test is going to be primarily about keeping the upper hand. It’s like king of the hill, but we have to keep one primary spot till the timer runs out. I think this is about power and speed.”

“Endurance too… Maybe…” Big shrugged, smiling as usual in his cheery way.

“Right.” Amy turned back to him and nodded. “Big’s already won the Flicky challenge. Gathering them all up last second by lassoing his fishing line around the other teams Flickies.” she giggled at that, motioning what had happened with her hands. “I’m sure I’ll come out on top with this one too.”

“You sure sound confident.”

Amy’s heart gasped with the familiar-sounding voice, doing an Irish jig in her chest as she slowly turned around to see the man of her dreams.

His smile could slay millions of frowns, dry up a billion tears, and keep the world a better place… if it’d only look her way, it could do far more!❤️

“Sonic!” She swooned, holding her hands together and up by her left cheek as swarms of hearts fluttered in her eyes.

Sonic looked to Cream then, “Great work out there, Cream! You really put everything into that challenge! Me and Tails were really impressed!”

“Y-You were?” she blushed in pride, comforted a bit more than before. “Thank you, Mr. Sonic! Mr. Tails!”

Tails blushed too in embarrassment, scratching the back of his head, “Ah, gee. It’s the honest truth!” he then nodded to Amy, “So, you’re going up against Sonic and Omega next round?”

Amy’s face suddenly looked as though a large bell had smacked her on the head, draining the color from her face and leaving her condemned. “S-Sonic… And Omega?” her knees suddenly trembled slightly, and she had to turn away, shivering at the idea of facing not only her true love but also a behemoth of a killer robot!

“What’s wrong, Amy?” Sonic raised an eyebrow, deciding to play the teasing jokster of the bunch. “Scared you can’t take on the big boys?” He narrowed his eyes, smirking.

The challenging tone of his voice sent a new wave of thunder throughout Amy’s body from her core, reaching out from the center and giving her new vigor and life.

Her eyes, shining white with heaven’s lightning turned back to Sonic, “I’ll see you on the field!” she bolted as fast as she could to the entrance arena, where Omega was also speaking strategy with Rouge and Shadow.

“THERE ARE NO EGGMAN ROBOTS PRESENT IN THESE COMPETITIVE ACTIVITIES. REQUESTING TO ABORT UNNECESSARY ACTIONS AGAINST YOUR FAMILIAR LIFEFORMS.” Omega seemed to be asking permission, but something about his body language made you think he was begging.

“Don’t worry, Omega. I’m not all too thrilled to be participating in these strange contests of strength and unity either.” Shadow stated, looking off to see Amy rushing by them. “It does seem pointless… but Sonic and his friends are offering Chaos Emeralds to the champion team. That’s incentive enough for me to compete in these ridiculous feats.” He walked up to Omega, seeming to side with him on this one. “We’re choosing you for this match. You’re sturdy. Plant your feet on the ‘X’ and keep the others from budging you off. We should be fine.”

“Hmph, I wouldn’t be so sure.” Rouge flew down beside the two.

“What have you heard?” Shadow crossed arms.

“Sonic is the next pick for his team, and I hear Amy is taking the slot as well.” Rouge dusted off a wing and then some of her arm. “Shame, I thought you wanted to have a go at Sonic again.”

“I’m only after the Chaos Emeralds now… But our time will come.” He narrowed his eyes, “He’s rash and leaves people apprehensive. Amy will most likely be distracted into fighting either with him or against him. It just means Omega has a safer chance at securing this game more easily now.”

“Oh? You doubt she’ll side with him?” Rouge seemed to lean more on the fact that she’d help him win. “Why do you suppose that?”

“From their interactions… it looks like she’s got something to prove.” Shadow concluded, “I honestly don’t think she’d just back down in front of him.”

“ANALYZING EMOTIONS.” Omega turned to Amy, scanning her from a distance.

His eyes lit up momentarily and Amy turned around with a ‘Hey!’ instantly.

He turned his head in an owl-like movement back to his teammates. “IDENTIFIED. SHE APPEARS TO BE FUMING WITH MOXIE.”

“You better believe I am!” Amy cried out, “Let’s up the anty a bit, shall we?” Amy turned to Sonic, who had just raced up to the starting line as well.

“Oh? A wager?” Sonic flicked his nose, “Now that’s my style!”

“If I win, you have to marry me!”

“Pass.” Sonic disregarded the statement quicker than when he joined in the topic. He placed his hand on his right cheek and looked up to the sky, immediately bored by the once interesting prospects and began tapping his toe, waiting for the timer.

“Awoohhh! You’re not being very fun!” Amy complained.

His head rose a second, and he swung around to her, “What was that?”

“Fight me! I’ll show you I can go head to head with the fastest hedgehog alive!” she beamed with a brilliant drive in her, but Sonic just stared…

He shook his head, “Better idea… I know you can take me head-on, Amy.” Sonic seemed to happily consent to that fact. “But what about Omega?”

“What about him?” Amy’s gaze pierced through Sonic’s subtle hinting.

“Heh.” Sonic seemed to regain his mischievous nature, and continued, “Let’s see how long you can go with Omega. He’s not like the usual trash-heaps Eggman throws at’cha. What do you say?”

“It’s a trap.” Shadow and all of Team Dark walked over to the starting line then, Shadow clearly not having any of Sonic’s ploys.

“Oh?” Sonic leaned away from Amy, “Easedroppers. What are you so afraid of? A girl and her mighty hammer?” There was a double-edged sword in his words, but Amy just glared at him, not pointing it out right now.

“He’s only trying to get you to focus on Omega and let him seize the prize.” Rouge countered, but Sonic just turned himself away.

“She’s right, Amy. But man, I would have really loved to see that fight.”

Amy felt a bit torn, hearing him say ‘love’ so casually like that…

“Word of advice,” Rouge didn’t particularly like Amy, but she could see what Sonic was trying to pull here. She turned to angle herself towards Amy and make an even bigger distance between her and Sonic. “Don’t let men so easily manipulate you.”

Manipulate?

The word clung to Amy’s ears. It stung. Sonic may be playful at times, but he would never hurt Amy with lies.

Now her head was reeling… who should she go for?

Omega moved into position, along with Sonic, both to her right and left and in front of her.

Tails began the countdown till the timer started.

She studied their backs, gauged whether to go for Sonic or Omega first. She couldn’t not go after one of them… but if she went after Sonic, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop Omega’s large frame from sitting pretty on the target. As for Omega… many would think she was working for Sonic, being… 

Manipulated.

“On your marks!” Tails’s voice boomed.

Amy’s eyes settled to the ground, her head lowered in conflicting feelings that battled one another. Victory and defeats in a matter of seconds, an entire age of war waged on while Tails’s voice continued.

“Three!… Two!… One! Go, Heroes!”

Amy took off, immediately figuring out what she would do next.

She wouldn’t be the only one to play cleverly in this game…

She went for Omega.

Her hammer slammed into his shoulder, knocking him slightly off stride as he swung an arm back at her.

“PINK HEDGEHOG HAS ENGAGED. PREPARE FOR OFFENSIVE MANEUVERS.”

“Bring it on!” Amy cried out.

“Woo! Go Omega!” Sonic called from the front, booking it to the spot they needed to claim on a hill.

Amy’s anger spiked then, ‘Did he lie about not wanting to see this match!?’ But he sat high and mighty on the hill and clapped, looking eager to watch the two squabble.

Amy swung another hard hit into his side, but Omega stopped running to focus primarily on stability.

“Tsh, that girl.” Rouge was enraged and disappointed, seeing her do exactly what she thought she would. “You’d think a girl would be smarter than that.”

Shadow watched intently… Seeing something that perhaps Rouge hadn’t noticed yet.

“Don’t swing so hard, Omega! She didn’t mean it!” Sonic’s commentary was annoying Amy for once in her life. She actually wished he would just stop. “Remember that one time you told me not to blow up that robot, Amy? Can I ask the same from you? Heheh.” Sonic snickered, not realizing his jokes were falling on deaf ears. “Woo!!!”

Tails also sweatdropped, not exactly proud of Sonic’s behavior. “He’s acting rather… eccentric now, isn’t he?”

“Eh, should have known.” Knuckles sighed, folding his arms. “Amy wouldn’t want to hurt Sonic. She’d rather see him succeed than have her hero fail because of her, you know?”

Cream and Big looked down a little worriedly to the match too, not sure as they both turned to each other.

“Do you think Amy’s okay?” Big asked.

“Don’t worry, Big. I’m sure Miss Amy has a plan to get us that point!” Cream tried to stay cheery.

“Chao, Chao!” Cheese also looked determined to not give up on her.

Omega looked up to Shadow and Rouge, “REQUESTING ADDED FIRE POWER SUCH AS MACHINE GUN EXTENSIONS.”

The two shook their heads, very adamantly.

“THEN… SECONDARY WEAPONRY WILL BE ENGAGED. BRUTE DESTRUCTION.” He rose his arm and was about to swing it down on Amy.

“Woah!” Sonic’s eyes widened, “Amy! Look out!”

Amy heard that, but only Shadow noticed her smirk.

The arm came down… the dirt and dust seemed excessive, but Sonic was already looking over Omega’s shoulder, having raced up to see if Amy would be okay.

Something red was laying on the ground…

“Amy!” Sonic whacked back Omega, crouching down by it. “Amy..?”

When the dust cleared, it was Amy’s red headband, but nothing more.

“Huh?”

“OPPONENT DISENGAGED. HEADING TO TARGET LOCATION.” Omega turned around before his scanners picked up on an image at the location. “PINK HEDGEHOG SPOTTED. INGITING BOOSTERS FOR MAXIMUM MOVEMENT.”

“What?” Sonic turned around, seeing Amy plant her mighty hammer down on the ‘X’, claiming it as her own.

“Some match, eh, Sonic?” She grinned.

Rouge looked amazed, “She fooled him?”

Shadow smiled, closing his eyes. “It appears she has fooled you as well.” He looked back over to Rouge who looked slightly appalled by the idea but conceded and sighed.

“I guess you’re right. She took his own dirt and flung it right back in his face.”

“Sonic’s not going to let a friend of his get hurt. She used that to her advantage as he had used her fondness for him against her.” Shadow explained, “Well done… Amy Rose.” he seemed to smile for a moment.

Cream and Big cheered, holding each other’s hands and jumping for joy, exclaiming, “She did it! She did it! She did it!”

But there was still a while left on the clock, she had to hold her position.

Sonic recovered from the mixup and headed right to her, making it there far before Omega did and throwing out a kick.

“That was a cheap blow!” he teased, but was in good spirits.

She blocked, keeping a stable footing and flinging him behind her.

“Ahh-yoh!”

“Remind me to show you how mighty my hammer can really be!” Avenging her honor felt sweet, but not for the big titan…

“SAFETY MEASURES DISABLED. PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE SHOVING.” Omega blasted forward through the air, only hovering somewhat as he angled his shoulder to ram into Amy.

She moved her hammer into place.

“10 seconds on the clock!” Tails shouted out.

Now the intensity was rising…

Amy held her hammer firm in her hand, taking a deep breath.

‘9…’

She counted.

Omega swung his arm at her, Sonic came up from below to grab her leg.

‘…8.’

She let Sonic pull her to her knee, saving her from Omega’s hit but resisted being fully pulled off the hill.

‘7.’

She took Omega’s force and used it against him, hammering into his legs and then slipping her hammer in a fluid motion behind her and hooking Sonic’s side.

‘6.′

It was all slow motion clockwork, as she flipped Sonic into a twirl that he quickly got out of, but momentarily was unaware of Omega stomping down on the spot Amy was trying to procure.

‘5.’

Amy tossed her hammer, having Omega’s robotic eyes follow it as his primary threat level was hyper-focusing on it.

‘4.’

She watched his head completely turn to leave her in his blind spot, and with him toppling over, grabbed his arm to toss him over her.

‘3.’

Aiming for Sonic’s disoriented body that was just now landing back to the ground, getting ready for a comeback.

‘2.’

Sonic’s eyes widened as he had just gotten back his footing, but now Omega was being launched through the air at him, his thrusters still on!

‘1.’

Amy watched as the hulking mass of Omega slammed into Sonic and pinned him to the ground. She steadied her footing, and watched in amazement as the bell donged her ultimate triumph.

“Amy wins!” Tails exclaimed, completely flabbergasted as was everyone.

“I knew Miss Amy wouldn’t let us down!” Cream excitedly wrapped her arms around Cheese, embracing him in a victory hug as Amy stumbled back from the top of the hill, gasping for air.

“S…Sonic?” She motioned a hand to him.

A little blue head wiggled out from below Omega.

He gruffed in defeat, clearly annoyed, but smiled up at Amy. “I deserved that.” he winked, “But next time… no tricks!”

“Only if you’ll hold to it.” She sighed in relief, he wasn’t too upset with her.

“Now, uh… think you can… help get him off of me?” Sonic sweatdropped.

“Emm… No.” Amy’s eyes turned devious.

“Wha-what?” Sonic’s eyes shrank, knowing that look.

She approached him on the ground…

“W-wa-wait a second, Amy!” He struggled to get loose, but Omega had swirls in his eyes. “D-don’t do this!” he stretched his frown out to show his teeth, terrified as she came in for a smooching!

“Emm~ Muah, muah!” she kissed all over his head, making him cry out as though in pain.

“No! Stop! Help! Someone! Ah! Heeelppp!!”

She laughed and giggled, as Rouge shook her head, looking to Shadow who looked uneasy at seeing the open display of affection.

“How awful…” Shadow muttered, not even wanting to approach and help his friend while the act of ‘pecking one’s cheek’ was being done repeatedly under his poor fainted friend.

“Well, well. Looks like two can really play the same game.” Rouge looked a bit too proud to watch Amy get back at Sonic, placing a hand daintily by her cheek and lowering her eyelids to the two. “Women perfect everything. Even deception~”

“Let’s not go that far.” Shadow seemed to not want to agree with that, and moved to Omega’s head, hitting it a few times as Omega came back to life.

“OPERATING FUNCTIONS. SYSTEM STABLE. IT APPEARS I HAVE BEEN BAMBOOZLED. I REQUEST UPDATES TO RECTIFY THIS ASTONISHING FAILURE AT THE EARLIEST CONVENIENCE. REQUESTING THAT BE NOW.”

“Yeah, you’re not the only one. But you’ll be alright.” He patted his friend’s head and squatted down beside him. “Knuckles, Big… Care to join me?” Shadow humorously gestured to helping Omega off of a trapped Sonic, still getting pelted with Amy’s love and affection.

They all seemed a little awkward when approaching, but agreed.

Sonic tried not to underestimate Amy’s abilities ever again…

Fanfiction Entry 599 (x)