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drax-is-inthefandom · 3 years ago

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Divergence of Faith

Chapter 1: The Basement

By the time the clock struck 6 in the morning, the last light in the Lake house was finally turned off. Barbara Lake, a current medical student and recently divorced mother, had finally finished her theoretical career jobs, after a full day of housework and schoolwork, she could get a modest three hours sleep before having to wake up to make breakfast for the day .

Funny that Saturday morning, she would not sleep just a couple of hours as she was used to, but rather that a little one with disheveled hair and bright blue eyes had been in charge of sabotaging her alarm to make sure she slept as much as necessary. By the time the sky was turning to warm orange hues, Jim Lake Jr was already awake and active, ready to take on as much housework as a 6-year-old could do - all because Mommy could finally take a break!

Breakfast was the main thing, because a growing child just like his mother, a future doctor, had to eat well. From under his pillow he pulled out the magazine page he had ripped from his last visit to the dentist and as fast and quiet as he could go downstairs, he ran to the kitchen to collect all the ingredients that were in the magazine recipe.

It was an omelet, something he could easily do without causing a fire, lately he was helping his mom in the kitchen and taking on more and more chores in food preparation, so he was confident that there would be no problem at all with him taking care of breakfast for the day by himself.

Confident and with a smile on his lips, Jim turned on the coffee pot so that when his mother woke up he could receive her with a cup of hot coffee along with the omelet. He could already imagine his mom rested, eating without falling asleep at the table and without having to worry about having to clean or do any other chores. He could even take care of lunch if necessary! Today he just wanted her not to worry about a thing.

He was in the middle of whisking the eggs when he heard something that brought him out of his fantasies. A strange noise.

He leaned out to the stairs, his ears sharpening to make sure his mom hadn't got up. Nothing, absolute silence.

There was nothing in the living room either.

"It's nothing" He said to convince himself, it was still early and maybe his head was playing a trick on him for getting up early. Obviously the darkness that was still in the house and that did not allow him to see anything through the windows was not causing him any paranoia to be hearing noises, clearly not.

But then he heard the noise again, this time louder and accompanied by what sounded like falling boxes.

Now he was sure where the noise was coming from. The basement.

His first impulse upon hearing such noise from the place of his house that he was most afraid of was running towards the stairs to look for Mom, to seek her protection in her arms and between her sheets. But hearing her light snores through her door, just as he was about to turn the knob to enter, made him stop.

He was supposed to be doing this to get her to rest, it was supposed to be a surprise, if he ran with her because he was scared of a noise, his whole plan would be ruined. He released the knob and went back downstairs.

Again he heard noises coming from the basement.

He gulped.

“I am a big boy. I protect mom now. ” With shaky legs, Jim returned to the kitchen to take what he considered a good weapon against whatever was in the basement: the largest metal spoon in the drawer.

Armed with his spoon and accumulating as much courage as he could on his little chest, the boy slowly approached the door that led to the basement to turn the door handle with trembling hands, fearful that his movements would alert any monster behind it and get himself attacked the moment he opened it. He raised the spoon in front of him when the door was finally open, shrinking and closing his eyes to avoid seeing his enemy in the face, as if the metal utensil was enough to scare him.

A few seconds passed and nothing seemed to eat him, so he opened his eyes.

He only found the darkness of the steps. He breathed again, not realizing that he had stopped doing it, he sat on the first step with the spoon firmly against his chest, waiting again for something to happen.

Again, nothing.

"You can do this, Jim." He took a deep breath, inflating his chest with it in a gesture of pure determination, and began to descend slowly, one step at a time and without removing the spoon away from himself. He kept his eyes open, waiting for them to adapt to the darkness in order to find any sign of what that noise had been, his ears until now only caught the light grinding of the wood under its weight as he advanced.

He was already halfway up the stairs when he finally saw something. What he saw almost made him throw the spoon out of fear, but again, as if it were a sword worthy of a knight, he raised it in front of him, threatening whatever was staring back at him.

"W-Who's there?"

He could swear it, yellow eyes were staring at him as intently as he was staring at whoever was the owner of those eyes. But he was sure it wasn't remotely as scared as he was. The growl that answered his question could assure it to him.

"W-Whoever you are, I-I'm not afraid of you!"

It was a raccoon, it must be a raccoon, whenever a strange noise was accompanied by bright and threatening eyes that stared at him from the forest, his mother always showed him that it was just a raccoon. This could not be different.

"I'm not afraid of you either"

Only that raccoons didn't speak.

He wanted to scream but the words were drowned in his throat, it had closed as a maximum security vault, with all the fear he was feeling his head only managed to tell his body to do one thing. He threw the spoon directly at the owner of those yellow eyes.

"What is this?" But his strength as a 6-year-old boy was not enough to cross the entire basement space to where the invader seemed to be, the utensil was halfway, in a neutral point of both where the light of the corridor still entered but the absolute darkness of the rest of the room began.

Jim felt himself shaking as he saw a hand approaching from the darkness, a blue hand. If he was not paralyzed before, now he was fused with the steps.

After the hand, an arm appeared, then another hand and little by little the body of the owner of those yellow eyes was revealed. In just seconds, the invader was fully revealed, all in order to smell a spoon he used to serve the stews.

It was ... A strange creature, clearly it was not a raccoon. Its skin was blue, but it had no texture of fur or scales or ... or skin, it was too smooth and firm. What was it made of? Another thing that drew attention more than the color of its skin, were the horns on its head, it had two pairs, two small on the top and some larger that waved slightly to the sides, they were a color similar to ivory. On his shoulders it also seemed to have protuberances, but they were not horns, they were slightly more translucent, it was noted by how the light that entered the basement interacted with these. Crystals? And… did he have more on his back?

"What are you?" He thought he had thought about it, but seeing the invader raise his head from sniffing the spoon to focus on him, he gulped at his loose tongue.

"Something you shouldn't be seeing" From the tone in which the blue creature spoke, it showed that he wanted to sound intimidating, aggressive, but even a small child like Jim could notice the shame that the slight tremor in his tone betrayed him.

"Then why am I seeing you?" He wasn't attacking him and seemed more interested in the spoon than in him, curiosity overcame any fear he had been feeling until now. He was a boy with a nascent streak for adventure. Could you blame him?

"... Because I failed to go unnoticed to enter your house" Now yes, the shame was more obvious. The invader dropped to his butt on the ground, taking the spoon in his hands to continue sniffing it.

"Why did you come into my house?"

"Because the sun is already rising" And the question that Jim was going to ask, was swallowed by the surprise of seeing the invader taking a bite out of his spoon, making half of the utensil disappear from a bite as if it were a simple caramel.

"... Do you have more of that? It was delicious.” It took him to see how the entire spoon was devoured so Jim could even remember how to speak.

"Uh ... I don't think my mom would like to know that you ate a spoon, if I bring you something else she may worry that she has lost kitchen utensils" A pout from the blue invader was his answer and Jim couldn't avoid a giggling, he puffed out his cheeks in a similar way to Toby when he was throwing a tantrum and it was a funny sight for him.

"Why are you laughing? Do you want us to fight? ” And his laughter died as soon as he saw the invader putting himself into a position similar to that of a bull ready to charge a bullfighter, he even moved his foot as they do to signal that it will take the hit! Jim moved his hands in frenzy, he was not very excited about the idea of getting rammed with those horns that he had on his head.

"Nononono, sorry, sorry ... You reminded me of a friend, that's all"

"... Did I remind you of one of your fleshbag friends?"

"... Fleshbags? Uh ... Yes, Toby may be a little… stuffed, but it's not to call him that”

"... Stuffed? No, I meant that all of you humans are fleshbags, you are a fleshbag”

"I am not a fleshbag!"

"Yes you are!"

"Not!"

"Yes!"

Now it was Jim's turn to pout, forgetting that he was in the basement, forgetting that his only light was coming from the open door into the hallway, he got up from the step where he was sitting and with a firm step, doing his best imitation to how he saw his mom acted when someone made her mad, he walked over to the blue invader and stood in front of him.

"I'm not a fleshbag, don't call me that"

His challenge position was quickly captured but he did not receive the answer he expected, until now the invader had remained sitting or walking on all fours, but seeing him stand in front of him with such bearing, made him respond in the same way. With a push of his arms, he got up and planted in front of Jim, puffing out his chest with the intention of appearing bigger, that even without that, he was at least a head and a half taller than the 6-year-old boy, and that without counting the horns.

"Well, humans are fleshbags, so that's what you are, fleshbag"

The two little ones held their gaze, blue eyes against yellow eyes, neither wanting to give his arm to twist in that silent challenge.

Their staring war lasted long enough that they had to look away to blink, both leaving their eyes dry for not wanting to give up. Jim was annoyed, but oddly, the invader laughed.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Because I did not expect to see a child stand in front of the great Draal, fleshbag"

"My name is not fleshbag! My name is Jim! Jim Lake Jr!”

"Then we already know the other's name, Jim"

A snort came from Jim's lips while Draal only laughed.

Funny that this would not be their last fight, because what these little ones did not know is that their innocent interaction would be the key point for a radical change in the both of their worlds.

A change that only time would tell what kind of path will take. Positive? Or negative?

The divergence of fate had only just begun.

#Divergence of faith #tales of arcadia #fanfic #draal the deadly #jim lake #trollhunters #drax writes #I wrote this almost a year ago #And I DO PLAN IN FINISHING IT

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musicprincess1990 · 4 years ago

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Hi! Are you still doing the trope duo list? 'coz I just found it this morning, and was hopping to make a request. I was going to ask for 41 and 43, then I thought, no... too obvious... then my head automatically goes to 1 and 2, but that's an easy one, so I end up with 1 and 11, would you take it? 😊

SHIT, HOW DID I MISS THIS??? I am soooo sorry for the wait, @rabbit-in-blue! Allow me to make it up to you with some Victorian!lock. I hope it will suffice!

1: Arranged Marriage; 11: Drunk!lock. Taken from my trope duo prompt list. As much fun as it’s been, I will not be accepting any more duo prompts at this time. I have one more overlooked prompt in my inbox that I will fill soon, then prompts will be closed for a while. Thanks everyone!

Alone No More

Molly awoke to the sound of a nearby thud and frowned into the darkness. Damned cat, she thought grumpily to herself, thinking Toby had gotten himself into some mischief or other. However, in the same moment that she realized Toby was, in fact, curled up against her leg, she heard another thud, followed by a colorful string of words spoken in a deep, very recognizable voice.

With a sigh, Molly slid from the warmth and comfort of her bed, pulling a thick tartan dressing gown on over her nightdress, before emerging into the sitting room and lighting the nearest lamp. Indeed, there was Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, proper genius, and her husband, sprawled out on the floor like a sea star. Before she could verbalize her annoyance (or quiet amusement), she noticed a slow stream of blood making its way along his temple, beginning at his eyebrow. In addition, his eyes were shut, and he almost looked as though he might be unconscious. Molly sighed again, quickly turning back to retrieve a bowl of water, and the bandages she knew he kept in one of the kitchen cabinets for this very purpose.

As she knelt beside him, his eyes opened and shot to her so abruptly she gave a small start. He stared at her, his expression one of utter bewilderment. “You are bleeding,” she supplied an explanation, though he had not asked for one.

“That explains the headache,” he drawled.

She nearly smiled at him, the corners of her mouth twitching as she fought it. She could not explain it, but somehow, she felt if she laughed now, at this moment, it would suggest she approved of the situation—which she most certainly did not. Particularly now that she was close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath.

“It will be worse in the morning,” she pointed out sharply. “I didn’t think you liked to drink.”

Mr. Holmes scowled up at her. “I am not drunk. I had one—no, two—maybe three...” he trailed off, his brow crinkling as he tried to remember.

Molly raised an eyebrow. “If it is that difficult to recall, I’d wager you’ve had more than enough.” He rolled his eyes, then winced and hissed at the pain caused by the action. Part of her took a bit of petty satisfaction at this, knowing he had brought it upon himself, but she quickly silenced that part of herself. Deserved or not, he was injured and in pain, and he needed her help. Molly doused a bit of cloth in the water, wrung out the excess, and dabbed at the wound. He hissed again, but remained still. When the silence between them became strained, she asked, “How exactly did this happen?”

“Watson,” he muttered, and his eyes slid shut.

She frowned at him. “Watson… you mean your friend, Dr. Watson?”

He scoffed, and Molly grimaced at the more concentrated scent that wafted up to her nose. “I don’t have friends,” he slurred. “I have enemies and colleagues, and that is all it will ever be.” He laughed suddenly, but there was no humor in his voice. “According to Watson, I push everyone away, including my own wife!”

Molly stilled, a quiet gasp falling from her lips. She watched his face carefully, waiting for it to dawn on him that he was speaking of the very woman who was at this moment tending to his wound. When he gave no such indication, she returned to the task at hand, hoping to ignore the subject.

“He doesn’t understand,” her husband spoke again, his voice pitched low and rumbling. “Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.”

She paid no mind to the single tear that escaped from the corner of her eye and focused on applying the bandage. Molly had been under no illusions upon entering her marriage. Sherlock Holmes made his position on love abundantly clear from the moment they first met. The only reason they were married at all was because of their mothers. She knew not what threats Mrs. Holmes had imposed upon him, but they must have been dire indeed for him to have agreed to the union.

For Molly’s part, she had been aware of her family’s dwindling finances since her father died, leaving his widow and seventeen-year-old daughter with barely enough to survive. They had sold their home, and everything in it, save a recent portrait of the family of three, and a single suitcase full of her father’s favorite books. With that money, they bought a small, seaside cottage in Sussex, near Brighton, large enough only for the two of them. Molly and her mother learned to cook, clean, sew, light fires, and tend their small garden. She had also learned how to manage their finances, ensuring that they had enough to get by. And she learned they did not have sufficient funds to support themselves for long. Even with careful scrimping and saving, they would run out within a few short years.

The solution, her mother had told her, was clear: she would have to marry into money. Fortunately (or not so fortunate, depending on one’s viewpoint), Mrs. Hooper still maintained a steady friendship with one Violet Holmes, who was eager to see her younger son married and settled. His inheritance was certainly less than what his elder brother, Mycroft, would receive, but the wealth of the Holmes family was quite substantial, and her marriage to the younger son would secure her well-being, and her mother’s, for many years to come. In any case, the elder Mr. Holmes had married the previous year, and was therefore not an option. Thus, she was promised, and duly married, to Sherlock Holmes.

Had she known what it would be like… had she suspected she would fall in love with the man…

No, she shook her head. That knowledge would not have swayed her decision. To refuse would be unforgivably selfish, as it was not merely her own situation under threat. Though her unrequited feelings weighed on her heart, she could never have done such a thing to her mother. A heavy heart was a struggle, but one she could bear. Would bear. No matter how infuriating her husband could be.

As if he knew her thoughts had strayed to him, Mr. Holmes opened his eyes again, his gaze landing upon her face. Something in those eyes made her pause, her fingers still resting against his forehead, and found herself quite unable to move. The air grew thick with mounting tension, and Molly knew… something was about to change.

“Why do you stay?” he breathed.

Molly blinked, frowning in confusion. “Your wound needs tending”

“No,” he shook his head. Slowly, he shifted into an upright position, his eyes never straying from hers for a moment. Her throat grew dry as he leaned forward, inspecting her as though she were the most fascinating, bewildering puzzle. “Why do you stay with me?”

Her heart thundered in her chest, and she drew a trembling breath through her lips. “You are my husband.”

“Mycroft sees his wife twice each year—on Christmas Day, and on our mother’s birthday—and the remainder of the year, they live in separate homes, corresponding through the occasional letter. Husband and wife are under no true obligations to one another, except those the law dictates.” His eyes narrowed at her. “Why. Do. You. Stay?”

His meaning became clear to her then; he did not want her. He wished for her to leave. Another tear made its presence known, and she turned her head to hide its descent. “If that is the sort of marriage you wish for,” she breathed, heart crumbling even as she spoke, “I will make arrangements to leave tomorrow.”

Molly moved away from him, unable to stomach the inevitable look of relief that would undoubtedly be written across his handsome face. She was stopped, however, by a large, warm hand lightly encircling her wrist. She looked down at it, then swallowed as she turned her eyes to the owner of the hand, and was astonished to find not relief, but fear. Wild and furious panic blazed in his ice-colored eyes, the muscles in his jaw twitching.

“Mr. Holmes—” she began, but she was unable to finish her sentence as his free hand reached out, and the pads of his fingers lightly traced the contours of her face. Molly drew a trembling breath, stunned by the contact.

He had not touched her since their wedding day, and one could hardly consider the quick, perfunctory pressing of his lips to hers as a real kiss. At the time, she had thought nothing of it, having no more desire for his touch than he had desire to give it. Her love for him had built slowly, so gradually that she could not determine a precise beginning. Indeed, she had no notion of the change of her feelings, until the truth of them washed over her like the waves of the sea—sudden, bracing, overpowering. And despite his indifference toward her, it only served to grow over time.

And now, almost a year later, he was touching her, and she had to fight to keep her wits about her.

“Can it be…?” he whispered, leaning closer still. “Is it possible, after all this time, all that you have endured, that you might… choose to be here?”

Molly heard the true question hidden behind his words, and her breath caught. She searched his eyes, still wide and panicked, looking for any sign of indifference in him, and found none whatsoever. He was afraid, yes, but in those crystalline eyes, fear mingled with desperate hope, the same hope she now felt bubbling up inside of her.

It was neither a declaration, nor a grand romantic gesture, but such things were not in his nature. This, however, the look in his eyes, the warmth of his touch… was more than enough.

“Yes,” she answered him finally, baring her heart to him with a single word, and praying he would not trample it with his usual cutting words.

Mercifully, he seemed to have no intention of doing so. The hopeful embers dancing in his gaze were fanned into a blaze, and in a move as fast as lightning, his hand cradled the back of her head and guided her lips to his. The fire transferred into her through the contact, warming every inch of her, burning ever hotter with his continued touch. Her hands moved of their own accord to his chest, relishing the feel of his racing heart beneath the tips of her fingers. Not so indifferent, she thought with a smile.

Sherlock felt her smile and drew his head back to look at her. “Something amusing?”

Feeling emboldened, Molly inched closer, settling herself into his lap. Her hands slid up around his neck and into the soft curls at the back of his head. He sucked in a breath, eyes darkening with unmistakable lust. She stopped just shy of kissing him, her lips hovering teasingly over his. “I believe,” she murmured, “you like me, Mr. Holmes.”

His answering grin was decidedly wolfish as he wrapped his arms around her. “An excellent deduction, Mrs. Holmes,” he replied, and moved to kiss her again, grunting in frustration when she leaned away

“Even though ‘alone is what you have’?” she quoted with a wry smile. “‘Alone protects you’?”

“Oh, sod what I said,” he grumbled, yanking her back towards him until her chest was flush against his, and the wall that had stood between them crumbled into dust and rubble. “I’ve pushed you away long enough. No more.”

Molly was moved to tears once again, though these were a much happier sort. “Thank God,” she breathed, and his mouth captured hers once again. He tasted of brandy and cigars and Sherlock, and she had never tasted anything so mouth-wateringly delicious. His hands roamed her back, her sides, her neck, while hers buried themselves in his hair. When she experimentally curled her fingers and lightly scraped his scalp with her nails, he groaned his approval into her mouth. Then, in one astonishingly deft movement, he was on his feet, sweeping her up into his arms.

“I hope you don’t mind, Molly,” he said in a low growl, “but I’d very much like to take you to bed.”

Giggling softly, she pressed a fervent kiss to his lips. “Get on with it, then.”

#sherlolly #my writing #sherlolly trope duos #trope duos #prompts are closed #too many wips #thanks all

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professionalwritingnerd · 3 years ago

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"Would you believe my mom originally wanted to name me 'Jiggy Roman'? But Dad figured I wasn't the hustlin' type."

"Was that both a dance pun and a font pun in the same sentence?"

"It's whatever you want it to be."

Can you tell Sans took me a long-ass time to friggin' wrap my head around? I'm not even 100% satisfied tbh, imma have to redraw/practice that hoodie.

BUT I DID IT I DREW THE BOY I PROMISE I'LL DO BETTER GOING FORWARD

OKAY

LETS GET SOME HEADCANONS OUT SO I CAN MOVE ON FFS

Semi Comic Sans Headcanons

Family puts their last name first, except for Honey. Their family name is 'Semi', after a common element found in Font names.

29 Years old

Cisgender Male | He/Him Pronouns

Demisexual / Demiromantic

Son of a Skeleton Monster, [REDACTED] and a Ghost Monster, Honey Semi.

The elder brother between him and Papyrus.

Grandpa Semi may have been scrapped by Toby, but this is my AU and I do what I want. He has a grandfather on [REDACTED]'s side named Semi-Sweet Bold.

Only he and his family remember who [REDACTED] is, as they were all involved in the incident.

Sans' spaces - from his room to his sentry stations - are generally pockets of null space that are only partially effected by Loading and Reseting. While everything outside of it will reset, anything inside of it will remain as it was.

Sans partially remembers the resets and loads. He knows they're happening, but can't always tell when they do happen, and can't always remember everything that happened in the run previously. He has notes in his space, his lab, and his sentry stations to try to keep track. He lost track and stopped bothering eventually. He only starts keeping track again after the humans fall into the underground.

Possesses Telekinetic and Bone Magic.

Master Evasive Ability

Can teleport at will, but can't teleport if he's being restrained.

Instead of being made entirely of bone, his form is given structure with ectoplasmic faux-flesh. It's slightly warm and smooth to the touch, and semi-translucent. Lemme go on record and state this wasn't originally my idea, I was inspired by drawings of Sans with this by another artist who I cANNOT FIND THE SOURCE FOR FOR THE LIFE OF ME. AND DAMNIT I TRIED. But I'm not gonna claim to have thought of this myself.

His bones APPEAR flat and hard but are actually covered in a thin layer of cartilage and fur, making him a lot more malleable and squishy than he appears. The exception is his ribcage, feet, and hands.

I didn't draw them cause I gave him, but he has always likelihood of wearing mittens, gloves, or fingerless gloves.

He can speak telepathically if he's too tired to talk normally.

I don't use the permasmile, his mouth can open and move normally.

Adopted the tentacle technique from his mother.

Is still working in temporal, geothermal, and quantum physics science along with Hope after Alphys lowkey gave up.

Does standup comedy and musical performances at Mettaton's hotel every so often. He may occasionally sing or play instruments, but almost never dances.

Refuses to fuse with anyone but his brother.

Because his soul was injected with the essence of a human soul, he has a small amount of Determination inside him. As a result, if he's hurt, he'll bleed. His blood is bright cyan, but if his injury is fatal, it will be bright red.

#Undertale #Kit's Art #sans undertale

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rizlowwritessortof · 5 years ago

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Part 3: The Hit and Then Run Like Your Ass Is On Fire

Here comes the angsty part...

Pairing: Dean x Toby Matheson (female OC)

Word Count: 1789

Warnings: Nothing but pining and angst

Final part coming next week!

God, what a mess.

The whole place reeked of death, used-up bodies of prior kills tossed like so many empty bottles against the wall, left to rot. The need to survive the battle tended to outweigh the urge to gag, since the three of them had their hands full. It was a nasty bunch, nastier than most, all big, ugly and reckless.

Toby let out a scream of frustration as she kicked at the bastard she was currently fighting and buried her machete in his cranium. She yanked it free, then swung again, taking his head off and glaring in the direction of the corpse. “How many more of you can there possibly be?” She scanned the room, spotting Sam and Dean in their own scuffles, then whirled to face a raging female behind her.

When the noise and chaos finally quieted, she moved to the middle of the room, panting for air as she stepped over pieces and parts of bodies. “Did we get them all? Finally?”

Dean swiped a forearm over his face, wiping away sweat and blood as he nodded. “I think so. I fucking hope so. Shit, Sam, I thought there were only five or six?”

“Yeah, well – they must have been having a party. Or they recruited,” he responded breathlessly. “I don’t know. I’ll go see if we have some gas in the trunk. This whole place needs to go up in flames.”

Dean nodded, and Sam headed for the front door of the barn. “Stinks so bad in here. Toby, are you good?”

She blew out a breath. “Yeah. You?” She glanced up to see his answering nod, and her eyes widened. “Dean, DOWN!” she screamed, and he dropped, rolling to the side and then leaping to his feet, the majority of a vamp’s severed head landing with a sickening squelch nearby.

“Holy fuck. Thanks.” He watched as she let her machete drop from her shaking hand, her eyes on the hatchet still in the clutches of the dead vampire. She looked up at Dean, her face almost white, and then turned to rush out the back door. “Shit. Toby...”

He followed her outside, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, searching. He rounded the corner of the building to find her, arms and forehead braced against the barn wall. “Toby, it’s okay. It’s over. We’re okay.”

Her voice was muffled, panic still coming through loud and clear. “That was too close, Dean. I almost missed it. If I wouldn’t have looked up right then, he would’ve buried that axe…”

He stepped up closer, taking her shoulder and turning her to face him. “Hey. You just saved my ass in there. Stop beating yourself up. We should have checked the building again, that’s on all of us.”

She looked up at him, clearly shaken. “I just almost watched you die! That’s not okay, Dean, I’m not okay!” She suddenly stepped forward, shoving at his shoulders, knocking him back a step as he stared back in surprise. “You cannot fucking die in front of me, you fucker!” she almost sobbed, drawing her fist back to swing at him, but this time he was prepared, grabbing her wrist and shoving her back against the building.

“Toby, stop!” he shouted, staring into her eyes for a few endless seconds before crashing his lips into hers, emotion and desire winning over his resistance. She whimpered and struggled against him, trying to yank her wrist free until he finally let go, and her arms clamped around his neck, pulling him closer. He stopped for one moment, looking down at her before swearing softly and kissing her again, his body crushing hers between him and the rough wood siding of the barn.

Sam’s voice calling their names brought things to an abrupt halt, and Dean stepped back, dragging his thumb roughly over his lips. “Yeah, we’re out here!” He looked at the ground as he spoke to her, his voice subdued. “If you want to wait in the car, I’ll help Sam get the fire going. Then we can get the hell out of here.”

Toby pulled herself away from the barn, giving him one last glance as she turned and walked towards the Impala. She climbed into the back seat and wrapped her arms around herself as a few of the tears she was valiantly fighting spilled over. She swiped a hand over her face and laid her head back against the seat, eyes closed and teeth clenched. By the time Sam and Dean came to the car, she had forced an emotionless mask in place and sat staring out the window. She responded to Sam’s query with an “I’m fine,” pointedly avoiding meeting Dean’s eyes in the rear view mirror.

It was almost morning when they pulled into the bunker garage. Dean opened his door, then paused before getting out. “I say we deserve a break. Let’s get cleaned up, get some rest and head to KC for the weekend. Whatcha think?” After the non-enthusiastic mumbled replies, he piped up again. “Okay, fine. We’re doin’ it. We all need some fun around here. We leave this afternoon, let’s say 4-4:30. No arguments.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Toby smiled at Sam as he clinked their beers together, joining him in taking a few swallows of the cold brew. It was a decent hotel, Dean had booked them each their own room, and after some Kansas City barbecue, they were downing a few in the hotel bar.

She turned her head at an exaggerated giggle, her stomach churning at the sight of the willowy brunette hanging on Dean’s arm and his every word. She rolled her eyes at another ridiculous laugh and turned to face Sam again, nodding towards the pool table. “Play me a game? Then I’m gonna call it a night. I’m feeling a little ill.”

Sam smiled sympathetically. “You know it doesn’t mean anything. I know that doesn’t help, but...”

“Nope, you’re right. It doesn’t. Come on, or are you scared to play me?” They headed for the billiards area and grabbed the unoccupied table. She took another swig of her beer and then shot to break, stiffening as a clumsy, warm body bumped into her from behind.

“Need any help there, honey?” The words were slurred, and she sent an elbow back, not too violently, but enough to make the guy back off a little.

“Pretty sure I’ve got it, Sparky. You can find somebody else to play with.”

“Wow. Just try’na be frenly, don’t hafta be such a bitch.” She rolled her eyes at the sound of Dean’s voice, turning to see him taking a fistful of the drunk’s shirt in his hand.

“I think you owe this lady an apology,” he growled, and Toby glared at him.

“Dean, if I did need any help with this douchebag, which I don’t - Sam’s right here. Why don’t you go back to your play date. I don’t need you to rescue me.”

“See, told ya she’s a bitch,” the idiot mushed out, and Dean shoved him, hard.

“Get the fuck outta here before I kick your ass.” Drunk guy sneered and turned, stumbling his way out.

Toby stared at Dean, her eyes spitting fire, and he drew breath to speak, but Sam’s quiet voice stopped him. “Dean, just let it go.” He looked at Sam, then at the floor, chewing and swallowing his words as he turned and walked away.

“Thanks,” she said, and Sam nodded. “That was about to get ugly.”

“Yeah, I could tell.” He drained the last of his beer. “You want another? It’s still your shot.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She looked up to see Dean back at the bar, the bimbo firmly attached to him again, and turned back to the table, firing off a frustrated shot aimed at nothing in particular, ending in a scratch. She thanked Sam for the beer and downed half of it as he took his turn at the table.

They finished their game and Toby said goodnight, heading to the elevator as Sam went to the bar for one last drink. Her head was pounding, and not from the drinks. All she wanted was bed and unconsciousness.

She stepped off the elevator and cringed as she cursed her timing. Dean and the woman from the bar were in front of his room, and she was practically molesting him as he tried to disentangle himself enough to unlock the door. She swore softly, pulling her key card from her pocket and hoping like hell that she could get inside her room before she was seen. No such luck, though. Dean looked up as she opened her door, startled to see her at first, but then the look in his eyes made her heart lurch. He looked miserable, guilty and ashamed, and it took her several seconds to pull her gaze away and enter her room, slamming the door behind her. She stood there, numb, finally blowing out a breath and lifting a shaking hand to brush back her hair, vaguely surprised to find her face wet with tears.

~~~~~~~~~~

Things were quiet when they got back to the bunker, wordlessly moving around each other and speaking only when necessary. Toby spent most of her time in her room, avoiding Dean as much as humanly possible. Just until she could get her feelings under control, she told herself, get back to normal. Because how she was feeling now couldn’t be a permanent thing. She couldn’t take it.

A couple of nights later, she was heading for the kitchen for a late-night snack when she heard Sam’s voice raise and stopped in her tracks. “Why don’t you just talk to her, Dean? Just admit it, you’re scared. Scared shitless.”

“You’re out of line, Sammy. Don’t fucking try to tell me how I feel.” She heard angry footsteps, then a door slamming, and she retreated back to her room.

She was as bad as Dean, just as afraid. They were going to have to talk about it, someday. But not today. She crawled back into bed, wrapped herself in her blankets and squeezed her eyes shut, determined to stop the thoughts that ran rampant every night. She finally fell asleep, losing the battle once again, and dreamed of his green eyes staring back at her, his lips on hers, his hands gripping her arms, his body pressed close. And she woke with a start, aching for him, wondering if he had even come home, or if he was hiding from himself again, in bed with some anonymous stranger.

God, what a mess.

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

Tags for my babes:

@saenalife @deanscarlett @misswhizzy @jinkieswouldyoulookatthis @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog @geeklibrarian @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @aprofoundbondwithdean @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @mrswhozeewhatsis @littlegreenplasticsoldier @sleep-silent-angel @darcia22 @winchesterprincessbride @ackeviddlestan @ellen-reincarnated1967 @eyes-of-a-disney-princess @deanslittleangel2y5 @melanie451 @lovin-ackles @spectaculacular-sammy @bookchic20 @jodyri @selma-jean @savingapplepie-eatingthings @angelofwinchester17 @kittenofdoomage @masked-maiden42 @lean-mean-deanwinchester @ericuhlorain @undecided-garden @ceeceewinchester @typicalweirdbookworm @callmesweetheartifyoumeanit @youtoldalie @tanithlowisabamf @deandoesthingstome @jxackles @nerdwholikesword @soivebuiltupaworldofmagic @kreweofimp @gabavaldman @chaos-and-the-calm67 @darkx143 @disassociativedogma @ioanashalala @jencharlan @deansthirst @dorky-and-i-know-it @mischief-maker1 @hamartiamacguffin @winchestersandwordprocessors @percussiongirl2017 @bringmesomepie56 @akshi8278 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @torn-and-frayed @sandlee44 @kathaswings @wingedcatninja @evansrogerskitten @emoryhemsworth @peaceinourtime82

#part 3: the hit and then run like your ass is on fire #dean fic #dean x toby #angst chapter #always has to be at least one

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modernmisterdarcy · 5 years ago

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An Unfortunate Turn

“Yes!”

It seemed almost, perhaps, a bit too easy. Then again, he had suffered so much in his relatively short life-- why shouldn't one thing come easily to him now?

“But I didn’t get you anything,” said his fiance. “Here,” she said, and suddenly her embroidery hoop was in his hands. Adrian stared at it with a raised brow, quizzical, looking from the piece, to the girl who had given it him. “ It’s…hideous –” she admitted. “But it’s . something?”

“I’m sorry,” Eirene said through a sheepish smile, not giving him the chance to respond. “I’m acting strange. Only– You see, I’ve never been proposed to before. And neither have you! But I didn’t propose to you. What I’m trying to say is– I cannot wait to be your wife, and I will do anything to return the happiness you’ve given me.”

“But-- you've no cause to give anything to me, except-- well, except what you have given already.” Adrian's face relaxed into a smile, and he clasped the awkward embroidery to his chest. “Your hand in marriage is more than I could have ever asked for, Eirene, be sure of that. And thank you for your-- er-- kind gesture.” He held up the embroidery. “I believe traditionally the man is the one who does the giving, but I appreciate it all the same.” Gingerly, he set the hoop aside, the better to take Eirene in his arms, and lay a tender kiss on her forehead.

Then they talked a while. The Duke spoke softly of redemption-- of how in Eirene he found redemption for all the long years of suffering he had endured, of having no regrets for anything any longer, as every happenstance had made him into the man who had, that day, earned her enthusiastic consent to marriage.

Adrian stayed a while, visiting with Eirene, whispering sweet nothings to her, a completely changed man from the cool and distant creature she'd met the night of the Astleys' gala. At some point, the Earl rejoined them, and a teatime was passed with a distinct celebratory air hanging over it.

The ensuing days and weeks saw Adrian an attentive and able suitor for Eirene. He called as often as decorum allowed without seeming overbearing-- perhaps every other day-- as his business allowed. Sometime they passed teatime in the Kings' parlor. Sometimes Adrian took Eirene out to a tea room, or a cafe, or simply on a promenade, though the latter were infrequent and often brief, owing to Adrian's diminished ability to walk well enough to enjoy a promenade.

Other times, he invited Eirene to accompany him to various social engagements in the evenings, whenever she was available. It was here that Adrian performed the heroic work of not only restoring Eirene's reputation, but bolstering it, making it shine, speaking of her own sort of heroism and grace, of how brave she'd been the night of her party, and of how satisfied everyone was to see Tobias finally put in his place.

Wedding plans, too, were discussed. They talked of a date some six months hence, and Eirene was sent to a dressmaker's to begin constructing one of the most important garments of her life.

The engagement had been announced formally in the papers just a few days after the Duke's proposal, however, the formal celebration-- the engagement party-- was to take place some six weeks after the proposal.

Plans for that, too, progressed smoothly, though as the date drew nearer for Adrian and Eirene to appear before society as a formally engaged couple, the Duke began to show signs of dreadful fatigue. Between the engagement party plans, wedding plans, his business at parliament, his attentions to his fiancee, and attending practically every social engagement in London, his meager energies were exhausted utterly, every day. A fever crept up on him, and he pressed on, until one day, he collapsed in a friend's parlor while on a call with Eirene, and forthwith went home and begrudgingly allowed the physician to be called.

Adrian insisted he'd be well again in a few days, but in this, the Duke was horribly mistaken. A few days more saw him weaker than he'd been in months, suffering violent coughing fits which wrought rivers of blood from his lungs, tormented by fevers so severe that they left him delirious, at times numb and confused, other times raving and half-mad and seething despite his weakness.

Not a week before their engagement party, the Duke had been so ill that the doctor warned the Earl and his daughter, that any day now might be Adrian's last. The doctor advised that the brother be written, and that Adrian, when lucid, ought to speak to his solicitor to ensure his affairs were in proper order.

Ghastly pale, bathed in a cold sweat, his eyes glimmering with fever, and his lips stained an uncanny shade of red, Adrian called Eirene to his side.

“Knowing you, and being engaged to you, has been one of the sweetest pleasures of my life,” he whispered, his eyes heavy at half-mast. “If I should survive this relapse, Eirene, I... I hope you'd consider--” Adrian broke off, coughing, choking dangerously on his own blood, with scarcely enough strength to turn and expectorate into the basin. “If indeed you still intend to marry this terrifying creature you see before you, I should hasten to do it... much sooner than we had before planned.”

But what the date might be, would be determined if and when the Duke should rally, for at that moment, he fell unconscious, and did not wake for at least a day. The outlook was very grim indeed, and preparations were being made, now, for a funeral, instead of a wedding.

Life at Finley Sanatorium had been torture thus far. It had been but five weeks, and they were the most unendurable weeks of Tobias Wolfe's life. He had come a drunk, and now, he was a dry drunk, having had nothing to drink but water and tea since his arrival. There had been a period of intense withdrawal, shaking and vomiting and fits of near-hysteria, but by now, Tobias had calmed.

Well, calmed was perhaps too generous a word for it.

The withdrawal symptoms had abated, but Tobias felt the entire time like a caged animal. The sanatorium was quiet, clean, and confined. There was precious little to occupy an active young man like Toby, and even now in late February it was far too cold to go swimming in the lake on the campus. Toby did not care for reading or painting or any of the other sedentary and dull occupations the staff at Finley would have had him do-- he wanted to ride, to walk, he wanted to drink, dammit, and go back to his usual life back in London, but nay-- he was here under his brother's auspices for the foreseeable future. Though Toby was there to “recover his sanity”, he was certain that another two months in the place would have him simply losing it instead.

All this to say that when he had news of his brother's sudden and serious illness, Toby nearly welcomed the distraction, then hated himself for it, because he knew Adrian would only permit them to write if he was near death. The thought was a frightening one. Toby left immediately.

The scene which Tobias encountered upon his return was a familiar one, and one he did not care to see, now or ever again.

The house was far too quiet, it felt cold, the fear of Adrian's death looming over the place in a pall. Without bothering to change from his traveling clothes, Toby immediately went to his brother's room, only to see Adrian in the grips of a horrendous coughing fit, with blood on his lips and trickling down his cheek.

“You ought to have a nurse,” said Toby; the first thing he'd said to him since leaving Adrian the night of Eirene's party.

Adrian choked by way of response, lurching to one side so that he could spit blood and phlegm into the basin. He nearly fell from the bed, but for Toby holding him steady until the fit passed. He eased Adrian back into bed, and began cleaning the blood from his skin.

“Why is no one tending you?” Tobias demanded. “You oughtn't be in here all alone like that.”

Adrian could not respond; he breathed raggedly, eyes rolling in the back of his head as he fought unconsciousness.

Toby forsook the seat by the bed, and fell to his knees. He took Adrian's hand and kissed it, appalled by how cold it felt.

“Please, brother, don't leave me!” he whispered. “Adrian, you mustn't-- you mustn't--”

“I'll not die, I assure you, until there is a more respectable heir to the Duchy of Bainton,” Adrian muttered, able to speak at last but too weak to draw his hand away, but his fingers curling into a loose fist as Toby clasped it. “Get off the floor, I cannot bear for you to ingratiate yourself.”

“Ingratiate? I-- I do not ingratiate myself, Adrian, I... I'm frightened for your life!” Still, Tobias did as he was told, climbing to a slightly more dignified posture in the chair.

“Unhand me.” Adrian's voice was but a rasp, hollow and weak in his chest. He frowned slightly at Toby. “I cannot bear to be touched like this.”

“You're delirious,” Toby muttered miserably. “Your fever has made you so mean.”

“It is not the fever.” With a grunt of effort, and a wince, Adrian removed himself from Toby's grasp. “It is your touch which wakens my meanness, Tobias.”

The younger of the brothers Wolfe slowly drew his arm into his body, as if it were wounded; though the wound was in his spirit, not in his body. His heart ached as if it had been stabbed, and for the hundred thousandth time he wondered why Adrian acted so. Why he spoke so. Why he spurned Toby's undying love, over and over, and said such wretched things.

“But... why?” he finally said.

Whether it was the fever or not, Tobias would never know, for when he glanced over, Adrian appeared to have succumbed to his weakness. His eyes had closed, the bitterness had left his features, and he had gone still. For a dizzying moment, Toby wondered if Adrian had broken his promise and died; he leaned over, and strained to listen. But yes, the deathly-sounding wheeze in Adrian's chest told Tobias that his brother still lived, however tentatively.

Toby wanted to cry, both for his brother's life being in danger and for the ugliness which had just happened between them. He was tempted to, and a few tears escaped him, but he stifled them with a sniffle upon hearing Eirene's step in the hall.

Tobias composed himself somewhat, though his features betrayed some measure of his inner turmoil. Before he stood, he bent over Adrian and kissed his brow, then went into the hall.

“Hello, Lady King,” he said softly. “I trust you'll want to be alone with my brother. He does not do well, only just now he fell unconscious again.” Tobias's eyes fluttered a little as he bit back another wave of tears. “But I have no doubt that your very presence does him well, were you inclined to sit with him a while.”

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loquaciousquark · 6 years ago

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6th Guardian. Chilly, but with a bite just sharp enough to make it unpleasant as well as uncomfortable

There’s a twitchy new elf in town. Showed up last night to ambush an ambush, as Varric’s friend we were supposed to meet is apparently become an ex-friend, or an ex-anything, really. That was unkind of me, but I do find myself intolerably snippy when someone I don’t know a) saves my life so that I owe them a favor, and b) looks better than me doing it.

They were Crows, too, which I rather thought had been dealt with ever since Isabela’s friend Zevran came through and charmed the pants off all of us. Well, off Isabela, certainly. Well, except she doesn’t wear--never mind. I suppose when one is famous enough to have made enemies of both effective heads of state in one’s town one ought not to be surprised when someone else comes a-killing down the lane.

You know, I said I wanted to vacation in Orlais, but this isn’t quite the way I’d meant it. The Heart of the Many is what she’s after, this Tallis, some fantastic jewel (pah!), and the villainous Duke Prosper (really!) keeps it clutched in his Orlesian...clutches. Leave me be, journal, I’m tired and Fenris slept at his own place tonight, so I’m woeful lonely even with the dog curled on the side of the bed where he belongs.

Now Toby looks betrayed. He can’t even read! How should he know what I’m writing, aside from the fact he’s the oldest friend I’ve got & he knows everything I’m thinking in one glance? Hardly fair, is it?

Anyway, Tallis thinks we ought to come a-crashing to this gala he’s hosting at Chateau Haine in Orlais. A hunt, I think. I used to hunt in Lothering, but if I had to wager I’d suspect they’ll be using slightly different methods than my rope snares and broken traps. And different game than my hare & pheasant. Or perhaps they won’t! Who knows?

I wasn’t going to do it except that Anders is planning a particular midnight event that same week and he wants me publicly away of the city for an alibi. He thinks I don’t know what he’s planning, but I’m the one who got Aveline to turn a blind eye to any ships fleeing the harbor in dead of night with too many passengers than should be aboard. He’d realize it, too, if he weren’t so determined to only see what Justice lets him. Sebastian & Varric have said they’ll keep an eye on him, though, if I do end up going on this fool’s errand, which I suppose is as much as I could hope for. They won’t help him with the escape, but they’ll keep him alive. As alive as he’ll ever be, lately.

Tallis says I should pack something fancy for the evening assemblies at the chateau. Something that’ll make me fit in like the nobility I am. I told her I had a set of old leathers that only had a few pints of blood still caked in the creases, but I don’t think she thought it was funny. Her loss!

11th Guardian. On the road! Still chilly, with the fields tipped with frost this morning and a cold mist floating over all the hedgerows before the sun burned it away

I should never have thought it, journal, but Fenris and Aveline both have agreed to come along with me! I was certain he’d be as thrilled at the idea as Aveline when Isabela pulls out the sixth Angel of Death in a hand, but he only lifted an eyebrow and said, “I enjoy following you,” as if he didn’t know how wibbly he makes me every time he suggests the thought. He brought the beautiful black leather set he wore the evening I became Champion. I packed a sleeveless lavender overtunic and a simple white blouse I can wear over trou & boots, because if experience has taught me nothing else I know I should anticipate running for my life at least once during this venture. Aveline won’t show me, but I’d bet ten sovs on the copper it’s that blue gown she wore the night of the Satinalia feast Mother hosted a few years back.

You must forgive me, journal, if the hand is shakier than usual. The road to Chateau Haine is paved not with gold but with boulders as uneven as Carver’s temper when he’s tired.

Also, Fenris is dozing on my shoulder (an accident, I know, because if he could see the knowing looks Tallis keeps throwing our way he’d ghost straight out of the carriage), and I’d rather cut the hand off than disturb his nap.

We’re due to arrive tomorrow, which is the first night of the duke’s week-long hunting party. I expect to be thrown out by dawn.

Later, just after dinner - grouse, capers, mashed potatoes, mediocre white wine. Pretty pattern on the flatware, though

Evening at the Auberge de Tuyé, an old inn unremarkable in every way save its magnificent brick chimney and the fact that it marks our first evening within Orlais’s borders.

The only interesting events so far are that I nearly fell into the pig trough from stiff knees getting out of the carriage (a fine testament to the skills for which I’ve been hired), the elf waitress was almost uncomfortably deferent at dinner over our travel finery, and when the innkeeper gave Fenris the key to our room without a second glance, I got the most peculiar feeling in my chest that still hasn’t abated.

Got stronger, even, as I watched him read the numbers plated on the doors and find ours easily, without hesitation; stronger again as I watched him direct the inn’s boys with our valises as they brought them to the rooms with every comfortable ease. By the time he sat on the side of the bed and tugged off his boots, then ran his fingers through his hair to shake out the travel dust, my heart might have burst from how dear he’s become to me.

He saw me looking and his face changed, and it wasn’t until he asked (with no small alarm) if I meant to cry that I realized how much must have shown on my own.

How easy it was to cross the room we share and kiss him directly on his mouth. How simple a thing, after every agony of Kirkwall & Tevinter put together, to cup his cheeks in my hands and feel his breath hitch as he smiled up at me.

Flames and pyre, but may I never take another moment for granted with him. Ever, ever, ever.

Very late or very early, not sure which

He’s exhausted & therefore snoring. I am rereading the last lines I wrote over and over again in this remarkably feeble moonlight to remind me why I don’t smother him with a pillow this very instant.

If he doesn’t stop soon I’m going to go kip on Av’s floor and not give two shits if Tallis thinks the less of me for it.

12th Guardian, near midnight. Cold

It was the blue gown, ha! We made it to Prosper’s estate just before dinner. More extravagant than anything in Kirkwall, even the Viscount’s festivals; fire dances and swans made of ice and servants proffering canapes at every turn. Fifi de Launcet & her entire hideous family are here. Dulci’s already sneered at me twice. I thought about asking after Emile, but I’ve fond-enough memories of his foolishness I didn’t want to poison them with his relations.

One of the guards thought Fenris was my manservant and tried to hustle him away from the glitterati, which lasted all of three seconds before the guard a) realized Fenris’s jacket cost more than his entire set of armor, and b) looked at Fenris’s face and read the death there if he didn’t release his arm that instant. More dangerous than that pet wyvern Prosper keeps to alarm his guests. Maker, I need to learn that trick.

Aveline mostly kept hawk’s eyes on Tallis all night. For the second day of a week-long hunt the festivities seemed over-grand to me, but Tallis hardly batted an eye as she danced in and out of the crowds, listening for any mention of the jewel and what I suppose are Prosper’s dubious motives for pilfering it. Nothing tonight, she said, though there’s plenty of time yet.

Haven’t met Prosper himself, as it happens. Apparently he’s still negotiating certain hunt-related errata or somesuch. I can’t bring myself to care at the moment, as I’m in a bed with white satin sheets, covers embroidered in gilt thread, and a shirtless elf insistently nibbling his way across my shoulder, please the Maker I’ll put down the pen, fine!

14th Guardian. Warmer today but not by much, clear skies to see doom from miles away

Short entry, as we’re to be guests of honor at the feast tonight--got the wyvern today! & an alpha, for that matter, and my left arm’s burned to the Void to prove it. Got wrist-deep in wyvern dung & Fenris laughed at me (prior to the burning), watched Tallis make a fool of herself (roughly contemporary to the burning), and nearly killed but didn’t an Orlesian baron who attempted to poach our rightly-earned victory from under our noses (post-burning, and some of his details are frankly lost by me attempting to beat my own arm off to get away from the spitting poison). Asked Aveline after if she missed being part of these fancy companies and she said as yet she hadn’t seen anything worth missing. Ha!

Regardless, Tallis wants to use the party Prosper’s throwing for us as cover to sneak inside the chateau & find the Heart. I feel as though the guests of honor vanishing mid-feast might be noticeable, but then again, I’ve snuck out more than once at these things and haven’t been caught yet. Perhaps tonight will be more of the same.

Tallis told us we ought to be prepared to do whatever it takes to get hold of the key we’ll need to reach the innards of the chateau. I told her I drew the line at my clothes coming off at any hands not tattooed in lyrium and Fenris coughed into his wine. Tallis only rolled her eyes and said she’d be happy to do the seducing if it came to that, and Aveline sighed and said she wished Isabela had come along as well. She’d have enjoyed every minute of this, the wench.

(Sidebar, before I forget--Bann Teagan is here as well. That’s who Aveline’s been spending most of her time with when absolutely forced to make small talk, & I must remember to ask him how Lothering is doing before we go. His outlook was not so sunny last time we spoke, but I have hopes.)

Agh, I’ve more to say and no time! Later, later!

Who knows what time it is

Tallis is a Qunari spy, Prosper knew we were coming, and it was all a trap. This prison cell is so old the stone has graffiti from over an age ago.

And yet, funnily enough, I’ve been to worse parties.

I’m annoyed with Tallis & writing here to ignore her. The guard outside the cell keeps rattling the bars with his pommel and asking if we’re hungry yet. I can’t say I care for his leer, though it’s better than the way Cyril de Montfort eyed me like a hock of (despairing) ham earlier. His hands are larger than Fenris’s and much colder, and when they came ‘round my waist I could feel him searching for a hem to slide under. Thank the Bride I can be fucking glib when I wish to be, & that Cyril’s fool enough to think midnight being more romantic was a good enough reason to let me go.

I think I could burn these bars to slag but I don’t know how many guards are down the hall, and I don’t know where my father’s staff is. I also don’t know where Aveline & Fenris are, which worries me more than anything.

Tallis looks miserable I’m so angry with her. Damn it. Damn me. If she’d been straightforward from the start I’d have been so much more inclined to help her with this piffle.

It must have been at least two hours by now. My left arm is killing me since Aveline has my salve. I’ve forgiven Tallis solely out of boredom

She says if we don’t stop Salit hundreds of innocent people will die. The guard suggests that if we don’t stop chit-chatting like a pair of magpies he’ll shut our mouths himself. I don’t care for this one’s attitude, honestly

Later, briefly

We’ve only stopped a moment to rest, so this must be extremely short. Fenris & Aveline found us in the prison--Tallis had made them stay behind as we crept through the chateau to avoid attention. Fenris tore out the guard’s heart as Tallis picked our lock & then he took hold of me so tight I could barely breathe, and it was the first time since the inn I felt quite myself again.

Prosper has these creatures fighting for him. Harlequins, he calls them. They fight like demons & wear masks to boot, and there’s something very skittish in the way they move. I don’t like it, though I will admit they die like anything else.

We’re deep in the caverns under the chateau. We did manage to loot the high holy fire out of Prosper’s vaults before we left, which has made me feel loads better, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Or caves, as it happens. Aveline’s shield broke in the last fight & she twisted her elbow badly; we’re giving her a moment to bind it before we continue on. I’ll heal what I can when she’s finished, but Fenris thinks I should save my strength for battle. Tallis agrees with him, which is even more irksome.

Aveline’s done with the splint. More later.

(I hope)

17th Guardian. Warmer still today, or is that just the wyvern spit

There is, it seems, a later, though it was a close thing. Prosper and his wyvern are both dead, as are Salit & the plans to steal the Qunari agents’ identities. Tallis has mucked off to who-knows-where, though not without hocking a great fat ruby at my head in thanks and exchanging a few flirts that had Fenris rolling his eyes so far back in his head he probably saw the Maker Himself. We’re in the carriage now, on the way back to the Auberge for our last stop before returning home to Kirkwall tomorrow. I’ve had to borrow clothes from Aveline’s bags, as the green slime Prosper used to guide his wyvern’s little nosie right to me has stunk my leathers to high heaven. They’re wrapped three layers deep in a trunk lashed to the roof of the carriage and I can still smell them.

Maker, I don’t even remember where I left off. We made it out of the caves eventually, though not before I found Fenris a necklace that used to belong to some Fog Warriors & he kissed me hard in one of the little rocky nooks right before the exit into daylight. Aveline was already outside, and Tallis didn’t seem to care much -- not that it would have mattered if she had, as there was enough lingering fear in his voice I shouldn’t have stopped if Andraste had come down herself to ask.

The next hours are a blur. We fought our way up the hills and down them again, mostly against Tal-Vashoth & these horrid little nesty creatures called ghasts, and then Baron Arlange must have been very determined to die as he came out at us, again, and this time there wasn’t a duke to intervene on his behalf.

Flames, I’m starving, and the dried jerky Aveline so thoughtfully brought for us on this last journey is not taking away the edge. We’ve still over an hour before we reach the inn; thank goodness this is distracting enough. I’d rather be napping, honestly, but Fenris has taken the seat across to lounge its full width, and since he was nearly gutted by the wyvern in the last fight I suppose I can’t begrudge it overmuch. Aveline’s solid enough, but her shoulder’s hard as a rock. A good thing--strong! Rock-strong. Mountain-strong. Don’t give me that look.

Anyway, we eventually fought our way back to the chateau, whereupon we discovered our intrepid Salit dispensing his little scroll directly into the duke’s grasping ...grasp. Tallis got the scroll back via a bit of trickery--good enough--but then Prosper saw the rest of us and it was all “you’ve seen too much” and “now you must die” and blah, blah, blah, here’s my raging seasick wyvern to spit up on you while I rain fiery exploding arrows from the sky, worst Tuesday ever.

In the end, though, both the wyvern and his rider went off the cliff backing the chateau’s courtyard, Tallis got her secrets returned, and Fenris got the munificent honor of lying flat on his back on the pavingstones for another quarter-hour until I could get his side closed up again. Aveline was marvelous this whole time--held all the remaining, goggling guests at bay while Tallis invented an excellent cover story (I assume, as I wasn’t there to hear it, but we also remained un-mauled by Prosper’s guards further, so it must have had some success). Leliana came out from the house too, that Nightingale from that evening at the Chantry a few months back, and as much as she obviously knew we were lying she backed up everything Tallis said and more. Tallis clearly didn’t thrill at her presence (is she truly a spy? She shows her emotions far too easily--said the tar-black pot to the kettle, I know, I know), but thanked her for the help, later, and didn’t make a single acerbic comment when Leliana and I began talking about the Lothering chantry over dinner.

(I’d forgotten she used to run the handbell choir there for a while. I was only a ringer for half a season, since there weren’t enough bells & Bethany wanted it more than I did, but I have so many fond memories of watching her on the little dais before the altar, dressed in Chantry rose & gold, her hair ruthlessly pinned back as she watched Leliana for their cues.

Leliana says she remembers her, is sorry for the loss of a sweet girl. She’s a far better liar than I’ll ever be, but I’d like to believe her.)

As it is, by the time Lord Cyril arrived to find his father dead & his house in utter disarray, most of the carcasses had been ceremonially tossed to the rocks below. Leliana and I managed to persuade him Leopold had eaten something poor and lost his mind, and in the fracas took the duke over the edge with him--true enough, given the circumstances, but as Cyril seemed both wholly unaware of his father’s attempt to ally with the Tal-Vashoth and wholly unsuspicious of our motives (aided, perhaps, by the fact that I still had blood up to my ears), he accepted our truth readily enough and turned all his attention to legal matters and the rest of his guests instead. I nearly got away without any more of his attentions, too, but at the last moment he caught me by the hand, kissed my cheek with very cold lips, and gravely told me as alluring as I might be, he thought it would be unseemly to pursue a summer romance given the circumstances. Of course, said I ad nauseum, until at last he let me go and I was able to get Fenris inside to our room where he might rest. Fenris, who is infinitely warmer even when complaining about the Kirkwall cold.

Hm. In retrospect, that may have been the fever. Ah, well.

We’ve pulled up to the picket gate before the Auberge, so I will end this here.

18th Guardian. Very cold dawn, clear pink skies

Writing this at breakfast. Fenris is still asleep and Aveline strongly discourages dialogue before she has had her second cup of coffee, so I speak to an ever-willing audience in you instead.

Fenris’s fever has broken and his side looks much better, thank goodness, though he’s disgustingly tired and prone to snippy complaints at the least discomfort. I’m of the opinion a few good nights’ sleeps & a few really good sleepless nights will get him back to his old self, but I doubt he’ll feel truly well until we’re in Kirkwall again. He’s also annoyed my arm is taking so long to heal, though I haven’t told him it’s because I’ve been using all my strength to get him whole, first. He wouldn’t thank me for the knowing, and I don’t need his high dudgeon prolonging his healing even more.

Damn all of this mess. Despite everything I do like Tallis, and despite everything I feel badly for Cyril. The only person I don’t regret killing there is Prosper, and that’s half because I got to be very clever as he died. Maker, bring me quickly back to Kirkwall, where at least I know I don’t know who’s right and who’s evil.

Ah, Fenris is up at last. His eyes are clearer than they’ve been since the weekend, so he must be feeling better. And here comes the starry-eyed waitress to bring him his breakfast, right on cue. I ought to marry him as soon as possible to ensure I’m forever included in this excellent service too.

Late evening, in the estate at last, home sweet home (or as much as it can be, anyway, though Toby’s done a wonderful job at trying to crawl through my whole self in welcome)

Asked Fenris tonight if he would have minded a summer romance with Lord Cyril. Said immediately Cyril wasn’t his taste--not nearly alluring enough, even covered in wyvern spit, and went right back to his quail. Cheeky, said I, though I know I was smiling.

Orana keeps walking out of the laundry room with scented kerchiefs pressed to her nose. The leathers may be a lost cause. Damn!

25th Guardian. Warm winds from the north today, though the morning broke cool

Varric is already drafting a series on the Chateau Haine escapades. Jewel Heart, he’s titling it (tentatively), in spite of my numerous and vociferous objections. I say it ought to be an adventure, not a romance; he says it can be both. Hmph.

Varric, when you read this (and don’t flatter your chest hair, we both know where you get your source material, and we both know Isabela’s helping), for Andraste’s sake, come up with a better title. Heart of the Many, maybe. Mark of the Assassin. Something!

14th Drakonis. Warm but very wet -- the puddles are steaming

He uses the word “alluring” forty-seven times in the rough copy. I’m going to burn his press to cinders.

16th Drakonis. Still raining

Fenris likes it.

I may never win again, but at least he makes me enjoy the losing. And Varric -- oh, who cares, you’ll do what you like regardless. Just make sure he’s in his black leathers at least once, and I’ll be satisfied.

And for the record, I demand the first print copy to be autographed for me. Consider it payment for services rendered, for my arm’s gone and scarred and if I haven’t you to tell me how wonderful I was in the scarring, how else will I know it was worth it?

(You know I love you. Don’t ever stop.)

#fenris #hawke #fenris/hawke #dragon age #quark writes #hawke's journal tag #mark of the assassin #ft. tallis and tired aveline #haHAA bet you thought i'd forgotten this eh #eh eh #well #haven't

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analog-smiles · 5 years ago

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Undertale Headcanons Part 2: Gaster Edition!

As promised, I have some more headcanons for you all, about Gaster this time! Let's go!

•I mentioned in the last post that I believed Gaster was the third skeleton brother. Allow me to elaborate. I believe that skeletons were rather rare monsters, and all but one were killed off in the war, leaving Gaster pretty lonely. ( Thanks for the idea Zarla ) So eventually, Gaster tried to create two more skeletons using his own DNA, coming from his own hands. You'll notice how similar this seems to Handplates, but this is where things change a bit. Rather than being children, once the souls formed Sans and Papyrus were already adults. Gaster therefore decided to introduce them as his younger brothers and it made him happy to have some company again. Sans was interested in science and eventually helped Gaster out in the lab, while Papyrus was interested in the Royal Guard and Gaster would help him train.

•Gaster hated fighting, but he killed the yellow soul human. Why? Well, that human made it to King Asgore, but he wasn't there for a cup of tea. He was going to kill Asgore. However, Gaster was going to visit Asgore and give him an update on the progress made on the CORE ( which I believe was almost finished around this time ) just as the human had pulled out his gun. Gaster tried distracting the human and talking it out, but eventually he had no choice but to kill him.

•The CORE was finished a few months after the yellow soul was taken, and a few more months after that, Gaster fell in. He was showing Sans around, but an area of unstable ground started to collapse and he went with it after only just managing to save Sans from the same fate. Nobody remembered what had happened, they just fixed and stabilised the area.

•Nobody remembered Gaster at first. But eventually, 4 people remembered he existed, but not what happened to him. Sans first, since he was the last one to see him, then Papyrus because the two were very close, and eventually Toriel and Asgore, who were good friends with him.

•A copy of Portal fell into the dump and Gaster found it. He then attempted to build his own portal gun, though he never finished it before he fell. ( I blame @leafaske )

•He was actually a pretty decent artist, he sometimes drew areas of the underground, mostly Waterfall.

•Skeletons were rare, but strong. They only died because they were caught off guard and surrounded in an ambush and couldn't fight all the humans at once. Gaster tried to settle matters peacefully, but he wasn't in any real danger if someone seemed hellbent on starting a fight.

•Papyrus enjoys pasta because he has fond memories of Gaster showing him how to cook it.

•I believe that when Gaster fell, most of him found its way into the Void as we have so lovingly called it, but small pieces drifted off into other universes, mostly Undertale AUs along with some other places, meaning he was able to see into said universes. The pieces in Undertale AUs simply became the Gaster of that AU, while pieces in other universes copied data of a couple of characters to create a vessel to inhabit.

•While in the Void, Gaster also discovered the truth about his world and how we used it as a plaything. This didn't make him give up like other people might, though. It just made him determined to find a way out and prove to us all that Undertale was not just a game.

•Now, this last one is more of a theory than a headcanon, but...

What if Gaster could return?

What if individuals who enter the Void have a way to leave under certain circumstances?

The only conditions are that they must have had no determination before entry and they must have a reason to go back. So, sorry Frisk, that means no return ticket for you.

Now then, onto what this could mean for Gaster. It differs between timelines, as some tested determination on themselves while others did not. For those who did, their only way out is if someone gets them out. The ones who didn't can get out themselves with time, as long as they truly want to go back.

Now for the reason. This will determine the speed of their return. Genocide timeline Gasters will likely return faster than Neutral or Pacifist, as they want to return and protect their friends and family, they will gather determination faster. Pacifist timeline versions will gather determination slower, knowing their friends and family are safe for now. Neutral run versions are in between, knowing that not everyone will survive, but some will.

How does this work? Well, I believe that people become corrupted upon entering the void and our computer can't properly identify them as human or monster, which means they can't be stopped from having determination unless they already have it, in which case they can't handle any more.

#undertale #gaster #determination

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gold-kobold · 6 years ago

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How To Fight A Shadow

1 | 2 | 3 | 4: Rare Sights | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Bit by bit, things slowly start making sense to the Trollhunters about these strange happenings. Not soon enough though, because Claire’s sick of all these dang portals in her house. Dictatious brings Angor Rot up to speed on current events, and Angor Rot makes a good point about his brother, among other things. Also, Nomura wishes she didn’t have to be here.

(Any feedback is appreciated!)

(Side note: my proofreader has recently started combing through older chapters and touching them up a bit on AO3, so it might be better to read it there! https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314055/chapters/35530062 )

Jim didn't even realize his mom could drive like that. He didn't think he'd see his life flash before his eyes a second time.

They got to Claire's house in record time, and somehow in one piece, Claire being the first to book it to the door, NotEnrique on her shoulder.

Well... the doorway.

The door itself had been ripped off its hinges. Claire shielded NotEnrique with her arm, squinting at the massive dark vortex devouring her living room floors.

"Where's Enrique?! My Parents?!"

"Safe!" NotEnrique shouted over the roar of the portal, "They got the kid and scrammed when it started openin' up!"

Jim and Toby shouted for Claire, running over and holding on for physical support. Jim drew his sword, jamming it in the doorway so they wouldn't get sucked in.... for as long as the walls would hold.

"How do we stop it?!" Barbara shouted, staying protectively close to the kids despite the strong pull of the portal.

Jim tried to look for an answer, some sort of solution they were missing - then he heard it.

The familiar roar that still would creep its way into his haunting dreams when he'd least expect it. There was no mistaking that noise.

A Nyarlagroth.

After that, Jim didn't know what happened. He was suddenly smothered by memories of the Darklands, struggling to survive, fighting for his life each day, nearly starving-

His mind was fog. The noise of the portal was gone. The feeling of his loved ones near him, gone. All that surrounded him now was those cursed memories.

Those...

"Jim! Jim!!!"

Sunlight. He saw the sunlight.

He also saw his friends and mother, standing above him with worry all over their faces. They were above- wait, when did he get on the ground?

"The Dark...lands..." Jim's eyes went wide, and he jolted right up. "The Darklands! The portal! It-!"

"It's okay, Jim!" Barbara reassured him, pulling him into a careful hug, "It's okay... the portal disappeared on its own..."

He was shaking. He wanted to return the hug, but couldn't even lift his arms. "The Darklands, it... It led into the Darklands, not the Shadow Realm... Why...?"

"We got here as fast as we could!" Enter Blinky atop Aaarrrgghh, followed by the others, moving beneath the archways. "These things are not convenient for getting around in a rush- Is master Jim okay?!"

"I think he's alright," Barbara said, brushing the bangs out of her son's face, "It looked like a panic attack..."

Blinky approached with care, a pair of arms helping to pick them up. "Come, come. Aaarrrgghh can carry him."

Jim felt the strong but gentle arms of Aaarrrgghh lift him up. "I'm-I'm okay, really..." He insisted, but nobody was convinced.

"I help." Aaarrrgghh insisted in turn.

Well... no point in arguing. Jim just sighed, closing his eyes as he was carried.

More portals they have to deal with... This is going to be far more complicated than they bargained for, isn't it...

Angor Rot wasn't familiar with the term “panic attack”, but it... didn't sound that great. Something inside him made what almost felt like a glimmer of concern for the boy, but that was washed away quickly when he turned out to be fine not much later. What was really worrying to the group was this 'portal' business. But only so much can be done in a day.

Only so much can be done in general. Some things are out of their control. But they just can't accept that, can they.

Their determination did not falter as the days passed. It only seemed to grow stronger.

Though, due to recent developments, the Trollhunters would have to reinstate the 'stick Dictatious with Angor Rot' plan.

Rather abruptly.

It's too bad Dictatious wasn't passed on that information. As far as he knew, he was supposed to meet with the Domzalski child downstairs this morning, to go to Trollmarket and discuss and more research about the Darklands, something like that. So, naturally, the first thing he did when he got up that morning was look for Toby.

Metaphorically look, anyway. He mostly just ended up stumbling around until he found his way to the kitchen, where he could make out a blob that was probably a person. Was it a little taller than Toby sized? Maybe. Might be Jim. Who knows, a person's a person, this seemed like the only one in the house right now, so they probably knew what was supposed to happen anyways.

It was probably Jim. It sounded like he was grinding something metal against something else? Kind of strange, but whatever.

Naturally, Dictatious went right up to the person, and like he usually would, places a hand on their arm for guidance. "Alright then," He said like nothing was out of the ordinary, "Let's be off."

The figure went still. Dictatious looked at them in confusion as to why they weren't getting on their way. “… Well?”

"Why is your hand on my arm?"

By Gunmar's blade, that's not one of the kids--!

‘Grace’ wasn’t a word that came to mind when Dictatious jolted away from the larger troll in his shock and smacking directly into the table, falling over. Angor stared, stone-faced, at the ordeal.

"You..." Dictatious muttered, picking himself back up, "... are not the Trollhunter..."

"You don't say." Angor's voice, flooded with sarcasm, replied. He returned his attention to the totem carving in his hand, picking away at it with his knife. "There has been a change of plan. The Trollhunter and his friends got word of more portal activity, both at the girl's house and in the woods."

They probably would've been fine with Angor coming with them, honestly, but if Angor wasn't lying, he had to admit that being around that last portal made him feel sick. Anything to do with Morgana right now made him feel sick... whether that was all just in his head or not, who knows, but admitting such things wasn't a necessity right now. He just wouldn't go around jumping at the opportunity to go poking around in those witch vortexes, is all... even if that did mean having to deal with this blind Galadrigal instead.

The smaller troll's ears twitched down a touch. "... Oh." He said, tone of voice strangely dampered upon hearing this development, but he quickly brushed it off. He shrugged and headed to the living room. "CSI marathon it is, then."

Angor raised an eyebrow at Dictatious. If he wasn't mistaken, the other had almost sounded disappointed for a second there.

It wouldn't be surprising. It's not like he can go outside on his own, what with the risk of accidentally walking into sunlight or getting hit by a car. From what Angor's heard and pieced together, he could guess Dictatious doesn't get many chances to get out of the house.

The assassin could imagine how so much of that would make someone restless over time.

"I don't have a Horngazel..." Angor spoke up after blowing some dust off his totem, catching Dictatious's attention, "... but there's still much of Arcadia that's been changed I'm curious to see."

Dictatious's ears perked up again, definitely interested, but he was.... skeptical of the 'company'.

Well, he did agree, however reluctantly, to keep an 'eye' on Angor Rot when the others couldn't. Why did he agree to that, again?

"Unless," Eye flicking to the irresolute Dictatious, he pocketed the carving, "you prefer staying here."

... You know what. Might as well take the opportunity while it's there. Dictatious could really use the change of scenery.

.... Pun not intended.....

Being out and about was a good idea. Turns out, this was a good way to get Angor Rot started on learning some things, too. Nice bonus.

Strickler may have brushed Angor up on some human basics (like electricity and school systems) the first time Angor was awakened here, but it was nowhere near enough to have much of an idea of what's going on when you're not solely focused on just trying to kill people. Who knew.

For someone who'd been spending most of his time here cooped up in a house, Dictatious actually knew a great deal about how human culture's evolved, among other things - he could chock that up to his curious mind, constantly asking Nana Domzalski questions about anything he wanted to understand better, and whatever she couldn't answer, Toby usually could, plus there were all sorts of interesting educational channels and news networks on the TV that he could learn from. He found it all quite interesting.

Of course, it wouldn't make sense to overload Angor's mind with unnecessary details, so he stuck to the basics. Explaining their simpler customs, beliefs, laws, things like that.

Mostly, Angor just listened quietly, asking short questions here and there, but mostly just focusing on trying to make sense of everything. Also, looking around at the changes to Arcadia.

With all these new archways, it would be easy for both trolls and people to wander the streets during daylight. Much of it was still under construction though – there was strange machinery everywhere, along with chunks of ripped out cement and things of a similar sort.

"It is surprising," Angor mused, "how quickly these humans have accepted coexisting with Trollkind."

Dictatious gave a short laugh at that. "Oh, believe me. There are many humans that are not happy about it." He made a vague gesture with one hand. "Arcadia has been most tolerable of our kind so far, if only because Trollmarket saved them from the Gumm-Gumms and Pale Lady at the Battle of Eternal Night, but even many of the people here don't exactly... 'like' us."

Now that Dictatious mentioned it, Angor was starting to notice some strange looks from a few of the passing humans. He hadn't been paying attention to that before with everything else he was trying to keep up with, but two teen boys in particular he could swear had been following them for a while... He took mental note of them, but ignored them for the time being.

“So, you are lucky to have participated, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the Battle of the Eternal Night.” Angor blinked, glancing down at Dictatious. “Because you were a Gumm-Gumm. You earned their trust through battle, yes?”

“What?” That got Angor a funny look from the smaller troll. “I didn’t participate in that battle.”

“…. What.”

Is he kidding? “Look at me! I can’t fight!” Dictatious was surprised he even had to explain that.

And Angor sounded surprised when he spoke again. “You cannot fight?” He repeated. “You hid from the battle?”

“…. Obviously?”

By Deya’s name. If he was confused about the level of trust the Trollhunters dish out to ex-enemies before, then he was downright stunned by it now. He didn’t even help those who saved him in battle? Scratch that, he can’t even fight? What can they rely on him for?

“Are you still coming?” asked Dictatious, stopped to wait for him so he could to know where to go.

Silent he was for a good few seconds there, but Angor decided to let this topic rest.

For now.

They continued on their way.

“As I was saying… There's not much in the way of trust between our species outside of Arcadia. Many humans think of us as dangerous." Dictatious continued, "but they had - well, still have - too little information to be able to make any sort of concrete decision about it. Accepting that there's been whole other civilizations living just beneath their feet has been an ordeal in and of itself. But keeping our worlds separate is far out the window now."

"'Out the window'?"

"Ah. Human expression. It means there's no chance of that happening anymore." Explained the other. "The Battle of Eternal Night might have been limited to Arcadia, but it wasn't long at all before other humans knew of it. Can't exactly hide a massive unexplained eclipse from the rest of the world. Plus, many of Arcadia's residents recorded pieces of the battle and posted them online." He paused, almost feeling the confusion coming off Angor Rot, and elaborated, "It's like... The moving images on that television set you saw the other day, except of real events. The humans shared recordings of the battle with others of their species across the world using a thing called the 'Internet'." Now he could get back on track. "There was a large uproar about it. Humans didn't even realize we existed, then that happened - I'm sure you can understand why there might be some tribulation about all this."

"Hm..." Well, alright… Angor supposed that made sense... "And they haven't made attempts to attack yet?"

"Well.... against trolls? No. Most other colonies have been staying out of sight for now until things smooth over, and Trollmarket's residents have had some leeway due to their services against the Gumm-Gumms." But, well.... "It was Changelings that got the worst of mankind's shock. Their familiars were all removed from the Darklands at once, blowing their cover - most of them got away with no more than a few wounds, but there were still deaths among them."

That, Angor found somewhat surprising. "Trained Changelings, felled at the hands of small fleshbags?"

"Startle a small fleshbag with a gun badly enough," Dictatious said matter-of-factly, "and nobody's likely to get out of the situation unscathed."

Human architecture isn't the only thing that's advanced over the years. Their weaponry has, too. It would be wise to remember that.

"Fortunately for them, bonds they've formed and positions they've earned gave them some level of trust among certain humans. Many Changelings were stationed in important human positions, after all. But still, they too are very mistrusted." As was only fair. It's not like they kidnapped and replaced human children or anything. "Though, they are the best suited for handling human intervention, as they are most familiar with both troll and human culture. Despite how both our species treat them, Changelings have become significantly important in dealing with matters of diplomacy lately-"

"Heyy, there you two are!"

Speaking of Changelings...

They both turned at the voice of NotEnrique catching up to them. He chuckled, quickly pulling out his phone and commenting to himself, "Guess I better let those kids know I found ye, they're prob'ly freakin' right out..."

"What do you want, imp." Dictatious said flatly, following up with, "and what do you mean 'found us'? We weren't aware anyone was looking."

"Yeah, I gathered that." NotEnrique replied, sending a message in his group chat with the kids, "Them Trollhunters wanted me to check up on ye, what with all this weird magic stuff goin' on." His mischievous yellow eyes glanced up at them, "Jimmy boy had a lil' bit of a panic when I called 'em to say ya weren't at the house. Almost came lookin' for ya himself. But all's good now, eh?"

… Oops. It didn't occur to them that leaving a note or something might've been a good idea.

“Ahem…” Dictatious cleared his throat, brushing that little oversight under the rug, “Well if that’s all-“

"Actually..." NotEnrique interrupted again, "Ol' Blink also wanted me to tell ye that he wants to talk to ye when y'both get the chance."

At that, Dictatious's ears flattened back in annoyance. His eyes may be borderline useless, but they were still good for rolling. "You can tell Blinkous," he snapped, "that the soonest I plan on talking to him again is in the afterlife."

"...... Uhhhhh..... Okay. Not gonna ask." Not gonna touch that can of worms with a ten foot pole, to be exact…

… Anyway, since things are awkward now... that’s NotEnrique’s cue. "Welp! I'm off, then!"

Angor watched the little Changeling jump off, his mission having been done with, and then looked at Dictatious. "You are still on bad terms with your kin?"

Dictatious scoffed. "No kin of mine would be so idiotic as to burn so much precious research."

There it was, a small hum noise from Angor that made it sound like Dictatious's logic was in question. Dictatious gave him a cross stare, of which Angor knew he’d have to speak his thoughts to get through the other’s thick head.

"Interesting that you should be the one holding a grudge," The assassin mused, "since the way I hear it, you were the one trying to take his life."

For a second time, Dictatious had scoffed. "He didn't have to take it out on my books. He's already left me like this, so... so useless!"

"You should consider yourself lucky. I know many trolls who would have done far worse to you at that kind of betrayal." With a darker tone of voice, he added, "If it had been me in your brother's place, you would have lost far more than your eyesight and some old books."

Well that's... unnerving.

Third scoff. "And why do you care about what happens between my brother and I?"

Angor shrugged. "I don't. I just find it interesting, is all. Rare to see a troll willing to take family back that would try to kill them."

... It...

It is rare, isn't it....

… Wait a second, is he actually taking this seriously? It doesn’t matter. Blinky would never kill him anyways. He didn’t have the guts to do it himself. Isn’t the fact that he let Dictatious back proof of that?

… On the other hand… if Blinky really wanted him dead… wouldn’t he have just given him up to those goblins…?

Blinky did save him… he didn’t have to do that, but he… did.

After realizing he’d been silent in his thought and Angor was probably giving him some sort of questionless look, Dictatious snorted. “Oh, what of it.” He said bitterly. “There’s no consequence in my choice not to talk.”

"You never know. The soonest you ever speak to him again may be in the afterlife." He shrugged again. "With him working so closely to these portals the Pale Lady seems to be creating, who knows if he'll even survive the day."

That.

That very statement gave Dictatious a strong feeling he hadn't expected to feel for his brother any time soon past all the anger.

Apprehension. Fear. It hit him like a car out of nowhere, pulled at him so suddenly and so so powerfully.

Blinky could die today. The same troll that he had basically raised from a whelp, the same troll who spared his life, even saved it, the only actual family Dictatious has actually got, just... gone.

And what's the last conversation they'd have had? A stupid fight?

“Don’t- Don’t be ridiculous.” Dictatious rigidly avoided eye contact. “Blinkous won’t die.”

“You don’t know that.” Angor Rot then added, "But I suppose you wouldn't be one to care, since you almost put him in the afterlife yourself."

“No, that-“ Through gritted teeth, here Dictatious was, still trying to justify himself despite everything. “That… was circumstantial-“

“No, that…” Angor corrected, “was the act of a traitor.”

… Denying it was pointless.

But admitting it was something Dictatious refused to do. So he stayed silent.

Didn’t matter to Angor. He’s not the one emotionally invested in this mess. He just knows he’s got a point that this stubborn troll should hear.

"The sun is setting." Angor Rot pointed out. "We should return."

At Claire's house, a group of somewhat panicked trolls and teens were finally set at ease with a text from NotEnrique.

"He found them," Jim sighed in relief. "They're fine."

That would've been a mess, the two of them getting into trouble only the very second time they're left alone together.

"That's a relief..." Claire agreed, "but we're still no closer to figuring out what these portals mean!"

There had been a small one just moments earlier, enough to make someone nervous, but seemingly not dangerous. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. Just in case, Claire's family would be staying at the Lake household for the time being. They had lots of extra space now, what with the new wing they had built to house Changeling familiars until families were found for them.

"There has to be something we're missing, some sort of connection between Claire's house and the woods that we're not seeing..." Blinky rambled, writing furiously on the scribble-covered paper he had plastered all over the table, walls, and floors, "Think, Blinkous, think..."

"I hope we figure it out fast." Claire said. "It was bad enough the first time my house was infested with portals, I don't need that again."

On the side, Toby had been entertaining Aaarrrgghh, who had grown mentally tired from all this, with some magic. When Claire said that, however, Toby had a granddaddy of an epiphany.

I remembered that spot being where you guys were doing weird dark magic portal stuff with all those boxes.

It was bad enough the first time my house was infested with portals.

Portals. It's the portals from before!

Everyone looked Toby's way when he made the loudest gasp of realization. "Guuuuuuyyyyyys! I got it!" He jumped down from his spot, ecstatic. "Think about it! What does Claire's house, that specific part of the woods, and the Shadow Realm all have in common?"

It took them a second, but it finally dawned on Blinky and Claire.

"Of course!" Blinky exclaimed. "The answer was right in front of us!"

"How did we miss that?!" Claire added.

"Um. I'm still confused." Said Jim.

Toby turned to him with excitement of this revelation ready to share. "Dude!" He said, "That's the spot in the woods where we portalled all the Killahead Bridge pieces!"

Finally it dawned on Jim too, a third 'oh!' of realization sounding off when he thought of all the portals that had to be opened here when Morgana was possessing Claire. "So the connection is that they're both places where the Shadow Staff was used a bunch! What you're saying is, somehow She's... She's using the energy or something from those last portals to break through now?"

"Theoretically," Blinky started, sketching as he talked, "The power at which those last portals were generated was enough to tear a sort of rift between realms - ones that Morgana's using now to make these new ones."

"But why," Jim interrupted, "did that big one lead to the Darklands?"

The others all exchanged looks.

"Jim..." Claire said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder, "No one doubts that... that you thought you heard something, but-"

"I did! It was a Nyalgaroth, I know it!" Jim insisted. "I know what I heard!"

"I believe you," Toby said with a pat to his friend’s shoulder. "We'll figure it out, okay Jimbo? We always do!"

"Yes... But first, we have to work with what we do know. Former portal locations are rift points that Morgana's trying to punch through. We should monitor them closely, and write up a list of other places the staff has been used often, Claire."

"I can also ask Angor about that." Said Jim.

"Gyre," Aaarrrgghh suggested, the mention of the place a source of nervousness for them all, especially Claire.

"Yes, we should especially check there.” Agreed their four-armed friend. “Now then-"

"Uhh.... Blink?" Toby piped up, "NotEnrique passed on your message too, and... well..."

Rather than pass the message along, he felt it was better to just show Blinky, turning his phone to the troll.

What greeted him was a not-so-kindly worded message from his brother. NotEnrique was sure to send a follow-up text of ‘His words, not mine!’

Blinky sighed deeply with annoyance and a trace of disappointment.

Jim had checked the chat as well, with a frown aimed Blinky’s way. "Still haven't sorted things out with the guy, huh...?"

"Well, it'd be a lot easier if he weren't avoiding me like the bubonic plague!" The exasperated Blinky said. He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose in his frustration. "If he's going to be stubborn, then fine. I'm more worried about the problems at hand right now. Can we just stay focused on that?"

"... Okay..."

Blinky would talk to him, whether Dictatious liked it or not. His brother can't ignore him forever.

But their first order of business was getting to that Gyre station.

It was almost nightfall by the time Dictatious and Angor Rot got back to Toby's house. Stars had started to peek out from behind the trees, the faint songs of crickets creeping their way through bushes and leaves- But, they did not go inside the house right away - Angor had other plans.

"Where exactly are you going?" Dictatious said, wondering why they were walking around the giant mass that he was pretty sure was the house. "Is that not the house just there?"

"We're not going inside yet." Angor said, leading him around to the backyard. "There is something that needs to be taken care of."

"And what, pray tell, might that be?" Dictatious asked flatly.

"To put it bluntly? You."

Dictatious squinted. "... Is... that a threat?"

The hint of worry in his question was almost amusing to Angor.

"You cannot fight." Angor said up-front. "That won't be acceptable. You must learn."

At that Dictatious laughed.

Angor didn't.

"... You're serious?" Shocked, Dictatious gestured to himself. "Have you seen me?! I can't fight!"

"Can't or won't?"

"Oh my apologies, perhaps I wasn't being clear..." Then Dictatious shouted. "I AM BLIND! What do you expect me to do, bump into people until they're dead?!"

Angor snorted, stepping forward. "You are using your disability as an excuse." He snapped coldly. "If I am to be stuck with you for the time being, then you are going to learn how to defend yourself. We are up against an unpredictable enemy, and there will not always be someone there for you to hide behind."

Scoffing, Dictatious snapped back, "Sure, sure, because I would definitely be able to fight off the Pale Lady myself. No flaws in that logic."

"She has a way of collecting followers in unlikely places." Angor said, beginning to circle Dictatious. "You can never be sure when danger will strike. Even with the threats of Her return aside, a troll should always know how to defend themselves. You did know how to defend yourself when you could see, did you not?" Narrowing his eye, he continued, "Or did you hide behind Gunmar and his servants like you hide now?"

"I was an adviser to him! I'm a thinker, not a fighter!"

"A thinker, you say? Well then..."

The sharp, threatening noise of a knife being drawn from its sheath grated against Dictatious's ears.

"Think fast."

"What are you-"

He made a startled yelp when he was suddenly knocked off his feet. Dic scrambled to get back up, panicked now. "What was that for?!"

Angor's voice rumbled from a distance away. Dictatious tried to follow its changing directions as he spoke. "Land a hit on me." He demanded, "Show me you're not completely helpless."

Oh, as you command, Great One, why don't we whip up some fairy dust and make Aaarrrgghh fly while we're at it--

Dictatious's bitter thought process was cut short by another sharp blow from Angor Rot, knocking him back. Again and again, the assassin shot by him like a bullet, landing non-lethal hits in an attempt to fire Dictatious up.

He did not even try to fight back. He was more active about trying to dodge, Angor would give him that, but he couldn't even do that right.

This is going to take a lot of work.

"Four arms, and you cannot even throw one punch?" Angor gibed, knife twirling in his hand.

Dictatious was already short of breath, though that was mostly out of panic than actual exhaustion. "You expect the impossible of me! Nothing fruitful will come of this, you're wasting your time-"

It didn't surprise Dictatious when he was again cut off by an attack. The smaller troll yelped as he just managed to duck out of the way of Angor's swinging blade, though not without the loss of a few hairs on his head.

"You think this is challenging?" Angor Rot growled, prowling closer, "This is whelp's play. You should be handling this with ease."

“Well I’m sorry, Angor Rot, but I don’t quite remember the last time I was asked to strike a mastered assassin while having no visual capabilities!”

“Excuses.”

Angor moved in for another hit, but his voice had tipped Dictatious off well in time for him to avoid it. That aside, he still failed to strike back.

“And what business is it of yours anyways?!” Dictatious barked in his irritation. “What does it matter to you if I can fight or not?!”

“If I am to be keeping company with you, as the Trollhunter wishes…” Angor said, “… then you’d best know how to carry your own weight.” He made another slash, which Dictatious managed to avoid. “I don’t plan on fighting for two should we ever be caught in battle together.”

Swing. Miss. Swing. Hit.

This pattern went on for ages. Angor may have had the patience for this sort of tedious process, but Dictatious had lost his. He had barely recovered from what felt like a hundredth blow, and when he heard Angor move in for another, he just snapped.

Making no more moves to fuel this foolish back-and-forth, Dictatious instead threw up his arms instinctively to protect himself. “STOP IT!” He finally shouted.

And Angor did stop. He stopped and stared down at the weak husk before him.

"I can't do it!" Dictatious snarled. He shook his head, voice falling with the weight of his frustration "I cannot do what you ask of me..."

Departing from Angor’s chest was a low growl, dissatisfied with these results. His lone eye looked long upon the despondent troll with a kind of hollow pity one might give to a pathetic turtle turned on its back.

"... We will continue this tomorrow." Angor rumbled, the last words spoken between the two as he walked past Dictatious and to the house.

He may have been Gunmar’s right hand, but he is a weak link. Far weaker than Angor could have imagined. Too weak, even, to admit foolish mistakes to his own kin. Whether or not that could be changed would remain to be seen.

Dictatious gritted his teeth in frustration as he heard Angor leave, similar thoughts going through his own head.

What hope was there for someone who seems so unwilling to change?

Where does change even start for him?

… Where did change start for his brother…?

"Blinky! Wait up!"

Jim caught up to Blinky as he started climbing the crystal stairway, blue light illuminating each of the cavern’s features. Normally Blinky would welcome his company, but not right now.

"Master Jim, please. I'm in no mood to talk." Blinky said flatly. "Especially if it's about Dictatious."

"You sure?" Said Jim skeptically. "From my point of view, it really looks like you need to talk about Dictatious."

Maybe Jim was right, because it didn't take a lot of prompting to get him to start ranting.

"Can you believe him?!" Blinky exclaimed. "Tries to kill me, then goes around and gets mad that I defended myself! What kind of backwards nonsense is that?!" He went on. "Is he the one that spent centuries mourning, thinking the brother he loved and idolized was dead?! Is HE the one that had to deal with the utter betrayal thrown in his face like that?! NO!"

Jim nodded slowly as he listened, quiet for the most part. When Blinky broke from his ranting with a frustrated sigh, Jim took the opportunity to give his two cents. "Well, you are right..." Jim did agree, "... buuut… I can see why Dictatious is upset, too."

"What?!" Blinky said in disbelief. "How does he have any ground to be upset?!"

"C'mon, Blinky. Those books, they were like... his life, right? It's already got to sting that he'll never be able to write, or even read them anymore. Of course he'd want to preserve what he's already accomplished, he'll never be able to get it back once he loses it. And, I mean, it's not like those books have ever led us wrong. I can see why he'd think it's such a waste."

"But he-!" Blinky sighed again in frustration.

"Blink, you were right to defend yourself and Aaarrrgghh. No one can argue that.” Jim said, a fact clear and true. “But just... try to see things from his perspective, too. It's got to be hard on both of you.” With insight going strong for him, he added, “And besides, something tells me this is about more than just books.”

It's true. Blinky used the flare as self-defense. But who would enjoy living with the fact that you permanently blinded your brother?

"I know you miss him. The relationship you had before, and... he should be the one to apologize first, but… somebody has to be the bigger person, and I don’t think it’s going to be him."

Another sigh. Blinky gave Jim a wistful smile. "Since when did you become the mature one between us?" He joked hollowly.

"I learned from the best." Jim smiled back, the both of them at least able to share a small laugh.

"Come on, let's head back.” Jim offered. “You can talk to Dictatious when you're both ready."

The Gyre station showed no signs of anything out of the ordinary. It was devastated by the Eternal Night’s battles and earthquakes, just like most the rest of Trollmarket, but aside from that, everything seemed to be in order. It was quiet there. Almost… ominously so.

Toby’s suggestion was to leave some recording equipment there, to keep track of any strange activity that might show up, so that’s exactly what they did. What else was there to do?

Now, with all said and done in regards to portals today… It was time to take other matters into Blinky’s many hands…

It was the same door he and Aaarrrgghh had punched down at least twice before. Now, it seemed so daunting.

The children had already gone into the house, but Blinky kept pacing outside for the longest time. Dictatious would be inside too, because... well, where else would he be?

…. What would Blinky say to him? That’s what he was trying so hard to formulate… Would he even be able to get his brother to listen to him?

Well… nothing ventured, nothing gained…

Blinky took a deep breath, and reached for the back door handle.

What he didn't expect was for it to open before his hand even touched it. Much less expected was for him to see that the person now standing in the doorway was... his brother.

"Ah, Dictatious...!" Blinky started, surprised. "I was just going to search for you."

"Likewise."

Surprised, Blinky’s eyebrows shot up. "Wait... really?"

Blinky stepped back to give his brother room as he shuffled out the door. "I heard you wanted to talk." Dictatious said.

"Ah... well, yes..." Didn't expect him to actually comply so quickly... or, well, at all… “But where are you going?”

“Somewhere…” Dictatious’s ear twitched as he heard the teens inside laughing about something, “… quieter.”

The two of them walked in silence down the streets until they came across a park bench, of which Blinky suggested they take a seat at.

Now the hardest part would be saying what needs to be said… Blinky struggled to find the right words…

Dictatious, oddly enough, seemed preoccupied with squinting at the sky instead.

"Are there stars out tonight?" He said suddenly before Blinky could ask what he was doing. “Can’t tell…”

"Ah...” Blinky looked up too. “Yes, a few. Not very bright, though."

"Hmm...."

That’s right, his brother hadn’t properly seen a night sky since before his banishment, hadn’t he… Staring up at those tiny glimmering lights and his brother, Blinky was reminded of an old memory. He chuckled. "You know, I remember way back when we were young whelps, you used to tell me that the stars were pixies that played dead to trick everyone on the ground.”

Dictatious snorted, a grin crossing his face at the memory. "You used to stare at the stars for hours every night, waiting for one to move. Went ballistic the first time you saw a shooting star.” Both of them laughed. "You were always so gullible, weren't you? Didn’t you also believe me when I said it was possible to make Kairosects out of Gaggletacks?"

“Ha! Vendel had to drag me away from Rot-Gut’s more than once!” Blinky leaned back, more at ease now, still chuckling. "Ohh yes, you were always telling me falsities. How about that time you told me a bottle of Haggleroot Elixer was Glug?"

Now that got Dictatious bursting out with laughter. "I didn't- I didn't th-think you'd actually drink-" He broke down into a fit of giggles so bad he couldn’t even finish the sentence.

"Oh suuuure, it was so funny.” Blinky said in jest. “I had the voice of a Gnome for a month!"

At this point Dictatious was laughing so hard he started tearing up. "That's- That’s what m-made it so f-funny!"

Blinky couldn’t help but join in on the laughter again. Looking back, it was pretty funny.

So far, things were going well. Far better than Blinky ever expected they would.

When they both calmed down, things were quiet for a moment.

"... So..." Dictatious spoke up. "I assume you weren't seeking me out only to reminisce about old times."

Blinky sighed. "No... No, I didn't." He shook his head.

He didn't come here just to talk about their fight in the library either.

"... There's so much I want to say to you, Dictatious. So much I don't understand, about your choices, about our relationship, I just... What happened, Dictatious?” Blinky gave his brother an aching look. “I'd looked up to you my whole life, and when I thought I lost you, I..." He looked away. "... I just don't understand how you could've turned to the side of Gumm-Gumms, how it was so easy for you to just..." his voice was but a whisper with his last two words, "... leave me..."

"That's not true."

Again, Blinky looked to his brother, this time blank-faced.

Dictatious was quiet for a long while. Then, it was his turn to sigh. "It wasn't that easy, Blinkous. The first few years of banishment, I often found myself wondering how you were, if you were still even alive, and... happy." He fell quiet. "… Out of all the regrets I could've had back then about my decision, my only one was that I had left you alone."

"It was?" Blinky sounded more than just skeptical, he was in downright disbelief. "But in the Darklands, you-!"

"I know, I know." Dictatious cut him off, sighing again. "Those thoughts, they didn't stay with me long. Such personal connections held me down, kept me from dedicating my thoughts and energy to Gunmar's cause, it..." He paused, then chuckled weakly. "Ha... not that it matters now."

There's still so much Blinky doesn't understand about these choices. Did he really believe Gunmar was Trollkind's salvation. Does any part of him miss his place in the Underlord's ranks? What on earth was going through his head? He couldn’t even bring himself to ask those questions, for fear of knowing the answer. Blinky looked away.

"... Gunmar was the only thing I had in the Darklands, Blinkous." Dictatious continued, his voice rigid, determined to keep a strong hold on all his twisted justifications of his actions. "To disrespect him by letting such menial concerns hold me down, it would have been an insult. I... I suppose, somewhere along the line, I started to think of you as an insult. To everything I stood for." He scoffed, but mostly at himself. "You were loyal to your cause, and I was loyal to mine. I suppose that's all it really boils down to."

"It's not..." Blinky stopped that thought in its tracked and sighed. It was that simple to him, wasn't it... "Why, Dictatious...? Why would you follow him...? The brother I knew wouldn't have-"

"Blinkous, can we just..." Dictatious interrupted, sighing one more time. "... drop the politics for tonight. Lest we spoil the calm…"

Despite his lingering questions, that was a suggestion Blinky could get behind for tonight. He gave his brother’s shoulder a stiff pat.

Neither of them wanted to have to go through all this just to sully what had been an otherwise beneficial conversation with another fight.

Maybe Gunmar’s a discussion for another time, then.

The two went back to looking out among the sky, silent, but they actually found themselves just simply enjoying each other’s company for once.

"... I'm... sorry about your books, Dictatious." Blinky said. Dictatious looked at him, expression hard to discern, as he continued. "I looked up to you, to all the amazing work you'd done, but when I saw you working for him..." Blinky sighed. "... I couldn't see any of your work in the same way. Everything felt like such a... such a lie. I didn't want anything to do with you anymore. I know it was rash of me, that decision I made, I was just so... angry."

Dictatious's teeth clenched, then he shook his head and sighed. "It's... a justified reaction, I suppose.... like you said, it's not like I'm going to be reading them anymore..."

Blinky sighed too. One arm reached out to lightly pat the side of his brother's face, frowning at the sight of those damaged eyes. "I won't apologize for defending myself." Blinky said, straightforward and simple. "You would have killed me. I did what I had to. But... I do wish there could've been a better way to resolve this..."

Dictatious turned away after a few moments. "... I know..." He muttered.

They were greeted again by a stretch of silence, one they welcomed for a long time.

"... Well, I should be... getting back, to go over our findings from today before it gets too late..." Blinky said, getting up. "Coming?"

"Go ahead. I can find my own way back." Dictatious said, continuing to stare out into the sky, as if it were a thing he could see with the clearness of working eyes. He'd prefer to stay out here for a while. It's... surprisingly peaceful.

"Alright. I suppose I'll see you whenever I see you." Blinky said, turning away to head back and rambling as he left. "Busy days ahead. I think we're getting closer to figuring out these infernal portals!"

"Blinkous?" Dictatious called over suddenly.

Blinky stopped, looking back. "Yes?"

"Be..." Dictatious hesitated, voice lowering. "... Be careful."

That... came out of left field. Blinky raised an eyebrow, finding the sudden concern... odd... (he was furious just earlier today, now he's worried?) but reassured him still. "I will."

He went his own way.

Dictatious let out a breath, then looked back into the sky. For a second, he almost thought he could just barely see a star fall.

"Walt! Have you got the formulas ready?"

Feeding time was always hectic when you had 20+ babies to look after. Lucky for Walter and Barbara, many of the townspeople had offered to help out with the many infants that still hadn't found their original families, so it's still manageable... to some degree.

"More or less!" Strickler called back to Barbara from downstairs, a tray of bottles getting sorted by his practiced hands. He's basically gotten the hang of it now - formula warmed just above room temperature, all bottles labelled correctly, organic brand for Krax and Gladys, since they're allergic to the mainstream brand...

When he was sure he had everything in order, he carried the bottles upstairs to Barbara in one of the nursery rooms.

He opened the door to the sight of the radiant Dr. Lake, gently rocking a crying child back to calmness. She was an exquisite sight that Strickler loved more and more each time he saw her. When she heard him come in, she looked up and smiled.

"Why, thank you." Barbara grinned, pecking Strickler on the cheek as she took the tray from him. "You're getting quicker."

"But of course. A professional in history? Please! My true calling was mixing baby formula all along!" Strickler joked. Almost an instant later he started cooing and playing with one of the infants staring at him. Barbara smirked.

“And to think, you were worried you weren’t cut out for this.” She teased.

Strickler gave a small chuckle. “Well, when you’re handed a rock full of a thousand babies to handle…”

Barbara had just started feeding one of the babies when there was a sudden thumping coming from the front door. "Oh-" She hoisted the baby up, starting to head for the stairs, but Strickler beat her to it.

"Worry not, I can get it." He offered, Barbara showing him a smile of gratitude as he headed downstairs.

Whoever was at the door seemed really impatient - the way they thumped on it almost sounded like they were ready to break it down.

"Stricklander!" The voice outside called frantically. "Would you open up?! This is urgent!"

Was that... Zelda Nomura? Wasn't she supposed to be catching a flight to New York for a conference? She is one of Arcadia’s main representatives after all…

He opened the door with a confused look on his face. "Nomura? What seems to be the problem?"

The magenta-coloured Changeling looked frantic. "Where's my familiar?!" She demanded to know.

"Wh- Upstairs, obviously, it's not like she could go anywhere else- What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?!" Nomura shouted. "What's this?!"

Strickler's eyes went wide as he watched a familiar glow envelop his acquaintance, shifting her form from troll to human as naturally as a bird takes flight. His jaw dropped, unable to get any words out.

"I can't see her, Walter! I’ve performed Glimpse after Glimpse but no matter what mirror I spit on can't see her!" Nomura pushed past him into the house, repeating, "Where is she?!"

This can't be possible. With their familiars sharing the same realm as them now, this can't be possible...

Thoughts of those portals that had been appearing in Arcadia suddenly invaded his mind. Thoughts of Jim, saying he suspected some of them to lead to the Darklands-

Oh Deya, no.

Now both of them were in a panic. Strickler immediately rushed back upstairs, Nomura following close behind.

He made Barbara jump when he burst back into the nursery. "Nomy! Where's Nomy?!"

"Woah woah woah, where's the fire?!" Barbara questioned. "You'll freak out the kids!"

Strickler couldn't focus on that right now. He was hectically checking each crib for Nomura's familiar when Barbara stopped him.

"Hey." She said forcefully. "Nomy is right over there." She pointed at a crib near the window, which... indeed held the child.

Both Strickler and Nomura walked over to her, confused. She was just fine. Sleeping soundly, in fact.

"She's... fine." Strickler blankly observed. He looked at Nomura. "And you're...?"

"Uhm... Just fine..." She answered, equally confused.

"Anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Barbara asked, looking between the two of them with folded arms.

Strickler looked at Nomura, in her human flesh, no possible explanation coming to mind. Nomura struggled to find any sort of words.

"That's what I'd like to know..."

#trollhunters #trollhunters fanfic #angor rot #jim #dictatious #blinky #nomura #strickler #toby #claire #aaarrrgghh #notenrique #i've said 'portals' so many times in this chapter that the word just looks and sounds weird to me now #anyway this is me diving headfirst into the complexities that i wish were explored more in blinky and dic's relationship #like i get they didn't have much time to bother spending on that aspect of the show considering he was redeemed like mid-late season 3 but #i feel like their relationship would be a lot more complicated than what's been shown #ya feel?#but anyway #i like to imagine that nomura spent like twenty minutes just spitting all over reflective surfaces in a panic trying to see her familiar lol #a little bit of a calmer chapter despite its moments of panic #sorry for all the information-chucking #we'll get more breathing room in the next couple chapters #some well-deserved relaxation #.... for the most part.

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maxwellyjordan · 6 years ago

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Argument preview: Virginia racial gerrymandering case returns to Supreme Court

The issue of gerrymandering will be front and center at the Supreme Court in March. On March 26, the justices will tackle two of the highest-profile cases of the term, involving partisan gerrymandering – the idea that state officials went too far in considering politics when redistricting, by drawing maps that favor one political party at another’s expense. But first, on March 18, the justices will once again tackle another thorny issue: accusations of racial gerrymandering, the idea that legislators relied too much on race during redistricting.

The events giving rise to Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill began back in February 2011, when Virginia’s General Assembly received new data from the 2010 census and started to draw a new map for the state’s House of Delegates. The final map included 12 districts in which 55 percent of the voters were African-American.

The state legislature adopted the map, and Virginia’s governor approved it. At the time, because Virginia had a history of voting problems, it was also required by federal voting laws to obtain federal approval before changing its maps – a process known as “preclearance” – which it did.

But residents of those districts went to court, arguing that the districts were the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. In particular, the challengers alleged, African-American voters had been illegally packed into the districts, diluting their voting strength in nearby districts and making those districts more hospitable to Republicans.

The House of Delegates stepped in to defend the law, and a federal district court ruled against the challengers, who appealed to the Supreme Court. (Redistricting cases are among the small set of cases with an automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court.) In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the district court had applied the wrong legal standard to the challengers’ claims. The Supreme Court agreed that one of the 12 districts did not violate the Constitution, but it ordered the lower court to take another look, this time using the correct standard, at the other 11 districts.

When the district court reconsidered the case, the court found that race had been the main consideration used to draw each of the 11 remaining districts. Because the legislature had not shown that it needed to aim to have the same percentage of African-American adults in each of the “vastly dissimilar” 11 districts to comply with federal voting-rights laws, the district court concluded, the districts violate the Constitution. This time, the House of Delegates appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case last fall.

There are two main questions in the case. The first issue, which the justices asked both sides to brief, is whether the House of Delegates has a legal right to appeal – known as standing – to the Supreme Court. Because the state officials who were the defendants in the lawsuit did not appeal, the justices would not be able to decide the merits of the case if they determined that the legislature does not have standing.

Virginia Solicitor General Toby Heytens, representing the state officials, argues that the legislature does not have standing. Under state law, he tells the justices, the state’s attorney general – not the legislature – is responsible for representing the state. In this case, Heytens stresses, after several years of expensive litigation, the attorney general decided that the best course of action was not to appeal, but instead to move forward and come up with a new plan that fixes the problems before the 2019 election. Although the legislators may not agree with that decision, Heytens argues, they don’t have the legal power to override it.

The House of Delegates counters that the legislature both created the redistricting plan and defended it in the lower court. Indeed, the House of Delegates notes, the legislature – with the blessing of state officials – also defended the districts during the first round of litigation in the Supreme Court. For the state’s attorney general to argue now, after “years of sitting on the sidelines,” that only he can decide whether to appeal the lower court’s decision to the Supreme Court is “gamesmanship of the worst sort.”

But the challengers, along with the state officials and the federal government, push back. The fact that the legislature was allowed to defend the plan in the lower court does not mean that the legislature has a legal right to appeal to the Supreme Court. To enter the case, they argue, the legislature only needed to have an interest in the case. However, to have the right to appeal, the legislature needs to show an injury from the lower court’s ruling – which it can’t do.

From the House of Delegates’ perspective, it clearly been injured: The district court ordered it either to draw new maps quickly or to hand over the power to draw new maps to a court-appointed expert.

The challengers reject this argument. The legislature was not injured when the lower court struck down the map and ordered it to draw a new one, they contend; that is what “courts routinely do.” To the extent that the legislature is arguing that the court took over its role by having an expert draw the new map, they continue, the legislature has only itself to blame: The court gave the legislature a chance to draw a new map, but the legislature didn’t act.

The second question before the justices is whether the 11 districts are indeed unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

Defending the 11 districts, the House of Delegates explained that when it drew the map, it was operating under “extraordinary time pressure.” Virginia holds its state elections in odd-numbered years, which means that the legislature only had about six weeks after the 2010 census data was released, in early 2011, to “analyze the data, receive public input, collect requests from incumbents, make countless discretionary decisions about how to conduct the map-drawing process, and then” actually draw the map – which needed to be approved by the legislature and the governor and precleared by DOJ in time for the 2011 elections.

The House of Delegates acknowledges that it considered race when it drew the districts at the heart of this case. Indeed, it notes, it had to do so, because the Voting Rights Act prohibited Virginia from changing its map unless the state could show that the new map wouldn’t make it more difficult for minority voters to elect the candidate of their choice. Therefore, the legislature explains, it set a target of 55-percent African-American voters in all 11 districts to maintain similar levels in the majority-minority districts “that were already above or near that number” – allowing it to comply with both the VRA and “traditional districting criteria.” Therefore, the legislature stresses, although race was a factor, it was not the primary consideration.

Even if race had been the primary consideration, however, the legislature continues, the map is still constitutional as long as the legislature had a good reason to believe that the VRA required it to consider race. This, the legislature asserts, allows it to avoid a Catch-22 scenario, in which a map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander if it puts too many minority voters in a district, but violates the VRA if it puts too few minority voters there.

In this case, the legislature adds, there were good reasons for the legislature to think that each district should be made up of over 50 percent African-American voters, because almost all the districts already had similar populations; under the VRA, the legislature needed to avoid drawing lines that would lower that rate. And even if it arguably could have used a slightly lower target, the legislature suggests, it is enough that it believed in good faith that it was required to use that number to comply with the VRA.

The legislature launches a broader attack on the district court’s decision striking down the 11 districts, calling it a “clear threat to the core sovereign function of redistricting” that “all but eliminates what little breathing room legislatures have to balance the competing demands of the VRA and the Constitution.” Race will inevitably play a role in redistricting, the legislature emphasizes. The only question is “how race should be used, and who should consider it in drawing maps—popularly-elected and politically-accountable legislators or Article III courts and out-of-state special masters.”

The federal government backs the challengers in arguing that the legislature should not be allowed to appeal. However, it tells the justices that if the Supreme Court does reach the merits, it should send the case back for another look because the district court “again failed to perform a holistic analysis of each individual district.” For example, the government observes, the district court attributed “across-the-board significance” to the legislature’s target of having 55 percent of the voters in each district be African-American, without looking at what effect that threshold actually had on a particular district’s boundaries.

The challengers defend the lower court’s decision striking down the 11 districts as “a straightforward application” of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. There is no dispute, they say, that the lines for the districts were drawn with an eye toward guaranteeing that at least 55 percent of each district’s voters would be African-American. Getting to that target was “no easy feat,” they posit; instead, the legislature was required to put aside traditional redistricting criteria and divide up the residents of cities, towns and “even a military base” by race to achieve its goal.

Because race was a primary factor motivating the maps for the 11 districts, the challengers continue, the only way to demonstrate that the legislature had good reason to believe that it was required to use race to comply with the VRA was by showing that it looked into the need to do so, based on the conditions in each district. But the district court in this case found that the legislature had not conducted any analysis at all to determine what percentage of African-American voters each district would have to contain to comply with the VRA.

More generally, the challengers dismiss the legislature’s arguments as excuses, reiterating that “states cannot pass legislation for predominantly racial reasons merely because of the press of time.” And the legislature cannot fail to investigate what percentage of African-American voters was appropriate to comply with the VRA, assume that all 11 districts are alike and then ask for the Supreme Court’s blessing. Such a rule, the challengers say, would be exactly contrary to the Supreme Court’s voting-rights cases.

Even as the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral argument on the constitutionality of the current maps next week, efforts to create a new map for the 2019 elections, with the help of a court-appointed expert, are moving forward in the lower court. In January, the Supreme Court rejected the legislators’ request to put those proceedings on hold until it issues its decision – which will likely come in May or June. Meanwhile, the state is scheduled to hold its primary elections in June, with the general election to follow in November.

This post was first published at Howe on the Court.

The post Argument preview: Virginia racial gerrymandering case returns to Supreme Court appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

from Law https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/03/argument-preview-virginia-racial-gerrymandering-case-returns-to-supreme-court/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#law #justice

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wholelotofdeku · 7 years ago

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Undertale - For Your 2nd Birthday

Undertale

Ah, I remember the days when I didn't really look into Undertale and disregarded it as another game surrounding the others which was about you killing enemies to save the princess or something, mostly because the very first part I saw of Undertale was the Sans fight, lol. But hooooo, the moment I actually went into it, man, did the everything explode in my face XD. I know it’s very late since Undertale's 2nd Birthday was a while ago, but I wanted to start out 2018 with just some of my thoughts on Undertale and a little something else you’ll find out in the end. Anyway, let’s get started.....

Honestly, Undertale has changed my life, despite only being in my life for only about a year or so. But just that much is enough to make me want to keep the fandom alive throughout the many years of my life. I truly love this game and it’s fandom, even if there are some dark and lusty AU's and AT's out there, *cough* Underlust, Undertail, Fontcest, Sanscest, Papycest, etc. *cough*, but even if that stuff is completely off of the original story, it does bring people into the fandom, surprisingly XD. My experience with the actual Undertale game isn’t very neat since I haven’t played the game myself and only watch most of the big boss battles in all three routes but don’t really pay attention to the small stuff in the game, but I do still love it all. I honestly only look to the boss battles because I want to experience the game itself with the rest of the story since the bosses are what most people care about. But, anyway, Undertale has impacted me and my life more than any other fandom, even topping Warriors and Naruto which were the fandoms I was previously, and still kinda, into! And I was a nerd for those fandoms! I created thousands of cats and stories for Warriors, and although I didn’t for Naruto, I couldn’t stop myself from watching the series over and over again, except for Banana Tree (Boruto). Honestly, I’ve dedicated more of my time and art on Undertale than when I drew Pokémon and Warriors a few years back! But enough of my past for now. Undertale may be a game, but like people say about the game: the game has real world meanings and real world consequences but in a game fashion since we don’t exactly see skeletons with magical powers to summon bones, animal-like skulls, or shift gravity on us. The game teaches us that our decisions impact the future, and each decision can lead to a good future or bad future. Undertale tells us that games aren’t just shooting zombies during an apocalypse and saving your true love, but it tells us that anything can make us see how the world works, whether we like it or not. We see that the human, us, makes decisions to either spare or kill monsters who appear and confront our character. It’s just like in a real world setting, such as when you encounter another person or animal, you have a variety of choices to choose from to determine your future and each decision counts.

The True Pacifist Route, this route is nothing but sparing and befriending every monster in the Underground, and in the end, leading to Asriel Dreemurr's battle. This route shows that if we keep striving, good things are to happen if we keep staying determined. But this also means that we must face the problems of life head on and refuse to give up unlike the other two routes. I don’t know much about this route specifically, so, I’ll just say that the True Pacifist Route is the path that most of us would want for our real lives so we can be successful yet, be strong enough to stand up for ourselves and others in the face of danger.

The Neutral Route, sure there’s sparing in this too, but there is some dusting of monsters within this route. I personally think that this is the path most people go in real life since sometimes, they just have things they can’t control and act out before they think it out. I don’t know much about this one either, but, I guess this route could show that being you if you’re not really nice or really mean can still lead to good things. It is you after all and no one should change that.

The Genocide Route, now this is the one that I know the most out of the three. The route of killing every monster in your path in cold-blood and leading to the final battle with my favorite character, Sans. I think this route shows the most lesson relatable in life than the others. I believe that this route, once you finish it and end up with Chara, it shows that your actions will have consequences, whether you like it or not, karma will come back and hit you. I personally believe in karma, and I believe that this is what comes at you when you finally defeat Sans and are forced to either erase the world or not to but end up being forced to by Chara. I personally don’t like it when people are just really happy and excited when they defeat Sans because, in a way, he’s the last line of defense for the Underground. It’s like, when I hear and watch people just say that "God dammit! That fight was fucking ridiculous! Finally, Sans is dead!", I get so irritated because you’re basically killing for glory and fun by the time you defeat Sans! He tries so hard to kill you and even tries to persuade you to go back, RESET, and start over and go onto a new route! Yet, he’s struck down mercilessly. I personally see that when people strike down Sans and are happy that he’s dead, they’ve become the true MONSTER (eh, get it? XD I’m stupid as hell). Anyway, he gives up his life to basically protect his home and all of his dead friends homes as well! And to fail, that is more painful than death itself. Sans went through all that suffering, in my opinion, by having to watch all of his friends and all of monster kind be killed, even his own brother, Papyrus, who he clearly loves dearly. There’s the reason as to why he’s the Judge in all three routes when you go into Judgement Hall, because he’s the only one who knows and remembers the RESETs and yet, he doesn’t kill you right away, even if that isn’t part of the game. But in a realistic setting, he doesn’t kill you right away because he in hoping that you, the human, give them all a happy ending by going onto the Surface World and bringing the monster and human race together. Sure, the other monsters such as Undyne and Mettaton step in your path during this route to stop you, but they are originally stronger than Sans. Everyone who knows Undertale knows that Sans is the character with the lowest stats with 1 HP, 1 ATK, and 1 DEF. When we first play without any outside influence, we don’t expect Sans to be the final and hardest boss in the entire game, but that’s because we judge a book by its cover! Almost all gamers always aim for the character with the highest stats, strongest strengths, and most overpowered abilities and attacks, we don’t pay any attention to the lower ones and disregard them as just items and tools, like in Naruto with the Jinchuriki's and their Tailed Beasts. It’s not surprising to see that Sans is the final boss and the hardest boss in the game. Most of our minds want us to go for the one with the most pros that help in specific situations such as strength, speed, defense, health, etc. and some could care less about the information of the character and their significance in the game and their role in the story. Toby wouldn’t have put in someone as weak as Sans in the game as one of the main characters that you encounter in each route towards the end of the game just because, most likely, Sans could’ve been a minor character for all we know, but, Toby changes that by making Sans seem weak and pointless at first, but swing back with karma and a lot of freakin anger and knowledge at the end of the Genocide Route.

I don’t wanna say too much so, I’m just gonna end with this; Undertale is a game that many people will remember even as they grow up, if they really pay attention to each character, the story, the game concepts and content, and most of all, the overall meaning to each ending. Undertale is a game that I will personally love for the rest of my life, and I hope that it keeps living on throughout the coming years. Toby truly made a masterpiece with this beloved game.

-Sanz

Also! To start out the year of 2018, ignore the fact that it’s in the beginning of February XD, I also wanna say a bit about what is going on with my username change. Just a little bit before I end this.

I had so much fun as Ask-Bluestar14, I even remember the first asks I did with Bluestar many months ago, and I miss it when life was a bit easier and I could draw more often. So, I will always love Ask-Bluestar14, but I think that it’s time to shed my old skin and form another new, colorful skin as my new self here on DeviantArt. I will never forget how much happiness and friends I made and had throughout the times with Ask-Bluestar14, and I hope to continue this with my new username and self. So, I just wanted to say this before I change to my new username and most likely, my permanent username from now on. I will never stop loving you, Ask-Bluestar14, and you’ll always be in my heart and SOUL through the happy, sad, and tough times ahead. See ya, Ask-Bluestar14, you’ll be honored and remembered forever through the new. You may take a rest now, I’ll be here for you still, and I always will be.

Stay DETERMINED, Ask-Bluestar14!

-Sanz

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disrepairhouse · 4 years ago

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::Return - Chapter 6

The world was covered in darkness. Nothing, as far as the eye could see.

The air was thick, heavy. The ground gave way with every step, requiring more and more energy to get through. Her voice disappeared into the void with every call and nothing ever responded. Darkness covered every square inch, so consuming that she couldn’t make out her own body. As she muddled her way through the thick atmosphere, little blips of deep red flashed in the distance. She didn’t know what they were, but they gave her a heading. Something to move towards.

The ground sank more, the air grew hotter, and it became harder to breathe, but the blips were still there. As she drew closer, they took shape. Vague at first, they slowly formed into small, flashing boxes. They looked strange, like they both had form yet didn’t. Their colors made no sense and emitted a light that only illuminated themselves. But it was better than the darkness, and so she pushed forward.

The boxes grew in number, but never size. She couldn’t tell if they were close or far away and they stretched for miles. Finally, a noise, the first one she’d heard. A voice. Garbled and incomprehensible, but deep and echoing. She didn’t recognize it but it meant she wasn’t alone. She trudged forward.

The boxes flashed and warped, grew and shrank, were everywhere and nowhere. They were ahead of her and then behind her. The voice remained silent again and she no longer knew which direction to travel. The darkness was as all-consuming as ever and she questioned if she had made any real progress at all.

Just as soon as she was about to give up, the boxes surrounded her, then blipped out of existence again. The voice spoke up. This time it was clearer, though there were no words. Only a laugh. As her head swam and she questioned her sanity, a figure appeared, huge and looming, directly in front of her. Misshapen and metallic with a bright red and yellow eye glowing in the center, staring directly at her-

Itara darted up out of bed with a gasp, looking around the dimly glowing room frantically, clutching the sheets with crystallized claws as the purple and green of her eyes swam back and forth. It took several minutes of heavy panting and reassurance before she slowly calmed and let out a long, slow breath. Her head dropped, along with her ears, as the crystals around her fingers and the tips of her spines retreated again. “A dream…,” she sighed to herself and glanced around the room. There was no concept of day and night and thus she had no idea how long she’d slept, or even when she fell asleep in the first place now that she was thinking about it. She was in bed, back home, but she had no recollection of leaving the other base.

She recalled sitting and catching up with her friends for a long while. Once the explanation about her and the robots finally ended (her friends having no shortage of questions about it, as she expected) the conversations turned to the others and how they’d managed over the years. Itara and Simon explained that they’d been holed up in the base the entire time, never leaving until they contacted Sonic, but the other two had much different experiences. Itara had kept a silent eye on Sceira over the years, but only Sceira.

They discussed the festival and what they remembered of it, but it was a topic dropped quickly, Simon and Sceira both visibly uncomfortable with the memory, though Itara assured them she’d forgiven them long ago. Afterwards, the conversation moved to how everyone got to the current base, during which Sceira explained that her dad was actually a Freedom Fighter years ago, a fact he’d kept hidden from even her for some time. But when everything started, he brought her and her mother to a Freedom Fighter base where he finally let on about his past. Itara figured he had to be something of that ilk when he caught on to Metal Sonic so quickly.

Sceira and her family had mostly been in the same place the entire time, but they’d lost her mother during one of the few times they’d been run out by a collapse. They’d been at the current base the longest. Tobi, on the other hand, had mostly been surviving by bouncing around the area alone. He’d been separated from his parents during the festival and never managed to find them again, even after returning home. It wasn’t until Sceira’s father happened upon him during an outing that he was brought to the current base.

After a while of talking with her friends, though, Itara went to check in on Metal and RK, to make sure they weren’t causing problems and get an update on Shadow and Zero. She moved up to RK’s shoulders to get a better view of the room and… oh. That must have been when she fell asleep. She looked up from the blankets again to look around and listen, but the house was quiet. Far quieter than she was used to. No clattering or clanking of dishes, no snoring, none of Simon’s yammering, or even passive-aggressive fights between Lynda and Kelly. Was she possibly still dreaming? With a quick pinch to her arm and a wince, she determined that she was, in fact, awake. But with that confirmed, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and dropped to the floor to search for the others. The silence, like her dream, was uncomfortable but at least she could see her surroundings and her own arms.

But what was the meaning of the dream this time? That wasn’t Mephiles or Iblis or even Solaris. It certainly wasn’t Gaia or Chaos. What were those cubes? She didn’t recognize anything in the dream at all. Maybe it was just a dream for once. Normally such vivid dreams were heavily connected to her father, whenever she could remember such detail after waking up it was meant as a warning. But perhaps it was just stress from the coming event and state of the world. Even she could get stress dreams, after all.

She shook her head and looked around the empty living room where she and Ned had been sleeping for the past eight years – she’d offered her room to Lynda and Simon – the empty kitchen, the empty spare bedroom Mira and Kelly had taken up. No one was around. Why? She headed to the basement door and called out for RK and Metal but the lack of response put her further on edge. She was almost afraid to go down but took a deep breath and descended. Her concern was quickly dissuaded as she saw all three robots hooked up to the charging cells and in standby. They were still there, they were just charging. How long ago did they come home, though?

Well, they would reactivate when they were ready. The house was empty for the first time in years, maybe she should take advantage of the quiet. She looked up towards the stairs, then back at the desk – at the black notebook beside the keyboard and the red gem sitting on top of it. She really could use someone to talk to right now. With a sigh, she walked over and picked the gem and journal up, returning to the stairs and continuing to the kitchen. No one was around to stop her from getting into the food, at least.

She set the book on the dining table and tucked the gem into her pocket again, “I don’t know if you can even hear anything right now or not, Kipper, but things have been a little crazy again lately and I miss having you to talk to.” She climbed up on the counter to get into the cupboards, knowing there were some snacks packed away into the back, “I had a really strange dream that I have no idea what it means for once. There was nothing familiar about it so I don’t know if I should take it as a warning or disregard it as a stress dream. Not that I’d even know what to take the warning about in the first place, I suppose. I’m about to spend a lengthy amount of time with Shadow of all people here soon, so I guess it makes sense I’m stressed out. Sonic is one thing, he’s annoying but he’s mostly harmless, aside from bad memories. Shadow, though…” She trailed off, frowning, “Shadow remembers Mephiles now. He remembers me. If I’m not careful, he’d be all too easy to set off.”

There was a packet of old cookies at the back of the cupboard. But as she turned around to munch on them, sitting at the counter surrounded by the hot glow of a world on fire, she couldn’t help but remember the original timeline. When RK and Kipper showed up after Shadow nearly killed her, when she so foolishly protected Mephiles. It was the first time she met Iblis. Technically the first time she met Shadow. She was supposed to die that day. If it hadn’t been for RK and Kipper, if Mephiles got his way, she would have died in the original timeline and Mephiles would have had her shard of his power back. She wouldn’t have a second chance at existence, never would have seen the world as it was supposed to be, never got to experience everything she has since the reset.

She glanced down at the stale, crumbling cookies in the package. Kipper brought her a little bag of stale cookies then. While she was recovering from the attack. She couldn’t help but smile a little and pat the pocket with the gem, “You’re a troublemaker, but I liked having you around for as long as I did, Kipper.” With that out there, she returned to her cookies to debate the dream again, explaining it in as much detail as she could to the silent ghost, hoping to spark some sort of realization if she verbalized it. She didn’t get far, though, as she was out of cookie crumbs long before she made any sense of the dream images.

-----

The pages of her journal were still blank. Itara flipped through the book, particularly the last half, one more time before closing it and putting it in the small backpack. Whatever happened today, she would be flying as blind as everyone else again. Luckily, she’d gotten used to that by now. In a way, it was almost comforting. With the backpack filled and zipped up, she pulled it on and walked out of the bedroom to the living room where the three robots were waiting, some more impatiently than others.

Metal Sonic was bouncing from foot to foot, Zero had his arms crossed by the door, and RK was waiting just outside the bedroom, ready and waiting to check over her. “You sure you have everything you need?” he questioned as he knelt down to let her climb up to his back.

“Yep.” She patted the pocket with Kipper’s gem to make sure it was still there and got comfortable against the tall, fluffy, pirate robot. “You all got enough of a charge?” Short nods around the room and they were all out the door, headed back to the base where everyone else was waiting. As eager as Metal was to finally get back into action, she and RK were more wary of the situation. Zero was as unreadable as ever. They were only going to be investigating the area, though, they wouldn’t be making any active decisions until they knew what exactly the anomaly was. The only thing to be wary about was the possibility of Dark Gaia appearing… and Shadow’s mood.

Itara gave a quiet sigh of resignation as the other base appeared on the horizon. She didn’t want to be near Shadow, especially not mostly alone, but there wasn’t much choice. They would all be connected over a comm unit at least, so if anything did go wrong she could alert RK or Metal, but it didn’t put her at much ease. Metal was fast, but Shadow wouldn’t give much warning if she pushed him the wrong way, either. Plus, there would still be some monsters in the area. That was the purpose of the others running point around the perimeter, but there was no telling what may happen. The fact that every time she tried to check further in the day, her portals sidelined her back to the present wasn’t helping, either. She’d been able to check shorter and shorter times in the future for the past few days, but now she couldn’t even get five minutes. They would need to take extra precautions.

They met up with Mira and Kelly outside the base, having to deal with a brief panic from the hedgehog parents about their sudden disappearance last night, before moving inside. Apparently RK and Metal didn’t inform anyone that they were leaving when they did and it caused Mira no shortage of fury. Luckily, Itara managed to talk him down again so they could get back to what was important. The group continued down the halls in silence until they once again entered the office to the usual faces. Tails and Knuckles were going over a list of precautions while Sonic was attempting to hold Amy off. Espio leaned against a box on the nearby wall with his eyes closed while Vex seemed to be pumping himself up for the coming mission. Rouge was doing maintenance on Omega towards the back of the room… but Shadow was nowhere to be seen. Itara scanned the room a couple more times, thinking maybe he was just hiding, but after not seeing him, she turned her attention to Tails and Knuckles, who noticed their appearance first.

“Where’s Shadow?” The rest of the room’s eyes fell on them.

Tails sighed in exasperation and explained, “He already took off. He said he would meet us there and refused to wait.” Itara rolled her eyes but to say she was surprised in any way, shape, or form would be an outright lie. “We shouldn’t take long catching up, though.”

Itara nodded and the group as a whole collected around the console in the middle of the room. They discussed and debated groupings and who would cover what area. Metal and Zero were the most difficult to get on the same page, both insisting they could work just fine alone, but while RK eventually convinced Metal to just pair up with him, Zero remained persistent. Luckily, Itara was already used to dealing with him and Metal and the other group was used to Shadow, so they were able to work around the collective stubbornness and get a plan figured out.

Itara and Tails would head for the center to meet up with Shadow while RK and Metal would cover the southern perimeter, near Gaia’s crater. Sonic and Knuckles would cover the north, to keep as much distance between them and the robots as possible. Espio and Vex would cover the west, while Rouge and Omega handled the east. Amy elected to stay behind to keep at least one fighter at the base in case anything came their way while everyone was out. Monsters still roamed free across the area and while the base was as secure as it could be, there was still the occasional attack. Mira also opted to remain in the console room with Amy should they need any technical support from the base. Kelly tried to convince the others to let her join, but Mira ultimately convinced her she was needed at the base more. In case there was anything Amy couldn’t handle alone, Kelly would be sufficient backup.

The final addition gave Sonic a minor hint of relief that only Tails seemed to pick up on and thus said nothing about it. Despite his constant insistence otherwise, he knew full well Sonic’s feelings towards Amy and the idea that she would be defending the base alone worried him, though he still wouldn’t admit it out loud. With the situation handled, everyone went through final preparations and headed out of the base. Amy and Kelly followed them to the door, Amy commanding that everyone double-check that their comm units were synced up before letting them outside the gate. RK, Metal, and Zero opened a second connection to sync to the groups instead of allowing them on their main connection line.

“Be safe, okay? If anything gets dangerous, come back, alright?” Amy practically pleaded as they geared up to leave.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Sonic grinned, exchanging glances with Knuckles before taking off. Amy watched the trail of dust behind him while Knuckles huffed at being left behind. He nodded to the group then took off after the blue speedster. Espio, Vex, Rouge, and Omega weren’t far behind and Zero was gone before anyone had a chance to even ask where he’d be. Kelly gave Itara a final pat on the head before following Amy back inside, leaving RK, Metal, Itara, and Tails remaining at the gate.

“We’ll follow you to the center before continuing south,” RK stated in a no-argument tone and crouched down to let Itara onto his back again. Tails watched them warily but nodded and motioned for them to lead the way. He’d talked with Sonic the night before about the robots, mostly boiling down to Sonic being absolutely sure they were still up to something and warning Tails to keep an eye on them. He would do so, but something about at least Metal Knuckles’ mannerisms said he had less to worry about than he initially thought. Metal Sonic on the other hand…

They took off, following the directions Itara gave them the night before mostly in silence. Metal kept darting ahead and slowing down to let them catch up again but RK kept at pace with Tails, despite knowing he could keep up with Metal easily enough. Metal tossed a menacing grin Tails’ way every so often, but otherwise said nothing, but RK kept his focus ahead of him and on the little girl on his back.

After some time, Tails could no longer resist and questioned, “Did you alter Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles’ loyalty chips to serve you instead?”

RK only glanced at him but Itara sighed rather dramatically, “Why does everyone keep asking me that?! No! I didn’t alter their loyalty chips! Metal’s couldn’t even be altered if I’d wanted to, it was too advanced.”

“Was? Then… why…?”

“I just repaired them, that’s all,” she explained, “well, I repaired RK. I dug him out of a destroyed base years ago and his systems were so badly damaged he could only run in emergency mode for a long time. His loyalty chip was equally damaged so we just cut it off completely. Metal was trickier but after the first fight with Solaris he was in an even worse state so we were able to disable his chip. They’ve both been running on rogue AI since.” She heard a scoff and looked ahead of them to see Metal Sonic running just ahead of them again, “Don’t give me that look.” She looked at Tails again and pointed to Metal’s clearly mismatched robotic arm and explained, “That’s why one arm is all robotics with no covering, he didn’t have an arm for a while. That one was made by someone else.”

“Yeah, sure, let’s just tell the fox everything, shall we?” Metal growled.

“What’s he gonna do if he knows, anyway?” Itara questioned, “You’re working fine now, it’s not like either of you are in a vulnerable state anymore.”

“So then… why are they working for you?” Tails repeated after a moment of concern, watching the scowl spread across Metal’s face.

“We work for no one,” Metal hissed, glaring at the two-tailed fox, “A time traveler is just useful to have around, that’s all.”

“We’ve gotten attached,” RK corrected, getting the blunt force of Metal’s fury in the process, which only got a smirk from the robotic echidna.

“Speak for yourself, Momma Bear.”

“Don’t lie, Metal, you care about her just as much as I do. Otherwise you would have abandoned her in Spagonia.”

Metal went silent, glaring at all three of them before his gaze fixed outwards, struggling for a response. Eventually, he scoffed and raced ahead again, leaving RK to silently laugh at him. Itara had gone equally silent during the conversation and half hid behind RK’s quills. Tails, however, watched the interaction with a heavy dose of confusion. The last any of them had seen of the robotic counterparts, they’d tried to kill all three of them. To see them arguing so amusedly over a little hedgehog girl was hard to grasp. But it did at least put him slightly more at ease about being alone with the robots. He had a feeling they weren’t up to anything beyond what they actually said. It was strange, but comforting.

The rest of the run was silent and they found Shadow easily enough where they expected to. Metal was nearby, tapping his foot impatiently, when RK ran up and let Itara down from his back. Tails flew in close behind and landed closer to Shadow to explain what he’d missed at the meeting and double check that he knew what needed to be done. Once Itara was firmly on her feet again, RK knelt down to look over her and ensure she could get ahold of him or Metal should she need them. Shadow and Tails watched silently from afar as the red robot obsessed a bit over the little girl, who assured him multiple times that she would be fine.

“RK. It’s fine. Really. If anything happens, Shadow can take care of it and if there’s anything he can’t handle for some reason, Metal can be here in seconds. Not to mention everyone else running around the area. This is what we’ve been waiting for, I’m sure of it.”

“C’mon, Momma Bear, she’ll be fine,” Metal urged as he walked over, impatient as ever, “Let’s go secure that perimeter. And fight something.”

RK frowned and stood up, looking warily between Itara and Shadow before sighing, “Fine… fine. Just, be careful.”

“I will be.”

RK hesitated a moment before kneeling again and wrapped his arms around the little hedgehog, catching her off-guard. She stammered a moment before going silent and hugging him back. He stood up again, nodded to Metal, and they were off. Itara watched after them until they were out of sight, a bit red in the face, then turned back to Shadow and Tails. Her face only burned further when she saw the looks of disbelief and stuttered and stammered her way over, “Sh-shut up… Let’s get busy!” The other two exchanged glances before following after.

The energy in the area was so strangely chaotic that it was hard even for Itara and Shadow to make heads or tails of where it came from. As they headed inward, combing the inner forest in as much of a back-and-forth pattern as they could manage, the forest seemed to constantly shift around them. It wasn’t dense by any means, especially being entirely burnt down, the trees were thin and branches were sparse, yet they never seemed to find the other side. Once they got far enough, check-ins from the other groups stopped coming and Tails’ virtual map became nothing but static. They had no choice but to follow Itara and Shadow’s gauge about where the energy was strongest.

A monster or two would appear, seemingly out of nowhere, the further they went. While it was no problem for Shadow, it hardly seemed aware of itself, let alone them, it only served to put the three further on edge about the possibility of being jumped. Tails could mostly handle himself and Shadow was plenty powerful, even without the Chaos Emeralds, but Itara was mostly defenseless. She had powers, but she was no fighter, and lighting the area on fire would be more hindering than helpful. Eventually, Itara stopped the group to look around.

“Tails, get the reader out,” she commanded, to which he quickly obliged. Much like the backpack Itara brought, Tails had his own bag stuffed full with the equipment they would likely need. Since they didn’t know for sure what they would be facing, they couldn’t be sure what exactly they would need, so he’d packed for a number of possibilities. While he did that, she turned to Shadow and questioned, “Does this area feel different to you?”

Shadow turned to her with the usual sharp gaze but looked out again and nodded, “Could this be it?”

“If it isn’t, it’s got to be close.”

But as soon as Tails had the thick, square mechanical reader out, the entire area seemed to bend. The hard ground softened, the trees warped sideways, and the air grew heavy and sickening. The wind rank of charcoal and a light pulse radiated through the air, subtle at first but grew stronger and more frequent. They struggled to stay standing as the ground beneath them rumbled and swayed and a stabbing pain shot through both Itara and Shadow’s heads, sending Itara to her knees but got little more than a wince from Shadow. Itara reached up with both hands to try and stabilize her head while Shadow trudged over to Tails and his devices to start the reader as the fox was all but incapacitated by the swimming atmosphere.

The device clicked to life and the ground shook, sending all three of them and a number of trees toppling, a screech of pain echoed around, followed by a radical beeping from the reader. With a heavy thud, a monstrous amalgamation of molten Biter and oozing Nightmare dropped behind them, its echoing scream of pain and confusion and rage piercing their flattened ears. Itara yelped in horror as she struggled to escape the creature’s claws as it lashed out at the nearest moving object.

The beast clipped her leg but she managed to scramble away from it, Tails was near to passing out, though, and Shadow was struggling to stay upright. The monster raved and bucked around wildly, its two sides battling for control of its one, melded body, sending it barreling forward. Itara ducked as it rolled directly over her towards Shadow, its four differently sized feet stumbling over themselves as Shadow dove out of the way at the last second. The monster crashed head-first into a tree just beyond them but hardly reacted and only bucked and brayed around in circles until it caught sight of them again with its three malformed eyes. Shadow squared up to face it but Itara could do nothing but try to crawl out of its sight while pressing wildly at the comm unit to call anyone for help.

The creature rushed Shadow again, getting a shoe to the face for the effort, which sent it crashing off to the side. But much the same as the tree, it hardly registered the hit. Itara screeched into the comm unit, getting no response, unsure if anyone was even getting their calls while Shadow scowled at the monster that jumped back to its feet and rushed him again. However, before it could reach him, a flash of bright, neon blue lit through the creature, sending it crashing back to the ground in halves before him. Shadow turned his scowl to the much taller robot, but had no time to argue about the kill as the world crumbled again and another pulse of energy brought him to his knee.

Itara reached for her head but another quake rumbled through the earth. The ground cracked and crumbled and seemed to tilt sideways as a much louder boom tore through the air around them, followed by a sudden, shining light that seemed to materialize right in front of them before surging up. Itara and Zero followed the trail of light, their eyes narrowing as two figures appeared within, their focus far above them.

Sonic?

But with another pulse, the figures disappeared and their attention was drawn back to the earth as the boom became a furious roar. A thick purple fog rolled in and long, ethereal purple tendrils snaked out around them. Itara couldn’t focus on anything Shadow was saying as she struggled to not roll down the newly created incline. She crawled over to a tree to prop herself up against it to try and see what was going on, but once she stopped panicking, she easily recognized the tendrils surrounding them. The towering, glowing purple body of Dark Gaia rose far up above them and the several, furious green eyes almost seemed to hone in directly on the small group.

Yet the worst was yet to come. The entire area heated up to the point that more dead trees burst into flame. The fires spread quickly, but it wasn’t the light of the fire that burnt through Gaia’s fog or which finally dragged Gaia’s attention off the group below. Every ounce of color and certainty drained from Itara’s entire being as the light from before changed and shifted to become the golden light of Solaris.

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ll-again · 7 years ago

Text

Molly’s Type

Well, I’ve been writing intoxicated!lock so much, I thought Molly deserved a turn.

Sherlock stepped into the pub just as a rousing cheer went up among the patrons. Ignoring them, he glanced around the small seating area of the ignominiously named 'Fox and Hound'. Not finding the face he was seeking, a frown furrowed his brow with a duel bout of annoyance and concern.

"There you are."

That was not the voice he'd expected, but it was familiar, and Sherlock looked down into the face of the Indian woman who was Molly's particular friend. "Ah. Hello, um…"

She huffed. "Meena? We've met like eight times, for fuck’s sake. I just texted you."

"Right. Sorry," Sherlock said. He really hadn't read the signature on the text instructing him to come to the pub. "Molly's in the loo, then?"

"Molly," Meena said, pointing at the clump of rowdy patrons, "is over there." She hefted her purse strap higher on her shoulder. "Right, I'm off. I only stayed to make sure that Molly didn't go home with Olaf Petersen. She's just drunk enough to do something that stupid."

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably on his feet, staring at the crowd. He couldn't pick Molly out in the press of people, although he did determine that they were congregated around a smallish table.

"Well, he's a nice sort, I suppose. Bit dim, but that's Molly's type, isn't it?" Meena leaned in, jabbing him sharply in the arm with her finger. "Whatever you did, Holmes, fix it."

Sherlock winced and rubbed his arm, more out of guilt than pain.

"Bye now!" Meena said, flouncing off with a sarcastic wave.

Girding his loins, Sherlock picked his way through the pub to the most crowed and raucous part of it. As he'd feared, when he drew near he found that Molly was not among the onlookers, but was in fact sitting at the table across from a blonde man, both of them chugging a pint to the cheers and jeers of everyone watching.

"Ha!" Molly shouted, finishing first and balancing her empty pint glass upside down on her head.

The blond man – Olaf Petersen – burped most unbecomingly, and then slid bonelessly out of his chair, crumpling onto the floor. Sherlock, looking down at him, realized he knew the man. He worked in Barts' cafeteria and always gave Molly extra sausages so she would smile at him.

Sherlock hated Olaf Petersen.

The crowd was losing it, thrilled that the petite woman had out drunk a man at least three stone heavier than her. Sherlock scowled at another man who ventured too close to Molly, stopping him with an iron hand around his wrist. "Yes," he said loudly. "You have your winner. And now it's time for her to go home."

"Oh, hello," Molly said, drunkenly fluttering her lashes at him. She was swaying in her chair, and Sherlock dreaded getting her on her feet. "You look like my ex-boyfriend."

The crowd had largely dispersed now that the entertainment was over, but the few left lingering chuckled.

"Ex-fiance, axshully. We almost got married. He was nice. A bit dim. But that's just my type," Molly babbled. "He has a coat like that. An' your hair... no, he cut it. You look just like him." She blinked at him earnestly. "But, you're prettier."

Sherlock sighed. "Yes, thank you, Molly."

"Oh!" she grinned. "That's my name!"

"I know," Sherlock said, unable to stop his lips from quirking into a fond smile. He bent down, holding out a hand. "Come on. Let's get you home."

She leaned away from him, nearly toppling off the chair but catching herself with a hand on the table. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm waiting for my boyfriend."

He rubbed his hand over his face. "I'm your boyfriend, Molly."

"Noooo," she said, giggling. "No way."

"Is there a problem here?"

Sherlock glanced over at the man – sober, apron tied around his waist; clearly the owner of this establishment. He would have been gratified for his intervention under other circumstances, but at the moment, Sherlock just wanted to get Molly home with a minimum of fuss.

"No, of course not," he said with exaggerated patience. "She's just very drunk."

Molly chose that moment to take offense at his tone. "My boyfriend is coming to get me," she said to the publican. "Meena texted him."

"Right. Sir," he said to Sherlock. "Obviously, she doesn't want to go with you."

Sherlock threw up his hands. "Molly, tell the nice man that I am your boyfriend before he calls the cops."

Molly perked up. "I know lots of cops," she told the bartender, in confidence, loudly enough for most of the pub to hear. "I work at Barts. With the dead people."

The bartender smiled congenially at Molly and turned to Sherlock with far less humor. "Sir, you know I can't let you take her home."

Sherlock carefully stretched his mouth into a smile, albeit a pained one. "For the love of … I am Sherlock Holmes," he said, gritting his teeth for his next words. "Perhaps you don't recognize me without the hat."

"I believe in Sherlock Holmes!" Molly shouted, throwing one arm in the air for emphasis and leaning too far backwards, which toppled her right off her chair.

The bar hooted while Sherlock and the bartender winced, both of them crouching down to check on Molly. Luckily, it seemed she hadn't managed to hit her head, but Sherlock curled a hand around her skull to check anyway.

"Wow, you're gorgeous," Molly said with wide-eyed wonder as he leaned in. "I wish I had a boyfriend like you."

"And what's wrong with the one you have?" Sherlock said, mildly affronted.

Molly tried to whisper in his ear, but bumped her forehead against his temple. "He's a bit of a git."

Sherlock stood, helping her back into her chair. "I'm sure he's very sorry." An idea popped into his head, and he added, "Maybe you should call him. See what's taking him so long?"

"Oh no," Molly shook her head, regretted it, and made a face. "He prefers to text."

"Even so, I think he'll take your call."

It took Molly a moment of fumbling, but she did find the button for the phone app, jabbing at it until Sherlock's phone started to ring in response. He held it out to the bartender so he could see Molly's sunny face on the screen.

"I'll call you a cab," he said, blatantly relieved to have this sorted.

"Thank you," Sherlock replied with absolute sincerity, and answered his phone. "Molly, I'm right here."

"Oh!" she said, looking up at him, her own phone pressed to her ear. "You're my boyfriend!"

…

Molly moaned as she came awake, and the bed dipped in response. Warm lips pressed briefly against her pounding temple, before being replaced with a cool cloth.

"Morning. How do you feel?"

Molly pressed the flannel over her eyes. "Eurgh."

"As I expected," Sherlock said, pressing something to her lips. "Open up."

Molly parted her mouth to let him pop the painkillers in. Sherlock wrapped her free hand around a glass of water and she took a few sips, enough to swallow the pills anyway, before her stomach rebelled and she pushed the glass back at him. He took it away and stretched out on the bed next to her.

Gingerly, the flannel still plastered to her face, she rolled towards him. Sherlock removed the flannel, lifting her hair and folding it against the back of her neck instead, so she could lay her head on his shoulder without getting him wet. She hummed contentedly as Sherlock's arm slipped around her waist. "What happened last night?"

He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "You were so pissed you didn’t recognize me. Then you compared me to Tom, just about convinced the publican to have me arrested as a sexual predator, and insisted that I wasn’t enough of a git, therefore couldn’t possibly be your boyfriend. Then, when you realized I was, you started crying. Very noisily, by the way."

Molly winced. "Out of joy, surely?"

"No idea. I had to tell the cabbie your cat just died. Pretty sure he thought you were being kidnapped."

Just the thought of getting up made her head throb, but Molly still had to ask, "Where is Toby?"

"Fed him. He's sleeping on the radiator." Sherlock's fingers danced over her shoulder. "Oh, also, you won your contest against the sausage man."

"The who..? Oh, you mean Olaf. Poor guy. I told him he didn't stand a chance. So did Meena." Molly rubbed her cheek against Sherlock's nearly washed to bits t-shirt. "What did I win?"

"Free drinks." And the git had the gall to chuckle when Molly groaned unhappily. Although he did slide a soothing hand down her arm and back up, digging his fingers into the perpetually tense spot on her shoulder. Molly melted against him.

They lay quietly for a minute, until Sherlock ventured to ask, "Are we still fighting?"

"I hope not," Molly said. "I hate when we’re fighting." Her head throbbed, as if in agreement.

Sherlock shifted to press his cheek against her crown. "I am sorry, Molly."

"I know." She twisted her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. "I forgive you."

"Just like that?" Sherlock said.

"Yeah." Molly found the dip of his bellybutton with her thumb. Sherlock jerked slightly in response, and she hid a smile against his collarbone. "It happened. It's over. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

They already had, anyway. Quite loudly on both sides.

"It won't happen again." Although he didn't say as much, his words were tantamount to a promise.

"I know." Molly shifted so she could tilt her head back and look him in the eye. "That's why I forgive you."

Sherlock buffered for a bit, until he shook himself and decided to take the win, leaning closer to brush his lips against hers. Molly's nausea chose that moment to assert itself, and she had to break away, hunching over with a groan. "Ugh, sorry," she said. "Sorry. Tummy."

Sherlock groped for the flannel, flapping it a few times to cool it down and refolded it at the back of her neck. Molly pressed her forehead against his shoulder, breathing through her nose as the nausea started to subside.

"Better?" Sherlock asked. His fingers trailed lightly along her spine, wanting to provide her some comfort, but also wary of wrapping his arm around her again, lest she needed to make a dash for the loo.

"Yeah," Molly said with a sigh.

"There's toast, if you-"

"No," she interrupted emphatically. "Um. Maybe in a bit."

"Okay." Sherlock carefully settled his hand on her shoulder again.

Molly relaxed into a contradictory state of miserably hungover while blissfully secure in her boyfriend's arms. She'd very nearly dozed off when memory reared its ugly head. "I threw up on your coat, didn't I?"

"Mm-hm," Sherlock said, surprisingly cheerful about it. "My coat. My lap. Your hair. My hair – still trying to work out how you managed that."

"Oh no," Molly said weakly, burying her face in Sherlock's chest.

"All over the backseat of the cab, really. I tipped our driver a hundred quid. Seemed the thing to do," Sherlock continued, stroking her hair absently while Molly writhed in embarrassment. "He said he'd never have guessed a little thing like you could hold so much liquid," Sherlock added with pride.

"I'm so sorry," Molly said, not daring to lift her head. "I'll pay you back. And for your dry cleaning."

"Not necessary," Sherlock said with his usual irritation any time she tried to pay for anything. (After they started dating, Molly had very quickly learned that the Holmes' were stupidly wealthy, which explained a lot, really.)

"Still…"

"Molly, it's fine," Sherlock said. "Anyway, I've rolled around in worse."

That was undoubtedly true.

"Go back to sleep," Sherlock rumbled gently, kissing the top of her head.

With her state of being tipping sharply towards the 'blissfully secure' end of the spectrum, Molly did just that.

#sherlolly #I wrote a thing #fic stuff #drunk!Molly #sober!lock #I know #that one shocked me too #if you get the Olaf Petersen reference then we are friends #that's just what's gonna happen #okay? okay #I dunno how I feel about this one but eh

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