#also i have not felt this kind of happiness in a long time

[c0n-fus3d]

𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝙻𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚜 𝙰 𝙱𝚘𝚢.

(Older!Powder x fem!reader)

I'm sorry but I finished ep 1 of act 3 and had to write this to get my emotions out about ekko and powder being a thing in an alternative reality bcz just RAHHHFHSHEHSHHS my gay ass is crying (no offense to the timebomb shippers, you do you!! If you like this that's cool💪💪) ENGLISH ISN'T MY NATIVE LANGUAGE, IF I MADE SOME SPELLING MISTAKES I'M SORRY ALSO SPOILERS FOR ACT 3!!

Warnings: uhhh just angst, mostly angst, this is for my girlies who might be feeling the same

༺ღ༒ ༺ღ༒ ༺ღ༒ ༒ღ༻

You've always liked Powder, every since you were kids, and still when you are teenagers.

Their was always something about her. The way she made the most creative inventions, the way she always seemed to have some sort of spark in her eyes. Her laugh, her hair, her eyes, it's hard for you to explain the feelings you have towards her.

You knew the way Vi's death was heavy on her, you could see that with the days, and soon years that came after. You we're always trying to be there to support her, make her feel a little better. You gave her space when she needed it, and we're there for her when she needed you the most.

And then there was Ekko.

You never hated Ekko, you 𝙙𝙤𝙣'𝙩 hate Ekko. he was a good guy, you got along with him. He was around Powder nearly just as much as you we're, maybe even a little more. When you were around Powder, he wouldn't take long to show up as well. You didn't mind.

But you couldn't deny that you we're jealous of him, of Ekko. The way he charmed his way into Powder's heart over the years. With his sketches, ideas, personality, kindness and understanding. You wanted what him and Powder had as if what you already had wasn't enough for you. You could see the way she looked at him, how 𝙝𝙚 looked at her the same way.

You often wished it was you instead of him. You try to forget about your jealousy, push it asside. You try to push your jealousy and selfishness asside, keep everything natural between you three. But it got harder and harder the more time went on.

Ekko has been acting strange recently, or at least that's what Powder told you. How he 'seems not to remember anything' and how he says these things about how in a dream her and Vi we're completely different. You noticed yourself too, how he was more around then usual. You assumed it was because of his project or whatever.

Now you find yourself here, on the dance floor in the last drop. Inventions around you everywhere as music and colorful lights fill the bar. You look into the crowd, trying to spot Powder. It took you a whole 5 minutes to finally spot her, but to no suprise, Ekko was there. On the dance floor, with her. Dancing together to the beat of the music like it was just the two of them. You tried to move your eyes away from the sight, let them be happy and together. But the jealousy ate you from the inside out, this all just left a bitter taste on your tongue. It all got so overwhelming so quickly, so you decide to leave the place before you explode and do something stupid.

So you decide to go out to Powder's little Hideout for now and go back once you've cooled down. You look at the massive invention across the room, stunned as fuck how they made this. You don't want to pay too much attention to it though, so you continue walking through the massive space before sitting down in front of the small memorial that Powder made for Vi.

You lighten the place up before just.. Sitting there. You sigh, looking at the picture sat on the desk. Vi always knew you had a thing for Powder, she always encouraged you to tell her how you felt. Whenever the situation was on your mind, you'd go here. You'd talk, like she was still there. Because to you, she was. To everyone, she still was. Now wasn't any different, you talked about what has been going on recently. With Ekko, Powder, and everything else.

"I just.. Don't know what to do, I know I'm supposed to be happy for them.. Ekko is a great guy, a-and if they become a thing, I'll be fine with it but.. Theirs this voice in the back of my mind that just doesn't seem to go away.." You groan, your head in your hands as you thought for a moment.

You knew you couldn't hide your feelings forever. If Powder wasn't going to feel the same way towards you, you might as well tell her what you've been feeling all this time. Just for an answer, a yes or a no. Anything. If she didn't feel anything as well then at least she'd know.

"I'll tell her, tonight. Like you always wanted me to do.. I'll.. I'll get this over with, okay? For you."

You found yourself walking back towards the last drop, but then you see Powder, going in the direction of what you knew to be the place where Vi always took her to. So you decided to follow.

If only you weren't blind enough to see Ekko walking along with her.

You climbed up to the place, heart racing in your chest as you tried to think about the things you could say. Your mind was running a million miles and you tried desperately to calm your nerves.

You we're finally gonna do it, you we're gonna tell her how you feel.

But just as you nearly reach the top, you see her. And Ekko.

Their kissing.

In front of your eyes.

Your heart dropped, hope that you knew was useless in the end shattered as you saw the image.

Wrong fucking timing. You stood there, frozen in time before quickly getting out of there. Trying to hold back the tears that we're threatening to fall.

She likes Ekko. She only likes Ekko. It was never you. Not in childhood, not in teenage years.

She likes a boy. That boy.

Your not that boy, and for now, you had to live with that.

You we're never going to being the one kissing her. It was always going to be him in the end.

[misspelledwordswizard]

I would love to see the chain react to reader from the atla universe or just one that uses bending in the same way? Just using bending unconsciously and freaking them all out because of it.

I love Atla, I loved writing this! I didn't know what kind of bending you were expecting, so I did waterbending, I hope you like it.

A notice about orders; I'm doing them in order, so if yours takes a little longer, it's probably because I'm working on others, but they'll all be done! And I'm very happy with them too, don't worry about it, you can send them, I'm loving your ideas.

It was a hot sunny day, so much so that Chain mutually agreed to take a break to go into the nearby river. It was a calm river with a small waterfall that made a pleasant noise in the environment. Wild and Wind were the first to jump in, excited as children, well, at least one of them was one. I couldn’t have been happier. You could say that the water is my territory, so on a day like this, being in cold water was paradise for me. 

Little by little, the others started to enter the river too. It was easy for them, they could just take off their tunics and equipment and get in, while I had to temporarily separate from the group to change and put on a bathing suit, but that was okay, it didn’t take long. Soon I was also entering the river to enjoy the sunny day. 

The cold water touched my body bringing a welcome feeling of relief, cooling my hot and sweaty skin, but this moment of peace was short-lived after I felt a wave of water hit me directly in the face, followed by the sound of childish laughter. That brat.  I imitated his attitude, pushing water with my hands towards him, hitting him with everything and stopping his laughter. The sailor still had the audacity to better himself with indignation, as if he hadn’t been the first to start. I could hear the others laughing in the background too, but they didn’t have the courage to get involved in this. Now it was war. 

Soon the area of the river where we were became a mess of water being splashed in all directions incessantly. Until I could feel a particularly strong attack coming from Wind, and instinctively wanted to retaliate even more. The movements so natural to me happened without me even being able to think about it, soon a small wave, but bigger than any I could generate with my bare hands, appeared next to me and went towards the Sailor, strong enough to make him stay underwater for a few seconds, raising his head in surprise and confusion right after. 

— Aha, I won! – I exclaimed excitedly, but my excitement died when I saw the lack of reaction not only from the sailor, but from all the boys. – What happened? Was I too harsh? 

— How did you do that?! – Wind was the first to speak, coming towards me excitedly. Only then did I understand my mistake. 

— Yeah, was that some kind of magic? – Wars asked, intrigued. 

— I’ve never heard of magic like that. – Hyrule replied, looking curious and suspicious at the same time. 

— Well, that’s because it’s not magic. – I replied, creating even more doubts in everyone, who remained silent waiting for me to continue. – You know, you may not know much about the place I come from, but there’s no magic there. On the other hand, there are people there who can have some control over one of the elements of nature, using specific movements. We’re called benders. 

Even when I tried to explain, they seemed terribly confused and incredulous.  Of course, they already knew I came from a different kind of world, and had somehow ended up here through a strange portal, but I’ve avoided talking about my home to them, precisely because I thought it might be too much for them to take in. Just as it has been for me. 

— So, you can simply control the elements of nature? – The Champion questioned, not very confident about it. 

— Not all of them, and we call it bending. There are four main types of bending, water, fire, earth and air. People who have this ability can only bend one of the four, with the exception of the Avatar. – I can’t tell if throwing all this information out was useful or just made the situation worse. 

— That’s cool! – Wind exclaimed. – Show me more, that’s really cool! 

— Well, that’s definitely interesting, could you demonstrate more of that? – Time asked, and I could tell he wanted to analyze it better. 

— Yeah, what do you normally use it for? – Twilight was the next to ask. 

— Well, waterbending can be used as a medicinal method, and each bending can be used for various everyday things, and for fighting. 

— You mean you could have used it to fight this whole time and you just chose not to?! – Legend seemed indignant at that. 

— Well... I already imagined it would be difficult to explain about this.  – I replied, while using my bending again as they had asked me to, making a large ball of water float over the river. 

— Cool. – Wild said. – Now that we know and you can use it, I’m sure it can be very useful. 

— Yeah, you said it has medicinal properties? That would be really good. – The Traveler questioned, receiving a positive answer from me. 

— Guys, you’re forgetting the main thing! – Wind said, getting everyone’s attention. – Have you thought about the games we can play with this? 

Everyone snorted at the boy’s childish answer, when we expected something a little more important than that. I was afraid to talk about it with them, but they ended up being much more understanding than I imagined. That’s good. 

— But I must admit that I’m very curious about this too. Can you show me other things you can do? You said there are four main bends, does that mean there are other smaller bends? – Sky asked excitedly, and everyone seemed as curious as he was about the subject. 

— Hey, this would be really useful for forging swords, can you help me next time I work on the Champion’s sword? – The blacksmith was the next to ask, which created a gap for a flood of different questions. 

— Can you close wounds? 

— What exactly would an “avatar” be? 

— How does earthbending work? 

— Can I be considered an airbender? 

— How do movements influence this? 

Soon, I was surrounded by curious blondes and being drowned in their curious questions. I think we’re going to spend a good amount of time on this subject. 

[freeabortionslol]

lake house bunny (jack hughes x bsf!reader)

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

summary: kinda love triangle (quinn hughes), bsfs to lovers, smut with plot, quinn's new gf tries to get under your skin by pushing you and jack tg, pining (from jack), reader uses the nickname 'bunny', trevor and cole are heavily incorporated in the plot (bc who doesn't love them) warnings!! NSFW, heated makeout, fingering, cursing, drinking, angst, use of the word 'slut', quinn being an asshole a/n: first time writing NSFW ahh! (pls don't judge if u think its bad. I tried.) this has been sitting in my drafts forever. this kinda fits in with the lake house gc (if you like this you should def read those in my master list) BUT it's not canon in the series. I tried my hardest to not make reader seem like a pick me girl but I fear she kind of is. let me preface by saying, I DO NOT CONDONE SLUT SHAMING!! just bc ur jealous doesn't mean you have a right to talk shit on the new girl. also, I can't stand people who hate on other people for 'being too nice' but reader DEFINITELY has her reasons to be suspicious. anyways, happy reading :) -mars wc: 9.6k

“This is disgusting.” you sat on the boat, arms crossed next to Jack as you glared over at Quinn and his new girlfriend, Adelaide. He was driving the boat with her perched in his lap. Her hands wrapped around him, while he had one on the wheel with the other on her thigh. Your blood boiled at the sight. All you could think of was how much you longed to be the one wrapped around him like you used to.

“Yeah, she’s a slut.” Jack whispered into your ear, eliciting a soft laugh from you. You and Jack had always shared a close bond, one that felt especially strong in the lake house. He was your rock, the one person you could always rely on. Jack knew since you were kids how much you liked Quinn, and he couldn’t help gaining a jealous eye when he saw the two of you together. You never knew how much he actually cared about you, as you were too wrapped up in trying to get Quinn to even just look at you. Since you were teenagers, it’s felt like a game. Quinn would give you the smallest amount of attention and flirtation, then he would ignore you. The cycle repeated throughout every summer at the lake house. You let your arms fall to your side, glancing over to Luke trying to surf the wakeboard as Trevor and Cole cheered him on. You turned your attention to your feet, trying not to look at the eye sore that sat at the wheel.

You sighed, glancing over to Jack who had moved his sunglasses to the top of his head. “You know the worst part is, she’s not a slut. She’s really nice and funny. I actually like her, and I want to hate her so bad.” Jack gave you an empathetic smile, and you couldn’t help but gaze back at the couple. You rested your elbows on your knees, letting your face fall into your hands as you stared. Jack hated seeing you in this state, and he hated his brother more for making you feel like this. He didn’t actually hate his brother, but he couldn’t help but let his anger take over when Quinn was messing with you like this. Jack sighed, looking over to his brother who was laughing with Adelaide, probably about something that wasn’t nearly as funny as the things you said. He looked back to you who had sad eyes as you watched the scene in front of you. 

Jack huffed his breath, causing you to turn your attention towards him. “Are you okay?” you asked softly, noticing the tension in his jaw as he turned to you, worry evident in his eyes.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” he replied, but you could tell he was anything but. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this.” Jack decided to do exactly what Jack Hughes was expected to do in the moment of his best friend’s misery. In a sudden burst of determination, he leaned over and pulled you into his lap, wrapping his arms around you in one swift motion.

“Jack, what are you doing?” You said with a soft smile, your body instinctively relaxing against him.

“Lifting your spirits.” He smiled, placing one hand on your back and the other on your thigh to pull you in closer. You moved one of your arms around his neck, your free hand landing on his bicep, grazing his bare skin with your thumb. The simple touch sent shivers through his body as he tried to keep himself content. You moved your head to look over to Quinn, but Jack grabbed your chin, shifting your gaze back to himself. “Don’t look at them. Look at me.” You graced him with a small half smile, as you leaned further into his touch. “Pretend I just said something funny.”

You rolled your eyes, your tone flat as you spoke. “Haha, Jack! You’re hilarious!” Jack cracked a smile and burst out laughing at your attempt to fake a laugh. Your laughs quickly went from fake to real in an instant. Jack blushed at the sound, pulling you in closer. The two of you carried on in conversation, laughing with each other, and you eventually found your head resting on his shoulder. You were being more touchy with him than normal, in an attempt to make Quinn jealous. Jack was fine with this, welcomed it even, but a part of him felt bad for playing into your vulnerability. While you were in the middle of animatedly telling Jack a story about work, Adelaide’s attention caught sight. She tilted her head and smiled, watching the two of you interact.

“They’re so cute together.” She remarked, drawing Quinn’s attention away from the water. He shifted his gaze, eyes darkening at the sight of you wrapped around his brother. He simply scoffed and returned his glare to the water, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was jealous watching the two of you touch each other like that. He was so used to having you follow him around like a puppy, he didn’t think about the consequences of bringing a girl to the lake house. He kept his eyes on the water trying his best not to look at the two of you, when he heard Adelaide's phone camera shutter.

“Did you just take a picture of them?” He asked, glancing over to her.

“Yeah, it’s just a cute photo. They’ll want it.” She brushed him off with her hand, pointing his sight back to the water.

“Okay. Just don’t post it or share it anywhere. They like to keep their personal lives private.” She agreed and the two of them went back to cuddling in the captain's chair. You were too wrapped up in Jack to even notice Quinn and Adelaide anymore. The two of you were laughing about old times, squeezed into each other. You couldn’t help but lean into the comfortable touch of Jack, who was holding you with such care. The way he rubbed his thumb against your skin and squeezed your thigh, made your body tingle in a way that it had never before. You and Jack were always touchy and affectionate with each other. It’s the kind of friendship you had, but it was never like this. This felt like Jack was being possessive, and you wouldn’t admit it, but you liked it. You noticed the way he would squeeze your thigh whenever he caught Quinn looking as if to say, “She’s mine. You can’t have her.” In his head, he thought no other man should be able to look at you on the boat like he did. He admired the way your skin shone from the sun under your baby blue bikini, the way your bun slightly tugged at your scalp when you laughed, and the way your cherry red lips smiled down at him when he said something cheeky. This beautifully painted picture was for him and him only. He wanted Quinn to know that. Even if he thought you were only doing this to get a rise out of Quinn, Jack looked at it as a distraction from the sadness of the situation for you. He felt a sense of protection over you from Quinn, being an audience member to your little routine every summer. He never wanted you to get hurt because even if he had deep feelings for you, you were still his best friend. 

As the sun began to set, Quinn pulled the boat into the dock. He and Adelaide stepped off first, hand in hand, with Luke and Trevor following close behind. Cole walked over to you and Jack who had coincidentally fallen asleep on each other. His grip on your waist was still tight as you rested your head on his shoulder. His head had fallen onto yours, mouth parted slightly as the two of you slept peacefully. You were both rudely awakened by the sound of Cole clapping his hands together in front of your faces.

“Rise and shine dickheads.” You slowly opened your eyes, blinking to adjust to the sudden light. Jack woke up beneath you, rubbing his eyes as he unwrapped his arms from around you. You quickly got back on your feet, Jack following behind you as you both lazily stepped off the boat. “Gotta stay alive for the party, princess.” Cole placed his hands on your shoulders, guiding you off the dock. Jack walked closely, ready to snatch you away from Cole’s grip in a millisecond. He noticed the way you covered your arms with your hands as goosebumps grew across your body, without a thought behind his eyes he immediately handed you his warm shirt that had been drying under the sun for hours. You sent him a gratitude filled smile as you slipped on the shirt, feeling instantly warmer. Jack didn’t stop there, he put his arm around your waist, pulling you close, subtly hinting to Cole that this wasn’t a friendly touch anymore. Jack was actually trying to reel you in like he said he’d do years ago. The three of you broke off into your separate rooms to begin getting ready for the annual party thrown by Jack and Quinn. You were dreading the party this year, having to be crammed in the basement surrounded by Quinn’s teammates, you were just thankful that some of the Devils would be there too. As you stepped into the shower, you let the warm water entrap your body, washing away the weight of the day. You stayed still for a second just letting the shower pour down on you, grateful that your horrible boat ride had come to an end. Watching her and Quinn felt worse than actual torture. It wasn’t even the fact that you had feelings for him, because if you were being honest they weren’t extremely strong, it was the fact that he could be so loving and good to her and not you. For years Quinn has led you on and brought you down over and over again, and here he is playing wife and husband with some bunny he met on a roadie. I must be the problem, you thought to yourself, and unfortunately that idea would stick. You exited the shower, slipping a towel over your frame, leaving the bathroom quickly. You entered the bedroom only to see Adelaide sitting at the vanity curling her hair and doing her makeup. You had completely forgotten that you had to share a room with her this summer, considering Ellen and Jim wouldn’t let couples share rooms in their lake house. It didn’t matter if you were adults, the rules were if you aren’t engaged or married, you can’t sleep together.

“Oh hey, Y/n!” She turned her attention from the mirror over to you in your towel. You simply waved to her wearing an awkward smile. She was really nice, almost too nice. “You and Jack looked really cute on the boat today.” 

“Thank you.” You mumbled, not knowing what else to say. You rushed to your dresser, pulling a pair of panties from the drawer before heading to the closet to grab your sundress. The silence was deafening and awkward. In her head, Adelaide wanted to talk to you, but she could sense your tenseness. You however, couldn’t speak to her. You were afraid that you would talk too much and accidentally let too much slip about you and Quinn, or maybe she would start talking about how great he was. That was bound to bring you to tears. You decided at that moment to exit the room, feeling uncomfortable undressing in front of her. Sure, she was a girl, but you barely knew her, and the thought of her judging you made your whole body cringe. You left the room, wrapped in your towel, walking through the halls until you made your way to Jack’s room. You knocked on it twice before hearing a faint ��Come in.” Pushing the door open, you found Jack, Cole, and Trevor sprawled out on the bed, their attention fixed on their phones. They were already dressed in their clothes for the party, and you couldn’t help but notice how sharp Jack looked in his fitted white polo and jeans, his hair slightly tousled. You stomped over to the bed, tossing your clothes onto the floor before flopping down on the edge next to Cole’s feet, resting your head against Jack���s thigh.

“What's got you down, Bunny?” Trevor asked, tearing his gaze from his screen.

You sighed dramatically, covering your face with your hands. “I hate her.” 

“Hate who?” Cole questioned, glancing over.

“Quinny’s new girlfriend.” Jack said, running a hand over your wet hair. “You don’t hate her, B. You told me yourself.”

“Ugh! But I want to!” You flopped your arms down in frustration. “It’s just so frustrating.” You sat up to face Jack, making sure your towel was securely wrapped around you. “Do you know how difficult it is to watch someone that's hurt you over and over again, treat some random person like she’s his wife right in front of you?”

Jack laughed, pulling your towel up to your chest that had slightly fallen down. “Can’t say that I have. Not the universal experience you think it is.” You rolled your eyes, pouting your lips slightly at Jack’s absence of understandment.

“Yeah, why don’t you go talk to Addy about it.” Trevor said her name mockingly which caused you to whip your head over to him.

“Say her name again.” You warned, squinting your eyes at him.

Trevor’s face flushed quickly as he tried to quickly pull himself from the situation “Addy.” He said normally.

“Nuh uh. That’s not how you said it!” You shifted your body closer to Trevor, now invading his space. “You don’t like her!” Trevor’s eyes widened in fear.

“T-that's not true. I like everyone! Everyone is my friend.” He let out a nervous laugh before widening his eyes again at the sight of your stare. You stared at him intimidatingly with a small smile, knowing he would eventually crack. “Fine! I don’t like her!” Trevor buried his face in his hands.

“Yes!” You exclaimed, throwing your arms up in triumph as groans emerged from Jack and Cole.

“Great going, Trev. Told you not to say anything.” Cole smacked the side of Trevor’s head.

“You’re just feeding into her delusions.” Jack huffed out.

“Well, you guys are both fine with her, I can’t stand her! Apparently, Bunny can’t either, so allies.” You gave Trevor a fist bump, earning more groans from the boys. “I-I can’t help it! She cornered me and talked about her new Dior makeup set for like an hour!”

You gasped in disbelief “She uses dior?” Trevor nodded his head with wide eyes. “That rich skank!” 

“Exactly! Then, she starts bragging to me about all the things Quinn buys her, like I'm supposed to be jealous. ME. TREVOR ZEGRAS.”

You let out a slight laugh, now lying against the headboard in between Trevor and Cole. “Oh my god. She sucks.”

“No, no, no, no.” Jack interjected. “Bunny, Trevor is filling your head with garbage.” Jack scoffed, sending Trevor a glare before turning his attention back to you. “You’re only saying this stuff because he’s giving you a reason. You know that when you start talking to her again, you’ll forget this conversation ever happened and you’ll be back to being sad because you like her so much.” You whipped your head back over to Jack, indignation written all over your face.

“You called her a slut on the boat!” You pointed at him, gasps escaping from Trevor and Cole.

“Wh- I Di- I was trying to make you feel better!” Jack whisper yelled. Cole shifted in his seat, becoming more interested in the conversation.

“Jacky doesn’t like her either!” Trevor began to laugh, causing a smug smile to wipe across your face. “Admit it, Hughes. You don’t like your big brother’s ‘slut’ girlfriend.” Trevor let out, moving closer to you on the bed.

“She just seems…” He sighed, trying to collect his thoughts. “Too good to be true. Like she’s too nice.” You clapped your hands together in excitement, sitting up in your seat.

“That’s exactly what I'm talking about! It seems fake!” You yelled.

Jack rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help chuckling. “Like, I handed her a drink from the cooler and she said ‘Thank you so much Jack! This is amazing. You’re the best ever.’ Who is that happy to drink a Whiteclaw?” He mocked her voice with a high-pitched tone. 

“She just seems too polished,” Trevor added, nodding his head. “Like she’s trying to win the girlfriend of the year award.” 

Cole leaned back tossing a glance at you “Yeah you wouldn’t catch her dead hanging out with us on the bed in a towel.” You shifted from your position off the bed, signaling the boys to cover their eyes so you could get changed. You turned around, dropping the towel before putting on your dress.

“No, I get it, Jack. She came up to me before we got on the boat, looked me up and down, and said ‘ugh I wish I had your confidence’” Several “oooh”s and hisses from the teeth emerged from the boys. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but looking back it was pretty backhanded.” You said, slipping the straps of your dress up to your shoulders.

“How do I look?” You asked, spinning around as the boys uncovered their eyes, jaws dropping at the sight of you in your checker-patterned red dress. Trevor let out a low whistle as Cole clapped his hands in approval. Jack's gaze lingered over you for a moment longer. His eyes tracing up and down the dress that he had bought you last year on your birthday, wanting nothing more than to rip it off. You walked back over to the bed and Jack quickly sat up, taking the hem of your dress in his hand.

“You look beautiful as always.” He sent you a smile that made your heart race in an instant. Cole and Trevor side exchanged knowing glances with a slight smirk at the interaction. You smiled down at him, ruffling his hair as your cheeks flushed.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

An hour into the party, things were finally starting to settle in. You had taken shot after shot, doing your best to forget about the simmering situation in front of you. Quinn and Adelaide were sitting on the couch, arms wrapped around each other as they talked to Elias and Brock. That used to be you. You loved those guys and you missed talking to them, but they were Quinn’s friends, not yours. You were too drunk to even care when Luke pulled you away from your glare to a clearer area of the room. Everything was a blur. You were all smiles and laughs as Luke pulled you closer to him to dance to Pink Pony Club. You were on aux of course, the boys knew it was the only way you would have it. Luke had one hand on his beer and the other on yours as he spun you around. You laughed gracefully as you flopped against him while he jumped around. He set his beer on the table next to him, taking both your hands in his as he moved your arms back and forth. He stuck his tongue out as he jumped, moving closer as you laughed, leaning into him.

“Hey! is that girl looking at us?” He yelled into your ear, picking his beer up from the table.

You looked over your shoulder to see a small brunette girl who was eyeing Luke as she took a sip of her drink.

“Yeah.” You yelled back, a smile growing across your face at Luke’s excitement. “Go get em’ Lukey!” You pushed him away, towards the girl. He immediately got flustered and whatever drunk confidence he had, had suddenly left his body entirely as he went to speak to her. You laughed at the interaction and made your way towards the kitchen, settling yourself next to Nico the moment you caught sight of him. You hopped onto the counter, Nico having to spot you with his hands as you stumbled. You grabbed the side of his head, pulling his ear close to your lips.

“Grab me another drink?” You asked loudly. Nico turned to face you, laughing at your eyes that were lazily falling closed.

He placed a hand on your shoulder, trying to give you some sense of reality. “How about a water?” You grinned wide and nodded your head slowly at him. He smiled and walked off to get you a glass. You stayed on the counter, letting your gaze fall to Quinn and Adelaide yet again. They were standing in a circle, his arms wrapped around her as she chatted with Bella Boeser. You had always been good friends with Bella at social events like these. The two of you would manage to find each other and chat in a corner while Quinn and Brock were off entertaining their friends. It occurred to you in that moment, Bella hadn’t come up to you at all tonight. She seemed much more interested in Adelaide and her attempts at kindness. You felt a wave of sadness wash over you as you realized that this girl was quite literally taking everyone from you. 

“Stop gawking over the Canucks.” Nico walked up, handing you the water before draping an arm around your shoulders. “Being a Devils girl is way better.” You laughed at what you assumed to be an attempt at flirtation, but you were very wrong. “You're lucky your boyfriend is on our team and not theirs.” You nearly spit out the water in your mouth, turning your head to Nico with a stern look.

“Boyfriend? W-what? I don’t have one of those.” You said softly, worry filling your eyes.

“Wait, wait what? You and Jack aren’t-”

“No, why would you think that?” You cut him off loudly, playing with your necklace anxiously. Nico looked at you with wide eyes, tilting his head to the side.

“Uh- the post. I thought it was like a hard launch or something. Doesn’t look too friendly to me.” He laughed. Your eyes grew wider in fear, your mouth parting slightly as your heart beat faster.

Your grip on your necklace tightened as fear struck through your entire body. “Nico, w-what the hell are you talking about? What post?” Nico motioned towards your phone that sat on the counter next to you. You quickly picked it up, handing it over to him after unlocking it. Nico scrolled, and you bit your lip nervously, growing anxious to know what he was talking about. He handed the phone back to you, letting your eyes fall to a clear picture of you sitting on Jack’s lap laughing on the boat, his hands wrapped around your body. You stared down at the screen, heart racing as the realization sank in. The photo was up there for the world to see, one that you don’t even remember taking. Jack's arms wrapped around you, looking too comfortable to be “just friends”. You turned your attention to the top of the screen, seeing that it was Adelaide who posted the photo. Your blood boiled over your anxiety filled body, knowing that it was common knowledge that you and Jack preferred your personal lives to be private. “I-I-I gotta go. Thank you for the water.” You hopped off the counter, leaving your cup next to Nico. You quickly made your way through the swarm of people that filled the basement, looking for Jack. You pushed your way through the crowd, ignoring the curious stares and whispers. Your pulse was thundering through your ears as you made your way to the far side of the basement, where you last saw Jack. Finally, you spotted him leaning against the wall with Jesper and Curtis, laughing and entirely oblivious to the picture Adelaide posted. 

“Jack” You called out, his smile faltering at the sight of your facial expression.

“What's up?” He asked, moving away from his friends to meet you halfway. You didn’t waste any time. You grabbed his hand and dragged him up the stairs. He didn’t know what was going on, but he could sense your worry so he followed you immediately. You made your way through the upstairs hall until you finally made it to his room. You pushed him inside, quickly shutting the door behind you.

“Bunny, what’s going on?” Holding up your phone, you shoved it into his hand so he could see Adelaide’s post. His face shifted through a range of emotions. Confusion, surprise, and finally a hint of frustration. He ran a hand through his hair, sighing deeply, as he planted himself on the edge of the bed. “Are you kidding me? She posted this?” He groaned.

You nodded, crossing your arms. “And now everyone is going to think we’re together. Nico already thought you were my boyfriend.” A hint of sadness behind your voice.

“There is something wrong with that woman.” Jack huffed out, rubbing his neck. You sat down next to him, holding his arm and leaning your head on his shoulder. He leaned into your touch, placing his head on top of yours. “I’m so sorry. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Before you could respond, there was a knock on the door. The two of you turned and the door opened slightly before Trevor and Cole poked their heads inside, their faces a mix of curiosity and amusement. 

“You two good in here?” Trevor asked, eyebrows raised as he looked between the two of you.

“Can we get five minutes without the two of you barging in?” Jack rolled his eyes as Trevor and Cole settled themselves in the room, shutting the door behind them.

“Five minutes, huh? That’s all you need?” Cole grinned, leaning against the wall.

Jack groaned, throwing his hands up “Seriously, dude?” Trevor made his way over to Jack, leaning over his shoulder to see the phone. He squinted his eyes slightly, trying to get a better look.

You looked up at Trevor, letting go of Jack’s arm. His eyes were wide and his mouth gaped open as he looked at the phone. “Holy shit.”

“What? What is it?” Cole asked, pushing himself from the wall to get a good look. He took the phone from Jack’s hand, pulling it closer to his eyes. “Oh my god. Did you even know she took this?” You shook your head, biting your lip ever so slightly. Jack huffed his breath, standing up to face Cole and Trevor. 

“This is bullshit.” He said, taking the phone from Cole’s hand. “I’m gonna talk to Quinn.” Jack started making his way to the door before you quickly stepped in front of him, placing a hand on his chest. You could feel his heavy breaths, the way his chest moved up and down in a pattern you’d never seen before. 

“No, wait,” You said, your voice quiet. “Let me talk to her first. I’m sure she just didn’t know, let���s not throw her under the bus.” You looked up at Jack with pleading eyes, taking your phone from his hand. 

Behind you, Trevor crossed his arms as he shook his head. “Don’t defend her-”

“I’m not defending her.” You cut him off, your voice raising slightly. “I-I’m just saying, let’s not snitch. Let me talk to her, woman to woman. I’m sure she’ll take it down.” Jack let out a heavy sigh, stepping back slightly to silently give you permission to talk to her. You nodded your head, glancing over to Trevor and Cole with a small smile before making your way out of the room. You didn’t realize how drunk you truly were until you started making your way down the hall. The adrenaline of seeing the post had sobered you up, but only for a split second. You stumbled your way down the stairs, your grip on the railing firm as the room began to spin around you. You stood at the bottom step, scanning the basement for Adelaide. You finally found her standing by the kitchen counter, her blonde hair now tied in a low bun to reveal her gorgeous collarbone. You pouted slightly, seeing how perfect she looked knowing that you were a hot, drunk mess. You made your way towards her, repeating affirmations to yourself as you built up your confidence. When you reached her, a smile grew across her face almost immediately. 

“Hey, Y/n!” She exclaimed, her tone happy. “I haven’t seen you all night.” You sent her a sheepish smile, anxiously playing with your necklace again.

You brushed a piece of hair behind your ear, trying to find that confidence you were meant to have. “I know! It’s so crazy in here.” You let out a forced laugh, trying to hide your nervousness, which she mirrored quickly. “Listen, I gotta talk to you about something.” She tilted her head, sending you a closed mouthed smile as she reached for her drink. She took a sip, silently waiting for you to speak. “This um…this picture you posted of me and Jack. I-I know you mean well, but we do like to keep that part of our lives private.”

Adelaide placed her drink on the counter, her eyes widening as she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” You let out a sigh of relief and a teeth-showing smile at her response. 

“It is totally fine.” You said, letting out a relieving laugh. “Just, with the media it’s kind of hard.”

She nodded her head, gracing you with a smile. “I totally understand that.” Your smile grew wider, wondering why this was so hard for you to do in the first place.

“Yeah, so if you could just take it down-”

“Oh, no.” She cut you off. Your smile quickly faded as you stared at her. Her fake smile still plastered on her face. 

You let out a nervous laugh, gripping onto your necklace. “I-I…uh.” You paused, clearing your throat. “What?”

She picked her drink back up, raising her eyebrows. “It looks good on my instagram. Plus, you and Jack look super cute. Don’t stress it.” She laughed, letting her grin go wide. “There’s so many pictures of you and Quinn on the internet, so what’s one with Jack?” She shrugged her shoulders passive aggressively as she walked away into the crowd. You were left standing there in pure shock. Your mouth dropped, your arms falling limp to your side as you tried to process what just happened. The tension in your chest tightened as her words replayed in your mind. The dismissiveness, the fake sweetness masking her clear intentions, it hit you like a gut punch. You were rooted to your spot, staring at where she’d disappeared in the crowd. Your fingers still toyed with your necklace, a nervous habit you couldn’t seem to shake. She was jealous. You’d never even thought of the idea that maybe Adelaide would be a little shaken up by staying in the house with her boyfriend’s childhood fling. You assumed Quinn kept his mouth shut about the two of you, considering he never cared about you that much. What did he tell her? What could he have possibly said to her that would make her want to put you and Jack on blast to the internet? 

Suddenly, you felt a pair of hands land on your shoulders. “How’d it go?” You heard Cole’s voice shout through your ear, but still not enough to knock you from your state. You couldn’t even move to look at him, your gaze centered on the crowd.

“I-um…” You cleared your throat. “She said no.” You said flatly. 

Cole moved his head closer to yours, glancing at you with a side eye. “No?” You knocked yourself out of your daze, turning fully to face him. 

“She’s jealous.” You said quietly, leaning in closer so he could hear you. “Said there’s so many photos of me and Quinn, so why not have one with Jack.” Cole’s mouth gaped open in shock, no one expecting her to say no. He was speechless, unaware of what to say in this moment. Out of the corner of your eye, you spotted Jack walking closer, a stern expression on his face. You let out a sigh of defeat, waiting for him to walk over.

Jack could sense the tension as he stared between you and Cole. “What happened?” He asked, the sentence coming out more as a statement than a question. You crossed your arms, your fingers digging into your sides as you glanced at Cole. He still looked too stunned to speak, his mouth opening and closing like he was trying to find words that just wouldn’t come. Jack’s gaze didn’t waver from you, his brow furrowed in concern as he waited for your answer.

“She said no,” You finally said, your voice flat and devoid of emotion. You clenched your jaw, betraying your anger that simmered just below the surface. 

Jack blinked, his confusion quickly shifting to irritation. “She what?”

“She’s jealous.” Cole interrupted, his words finally making their way out. “She’s using you to show people that Bunny’s with you and not Quinn…I think?” Jack stared at you for a moment, processing what Cole just said. Then he muttered a curse under his breath, running a hand through his hair as he turned slightly away, his frustration evident in every movement. “Unbelievable.”

“Hey, guys!” Quinn yelled from the couch, turning down the music. You clenched your jaw at the sound, watching Trevor walk up behind Cole. “Come over here with us.” You scanned the couch seeing Adelaide, Quinn, Brock, and Bella all squished onto the couch. Nico and Jesper sat next to each other on the floor while Elias sat across from them. Luke pranced his way to the big chair, pulling the brunette from earlier down with him. You bit the inside of your cheek, not knowing what to do at this moment. 

“What’d I miss?” You heard Trevor whisper into Cole’s ear. 

“Not good.” Cole mumbled back.

You jolted slightly at the feel of Jack’s hand intertwining with yours. He took a sip from his beer bottle before pulling you to the living area with him, Trevor and Cole following close behind. Everyone in the room had their gaze centered on the four of you as you silently made your way over. Quinn was staring especially hard at your hand intertwined with Jack’s. He let go of your hand to allow you to take your seat on the floor in between himself and Trevor. The room felt like it was holding its breath, everyone’s gaze locked on you and Jack as you sat down. The tension was palpable, thick enough to cut with a knife. You couldn’t help but notice the way Quinn’s jaw tightened, his hand resting on the back of the couch near Adelaide but clenched just enough to betray his irritation. Your eyes darted around the room, trying not to make eye contact with anyone as the anxiety rose through your body. 

Quinn cleared his throat as he shifted in his seat. “We’re gonna play truth or dare,” He said, causing Jack’s eyebrows to knot. “Addy’s idea.” You glanced over to Adelaide who sent you a shit eating grin, like she had you in this perfect trap designed specifically for you. 

“Isn’t this a kids game?” You said, taking a sip of Jack’s beer bottle. 

Quinn scoffed, rolling his eyes slightly before looking back at you. “It’ll be like old times.” You felt a lump in your throat as your heart dropped, but you were quick to swallow it down. Jack’s arm moved to cross behind your back, not quite making contact with your skin, but it was enough to make your heart race. Quinn went first, daring Brock to take three shots in under ten seconds which he failed miserably at. Brock asked Elias to tell the story of how he lost his virginity.

“I was fifteen, after a school dance in my car. It was terrible.” 

Elias asked Luke to tell the craziest story about Quinn in high school.

“Well when Bunny was sixteen-”

“He said tell a story about Quinn, not Bunny.” Jack was quick to interrupt at your defense. Luke told a story about Quinn getting drunk and trying to climb up the house to his bedroom window. Luke then dared Trevor to let him draw a dick on his face, which Trevor was drunk enough to be excited about. You laughed hard when Trevor turned to face you, a realistic looking cock on his forehead with the cheesiest grin you’d ever seen. Trevor asked Cole to tell the room his celebrity crush.

“Weak question. Meryl Streep. Love a good gilf.”

“Gross, Cole.”

Cole dared Nico to share his last google search with the group.

“Nico Hischer sexy tweets? That’s insane.” 

Nico turned to Adelaide, who picked truth. He asked her what the most expensive gift Quinn had bought her was, and her eyes beamed like this was the question she’d been dying to answer. 

“Probably my Louboutins.” 

Your heart dropped when her gaze centered on you, a smug smile wiped across her face. You kept your expression stern, wanting to show her that you weren’t intimidated. 

“Truth or Dare?” She asked, a hint of aggressiveness behind her voice.

You took another sip of Jack’s beer, letting your legs come uncrossed as you leaned back on your hands. “Dare.” Jack, Trevor, and Cole all let out small but noticeable sighs. They knew you only said dare because you were drunk and determined, and they all wished you would just keep your mouth shut at that moment. 

Adelaide let out a soft laugh, like she had you exactly where she wanted. “I dare you…” She paused, letting her words hang in the air knowing it would cause you more anxiety. “No-” She said, causing your brows to furrow. “I dare you and Jack,” The words sent a shiver down your spine, knowing you couldn’t back out. “To go into the closet for seven minutes in heaven.” Jack groaned quietly as you bit the inside of your cheek. The circle boomed with laughs and whistles. Everyone had a smile plastered on their face except for you, Jack, Cole, Trevor, and shockingly Quinn. The laughter and whistles of the group felt deafening as Adelaide’s smug expression deepened. Jack shifted uncomfortably beside you, running a hand through his hair as his cheeks flushed. 

You exhaled sharply, masking your nerves with a nonchalant shrug. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.” Your voice was steady, but your heart was racing as you stood up. Jack’s eyes flickered to yours for a brief moment, searching your face for some kind of reassurance or escape. Finding none, he reluctantly stood too, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

“Seven minutes,” Adelaide chirped with a saccharine sweetness, glancing at her phone as she set the timer. “Don’t keep us waiting.” The closet door swung open, and you stepped inside, Jack following closely behind. The space was tight, filled with jackets that smelled faintly of cologne and laundry detergent. The door clicked shut, plunging you into darkness save for a thin sliver of light from the bottom. Not being able to see in the darkness, you pulled out your phone.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked, his tone curious as his frame towered over you.

You bit your nails, opening up messages. “Texting the groupchat.”

You: okay it’s official i hate this bitch.

Cole: You should see the smile on her face rn

Trevor: Yeah she looks like pennywise kinda

You: just glad me and trevor were right for once 🥳

Trevor: Me and Cole will try to brainstorm some good revenge plots

Cole: Yeah you guys just thug out your seven minutes

Trevor: In heaven

Jack: Fuck off Trevor.

You sighed, putting your phone in your pocket. The room was dark again as you and Jack stood, facing each other. The closet was tiny and you didn’t realize how close the two of you were until you felt his breath on your forehead. It sent shivers down your spine almost immediately as you tried to keep yourself content. The tension in the closet was palpable as the soft sound of Jack shifting his weight echoed in the cramped space. You felt his hesitation as much as your own, the unspoken words swirling between you like a storm. His breath, warm and close, made your stomach twist in a way you couldn’t quite decipher. 

“I don’t know what to do…” You let out. “in this weird situation with her.” Jack let out a hard sigh, which you felt against your skin. 

“Just- don’t think about it.” He said gently, his hand hovering over yours. “Use this time as your distraction from the night.” He had fully enveloped your hand at this point, slowly moving closer towards you. You couldn’t see, but his face was plastered with a bright red tint when you began rubbing circles against his hand. The sounds of laughter erupted from the living room, muffled but still noticeable. In just two seconds, all that noise faded into the background as you felt Jack squeeze your hand. You could feel the heat from his body as he moved closer, your chests almost clashing together. 

“I-Is this weird?” You asked, your voice just barely above a whisper as you felt yourself gravitating towards him.

“Is what weird?” He mumbled. You felt your breath hitch as your faces now sat merely inches apart. You stood on your tiptoes, trying to get closer. 

“This.” You whispered, your lips so close to touching as Jack moved an unexpected hand to your waist, a touch that sent hard palpitations to your heart. 

Jack let out another breath, his thumb now tracing circles against your hip. “Does it feel right?”

You bit your bottom lip, shutting your eyes at the feeling of his voice vibrating against your face. “Mhm,” You let out, nodding your head. 

“Then, no. It’s not weird.” He whispered, ghosting his words against your lips. The hand that was holding yours moved up to your face, cupping it gently. Your stomach twisted at the touch, gently leaning in closer. Your knees closed together, as if keeping them open would unleash every sexual feeling that had been building up for the past ten years. You felt your heart almost beat out of your chest as Jack finally closed the space between the two of you, placing a gentle kiss on your lips. It was hesitant at first, like he was waiting for your permission, but you quickly kissed him back, biting his bottom lip gently. Endless hours of flirtatious teasing, watching you swoon over Quinn, it all led up to this moment. The kiss quickly grew hungrier as Jack’s hands pulled you closer by your waist, tasting every lick of the satisfaction he’d yearned for all these years. Your hands moved to the back of his neck, letting your fingers explore his hair as he moved closer against you. The kiss was slow at first, but quickly intensified when you felt his tongue swipe your bottom lip. You opened your mouth, allowing his tongue to enter as he devoured every inch of you. He pushed you up against the wall, his pelvis absentmindedly grinding against you which caused a slight moan to escape from the back of your throat. You felt your stomach tingle as a flood rushed to your panties, moving your hands to grip his shirt. Jack’s lips moved in a way that was perfectly catered to you, like it was something you needed but never knew. His hands made their way up your body, one settling on your back to cradle you. His tongue pushed further into your mouth, almost reaching towards your throat. His other hand found its way to your thigh, slowly reaching up your dress to toy with the string of your underwear, twisting it with his finger against your skin. He pulled back only the slightest amount, his lips ghosting yours. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” He whispered against your lips, the feel of his breath causing you to shudder, growing hungrier by the second. You weren’t thinking about Adelaide or Quinn, your mind was only on Jack and how bad you realized you wanted him.

“I need you.” You whispered back, your lips growing dry from his absence. “Please,” Jack didn’t waste any time before crashing his lips back onto yours, moving more intensely than before. The kisses became sloppy, like he was starving for this feeling his entire life. His fingers made their way down, just barely touching your folds through the fabric of your panties. You let out a heavy breath through the kiss, silently begging him to keep going as he teased you slightly. He bit down on your bottom lip as he moved the fabric to the side, revealing every inch of yourself. You whined slightly at his touch, finding yourself in this moment of vulnerability you’d never expected to have with Jack. His finger lightly brushed over your heat, testing the waters as you ran your hand through his hair to pull him closer. 

“Can I-”

“Yes, please.” You said eagerly before pulling his lips back onto yours. Jack moved his hands to the strings of your panties, slowly pulling them down to your shaking knees, not removing his lips from yours once. Your hand was now fully tangled in his hair, the other on his back to pull him closer. Jack wasted no time before allowing a finger to enter your cunt, feeling the wetness that was made just for him. You let out a soft, quiet whimper against his lips as he gently explored your walls. He pumped his finger in and out slowly, removing his lips from yours to plant kisses on your neck. You leaned your head back, breathing heavily as his thumb made contact with your clit. “Jack,” You whispered. Never in your life did you expect to have any part of him inside of you, but now that you were here, you couldn’t imagine your life without it. 

“You have no idea what this fuckin’ dress does to me.” He mumbled softly against your skin.

“Fuck.” You let out quietly as he entered another finger, filling you in just the right way. Your fingers tugged at his hair, pulling him closer as his motions grew faster. Your legs locked around his fingers, his other hand finding its way under your dress to your breast. He continued pumping in and out of you, his thumb circling your clit as he reconnected his lips with yours. He felt your insides, like it was a forbidden place he’d been waiting so long to explore. His hand made its way under your bra, squeezing your breast gently. You tried to silence yourself, but it was becoming more and more difficult with every thrust of his fingers. You felt yourself reaching peak, which was shocking in such a small amount of time. Something about the way Jack moved around your body, touching every spot in the exact right spot. “I’m gonna come.” You whispered, pulling back slightly. 

He grinned as he moved his mouth down to your collarbone, placing gentle kisses across your neckline. “Let go for me, bunny.” His motions intensified, your breaths growing heavier by the second. He nibbled slightly against your skin, but not enough to leave marks. You let out a quiet moan as you finally released your juices around his fingers, letting him ride you out until the end of your climax. Your chest rose and fell heavily as Jack removed his fingers, taking them to his mouth. Both of you wished you could see each other’s faces at this moment, but the closet was pitch black. Years of suppressed feelings you didn’t even know you had, all spilled out onto Jack Hughes’ fingers. He moved his hands down to your knees to pull up your panties, your hands still tangled in his hair. “You alright?” He asked, his voice quiet but audible.

You removed your hands from his hair, letting your body fall back on the wall. Your breathing was still heavy, but you managed to speak. “Yeah,” You whispered. “I-I’m good- that was…” You paused for a second, your face quickly capturing a wide grin. “That was amazing.” Jack let out a sigh of relief, a smile growing on his face as he leaned in to kiss you again. It was gentle, allowing it to last for only a few seconds.

He pulled back, his hand coming up to cradle your face. “Listen, Bunny-”

“Seven minutes is up!” The door jolted open, causing you and Jack to quickly separate as Trevor stood in the doorway. He glanced between the two of you, a wide smile growing across his face as he took in the sight. You both looked rough, your hair messy, clothes not exactly straight. He let a small laugh escape his lips as he held the door open. “No way.” Was all he said before Jack rolled his eyes, giving Trevor a hit to the shoulder as he made his way back to the living room. You stood there in shock, running a hand through your now frizzy hair as you looked at Trevor. “That good, huh?” He asked, a sly grin across his face. You rolled your eyes, throwing your hair up into a ponytail as you made your way out of the closet.

“Shut up, asshole.” You mumbled, causing a giggle to erupt from Trevor. Trevor’s laugh followed you as you stepped back into the circle, your cheeks burning under the weight of everyone’s stares. You refused to meet Adelaide’s gaze, knowing her smug smile was probably plastered across her face. Instead, you focused on Jack, who had taken a seat on the couch and was pointedly scrolling through his phone, avoiding eye contact with anyone. You sighed, wanting him to look up for just one second, but his entire face was red and his lips were puffing out. “So,” you broke the silence. “Who's next?” 

Quinn looked up at you, biting the inside of his cheek as Adelaide shifted her weight onto him. “I’m going to bed.” He said flatly before leaving his spot on the couch, Adelaide following close behind, giving you a wink before walking up the stairs. The tension in the air was thick as you took a seat next to Jack, his arm absentmindedly draping over your shoulders which caused your heart to drop. Cole and Trevor both had wide eyes, looking at you and Jack, then to each other. Little by little, everyone made their way out of the house, the party simmering down as you and Jack stayed in your own little world. He scrolled through his phone as your eyes grew tired, falling asleep against his body. Luke took his new ‘friend’ up to his room by the end of the night, Bella and Brock left shortly after with Elias following behind, then finally Jesper and Nico passed out on the floor of the kitchen. It was just you, Jack, Cole, and Trevor left downstairs. The living room had quieted down to the faint hum of music playing in the background and the occasional clink of empty bottles being cleaned up. Jack’s arm remained draped over your shoulders, his phone still glowing in his hand as he scrolled absentmindedly. You felt his warmth against your side, your head resting against him as your eyelids grew heavier. Across the room, Trevor and Cole exchanged another round of wide-eyed glances, their smirks only growing. Trevor leaned closer to Cole and muttered something, and Cole stifled a laugh, though it wasn’t quiet enough to go unnoticed. 

“What’s so funny?” Jack asked, his voice calm but with a hint of annoyance as he finally glanced up from his phone. 

“Oh, nothing,” Trevor replied, feigning innocence, but his grin betrayed him. “Just… didn’t expect you two to get so close tonight.” 

Jack rolled his eyes but didn’t move his arm from around you, a fact that clearly wasn’t lost on Trevor. “Grow up, Zegras.”

Trevor yawned dramatically, standing up and stretching. “Well, I think that’s my cue to crash. Try not to do anything weird while I’m asleep, you two.” 

“Go away, Trevor,” you muttered, leaning in closer to Jack’s side. His hand moved to your shoulder, stroking soothing circles with his thumb.

“You wanna go to bed, Bunny?” He asked quietly, leaning his head against yours. You nodded your head slightly, sitting up to let Jack stand. Jack stood up, offering you a hand to help you off the couch. His movements were slow, almost hesitant, as if he didn’t want to disturb the calm bubble the two of you had created. You took his hand, your legs a little wobbly from the unspoken moment in the closet as you followed him toward the stairs. Behind you, Cole gave a low whistle, and Trevor made a mockingly loud kissing sound. “Goodnight, children,” Jack deadpanned, throwing a pillow in their general direction without even turning around. You couldn’t help but grin, shaking your head as you climbed the stairs behind Jack. Once you reached the hallway, the noise of Trevor and Cole’s laughter faded, leaving just the sound of your soft footsteps. Jack led you into his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. Without you having to ask, he went to his dresser to pull out a Devils t-shirt and a pair of shorts for you to wear. You smiled at the gesture through your sleepy eyes, taking the clothes from his hand. 

“I um…” Jack paused, looking towards you as you held the clothes close. “I wanna talk about it.” He said quietly. You smiled at him, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. He followed close behind, sitting down next to you. His thigh brushed against yours as he looked into your eyes, taking your hand in his. “Bunny, I-” He took a moment to gather his thoughts, letting out a sigh. “I care about you. Like, a lot.” Vulnerability wiped across his face as you sat next to him, brushing your thumb back and forth on his hand. Your heart skipped a beat at his words, the weight of his vulnerability washing over you. Jack wasn’t someone who usually wore his emotions on his sleeve, and seeing him like this, nervous and sincere, made your chest tighten in the best way.

“I care about you too, Jack,” you said softly, your voice steady even though your heart felt like it was racing. 

He let out a breath, like he’d been holding it since he started speaking. “I mean, I really care about you,” he clarified, his eyes locking onto yours. “It’s not just… I don’t know how to explain it. You’re not just my friend. You’ve never been just my friend.” The room felt impossibly small, the air between you charged with emotions neither of you had fully acknowledged until now. His hand tightened slightly around yours, like he was afraid you might pull away. 

“Jack,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” 

He let out a dry laugh, shaking his head. “Because I didn’t want to mess things up. You’re my best friend, Bunny. And you always had this annoyingly huge crush on Quinn, which pissed me off more than it should because he just tore you down over and over again. if you didn’t feel the same, I didn’t want to ruin… this.” He gestured vaguely between the two of you, his cheeks tinged pink. 

You smiled, your thumb continuing to brush against his hand. “You’re an idiot, you know that?” His brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to respond, but you didn’t let him. Instead, you leaned in, closing the small gap between you and pressing your lips softly against his. Jack froze for a moment, his brain clearly trying to catch up with what was happening. But then his free hand came up to cup your cheek, pulling you closer as he kissed you back. It wasn’t hurried or desperate like before, it was warm and gentle, filled with all the unspoken feelings he’d been holding onto for so long. 

When you finally pulled away, his eyes searched yours, a mix of disbelief and relief written all over his face. “So… does this mean you feel the same?” 

You laughed softly, resting your forehead against his. “What do you think, genius?”

Jack’s lips curved into a smile, his confidence returning now that the weight of uncertainty had lifted. “I think I should’ve said something a long time ago.”

“Well,” you teased, your voice light, “better late than never.”

He chuckled, leaning back slightly but not letting go of your hand. “So… are you still okay sharing the bed? Or should I take the couch now that this is out in the open?”

You rolled your eyes, standing up to change into the clothes he’d given you. “You’re not going anywhere, Hughes.” Jack laughed quietly, lying back on the bed with his hands behind his head as he watched you. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

As you climbed into bed next to him, he pulled you close, his arm wrapping around your waist. For the first time that night, the tension melted away, replaced by a sense of calm and certainty that you hadn’t felt before. And as you drifted off to sleep in Jack’s arms, you couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, this was the start of something even better than you could’ve imagined.

[apricot-blossomss]

Okokokok hear me out right

The reader is friends with hermes (God or moral reader, your choice!) And they asked hermes to deliver a love letter for them! Days, even weeks go by and Hermes still hasn't delivered it. He doesn't want to, he doesn't want the reader to be directing their attention at anything but him. Maybe this love interest will get tired of waiting! Maybe he should just hold onto it forever. Maybe he should just read the letter himself and decide if this person is good enough for the reader?

And then he reads it and its says something like "hermes I knew you couldn't stop yourself from reading this, I love you, you bastard"

Just an idea <3

☛ hermes steals f!bff!mortal!reader's love letter

☛ sfw; cw: a little suggestive; I got covid so I have some time on my hands

When you asked him for a favor, Hermes couldn't have imagined a world in which he wouldn't fulfill it. Up until now. Staring down at the pink envelope in his hands, he felt his chest constrict with a feeling that could be perfectly encapsulated in the word 'shit'.

"Hermes?"

"Huh?" He looked up into your eyes and kept staring as you laughed about his dumbfounded expression. Your lovely laugh didn't make the situation any better for him, though it usually did. Now, it only added to the growing whirlwind in his stomach, clawing at his insides, screaming at him 'too late, you're too late, idiot'.

"Can you deliver this for me?" you repeated the question. "It's for someone very important to me."

Why not him? Why weren't you sending it to him? He was important to you, he had to be more important to you than whatever douche this letter was for. Hermes had to swallow down the urge to rip the stupid thing to shreds. But it looked like you had put a lot of care into the letter. It even smelled of sweet citrus, which really pissed him off, because the smell was so utterly you and he didn't want any other man associated with it.

"Yeah, sure," he said, forcing a smile onto his face. Gods, it hurt. The worst of it was the way your smile brightened, your eyes so kind and happy when you gleamed up at him. This wasn't right, you only smiled at him like that. Right?

Without turning the letter to look at the addressee, Hermes stuffed it into his bag that was already filled to the brim without much care. Maybe the bag could accidentally slip over the ocean and spill all the letters. Or he could throw it into Hestia's fire and pretend it was an accident. Or maybe he could deliver the letter but hide it somewhere the guy would never find it. Then he would have delivered the letter, technically.

Over pondering this conundrum, his attentive eyes missed the nervous twitching of your fingers and your excited little glances, as well as the way you practically shoved him outside the door with some rushed goodbyes to run into your bedroom and scream into your pillow.

Hermes stood in front of the closed door and had been standing there for a good minute, but he couldn't get his quick feet to move. On the other side of that door was you. You, with the gentle eyes, the dazzling smile and the understanding heart. You, who was his solace after a long day, his joy, his best friend. Right. His best friend he should not have these thoughts about.

Oh, but how dearly he wished to break down these doors, walk up to you and kiss you. How he dreamt of coming home to you, not just in his head and heart but also in reality. Like he already did, he would knock in your window and you'd let him in as if he were a stray pigeon, laughing at his jokes and winks and flirtatious comments. But in his fantasy, it didn't stop there. No, you would kiss him and tell him how much you missed him, he'd surprise you with a romantic picknick and spend the night with you and fall asleep in your warm arms.

Blinking, Hermes snapped out of his daydreams and cursed himself. He was a leecher, thinking about his damn pretty best friend like that. Sighing, he pulled his hat deeper into his face, obscuring his eyes, and set off for his job with flying feet. Knowing damn well he would not be able to concentrate on a single thing today.

🪽

Hermes had never messed up so many deliveries as in the last two weeks- and it wasn't even on purpose. Unlike his father suspected, ever since he had accidentally opened Aphrodite's sex toy delivery. The smacking down still made him wince, even a good five days later. And Hermes tried to concentrate , he really did, but it was hard when the damn letter, still safely stored in his bag, lay heavily on his mind. Stupid, flimsy little thing.

Hermes didn't want to deliver it. He didn't want anyone to get it, and though the guilt ate him up from the inside, he couldn't deny it: he wanted you all to himself. Selfishly, greedily, he didn't want you to give your attention to any man but him- at least not in that way. And, hey, maybe if he procrastinated it long enough, the guy would get tired of waiting and you would just forget him. Maybe he should just hold onto the letter forever.

"Hermes?" you poked his cheek and the god snapped out of his whirlwind of thoughts. Sitting on your couch, he realized you had stood up before him. Your concerned eyes hovered over him and he had to gulp down the urge to pull you down into his lap so he could study them more closely. "Are you okay? You kinda spaced out there for a second."

"I'm fine, baby," he smiled, glancing up at you sheepishly. "I'm not myself tonight." Your forgiving smile was too much for him as he let his upper body slump forward. His head, luckily hat-less as always around you, weighed against your upper body and when it vibrated with your little laugh, Hermes savored the comforting feeling. Choosing to tempt fate and test his luck, he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you down into his lap, eliciting the most adorable squeak from you. He had to suppress the urge to bite you- you were just too cute.

Your friendship with Hermes had always been very affectionate. Lots of hugging, sitting halfway in each others laps, even sleeping next to each other sometimes, too which you would always wake up to an arm wrapped around your waist and a face in your neck. This open display of affection had you wonder first wether Hermes might see you as more than a friend, when his hand always dipped a little farther down, gripped a little tighter than necessary, when he buried his face in your neck and hugged you as if he never wanted to let go again.

Apart from the fact that having a literal god cling to you like a koala bear was a major ego boost, you really liked Hermes, in more ways than the platonic love you two shared. For weeks you had pondered how to do it and finally worked out a plan: you would give Hermes a love letter with a false address. If he delivered it, no one would read it, but if he liked you back and would try to read it...

"Where are we, like, in the plot?" Hermes muffled into your neck and you felt a light shiver run down your spine- you hoped he didn't notice, but you felt his signature grin form against your skin, and his hands departing from their grip on your hips with fingers like spiders up your sides. Squirming, you swatted them away and the god laughed, still holding you close.

"She slept with both of them and now she hates herself," you answered quickly to shut him up. Managing to get a hold of his hands, you pressed them down onto his lap with little resistance and squeezed them under your thighs to block their means of escape. A choking sound left Hermes' and the god coughed, slipping his hands away and placing you next to him on the couch.

Ouch.

What you didn't know was the war for self-control raging inside your best friend the minute you placed your thighs so deliciously and grabbable over his hands. When his daydreams had, up to now, consisted of confessing your love to each other and innocent kissing, he now felt the overwhelming urge to grab you by the thighs, flip you over on your little couch and have you scream out his name- and his name only. For that one, Hermes gave himself a mental beating and gave you a little smile to conceal his red cheeks- and the fact that you would get wind of his predicament if you only looked down into his lap.

"Sounds great!" Honestly, he didn't even remember your answer to his question, and his overly enthusiastic reaction had you giggling. And that was really all he needed to be happy. Why did he want more? Why was he so insatiable?

The movie was pretty boring, and you seemed to think so too, because your gaze wandered frequently and you caught his incessant staring multiple times. But neither of you turned it off, because really, it was fine. Sitting next to to each other, your head coming to rest on your shoulder at some point, his hand slipping into yours in a completely platonic way.

“Hermes?” you asked when the love interest on screen started to have an intense melodramatic meltdown (Hermes did feel seen).

“Hm?”

"Have you... delivered that letter yet?" You fidgeted with your fingers nervously, but Hermes' stomach dropped down to his feet at least. Shit.

"What letter?" Hermes could have punched himself in the face.

"The love letter I gave to you," you explained carefully. "It's just... I never got an answer so I thought maybe you lost it or..." Your voice droned off and you bit down on your lip nervously. Was Hermes purposefully avoiding the topic? Had he read the letter and now wanted to ignore it out of existence because he didn't feel the same way? You had been so sure there was more to it. At least he wasn't making fun of you, but it was still humiliating, thinking he had read those lines and-

"Ah, that one!" Hermes exclaimed and you flinched at his loud tone. A nervous chuckle left his lips. "Uh yeah, I'm so sorry, baby, I must have forgotten about that one, I forget things sometimes, lots of stuff to deliver and sometimes letters get left behind and..." His rambling droned off and he bit down on his lip like a child caught in a lie, looking up at you.

Your understanding smile nearly killed him. It would have, if it could have. Hermes felt like the biggest asshole when you sighed relieved. "Ah, good, I was a little worried." Fittingly, the lady on screen screamed loudly about how much she hated herself and Hermes pondered over how he could relate to every single one of these over-the-top characters.

🪽

"Good night," you smiled as Hermes exited the door and turned around to you. You were dressed all oversized and cuddly with those warm winter socks and looked just about irresistible. Especially with the way the stars reflected in your wide, slightly tired eyes.

Following a shy impulse, he didn't give you a hug, as usual, but pressed a kiss to your warm cheek. When he pulled away, he did feel satisfaction at the way your face had heated up visibly, even in the dim light. "G'night, baby," he grinned with new fervor and a dreadful feeling in his stomach.

When he turned to leave and pushed himself off the ground to fly up into the air, his decision was made. He would deliver the damn letter. No longer would he be in the way of your happiness. If this guy really was who you wanted...

But, Hermes pondered as the houses of your neighborhood shrunk down to little lights, like the sky but below him, and one of the stars was you. But he should make sure this person was good enough for you. And have an address in case they weren't.

Stopping mid-air, Hermes pulled out the dreaded pink envelope. Not recognizing the address, he decided to look for clues in the letter itself. If you were to ask him, the envelope just kind of ... slipped open and the letter just sort of slipped out of there. When he pulled it out, the familiar smell hit him. After two weeks in his bag, the envelope had lost your smell, but it still stuck to the letter it self. With slightly trembling hands, he unfolded the paper, surprised to find only a few lines written in your handwriting.

Hermes, I knew you wouldn't able to stop yourself from reading this. The address is fake, this letter is for you. I love you, you idiot.

Below that, you had given him three options to pick: () don't ever come near me again, () let's ignore this ever happened because you are the shrek to my donkey, () I love you too. Your messy handwriting on that part had him smile, because he could picture you writing the letter, becoming unsure of yourself and scribbling three options down.

Hermes didn't even bother ticking off option three. He had no time to waste. Within seconds, he was bolting down to earth with the speed of a meteor, the wind howling in his ears, the letter firmly in his hand. You were completely right. He was an idiot. But an idiot who was about to make all your time of waiting up to you.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

[icarusredwings]

Trying something new, be kind.

Baby talk. 1/2

Ft. Wo-wo, mama, and 'essy

A Sfw very little Wade fic

Cws include: Brief mentions of adult fun, truama, brief discussion of death, an unexperienced caregiver, an uncomfortable caregiver, cursing, struggles/ happy ending.

Coming home, Wade was quiet. Too quiet.

"Wade?" He calls.

"Last time I heard him he came to hug me for a bit but he didn't awnser me when I asked what he was doing." Al mutters, half asleep on the couch.

"Oh.. well I got food so don't nod off just yet. I'm gonna make that alfredo stuff you like."

"Mmh.. You're a good kid, Logan."

"Althea, I'm older than you...Remember?" He says, setting down the bag of ingredients in the kitchen.

The old woman waves her hand. "Yeah yeah... just wake me up when you're done."

"Alright. Swear you'll wake up? Don't go dying on our couch." He tells her jokingly.

"Bah! It's my couch, I can die on it if I want too." She smiles, pulling the blanket up a bit.

Sometimes she did this, and it was starting to worry Logan. She was forgetting little things more, taking more naps, not wanting to move a lot either. Something about her back? Either way, Logan was terrified. He's already lost so many to old age, he didn't want to see her go too. And thinking about what it would do to Wade scared him more.

It's not until he checks the bedroom to see Wade W sitting, sucking his thumb, and playing house with his action figures and the doll house that Vanessa bought him a couple of years ago.

"Darlin'?"

From the looks of it, he had Spiderman in the kitchen, an old woman on the couch, a doggy on the couch, two little girls upstairs, a barbie in the tub (that didn't fit at all) and a wolverine action figure in the bed, claws up and out.

It took him a second to process before smiling softly. He hasn't been this small in such a long time. "Did I have a nightmare?" He asks, watching as Wade takes the wolvie out of the bed, reaching up as if showing him.

"Yeah, I see. Mad little guy, isn't he?" Logan crouches, grunting a bit as his knees popped.

"God, how do you get down here? Dosn't that hurt your knees?" Logan asks, only to be given a dead stare. As if not processing what he was saying.

"Oh.. uhm.. these?" He pats his knees. "Ouches. Sometimes.."

His eyes light up, only to frown, looking concerned, his own hands coming to his knees. "...ow?"

"Sometimes... hey so... how big are you right now? Can you tell me?"

But there was that stare again, a small tilt of his head with such wide white eyes. Yeah.. that just about tells him everything he needs to know. Vanessa has told him about when this first started and how truely little he had become, not talking much, simply....staring.

"Well.. Kitty's going to make dinner soon. How about you come out and sit in the living room, okay? So I can see you?"

Another stare, his head tilting to the other side now, like a puppy watching its owner do something it had no concept of.

"Uh-huh.... right. Uhm... nevermind. Just stay in here, okay?" Standing again is when Wade begins to panic, making an urgent whine, putting his arms up. "MmMmh!!"

Blinking, Logan swallows, not exactly comfortable with this age. This was Vanessa's age. Not his. He was used to the 5 year old wanting to play stuffies or the smart alack 8 year old who ranted to him for hours about stars, planets, and dinosaurs.

So this was.. weird. New. Unexplored territory. And Honestly, he was fine with that. Totally fine with not knowing.

"Er...I-i don't.. this isn't-" He starts, having a subconsious guilty feeling in his gut for not wanting to take care of him, but also felt like he shouldn't be interacting with him. I mean- They did big adult things last night. And now he was giving him grabby hands? It felt wrong. And with Wade's truama? He didn't want to make it worse on accident.

"Ups?"

"N-no.. Wade.. I-...Im gonna go call Vanessa. Okay?"

"... 'essy?"

"Y-yeah. 'Essy. Erm.. thats ness right?"

" 'essy?"

Swallowing, he nods, leaving the room with his hairs pricked up on the back of his neck, a knot in his stoamch. Taking a deep breath, he dialed the poor woman twice. The phone range through to voice mail both times. "Shit- okay.. fuck.. uhm.."

So he goes to google, trying his best to look for awnsers only to become more disgusted with himself at what he saw. Why was there so much- He groans, trying to calm himself. He couldn't even ask Althea because she was sleeping, snoring away.

Okay. Come on, Howlett. It can't be this hard.. right? I mean, it's just like a regular ki- Oh come on! He's never had a kid this little before! Especially not alone. What was he supposed to do?

Another deep breath, feeling defeated, and put his face in his hands. A buzz comes from the phone, and just as he looks at it, it was like signing his own death certificate.

'Sorry, I'm working. Whats up?'

"When he was really young what did you do to him?"

'???'

"He's really little right now. What do I do?" He asks, trying to type coherently.

'Oooh okay. So ussually I would give him a cup and put on a movie. He was really cuddly too so sometimes I would just hold him.'

Before Logan could respond again, she sent another message saying she had to get back to work and that it will be fine. 'It's easy, don't worry' She said but Logan had his doubts.

Alright. Movies.. cups.. hugs. Got it. He could do that. He could do hugs and cups. That was normal.

Sighing, he puts the phone away, going to the kitchen as he made him his cup, just putting straight milk into it. He liked milk right?? Did tots like milk? Yeah- obviously. Come on- get it together.

Walking into the livingroom, Logan sets it down, going through movies as he remembered what Vanessa told him before, about singing princess movies. "Ariel it is" he thinks, clicking it on and shifted the coffee table so he would have room to lay or play- what ever it was he did.

Coming back to the room, he gathers up some blankets and his stuffies, taking them from the room only to drop them all infront of the tv.

"Wade!" He calls. "Got a cup for ya! And look its a princess. You like princesses." He says, but he doesn't come.

"Wade? Come on, Bub! I gotta make dinner still." This last part was under his breath, only to grunt, going into the room only to see him sitting in the same spot.

"What are you doing? Come on. Livingroom with mama. Lets go." He shifts, gestruing his arms to the door but Wade didn't move, infact the loud words made him frown more, looking at him with those big wide eyes, a deer in headlights.

Logan took a step forward, watching Wade lower his head, holding his small angry Wolverine near his chest, like he would take it away.

This is what Logan was worried about. Great! Now he was scared of him. How was he supposed to care for someone who was too scared to move?

Think, Logan. This isn't hard. Just carry him.

Grunting, he hesitantly puts his arms out, leaning over. "...come'ere."

Another head tilt, making him groan, slightly annoyed. "Wade. Uppies. Come on, kiddo."

Instantly, he smiles, crawling quickly to his legs and put his hands back up, still keeping mad wolvie in one hand.

Picking him up, a shiver went down his spine, suddenly feeling a sense of severe protection after Wade wrapped his arms around his neck, affectionatly nuzzling into his neck with a big smile.

Unconsciously, he hugged him tightly, holding his bum and rubbing his back. "...Hi honey."

Wait. What was he doing? no. No. No. No. NO.

He couldn't feel that way about him. Absolutely no way. That was wrong. Fucking instincts! Not everthing adorable is your kid damn it!

Shaking his head, he quickly walks to the livingroom, putting him down.

"Now. You stay. Sit and watch princess." He says, pointing at the Tv and shaking his head, watching as Wade whimpered, giving him grabby hands again.

"No, Wade. L-later..." He swallows, wanting to punch himself for feeling that way. He had hugged him the same way Gabby did after a long time of seeing him, and it had activated his instinctual parental habits.

Quickly, he walks away to the kitchen, rubbing his temples. "I can't do this shit.." he grumbles.

[cerisahh]

arcane season two act three spoilers

(just me wordvomiting)

i’m so happy that in at least one reality silco, vander and benzo get their happy ending.

i cannot even put into words the emotions i felt as soon as silco came on screen i had to pause and pace my room for three minutes before i could even continue. he literally😭😭got a happy ending😭😭😭 he looks so healthy too oh what i would give for an arcane ‘what if’ series

i mean we got a ‘what if’ vi died in jayce’s lab = no hextech, vander and silco rekindled bromance, no jinx, CANON TIMEBOMB, mylo and claggor are alive, and zaun and piltover are practically best friends

what if silco had taken in vi instead of powder/ powder gets taken by marcus instead of vi?? what if viktor mentored jinx?? what if neither silco or vander died?? WHAT IF THEY NEVER FOUGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE????

i need to consume written pieces of alternate!silco oh the fluff 😣 i can feel it already this is just perfect slice of life/married au material let me be your housewife silco i’ll do anything

i’m ngl the ending? did not care for it. i did not care for it, was it a good ending? no i actually dont think so. this season could have been 30 episodes long and id have sat my ass down and watched all 30 twice through… NINE rushed episode and u felt it was rushed too

NO MENTION NOT EVEN A WHISPER OF ISHA? HO DIED AND NOT EVEN A SCRIBBLED HALLUCINATION OF HER? NAAAAH!

THE ORIANNA OMFHDH i NO LIE started wojacking and looking at a fake camera see image below

THATS WHAT I DID I WAS SO GEEKED OMG

i also started crying on episode 7 whenever it would cut from ekko and powder to jayce literally sobbing because he looked like a hobo stop cutting away from timebomb

speaking of jayce… let’s talk viktor!! where did his vi-nis go?? nobody knows.. every time he said glorious revolution i geeked and cringed at the same time DONT GET ME FUCKING STARTED ON SKY “i’ll miss our conversations”… “no u won’t” YEAH NO HE WONT UR BORING 😭😭 actual snooze fest why was she even in his mushroom trip lucidity void fuckfest states oeuuhh im pissed

jayce haters feel really stupid now though huh🤣🤣🤣

circling back to silco jinx hallucinating h. stop. jinx hallucinating him and him not even digging into her he was COMFORTING HER. i can’t even . i can’t . i just cant. i need him.

and now it’s OVER?? no no no this can’t be.. no no.. NOOO!!!! i better see a steady stream of silco fanfics OMG I HAVENT EVEN SPOKEN ABOUT SEVIKA YET

bro her getting a fucking POSITION ON THE COUNCIL was peak my woman DESERVES a happy ending. she was always loyal to zaun and her people and seeing her get to be in that position just yes. so good (im kind of pissed that we got a caitvi sex scene - if you can call it that they just fondled each other - instead of sevika scissoring at a brothel, ok dpmo).

don’t think i forgot about maddie yew stewpid bitch… HER GOOFY LITTLE CHEST BANG LMFAOO then she got shot #DESERVED #WHATHAPPENSTOGINGERSINARCANE

not even going to write anything on mel because although her little storyline was cool to watch i didn’t fucking get it ☠️ ambessa was hot until her untimely end though. lost a muscle mommy today raise your flags

and to summarise!

jinx: probably alive let’s be honest, gone to find herself a girlfriend (lux)

vi: alive and happy with caitlyn

caitlyn: alive and happy with vi

ekko: alive, misses powder (jinx? both)

mel: alive, now has superpowers which is sick, still gorgeous but stuck with that awful black outfit i hated it so badly

jayce and viktor: transported to a doomed yaoi novella after saving runeterra (very sad)

isha: dead?? they never showed us a body but let’s all be real and not lie she is most probably dead. here’s to holding out hope though, maybe she’s ziggs!

ambessa: dead dead dead “you are the wolf” thank you motherrr 😝

sevika: ALIVE!!! got her happy ending YIPPEE!

vi’s bro dude i forgot his name: death by a million arrows RIP

hot firelight bat dude: AAAALIVEEEE!

hot enforcer fish dude: AHHHHLIVEEEE!

maddie: DEAD TRAITOR TRAITOR DIE DIE DEAD

heimerdinger: pretty sure he got zapped out of existence but he’s lived a long time so not that huge of a blow. rip little bro though

and for my own peace of mind and mental wellness

powder: ALIVE AND HAPPY

ekko: ALIVE AND HAPPY

silco: ALIVE AND HAPPY

vander: ALIVE AND HAPPY

benzo: ALIVE AND HAPPY

claggor: ALIVE AND HAPPY he took ozempic too holy damn!

milo: ALIVE AND HAPPY worlds worst mustache though

vi: AL- oh not here. that’s fine i guess

[higuchisora]

As a bi timebomb/caitvi shipper, LITERALLLYYY. The dogshit takes I saw piling in about Vi's death in that world... that being said, I think that was more supposed to represent how Jinx/Powder and Vi are basically doomed to never be happy together in any universe. But it's still upsetting considering the rest of it. Like I entirely expected Vi to immediately run after Jinx the second she got out.

I understood Vi liking Caitlyn in s1 (just got out of prison, Caitlyn is the first person who's even remotely kind to her for the past 7 years, etc.), but after the breakup I was wondering what exactly she saw in her. If the time skip between ep 3 and 4 was long enough for Caitlyn to get a rebound, why exactly was Vi still clinging to Caitlyn by the time they meet again? Was it still that trauma of losing everyone? (not to say I don't think this is valid, because I do, it just feels kind of unclear/unearned to me). Why not try to reconnect with Ekko then, if she still didn't feel like she could reconcile with Jinx? Ekko himself was trying to convince himself he didn't care for Jinx anymore. She'd be in good company.

It just didn't feel like either of them were themselves or even natural evolutions of their characters in act 3. Not even in an "acting out of character because of this thing that happened" way either, just deadass like different people. The very crux of this show is the relationship between Vi and Jinx- each episode (save for s1 e1 and s2 e7) starts with THEM on that record disc. It's a story about THE SISTERS. So why did it feel like they suddenly had no time for that in act 3? They felt more like fan-favorite side characters by the end, instead of the 2 main protagonists.

Also, I hate to pull this card, but if Caitvi were straight and the male Caitlyn said all that shit to Vi and hit her.... bro would permanently be the villain in the story (at least to fans). Viewers would be RIOTING if they got back together or even if he so much as SURVIVED to have a happy ending.

As far as I'm concerned, Arcane ended after season 1 with a bonus scene of Vi and Jinx going to therapy and smoothing things over.

No fucking way are Caitvi shippers happy with this writing right? No way are lesbians happy with this representation? A straight couple that never even took off in the main timeline got a whole episode set in an alternate universe just to explore their relationship and it was cute, tender, romantic, and had the best song in the entire franchise. The lesbian couple gets a rushed sex scene in a dirty dungeon with some generic spicy pop song while both women's characterization are dogshit (so Cait doesn't care that Jinx escaped? Vi isn't worried about Jinx or wants to go after her?) Vi's character is completely disrespected. She is just made to accept Caitlyn fucking Maddie while Vi was suffering through an alcoholic mental breakdown and Caitlyn never looked for her or thought of her. She is made to completely forgive everything Caitlyn did while in power. She is made to brush aside her own sister, friends, family, and home to only focus on Caitlyn. All her brains scooped out and replaced only with Caitlyn. And there are Caitvi fans who are actually happy with this shit? Am I going insane??

[jasminetwil]

STICKERS ARE HERE (<- link)

✨️Scrunkly baby✨️

I think Dogpool (AKA Mary Puppins, AKA Peggy!) stole everyone's hearts in the cinema. She definitely ran away with mine so I had to draw her! 🐶

Deadpool and Wolverine was such a fun movie. Genuinely have not had such a serotonin boost like that in a very long time. 💖

[dragon-tamer-1]

Aftermare Week 2024

Day2(6): Destroy(ed)/(Re)Building

Geno was hanging upside-down from the Tree of Feelings, just above where Nightmare was. Nightmare was reading a book he got from the library. Nightmare's thoughts wandered, he couldn't help but think on how the last year went. The villagers, particularly the ones who were very hostile to him, were starting to actually give him a chance. He can't help but to believe that Geno arriving here was the cause of it, though it took a while for this to happen. They still bullied and hurt him after Geno showed up, but Geno had started protecting him. Something that Dream never-... No, it wasn't Dream's fault. Dream didn't know it was happening, or at least didn't know the extent of it. He wished he said something before, now, as things were getting better with both Geno and Dream advocating for the villagers to stop abusing him(he wasn't sure if that's what he'd call it, but Geno insisted that's what they were doing to him). He's incredibly grateful for Geno, even if he went and told Dream after the last time the bad villagers attacked him when he didn't want him to. He couldn't deny that it felt better to have his brother know about it now, though, not after the results that came afterwards.

The villagers no longer unofficially banned him from entering the village with or without his brother(they never said he wasn't allowed but the way they treated him pretty much implied it), some of them were still wary of him, but they were starting to warm up to him it seems. Some of them even apologized for not helping him sooner, they were some of the ones who weren't mean to him, though they never helped much before, if they knew at all. He certainly didn't want to dwell on how many people might not have known what was happening to him, or who knew what was happening and didn't care.

Overall, it's only been good ever since Geno arrived, they even started dating a month ago. Geno still misses his brother, but he's been happy here.

Noticing the position of the sun as being roughly noon, Nightmare was about to ask if Geno wanted to grab a bite to eat for lunch. But before he did, there seemed to be a sudden flash of light. And as soon as the light faded and he could see again, there was what he could only describe as a tear in the air beside Geno. He immediately dropped the book as he jumped up, and Geno, still partially blinded, falls off the branch trying to right himself. Just as Nightmare was about to catch him, the tear started to drag Geno in. He grabs Geno's scarf in one hand and tries to reach for his hand or something to try to keep him from going through the tear. Neither of them know what's on the other side, and they don't want to find out.

Unfortunately, it was not enough. Geno was pulled through, but not before his scarf was pulled from his neck, leaving Nightmare with only his scarf. Nightmare and Geno had one last look at each other, tears in their eyes as they realized this was the last time they'd see each other and horror at what was happening, then the tear in space closed.

Nightmare clutched the scarf as he broke down, and soon after rain clouds have gathered. Dream returned after it started pouring and as soon as he saw how distraught his brother was he ran to him. He nearly slipped on the grass, but caught himself. He noticed Geno was nowhere in sight but his priority is his brother right now.

"Brother, what's wrong? Are you ok? Are you hurt? Where's Geno, I don't see him? Wait, is that his-"

"He- he's gone, he's gone and I-I couldn't- I couldn't *hic* save him. He- I-..."

"Brother, Night, please, slow down. You have to breath, okay? What happened? Geno's gone?"

He took a few deep breaths, and tried to explain what happened, having to pause between sobs. Dream started crying along with him as what happened sank in. Geno, his brother's partner, his friend, the one who ultimately helped both of them in different ways, was gone. He protected his brother when he was unable to, even when he wanted to so bad, but didn't want to pressure his brother when he didn't want to talk to him about what was happening with the villagers. He helped him set firmer boundaries with the villagers, not letting them overwork him like they were, and in the end he and Nightmare were feeling closer than before now that they weren't keeping things from each other. All they could do in this moment was mourn Geno, as they hugged each other in the pouring rain.

~meanwhile~

Geno landed on the other side of the tear very disoriented. Upon trying to stand he noticed that everything was dark, an almost unfamiliar type of dark. He also noticed the familiar glitching over his right eye socket. Then a small presence ran up to him on his blind side and almost knocked him over.

"Agh! What the- Frisk!?"

"You were gone for so long, where were you!?"

"I-"

"Wait, you're crying, are you okay? What happened?"

"Woa-"

"You're not hurt, are you? Where's your scarf?"

"Stop!! What do you care, anyway!?"

"... I'm sorry. I was just... I'll go."

Frisk left to the only patch of grass in the Save Screen, though they were still worried about him. He was gone for so long, and they had no idea what happened to him. They wanted so bad to comfort him right now, as much as they knew that they probably weren't who he wanted near him. They did a lot to him, so they knew he wouldn't trust them. But he's clearly going through something right now.

Some time later, Geno had gotten up, but still felt defeated. So he was back in the Save Screen, huh? Was this what he deserves? Is this the karma he deserves for not protecting Papyrus that first Genocide route? Doomed to be stuck here with the kid who started it all? To do nothing but watch as Chara continues to Reset and do whatever they want? Is he really not allowed to be happy? Even once?

He shakes these thoughts out of his head for now, he can have another mental/emotional breakdown later. He looks over to Frisk, and regrets what he said earlier. As much as he wants to stay mad at them, his year with Nightmare and his brother Dream has given him a lot of time to process and think over what he's been through, and also think about Frisk and their ability to Reset. He can't help but think how the power could have made it too easy to want to do things again and again. He doesn't think he can forgive them yet, but he can certainly be a bit kinder to them.

He walks over to them and moves to sit beside them.

"Hey, I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier. You didn't deserve that."

Frisk, surprised, just stared at him for a moment. "What?"

"You didn't deserve to be yelled at for worrying about me. I shouldn't have said that. I was, am still dealing with another loss I just had. To answer your earlier questions, I had been transported to some other world very different than ours. One that seemed to have humans and monsters getting along, well, for the most part. And there were two brothers I met there, they were called Dream and Nightmare. They helped to take care of me, even when I was... stubborn. The reason for me crying was because I had been forcibly taken from there when I had been there for a year and had grown pretty close with the two, especially one of the brothers, Nightmare. I helped them as well, Nightmare was being abused by the villagers there because of a stupid assumption or rumor that they thought was fact. Put a stop to that nonsense, and also got the two brothers to start telling each other these things."

Frisk let him talk about all that happened, and couldn't help but feel both happy and sad for Geno. It seemed like he was able to be happy where he ended up, but the fact he had been dragged back here..., it was so unfair.

Eventually, they both started talking about how they could maybe fix their situation without actually destroying the timeline like Geno was initially planning to do. His time with Dream and Nightmare had given him time to think about what he would've even accomplished by doing so, and how unfair it was to everyone else that he decided their fate for them. So he had decided that he would figure something else out if he was able to come back on his own. Except that was when he was kinda wanting to go back to Papyrus more than hanging out with the brothers.

"Okay, so what can we do about Chara? I think we both can agree they can't be allowed to keep killing everyone."

"Yeah, what about still bringing them here? But I don't know what we could do after that."

"That's a start, at least. Let's see what Sans is up to."

As he says this, he opens up a window to where Sans is, after a moment to remember how he did it in the first place. The window shows Sans in the Judgement Hall, and observing for a while longer reveals that Chara is back to killing the entire Underground. 'Seriously? How many times has this gone on since he was gone? Don't they get bored of doing this over and over?'

There's nothing left to do but wait, Geno remembers that it's easiest to get Sans here while he's unconscious or a Reset happens. And soon enough, Sans gets hit, dies, and then the Reset happens. Geno snaps his fingers, and Sans is in the Save Screen.

Sans was confused, where was he? As he turns around, he remembers where this is. It's been a long time since he was here, and he was starting to worry about Geno with how long it's been without him summoning him into the Save Screen. And, wait, where is his scarf? And last he remembers, he wasn't fond of Frisk, yet he seems to be rather chill with them.

"Heya, been a long time, huh?"

"Yeah, it has been a while, sorry for disapperin' on ya, there was apparently an unplanned vacation I was sent on."

"What? I thought you couldn't leave this place?"

"I thought so too, but whatever it was that transported me there also made it so I was fine. I don't really know how that worked. But then after I had been comfortable there, I was transported back here, and for all I know, I'm still not able to leave here without dying. But, enough about that for now. I wanted to talk to you about how we can stop Chara."

Sans let out a disappointed sigh, "if this is about destroying our timeline, it's still a no."

"Oh, no, no it's not that, actually. Though I guess it can still be a backup if we really can't solve this a different way-"

Frisk decided to speak up, "We're not destroying our timeline, Geno."

"So then, what was this new plan?"

"There isn't much of a fully thought out plan, but first step is to bring Chara here. But we don't know what step two would be because I don't know how we can stop them completely."

"Ah, so we're just brainstorming things, then?"

"Pretty much."

"Hm, well, what if..."

~Timeskip to after the events of Aftertale happen and Geno is on the Surface with everyone(I'm lazy and have to progress to the rest of the story without this basically retelling all of the climax of Aftertale. Just pretend that the end of Aftertale had this kind of background with Geno not attacking Sans after getting Chara and Papyrus into the Save Screen. Also I'm just leaving this in here cause why not XD)~

Geno looked out at the sunset atop Papyrus' shoulders. He can't say that he regrets anything he's done, aside from making things harder on Sans. It's all worth it to see Papyrus again, and knowing that there won't be anymore Resets is very reassuring to him. And this view, as much as he's seen it before, is probably one of the most beautiful sights he's seen of the Surface. It's no view from that hill of the large flower field in the moonlight in the other world he spent a year in, though.

... He misses Nightmare and Dream. He can't help but wonder what they'd think of this. Surely they miss him, too.

"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT, NEW BROTHER? YOU LOOK A LITTLE SAD."

"Oh, it's nothing. I just miss a couple of people is all. You remember the story I told you about the two brothers in the other world I was in?"

"OH, YES. I MAY NOT KNOW WHO THEY ARE, BUT I KNOW THEY ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU. I'M SURE YOU'LL SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN SOMEDAY, I JUST KNOW IT!"

"Heh, I'm not sure about that, but I sure hope so."

"NYEHEH!"

As time went by, Geno grew accustomed to life on the Surface alongside his two brothers, Sans and Papyrus. But even as he was happy to finally be by Papyrus' side, he couldn't deny that he missed Nightmare terribly, sometimes to the point he refused to leave his room. He was starting to wonder how he could visit that world. To go back there. The urge to see Nightmare and Dream again only grew as time went on.

So, after a year and a half on the Surface, he starts testing out the limits of his Determination. After all, Determination had kept him from dying and also got him into the Save Screen, so why wouldn't it be able to transport him to a different world? He had to try it or he would never know. So he's in the basement experimenting with Determination, and he mixes an unstable sample of Determination with a stable sample. It has the unfortunate reaction of destabilizing completely and explodes in a blast of piercing white light.

When he next gains consciousness, the only thing he sees is white, blindingly white nothing. He immediately squeezes his eyes shut, trying to adjust his eyelights to his new and unfamiliar surroundings. "Where am I? How...?" Squinting his eyes open a bit, he slowly realizes he isn't having aftereffects from the blast earlier, but that this is indeed a white void. Completely different than the Save Screen, and yet somehow just as lonely.

"Hello? Is anyone out there!?" He listened as his voice echoed in the space, how big was it? The echoes kept bouncing between invisible walls and only faded about a minute later, was it a minute? It must have been, surely. He tests the "floor," and finds that he's definitely on something solid. And starts wandering in what he thinks is a straight line, hoping to find some kind of, well, anything really.

~Timeskip, Geno is now Error, and doesn't remember anything prior to becoming Error~

It's been four years since Geno had disappeared, and while he still misses him, things are alright. Nightmare and his brother, Dream, now had a proper house near their Tree. Some of the villagers even helped build it with them. It has three bedrooms, one for Dream, one for Nightmare, and a guest bedroom. Though both of them knew the real reason they insisted it had three bedrooms, it was for Geno should he by some miracle come back to them. They knew that, by now, it was less and less likely to happen. Dream had been trying to be positive about the possibility, but even he had doubts, and Nightmare knew that. Nightmare was inconsolable for nearly a month after Geno's disappearance. He also started avoiding the villagers again for a while, too, anxious that they would start going back to how they treated him before Geno was there.

Thankfully, the villagers understood that he was going through a very hard time, and gave him space. Some had also gifted him little treats and notes to try to help comfort him, most were given through Dream though, but there were a few occasions that someone was able to give their gift to him in person. It took a while for Nightmare to get used to the idea that the villagers wouldn't hurt him and put his anxieties to rest on that. He's always seen wearing Geno's scarf, too, it brings him some comfort.

Today was a nice day, the sun was out and it was warm, but not unbearably so. Dream was out entertaining the village children while he was taking a walk and hearing out a villager's issues and trying to help them to solve/deal with them. It was going well before a portal opened up a few feet behind them. Nightmare turned to it and froze. It was like the tear that took Geno away.

Turning back to the villager, he said, "I think we're going to have to talk later, I have to deal with this." The villager nodded and ran off.

The portal was blocky and didn't hold a solid shape, shifting and also had a strange sound coming from it. As he was studying this portal's strangeness, someone came through it! It closed behind them, and the strange sound faded, but didn'tstop. It seemed to also come from the stranger. Looking at the new stranger, they looked so odd, even for a monster. Their bones were black, oh- wait, their fingers were yellow and red, and so was what he could see of their spine. And the legs are also red it seems- Wait, stop staring, it's rude. And they were wearing a red sweater with a midnight blue jacket and black shorts and... black slippers? Actually, no, that's not the weirdest thing someone can wear, and even then, it's not really a problem. The weirdest thing was that their entire figure looked like they were... not fully together?? Their figure had square chunks of them jumping in and out of their body, and the word 'Error' was randomly placed along their body.

He was going to ask them their name and what they wanted when he noticed that they were looking frantically around them, visibly distressed and on the verge of a panic attack. He saw the signs, and having had panic attacks before, knows how to deal with it. He was just going to have to hope that what helped him out of those panic attacks would help this person.

"Hey, it's okay, here, breathe in, two, three, four, hold it in for five seconds, and breathe out for six. Ready?"

He helped the stranger through the panic attack, and thankfully they're now calm. Both of them are now sitting in the grass, Nightmare had guided the other down so that if they were to pass out they wouldn't fall from standing up. They were currently looking at the grass like they had never seen grass before, so that concerned him a bit. The sound seems quieter.

He cleared his throat before speaking, "Uh, hey, how are you doing? Feeling any better?"

They looked up at him, "Y-Yeah, I'm feelin-ng better now, tha-thank you-u. You look v-very ni-ice. Very colorfu-ful."

Nightmare, caught off guard, felt his face heat up. "U-uh, thanks? You're pretty colorful yourself."

"You look kinda-a familiar for some re-reason, but you're the f-first person I've me-met. So I don't kn-ow why I would recogn-nize you."

"I do? That does sound odd, huh? Ah! I had forgotten about introductions. I'm Nightmare, what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm, uhh-uh..." He squinted his eyes in thought as he tried to remember his name. "... Error, that'ssss it. Yeah, my na-name is Err-ror."

"It's nice to meet you, Error. Where did you come from? You were pretty freaked out when you got here."

"I'm n-not too sure? I don't know w-what the place is-s-s, but there's ju-ust, nothing in there? Hold-d-d on I think I can open a port-tal back there? I'm pretty new t-to this though..."

Error concentrates before waving a hand through the air in front of them, and the strange noise that's been there gets stronger again. The portal opens, and Nightmare can only see white. He can't see anything else in there, and looking for a while is starting to hurt his eyelights.

"Is that really what it looks like? It's just white. How long have you been in there?"

"Yeah, it's pre-retty barren, b-but it's kinda al-l I know? I thi-ink? I don't rememb-er anything else bef-fore I woke up there. And I-I don't know how long-ng I've been there, it just felt li-i-ike a very long time? Or was it a short tim-me? I'm not sure..." He closed the portal again.

"Would you like to stay here? We have a spare guest room you can stay in. My brother wouldn't mind you staying as you get used to this place if you do stick around. It's better than white nothing, right?"

"Hmm-mm, I guess I cou-ld. There's s-s-so many colors her-ere, it's... nice, I thin-nk."

Nightmare thought that last statement was a bit odd, but then again, the guy was in an empty white void, for lack of better terms, for however long he was in there. Colors would be a bit of an adjustment to someone who was devoid of most colors.

"Alright, let me guide you there, then. I'm going to have to tell Dream about this. I think you'll like him."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's good at making friends. I'm getting the hang of it, but still like to not be around too many people at once. It's this way."

Nightmare waved him over, leading him back to his and Dream's home. On the way back Nightmare couldn't help but think about how Geno first appeared. It's rather odd how two different people managed to arrive in this place from somewhere completely foreign to him. It couldn't be related, right? No, it's just a coincidence.

Soon enough, they arrived. 'Oh, looks like Dream returned from the village early. Better for us, I can tell him everything now than wait until he gets home later.' Nightmare waved at Dream, who waved back.

Dream had fun with the villagers' children, but had decided to head back for the day. Once getting back, he realized his brother hadn't returned yet, so he went to get some food ready. He was still learning to cook from Saphire, the village's tavern cook, so it was going to be sandwiches for today. She was nice, and had offered to teach both of the brothers as a way to help them have their own means of providing food for themselves. It was so that neither Dream nor Nightmare had to rely on the villagers' generosity to avoid any possible future issues that came from any of the villagers taking advantage of them.

After making a couple sandwiches, he went outside to wait for Nightmare. He decided to busy himself with tending the flowers in their front garden. A few minutes later, he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, and knew instantly it was Nightmare. Looking over to the forest, he saw Nightmare with a new person. He waved back at Nightmare after he waved, but was intrigued by the new person following him.

As they approached, Dream noticed more details about the new guy, including his strange appearance. He seemed rather relaxed before he saw him, but now seemed nervous. He also kept looking around at everything, almost like seeing the world for the first time.

"Hi, brother! Who might this be? Make a new friend?"

"Hi, Dream, this is Error. Error, this is my brother, Dream. He just appeared out of a portal a little while ago. He came from some kind of white void? And I offered for him to stay here instead of wherever that place was. I don't know much about the place, but I can't help but feel like that isn't a good place to live long-term. It's okay if he stays, right?"

Dream blinked in surprise, that was not what he expected, but quickly agreed. "Of course he can stay! Oh, I made some sandwiches, I should make a few more, I hope you like them!" And he ran into the house to make a few more sandwiches, leaving Nightmare and Error outside.

"Is he a-always that energeti-tic?"

"Most times, yeah. Is it too much for you? I can let him know to calm down a bit. He's just excited to meet someone new, is all."

"N-No, I think it's alri-right. Reminds me of-f...." Error pauses, trying to think of what Dream reminded him of.

"... You alright?" Nightmare asked, concerned.

"Hm? Oh, yea-ah, just thought that y-your brother reminded m-e-e of someone, but I don't r-remem-mber who. It's fine, though. Wh-What are these 'sandw-wiches' that he was talking abou-out?"

"Oh, it's a kind of food that consists of different ingredients that is put between two slices of bread, or sandwiched."

"Oh, that's kin-n-nd of cool. I'll try-y them, then."

Nightmare and Error entered the house, and while Dream was making more sandwiches, Nightmare showed their new guest the spare bedroom and pointed out his and Dream's rooms and let him know that if he needs anything at night, he's welcome to let either of them know. Nightmare just hoped that if Geno does show up again somehow, by whatever miracle, he wouldn't mind him giving Error the room he hoped would be Geno's.

He fidgeted with Geno's scarf later, after they had all eaten their fill of sandwiches. Though he will admit Error's method of eating was... unexpected(why did he have five tongues??). But it was a nice early dinner. It had surprised him just how late it was when he brought Error back, though, it didn't seem like it took that long. And there's still the question of what that strange sound that seems to be ever-present around Error. Something he'll have to ask another time.

So this is it! It is done! Ok, there are a couple of ideas I played around with in this. First, Dream and Nightmare have a very slight effect on the weather, if Nightmare and/or Dream are very distraught, it will be cloudy and possibly start raining. If either or both of them are very happy, it will be more sunny, but not hot. The other idea is that the Multiverse is not on a universal timer. A lot of AUs go at different speeds, and it's kinda rare to find any two AUs that are both the same speed and are at the same time of day as each other. And the Anti-Void is already known to be outside of any of that and fluctuates in time.

@bluepallilworld @shinechermont

The only thing I couldn't decide at first was if Error was already able to leave the Anti-Void before coming to Dreamtale, or if it's the first time he's left the Anti-Void. Ultimately, I decided to go the route of him first leaving the Anti-Void into Dreamtale. He will go back every now and then and explore the Multiverse from here, but he will always come back here. He won't realize that the reason is that he subconsciously knows this place was a home to him before he became Error, but that will happen in time.

Also this would have been posted on day 2 if I finished everything on time, but it's now in a kinda limbo where it's both on time but also late XD

[qoldenskies]

FIRST DRAFT DEFEATED!!! its 54k words currently

[luvcrs]

julia's father was an incredible businessman, which often meant some of his tactics were far from legal but since he had money, he could buy his way out of almost anything. it frustrated julia to no end. he often called her ungrateful, saying she'd had everything handed to her and she'd thrown it all away. the thought alone made her scoff out loud. her father's mind was twisted in ways julia would never be able to understand. she let out a resigned sigh at her spouse's words. "i have, so many times. but somehow he always finds out so she doesn't come." it was heartbreaking. julia couldn't imagine being in that kind of a loveless marriage. "i'm not gonna give up on her though. it might take some more prodding but i think i can get through to her." julia added softly. she also didn't want to bring the mood down, but being so happy it made her reflect on how she wish her mom could've had the same experience. but she'd tried her best to be a good parent, and julia knew that counted for something. "well, i'll start by saying we wouldn't be leaving bed for a week." she playfully tugged on the collar of ashton's suit with a mischievous look on her face. "neither would i."

"you think?" julia looked up at ashton with a smile on her face before she waved down one of the attentends, "can i see that one?" as they brought it out of the display, julia felt her heart thumping against her chest. it was the very notion that she was just here choosing a ring with the love of her life, something she wouldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams not that long ago. it seemed silly, but to her it really was everything. julia slipped the ring on to her finger very carefully, turning to ashton as she did so. "what do you think?"

julia's words although not expecting them also didn't exactly surprise ashton either. they could see how the woman looked at her daughter, their was a touch of softness to her features. the family dynamic of the diaz family was definitely something that could be studied. the way julia's father demanded respect and attention whenever he entered the room. there was a reason he had quite the reputation amongst high profile lawyers. ashton wasn't someone he'd taken to and he made sure they knew that. "he's an intimidating man but that doesn't give him the right to bully her into something she doesn't believe in. have you tried to talk to her, away from him?" they didn't want to bring the mood down however, if they could help juila connect with their mother in any kind of way, they would. ashton smiled against their wife's lips, "oh yeah? what kinds of things are those? you're almost encouraging me by saying things like that." ashton couldn't contain the smile that overtook their face as she agreed to move in, "i would not want to be stuck for life with anyone else."

hand in hand, ashton followed julia around, glancing at each cabinet as they passed. they did their best to hide their reaction to the prices, not wanting to let on to the woman that some prices were a little out of their reach. julia's pet name for them pulled them from their thoughts, as their eyes fell to the ring julia was pointing at. the ring was simply beautiful, it was simple yet the diamonds still shined. it made them glad that she was able to pick the exact ring she wanted. "it's stunning, it's going to look so good on you." leaning down they placed a kiss against the top of her head, "try it on."

[galacticlamps]

in the club bathroom straightup pondering it. and by "it" haha well let's just say, 'whether or not i should attempt to finish & share a fic i've been working on for nearly a year now'

[bsaka7]

HELLO??????

[autumnalwalker]

Empty Names - 24 - Nostalgia

Author's Note: In which Ashan tests out some new types of magic, remembers childhood trauma, revisits his hometown, and learns a bit more about Carnette Bridgewood from Road and Sullivan. See the tags for additional commentary. Word Count: 17,474 Content Warnings: "Genre-typical violence" in the form of a fight between a wizard and a monster. Dead animals (died offscreen). Anxiety over past trauma.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost “Get away from him!”

“Teacher, what is going on?”

“Did you really think you could hide what you did?  What he is?”

“Ashan, just look at me.  Everything’s going to be alright.”

“What is he talking about?”

“Put down your staff Glassgaze.  Even you can’t stop all of us at once.”

“Watch me.”

*******

Ashan lies in bed on the hazy verge between sleep and waking, trying to sort newly unblocked memories from dreams.  He realizes his eyes are wet and he sits up, breath hitching and body shuddering as he clasps silken bedsheets to his bare chest.  The forgotten experience from a decade ago is now as fresh in his mind as if it had just happened yesterday, and it is difficult not to fall back into the mindset of the frightened child who went  through it.

He attempts to still himself the way he always does but his mind jumps to the one who taught him that technique and the image of her lying bloody and burnt from a failed attempt to protect him.  The child he was back then had not yet mastered that stillness to keep his spells precise.  He had not yet had to perfect that stillness to keep himself sane while unable to comprehend the language of his own thoughts.

A more external grounding then.  Something anchored in the here and now.  The smoothness of the sheets between his fingers.  The gentle weight of the blankets on his legs.  The barest blue glow of morning light leaking through the window blinds to lend a suggestion of shape to the patterns embroidered on the gauzy bed curtains.

He had not expected to get so used to sleeping in a bed.  Not after so many years simply suspending himself in midair with magic overnight in order to conveniently sleep anywhere.  It is the blankets, he thinks.  There is something strangely comforting about their layered weight.

He waves a hand and the curtains around the bed and over the window slide open to let in the sun.  There is the desk beneath the window with its pile of tomes borrowed from the Manor’s library.  There is his neatly folded robe within easy reach atop the bedside table.  There is the white laptop gifted to him by Eris where he left it on the vanity across the room from him.  Despite having so little, he has still marked this decadent guest room room as his own.

It is a strange thought, having a room to call his own.  It feels presumptuous and nostalgic all at once.  He and Aliana had always been on the road.  The longest the two of them ever stayed in one place was a single season, and even that had a deadline from the start after which he knew they would move on again.  This current arrangement, as far as he has been able to tell from talking to Road, appears to be indefinite as long as he wants it.

The last time he had his own room to live in rather than to stay in was when his parents still thought he was alive.

He catches sight of himself in the vanity’s mirror and stares down his reflection until its expression is as calm as it should be.  He squeezes the bedsheets to himself one last time before letting them fall, getting up, and dressing himself.

Properly attired he is no longer Ashan, the scared child who just watched his mentor fall and had his potential sealed away.  He is the wizard Glassheart, traveling adventurer and protector of those in need.

Yet still the preserved memory throbs like a reopened wound seeking acknowledgement.

He looks from the stack of tomes with their arcane lore of a dozen worlds’ spells to the sleeping laptop with its queued videos of this world’s contemporary makeup styles and techniques.  On any other day he could easily lose himself in either for hours, but right now he needs something more solid to distract himself with.

Climbing out the window and testing his reflexes with a spell to slow his fall makes for a decent start.

Making a morning ritual of exercise helps, and by now he has almost memorized the winding trails of the Bridgewood Estate’s extensive gardens.  Focusing on one footstep after another during a brisk jog is its own form of meditation, and should that not prove enough to occupy his mind, identifying the rare flowers and herbs as he passes by is an engaging challenge.

A maintenance golem pauses its gardening to wave a spindly leg at him and Ashan nods back to it in acknowledgement.  It is always the same one that waves to him on these morning jogs.  While they all might look like identical shiny black orbs on spidery legs, he has learned to pick out variations in their animating auras in his time here.  He wonders if the sorceress Bridgewood explicitly designed her creations with distinct personalities from the start or constructed a malleable template that would naturally produce emergent behavior over time.  Either one would be an impressive feat in its own right, especially considering the sheer quantity of the constructs keeping the manor and estate grounds clean and orderly in their maker’s absence.

The minutes pass by in a pleasant strain of muscles and lungs.  The paving stones beneath his feet.  The floral scents upon the breeze.  The sunlight on his face.  Anchors to the here and now.  The dark, sound-proofed tent and the enchanted shackles around a child’s wrists were years ago, not last night.

He rounds the bend in the path to the gazebo where he has made his habit of performing his more stationary morning exercises and finds Road already there.  They are holding a cloth-wrapped bundle in one hand and staring up at the star-painted inner dome of the gazebo’s ceiling.

“It used to shift in real time to reflect the sky on the opposite side of the earth,” Road says when Ashan joins them in admiring the mural.  “I wonder if it froze the moment Carnette was gone or slowly wound down.  I bet Sullivan would know.”  They blink and turn their head to greet Ashan with a warm smile.  “But it’s too beautiful a morning for thoughts like that.  Join me for breakfast?”  

They punctuate the offer with a raise of their carried bundle.

“I appreciate the offer,” Ashan replies.  His mind leaps back to the images that plagued him during the night and he cuts off the second half of that sentence.

“Wonderful,” Road laughs.  “Well, come one, I was just on my way to a perfect spot.”

“I take it you have recovered,” Ashan observes as he follows Road deeper into the gardens.  “Bridgewood said you were feeling unwell.”

“Oh, nothing that a good night’s sleep or two couldn’t fix.  As Sullivan so likes to remind me, even heroes need to sleep.  The worrywort.”

They round another bend in the garden trail and arrive at a patinated copper gate beneath an arch of ivy.  It creaks as Road pushes it open without slowing their gait.  Only when they realize Ashan has stopped to stare do they pause to turn around.

“This is the entrance to the hedge maze,” Ashan says.  Thus far he has limited his exploration of the interior of Bridgewood Manor out of respect as a guest.  He has avoided exploring the maze out of wariness.  While he has explicitly been granted free reign to explore the Estate’s grounds, labyrinths are potentially dangerous conceptual archetypes at the best of times, and all the moreso when created by mages.  To attempt to navigate one crafted by the sorceress Bridgewood herself…

“It would be quite the adventure to explore, wouldn’t it?” Road invites.  “Even the maintenance golems barely come in here anymore and Sullivan’s focused all his attention on the Manor, so there’s probably things in here Carnette never got around to showing anyone.”

A thrill of exploration trickles down Ashan’s spine, the likes of which he has not felt since the last time Aliana took him into an ancient, monster-infested ruin years ago.

“Not that we’ll be going very far in for now,” Road amends.  “But even a little taste of adventure makes wonderful spice for a meal.”

Ashan follows them past the gate and down the overgrown marble staircase beyond.  Vines and fallen leaves from the overhead trellises crunch underfoot as they make their descent.  The only view of the maze below is through stained glass windows more interested in displaying their images than allowing a view from above by which to plan a route.  Dryads dancing in a ring.  A carnivorous plant surrounded by bones.  An arachnoid flower whose web drips with nectar.  A waterfall spilling into a pool full of treasure.  The scenes go on.

“Are these all vistas to be found within the maze?” Ashan asks.

“Hard to say,” Road replies, “but knowing Carnette, she probably at least planned to include them all at some point.  Who knows which ones she ever got around to and which ones she changed her mind about or got bored with.  The one time she threw me in here and told me to try to solve the maze, it was still in the early design phase and I know she expanded it after that and took at least some of my feedback into account.”

They reach the bottom of the stairs and the stone walls give way to towering unkempt hedges.  Road pushes on through the leafy branches stretching out into the path and Ashan conjures a marker beacon to follow back, just in case.

“I am not sure where to begin unpacking that,” Ashan says.

Road laughs and turns a corner, their voice making it easy for Ashan to follow them even when out of sight.  “It was my first time meeting her.  Sullivan claimed that the two of them were past the ‘trying to kill each other’ stage of their courtship and wanted to introduce us.  Turns out he’d been talking up my skills as an adventurer and she thought it’d be entertaining to test those claims so she rearranged the layout of the Estate to make us traverse the hedge maze in order to reach the Manor.  Between you and me, I think she was a little bit jealous and wanted to see how Sullivan and I held up under pressure together.”

“And the offering of feedback?”  Ashan asks, choosing not to pursue the questions raised by the jealousy part.

“I don’t know that she ever went through with it, but she’d been toying with the idea of plucking adventurers from worlds like Orthon and Dorbreith - and maybe even people from other worlds like this that don’t acknowledge ‘adventurer’ as a profession - and offering them boons if they could successfully make their way through.  I told her that if that’s what she wanted then she needed to make the traps and puzzles less deadly and put in more safe areas where challengers could stop to catch their breath.”

“But… why?”

“Well, not to brag too much, but if Sullivan and I were making it through by the skin of our teeth then most anyone else she was likely to chuck in here at random was going to wind up dead and I wanted to prevent that if I could.  Even we had  to cheat towards the end by baiting the invincible minotaur golem she had stalking us into mowing down the walls for us so we could skip straight to the exit.”

“While that raises a number of other questions, what I meant was why would she go through the trouble?  What did she hope to get out of such a convoluted and colossal undertaking?”

Road shrugs.  “Entertainment?  Another way to spread her reputation?  Subjects to test experimental hypotheses on?  An audience to show off the fruits of her hobby to?  Carnette was never someone who did anything for just one reason and she enjoyed keeping those reasons obscured.  She and Sullivan had that in common.”  Road pushes down an overgrown hedge patch, stops, and gestures for Ashan to squeeze past them.  “We’re here.”

The maze opens up into a hexagonal courtyard.  Flagstone pathways meander from the corridors at the corners to converge on a shaded bower next to a fountain that spills into a pond.  Beneath the bower’s flowering canopy sit a mosaic-topped table surrounded by wicker chairs and a marble pedestal.  Atop the pedestal is an orb the color and texture of tanned flesh, half as wide as Ashan is tall.  Ruddy tendrils flow down from the base of the orb and into the grass.  Roots, Ashan takes them for at first.

Ashan approaches the bower and the orb within with less caution than he normally might.  Surely Road would not plan to share a meal next to something dangerous.  Pondering the orb, he can tell that it is both alive and magical, although he cannot identify the type or origin of either aspect.  He steps into the bower’s shade and the orb’s surface begins to ripple in an undulating, swirling pattern.  Its top half contracts, becoming pear-shaped, and then curves to one side, evocative of an animal cocking its head in curiosity.

Ashan flicks his wand into his hand by reflex at the unexpected movement.  The no-longer-orb rears back, stretching and flattening into a fan reminiscent of a cobra’s hood.  What are probably bones become apparent beneath what is now obviously taut skin.

A hand alights on Ashan’s shoulder.  It feels just like Aliana’s whenever she was about to either calm, encourage, or praise him.

“It’s a psychically reactive art piece,” Road says.  “Most Culescun flesh sculptures are shaped to resonate with and emanate an emotion, but this one copies and syncretizes the feelings of the viewers.  I’d been wondering where it ended up ever since Jero visited a while back.”

Ashan’s wand slides back into his sleeve.  The sculpture becomes a swirling orb of ponderous curiosity once more.  The hand lifts from his shoulder.

“So this was xyr gift to the sorceress Bridgewood for assisting xem in xyr exile?”

“The very same,” Road confirms while unwrapping their bundle on top of the mosaic table.  It is a simple spread.  A loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and an apple.  “It seemed like a shame for it to be stuck down here alone for so long without stimulation.  Given that this maze doesn’t rearrange itself anymore, I imagine you could bring the others down here sometime if you felt like it.  I’m sure Lacuna at least would get a kick out of it.”

Bones press against the sculpture’s skin from the inside in alarm.

“Stimulation?” Ashan asks.  “It is not sapient, is it?”

“Of course not.  Jero’s got too many ethical standards for that, even if Carnette didn’t always.”  Road plucks a pair of crystal goblets dangling from vines that let go with a tug and walks over to the fountain.  

“What do you mean by that?”  Ashan follows Road.  

In the nearby pool, several of the sculpture’s red tendrils have grown feathery fronds that wave in the current created by the fountain’s overflow.  Ashan recognizes them to be gills, of a sort.  A gill-less red tendril snatches a water-striding insect from the pool’s surface, dragging it under and enveloping it.

“Carnette and I often didn’t see eye to eye on matters,” Road says while rinsing the goblets in the fountain.  “I’d hesitate to call her outright malicious - most of the time anyway - but she had a tendency to overlook the fact that whatever she was doing might affect real people.  And when she did go out of her way to do something good, well, like I said, she never did anything for just one reason.”

“I see,” Ashan says.  “I had always heard conflicting stories about her, but on Orthon at least the tales singing her praise always outweighed any warnings of wickedness.”

“She always could be talked down from her worst impulses so long as there was someone willing to try, I’ll give her that.  And she’d usually answer an earnest plea for help, even if she did dress it up in a speech to justify how she was just using the opportunity to further her own unfathomable agenda.   She and Sullivan are alike in that way too.”

Road passes Ashan a crystal goblet filled with cool, clear fountain water.  The stem is still wet from the rinsing.

“Cheers,” Road says and clinks their vessel to Ashan’s.

Ashan touches the glass to his lips and catches the faintest whiff of sweetness over rotten eggs.  Road has already drained theirs in one long drink and is moving to refill it, so he takes a sip.  It tastes of sugar and sulfur.

Road takes a seat at the table and the sleeve of their purple jacket trimmed with green extends into a clawed gauntlet that they use to divide the cheese and cut the apple in half.

“For all that those two fed on each other’s chaos at times,” Road continues, “they actually mellowed one another out in the grand scheme of things.”  The gauntlet retracts and Road breaks the bread by hand.  They hand half the loaf across the table to where Ashan has seated himself.  “He misses her, you know.  He hides it, but I’ve known him longer than I can remember and this is the first time I’ve ever known him to grieve.”

Ashan’s gaze snaps up from the fruits and nuts filling the bread.  “Why are you telling me this?”

“A couple of reasons.”

“Much like the sorceress Bridgewod herself?”

Road laughs.  “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?  But really, I’m just looking out for my friends.  I’ve found that people function best when they have more than one confidant they can talk to, and while he’ll never admit it, something’s been eating at Sullivan lately and he could use another friend.”  A smile, more mischievous than Road’s usual, but no less warm.  “And besides, I think he’s taken a rare liking to you, not that he’ll admit that either.”

“I have no interest in courtship,” Ashan says flatly.

“Not at all what I meant,” Road chuckles.  “And don’t worry, neither does he.  Those days are well behind him.  As I said, friendship.  Merely something to consider at any rate.  The abrasiveness is mostly a mask, I promise.”

“I shall keep that in mind,” Ashan concedes.  “And your other reason?”

“I figured you could use a diverting conversation and it seemed like a potentially engaging topic.”

The sculpture twists itself into a knot.

“You did not encounter me by chance this morning.”  It is a statement, not a question.

“Not exactly,” Road admits, “but not exactly not either.  I guess you could say I’ve got a knack for showing up where and when I’m needed, even if I don’t fully understand the why of it.  The info gathering that Sullivan - and now Lacuna - do simply speeds up the process and makes it more efficient.  I can tell when it’s happening though, and when you showed up I made some educated guesses.”

“Such as?”

“No offense, but speaking from experience, you strike me as the kind of person who holds things in until they get to be too much and spill over, and given that there was mention of you and Lacuna possibly attempting to remove your seal yesterday it seemed likely enough that something from that might be bothering you.  So, if you want to talk about it, we’re in a safe place and you have my word no one else will hear about it, and if you’d rather have a distraction, we’re in a place built by the most famous mage of the last few centuries and I’ve got stories to tell.  Or I can shut up and we can enjoy a beautiful morning in silence.”

Ashan nods and chews his bread in silence, pondering the orb, the one it was gifted to, the one so willing to talk about her, and the offer they made.

The silence of a peaceful morning where decisions can be put off for at least a little while.

Ashan takes a sip of the strange water and conjures a set of razor thin barriers to further slice his half of the apple and cheese.

The sorceress Bridgewood…

Unlike wizard, witch, or enchanter, the term sorcerer is not so much a description of how one’s magic works, but an accusation.  Broader than titles such as pyromancer, warder, or cleric that refer to the types of magic one specializes in, “sorcerer” is a term reserved for mages who practice magic that is considered taboo, whether because it is morally abhorrent or just too dangerous for anyone to safely or responsibly control.  Stealing or binding souls.  Communion with the eldritch.  Mind control.  True resurrection of the dead.  City-leveling evocations.  Not always a mark of evil, but always one of danger.  Someone might delve into forbidden sorcerous arts with the best of intentions meaning to use them for good; or simply be overconfident enough that they really think they can control what generations of mages before them have failed.

And then there were the so-called “true sorcerers.” Every couple centuries or so someone usually shows up with the talent and skill to actually command that kind of power without destroying themselves and everyone around them.  Maybe once a millennium there would be such an individual who refrains from abusing their power to the point that they become threats to entire countries, if not entire worlds.  

Or so Aliana had taught Ashan long ago.  According to her, the only “true sorcerer” like that alive right now in this world cluster is - or now rather was - the sorceress Bridgewood.  It was a name he had latched onto ever since he first heard it.  In his early teens he had occasionally fancied himself as aspiring to the title himself one day.  The day he mentioned that to Aliana was one of the few times she ever snapped at him.  That conversation makes more sense now.

“The counterseal ritual worked,” Ashan says, breaking the silence, “but the blocked memories of the seal’s application have come back unexpectedly vividly.”

“As if no time has passed at all since the memories were locked away, perfectly preserved and ready to throw you right back into who you were at the time,”  Road whispers.

The sculpture grows spines in surprise.

“How did you know?” Ashan asks.

“Personal experience.  There’s a reason I’ve come to prefer amnestics and wipes over blocks.  They’re not as precise or complete, but even if the memories do come back for whatever reason, they tend to be blurred and as dulled by time as memories normally would be.  Less risk of dropping you into the deep end of unprocessed trauma out of the blue that way.”

“I see.  You do have a great deal of experience with aiding those who inadvertently fell through the Masquerade.”

Amnesticization for the sake of Masquerade preservation is the one exception to the proscription on mind-altering magic.  Of course even non-mages that work with potential Masquerade breaches would be well-versed in the different methods of allowing people to return to their mundane lives.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Road says.  “But as for your current situation, you’ve got options.  Amnestics to dull the pain are technically an option, albeit not one that I would recommend for a variety of reasons.  Then there’s the old standby of ‘cope, drown it out, and live your life until it fades like any other bad memory,’ which has its ups and downs.  Or there’s the hard but effective route of trying to work through and process it, but that’s not going to happen in a single morning and from the look of that sculpture over there, you’re not up to doing much more talking about it right now anyway.”

“Not so much, I fear.”

“Nothing wrong with that.  And if you like, remind me later and I can get you in touch with some therapists I usually recommend to first timers Backstage.  But for now, any requests for a story?  Sullivan’s the real teller between the two of us, but I’ve been told I can be distracting when I want to be.”

“Thank you, truly,” Ashan says.  “Although one thing I feel I must share lest I leave her reputation unnecessarily tarnished is that I know for sure now that my ment- that Aliana was against the application of the seal on me and only conceded to play her role in binding my magic after she had exhausted her other options for protecting me at great cost to herself.”

“I’m glad to hear you weren’t betrayed in that way too.”

“It does not change the fact that she ultimately kidnapped me without any intent of bringing me back home.  It is a solace that I am still deciding what to make of.”

“I know the feeling.”

“But as for story requests, perhaps a tale involving the sorceress Bridgewood?  We are in her home afterall, and, after her consort, I imagine you knew her best.”

Road grins and leans in close over the table.  “Oh, I’ve got a few I could tell.  Remember our fair lady of the green?  The minor goddess who helped us out with the Logos quest?  So, a while back some produce corporation was imprisoning and exploiting her to increase crop yields and was blatant enough to feature her as a mascot in their advertising…”

*******

“Please, just don’t hurt him!”

“You’re in no position to make demands Glassgaze.  Count yourself lucky that none of the elder mages you felled before we put a stop to your outburst died.”

“He’s just a child.  He hasn’t hurt anyone.”

“He just cut maestro Silverthorn’s arm off to protect you.  He’s an anchor world mage whose magic is unbound by logic or rules and with more potential for power than I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve taught him control.  Restraint.  Honor.  Do you really think it’s luck that no one died today?”

“Honor?  That’s a joke coming from you.  You’ve taught him enough to be dangerous by giving him a taste of combining magic systems from outside his homeworld.  Or did you really think you had the next sorceress Bridgewood on your hands?”

“That’s still no reason to kill him.  You’re talking about executing a child for being a potential threat.  Bind him if you have to, but please, don’t hurt him.”

*******

Ashan raises his arm that isn’t temporarily paralyzed and accepts Road’s offer to lift him off the floor of the gym’s sparring ring.

“Good match,” Road says.  “If you’d had more room to maneuver you might have had me.”

Eris and Lacuna had already been at the office when Ashan and Road arrived after breakfast.  They got to talking about the nullification of the seal on his magic and one thing led to another and soon enough Eris proposed a sparring match to see what he could do.  To Ashan’s surprise, Lacuna demurred from watching a display of the magic she had helped unlock in favor of staying in her lab to catch up on work.  Ashan won fairly handily against Eris and then Road asked if he was up for another round.  

It ended much as any match against Road does, save for the fact that he got them to draw that energy sword of theirs against him for the first time. 

“A good match indeed,” Ashan says while Road pulls him to his feet.  He sways, off balance from one arm limply dangling as dead weight, and Road waits until he steadies before letting go and handing him back his wand that he had dropped when their blade of orange light disrupted his motor control.

Yes, a good match, or at least an educational one.  A reminder that theoretical study of varied forms of magic and the sudden ability to access them does not automatically equate to mastery.  And loss does ever carry its own opportunities.

Ashan touches his wand to his numb hand and focuses on a spell he has been wanting to try for some time now, ever since encountering that first tome borrowed from Bridgewood’s library.  That tome, Whispers of the Sun, had an entire chapter dedicated to spells of healing flame as a prime example both of how pyromancy can be more than the pure destruction commonly associated with it and of how varied the approaches of traditions originating from different worlds can be when arriving at the same end state for a spell.  Some of those spells were crude acts of cauterization.  Others grew out of the concept of fire as a cleansing agent burning out impurities, sometimes symbolically and sometimes literally.

This spell is rooted in the conceptualization of the sun as the ultimate source of all life and fire as an extension of the sun.  

Some spells require incantations, be they poetic verse to manifest a concept or nonsense syllables meant to resonate on esoteric frequencies with the universe’s vibrating threads.  Other spells require gestures, be they precise hand signs and dances drawn from a deep canon of tradition or simple focusing motions bridging the gap between visualized will and manifested physicality.

This spell requires a prayer.

It is a wordless prayer, as all the deepest prayers are.  It is a praise of the sun.  It is a cry for the comfort of warmth.  It is a recognition of connection and promise of care.  It is more witchcraft than wizardry.  It is not a technique of precise formulae and methodology.  It is a gift that asks only for a reverent heart.

Reverence has never come easily to Ashan, but he hopes that wonder will make an adequate substitute to the recipe as he casts his mind back.

The warmth of a roadside campfire and the end of a day’s travel and the countless stars overhead.  His first time seeing a farm in person and the rows and rows of green leaves turned to face the sun.  The sight of the sky after weeks of exploring underground ruins and the tears the light brought to his eyes.  The hearthfire at a bustling inn and the realization that he was living a scene out of a fantasy.  A dragon’s blazing breath and the eggs it incubated while he and Aliana watched from hiding.  The smell of his parents’ cooking wafting across the yard and the knowledge that it was time to come inside from his play.  A towering white tree whose bark glitters more like crystal than wood while its mother-of-pearl leaves make a shifting rainbow above. 

Three times Ashan sat beneath that tree and each time was the closest he has ever felt to reverence.  The first was as a child, roughly a year after his abduction, and it was a surprise gift from Aliana in an attempt to share someplace special to her.  The second was at the end of his training, waiting for seven days for a branch to fall so he could carve it into a wand as his mentor had done with her staff, and afterwards Aliana bestowed upon him the epithet of Glassheart to anoint him as a peer rather than a student.  The third was on his last day on Orthon, after he learned there had never been an intent to bring him home, and it had been at Aliana’s request for one last detour before taking him home so that she might say goodbye.

He understands that goodbye better now.

White flames spread from the tip of his wand to envelop his hand and crawl up his arm, illuminating the sleeve of his robe from within.  His fingers twitch involuntarily as sensation returns, first as warmth, then as a pins-and-needles tingling.  The sensation and the twitching moves up to his elbow; to his shoulder.  He feels the air grow cold around him.  He feels himself start to sweat.  He feels a pang of hunger.  The flames grow brighter and spread to his neck.

Ashan Glassheart clears his mind and the flames flicker and go out.

His arm feels feverishly hot and the tingling sensation persists, but there is no pain and he has full motor function once again.

The full process took seven seconds, but it feels like much longer.

He is holding up his hand and flexing his fingers, about to comment on the spell working better than anticipated for a first try when an unexpected voice interrupts him.

“I see we’re doing self-immolations today,” Bridgewood - the current Bridgewood - lilts.  “Someone should have told me, I would have brought marshmallows.”

“Ashan has healing magic now,” Road says.  “He just cured the paralysis from my sword.”

“No offense,” Eris says, “but if that’s healing I think I’ll take my chances with my own regen.  I’ve had my fill of mages lighting me on fire.”

“Is that surliness I hear?” Bridgewood croons.  “Sounds like someone lost her match.”

“Gonna have to try harder than that to bait me,” Eris says nonchalantly.  “Yeah, I lost this round, but that just means our score is tied again.  Besides I’ve figured out his tells with glow color and magic type so I’m feeling pretty good about next time.”

His tells?  What is she talking about?

“Okay, why’s everyone staring?” Eris asks.

“There is no color-coded glowing to my utilizing different magic systems,” Ashan says.  “Not to the mundane eye anyway.”

Eris closes her eyes and massages her temples with one hand.  “Oh goddammit…” she mutters.

Bridgewood’s smirk beams wide.  “Well now, as positively delicious as those implications might be to unpack, we do have work to be doing.”  He turns to Road.  “My friend, I’ve finished the sorting of which of those cursed trinkets to hold back as bait, so you and muscles over there are free to finish your wrapup deliveries from that job.  Excuse me, that ‘mission’.  Wizard boy, you’re with me.  There’s a crossover point I want to assess as a staging ground for our ersatz smuggling route and a monster that’s wandered out of it to harass the locals so we’ll be making with the proverbial bird stoning.”

Eris stares Bridgewood down, swallows whatever words has in mind, and turns to Road to say “I’ll get the vans ready.”

It occurs to Ashan to wonder just what she and Bridgewood spoke of in private before and on their long way back from assisting the changeling siblings yesterday.  He would have expected more pushback from her against Bridgewood’s apparent giving of orders, especially given the friction between them up until now.  

He considers questioning the directives himself (is not Road the one who should be issuing such commands?) but decides against it for now.  If there is good work to be done then what does the organizational structure matter?  Better instead to focus on the most relevant information.

“So, where is this crossover point?”

*******

“There, there.  None of this is your fault.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But… but… hi-his arm! And your head!  And everyone is… and they are saying-”

“Shhh…  You did nothing wrong.  All that can be healed.  I’m going to make everything alright and in the morning this will all just be a bad dream.”

“Glassgaze, the elders are ready for you.  And your… charge.  They said to remind you this is your last chance to back out and let them do a full sealing.  Otherwise any future transgressions of his are on your head.”

“Tell them they can wait another few godsdamn minutes!”

“They also said to remind you that if he ever leaves this world then you can consider yourself exiled along with him.”

“Fine.  It’s not like I ever planned to take him back home.  Now let us have a moment.”

*******

Ashan looks out the window of the armored van at the greens and browns of the rocky hill country as the vehicle bounces and jolts its way down an offroad trail.  That boulder.  That gulley.  That stand of mesquite and mountain cedar trees.  The more he sees the more the suspicion that has been growing since passing through one of the Bridgewood Estate’s tree portals becomes a certainty.

“I know this place,” Ashan observes.

“Good,” Bridgewood replies from the driver’s seat, “that means I was on the money about which crossover point you absconded through as a kid.”

“Why are we here?”

“My friend and I believe the unknown group that caused that nasty business with the dead dragon getting a ship stuck in its skull back on our first outing has been targeting smuggling operations passing through crossover points in order to acquire various illicit magics and technologies while leaving no witnesses.  Our backup plan if other avenues of inquiry fail us is to leak a rumor through certain channels which I know are being monitored that a certain sorceress’s private collection has been burgled and moved off world in order to lure this group into a confrontation.  We’re here to assess the nearby crossover point to make sure it’s a suitable staging ground.”

“That is not what I meant.  Why this crossover point specifically?”

One last bounce and a swerve to keep the armored van from barreling into an arroyo and the suggestion of a trail turns into an unpaved road through the hilly backwoods.  The trees here are short and srcubby, but they are thick enough to block any good view of the surroundings.

“A few days ago the techie flagged a series of cryptid sightings in the area as a potential job to follow up on,” Bridgewood offers.  “No direct human contact yet, but a mild correlation to a suspected drop in local wildlife populations.  Not too unusual with the nearby crossover point.  It seemed minor enough that I normally would have set it as something for my friend to occupy themself with in between bigger jobs with the rest of you lot, but I figured we may as well make this outing the stone to kill both of these birds with.”

“Are you being evasive or simply obtuse?  I doubt my personal connection with the area is a coincidence.”

“You’ve got that right,” Bridgewood chimes.  “Say, you never learned to drive, did you?”

“What?” Ashan blinks at the sudden non sequitur.  “No.  Why?”

“Would you like to?  This is a pretty easy stretch of road and there’s no one around to try to pull you over, as hilarious as that would be.”

“I shall pass.”

Bridgewood shrugs, taking both hands off the wheel in the process.  “Suit yourself.  According to television, it’s supposed to be an effective bonding and trust building activity.”

“That may well be,” Ashan begins slowly, “the most blatant attempt to change the subject I have ever witnessed.”

“Oh if that had only been a conversational redirection you never would have noticed,” Bridgewood chortles.  “How about this then?  Answer a question of mine and I’ll answer the question you seem to think I’m avoiding.”

Through a break in the trees, Ashan sports a familiar creek out the window.  They are moving away from the crossover point and towards town.  Searching for the cryptid first then.  That would make sense if the goal is to do a catch and release back through the crossover point to whatever world it slipped in from.  He thinks back to how long it took him and Aliana to make this trek.  Far slower having been on foot but the route was more direct.

“Go ahead and ask your question,” Ashan says.  “We have plenty of time and I have few secrets.”

“Excellent,” Bridgewood purrs.  “Now tell me, what do you think of my wife?”

“Excuse me?” Ashan stutters.

“Carnette.  The sorceress Bridgewood.  My dearly departed wife.  Don’t think I haven’t noticed you going all wide-eyed fanboy every time you encounter one of her creations.  I’d like to know why.  Around these parts her name gets spoken in frightful whispers more than open adulation.”

“On Orthon,” Ashan says after a moment of consideration, “she is considered a living legend.  Some would even go so far as to call her a heroic figure, although there are some popular stories that would dispute that.”

“It’d hardly be the first time someone made that mistake,” Sullivan laughs, “but do go on.”

“To begin with, it is said that almost two centuries ago, as a mere teenager, she arrived on Orthon out of the blue and within the span of three years mastered seven different Orthonian magic styles - four of them considered forbidden arts - and averted a calamity brought on by a megalomaniacal cabal.  Even without those feats, her very presence revolutionized what we knew about interworld travel and branching anchor theories of cosmology.  The sporadicness of her presence over the next century arguably taught us about that field as much as she did herself.”

“But who was she to you?”

“By the time I arrived on Orthon she had not been to that world in over half a century so by then she was more like a historic folk hero that few other than elder mages had ever met in person.  They say that the continental Convocation of Mages that sets the regulations on magic in the region my mentor and I spent most our time in was originally formed by her old adventuring party and that on her final visit she contributed directly to laying the foundations for the modern academy system of teaching wizardry that my mentor learned from.”  

Ashan feels his cheeks grow warm with the realization that he is stalling.  

“On the most personal level,” he continues, “she was someone to aspire to.  The bards all had at least one story of the sorceress Bridgewood in their repertoire, the mysterious mage from another world who mastered the forbidden arts without being corrupted by them, saved the world, and went on to invent whole new fields of theory.  Even if more than half of the stories were nonsense, that still left enough truth to make the very concept of a ‘true sorcerer’ synonymous with her name.  For a time, I thought that if I could be great like her I could prove that I was also an exception to the trend of anchor world mages being dangerously unpredictable, power hungry, and literally fueled by their own ego.  I dreamed that if I could do that I would not have to hide what I was anymore.”

“You thought that even with the darker stories floating around about her?” Sullivan asks.  “I don’t have nearly as many ears on Orthon as I would like, but I know at least a few of those made it over there.  Void Without, I’m sure a few even originated from there.”

Ashan’s gaze drifts back out to the dirt road in front of them.

“I was a child at the time, projecting onto an icon.  Even the best stories about her portrayed her as a hard-to-work-with eccentric, so I rationalized that between that and her more sorcerous arts she was bound to have a few enemies that spread lies over the years.  That rationalization stopped after I told Aliana about my dream and she grew truly angry with me for the first and only time.  Or so I thought.  Knowing now what I had been made to forget, I wonder if it was fear that she was feeling.  Fear of losing me or fear that she was wrong about me, I know not.  All the same, I took that as a sign that those darker tales must be somehow true and began focusing on being good, possibly great, in my own way instead.  Or at least in Aliana’s way.”

The van’s interior falls into the near silence of bumpy roads and long-restrained confessions floating unexpectedly free to breathe.

Ashan turns back to face this Bridgewood.  At last the desire to know gets the better of him.

“What was she like?” he asks of the other Bridgewood.

Sullivan’s ever-present smirk softens into a genuine smile.  It is as disconcerting as a cat suddenly sparing its prey.

“Carnette is… the most absurd woman I have ever met.  She’s a brilliant scholar with a wicked sense of humor capable of vacillating between childish whimsy and ruthless practicality on a moment’s notice.  Any so-called heroic act she ever took was motivated by amusement, utility, or spite.  She has more power than most could ever dream of and her favorite thing to use it for is interior decorating.  At least one secret door in the Bridgewood Manor is opened by the theme song of a children’s cartoon.  She delighted in making a show of academically eviscerating anyone espousing theories of magic she thought were hogwash and then literally eviscerating the fools that fell back on insults and challenges to duels in lieu of sound defenses.  I know of at least four different instances where she all but abducted random people off the street, ran experiments on them, called it a gift or blessing, set them loose, and then spent years observing them in secret to gather datapoints for whatever hypothesis she was testing.”  Bridgewood takes his eyes off the road and locks them with Ashan’s.  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“No,” Ashan says.  He wishes it were otherwise.  It almost is.

Bridgewood softly shakes his head and returns to watching the road in time to steer around a pothole trying to become a sinkhole.  “Of course you don’t,” he says.  “You never met her.  Stick around long enough and one day you will.”

“You speak as if she is still around.”

“And you use ‘we’ when referring to the people of Orthon.”

The silence of a linguistic habit considered and questioned.

“If I may,” Ashan asks, “how did you meet her?”

Bridgewood cackles and turns out of the brush onto a paved road.  

“I take it that is an off limits question then,” Ashan says.

“Oh, no, I’m a veritable open book when it comes to that tale,” Sullivan lilts.  “I tried to kill her several times and she found it endearing.  Eventually we landed ourselves in a business arrangement of a marriage contract where I would get the money and status that goes with the Bridgewood name, and she would get a conversation partner who wasn’t terrified of her and a willing test subject for her more outlandish experiments.  I’m laughing because now you know what it looks like when I redirect a conversation.”

“Oh.”

“Got so excited to learn more about the great sorceress Bridgewood that you forgot why you were even answering that question, didn’t you?”

“It was rare knowledge from a rare source with a rare opportunity.  The other answer could wait,” Ashan says.  It is as true a statement as saying yes would have been, if marginally more dignified.

“Ha!  You really are a wizard through and through.  I even got you monologing earlier.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Oh, then I suppose that was the normal sort of gushing at length about your childhood idol and spilling all your complicated personal feelings with barely any prompting because you’ve been alone so long you don’t know how to regulate sharing to any rate between all or nothing.”

“I do not gush,” Ashan says after a moment of recovery.  “Now, you have a question to stop avoiding and an answer to give.”

“Struck a nerve there did I?  You’ll have to forgive me, it’s like a reflex when I see them exposed.”

Ashan stares Bridewood down coolly.  The smile has regressed back to a smirk.  Outside, the forest has thinned out into unkempt fields separated from the road by fencing wire strung between wooden posts.  There were horses in those empty fields when he was a child.

“Fine, fine,” Bridgewood relents.  “I chose this specific locale and your company in particular because I wanted to see how you would react.  Yesterday with muscles was wonderfully informative and productive, both in observing how she handled seeing off that changeling pair and in the little chat we had on the way back.  I hoped to do the same with you.”

“But why?”

The smirk grows wider.  They pass by a once-whitewashed house with a corrugated metal roof.  More are coming up.

“Let me answer that question with a question,” Bridgewood trills.  “And it will be part of the answer, even if it doesn’t sound like it at first.”

“Very well, but this had better be the last such evasion.”

The van slows as it comes into town.  Single-story houses and trailer homes line either side of the road.  Most have modest sized yards surrounding and separating them.  Some of those yards are strewn with cheap plastic lawn furniture and children’s toys.  Some sport kitschy ornaments.  Some (usually but not always the fenced-in ones) have animals; goats, dogs, pigs, a few chickens.  Some have all of the above at once or nothing but overgrown weeds.

Bridgewood leaves Ashan hanging in silence to take in the familiar milieu before finally asking his question.

“If you could go back to your family, pain free, with everyone’s memories modified as if you never left, erasing even the pain your leaving had caused, would you?”

The van slows to a stop at an achingly familiar intersection without traffic light or stop sign.  Ashan’s breath hitches.  Mercifully, Bridgewood continues on through instead of turning left.

“That is not a hypothetical worth engaging in.”

“Whoever said it was hypothetical?  All manner of people owe me favors and Carnette left me with many a useful trinket.  I could make it happen.  Say the word and you could live a peaceful life with your family as Adr-”

“That name is not for you to say!” Ashan snaps before Bridgewood can finish the utterance.  More calmly, he continues, “The Count of Curses and Dust made me a similar offer.  They would have bought that Name and bequeathed it to a changeling to return in my place and live that life so that I might live this one without guilt.  What you propose would be the opposite but the same.  I would no longer be Ashan Glassheart.  Either deal would mean losing a part of myself.”

The van turn takes the next right turn to continue meandering through the tiny town’s only real neighborhood.  A white pickup truck without tires lays rusting in front of a mobile home with a collapsed roof.  Once, there was an old woman who paid a young boy in cookies to weed her garden and showed carrying a pot of soup up at the door of anyone with a sick child.

“Then why not bring your family Backstage?  The Bridgewood name is useful for getting people to turn a blind eye toward such a minor Masquerade breach.”

“Even if they forgave me and accepted me back, the work I do is dangerous.  I do not know that I could bear to put them through the new pain of worrying about me every time I go out.”

“Why not settle down with them then?  There’s no shortage of jobs in Crossherd for a mage willing to work on utilities.  There’s not a direct bridge to the pocket dimension around here, but the conditions are ripe for someone of your talent to make one.  You could be a wizard and have your family without worrying their pretty little heads.”

“I have the ability to do good in a way that others cannot.  It would be wrong for me not to.”

“How selfless of you,” Bridgewood condescends.

They pass by a house recognizable by its plastic lawn flamingos.  The house on either side is boarded up.  Back when the sun had not yet bleached the flamingos white or rendered them brittle and full of holes, two children that went to elementary school together fought with sticks they said were swords until they put aside their differences and turned their attention to the terrible pink dragons threatening the kingdom.  Today, those no-longer-children glance at one another through tinted glass without recognition.

“Only mostly,” Ashan admits.  “I cannot deny that I enjoy what I do.  Felling monsters.  Bringing villains to justice.  Protecting those who cannot protect themselves.  There is a… joy… to playing the role of hero.  No, more than that.  It is a part of me as much as either Name.”

“Congratulations,” Bridgewood chirps.  “That is exactly the set of answers I hoped you’d give.”

“So this was a test.”

“Think of it as,” Bridgewood drawls, “an assessment of compatibility.”

“For how you and I will work together?”

“Quiet Void, perish the thought.  Compatibility with my friend.”

“You mean Road.”

“I’ve never had another.”

“They mentioned something about that this morning.”

The smirk flickers to a grimace.

The van turns back onto the closest thing the town has to a main street.  There’s a church on the corner for a god the boy who would be Ashan never understood.  Nor did he (nor does he) understand why there were three churches in town all to the same god.  Nor why he always had to wear his most uncomfortable clothes and wake up early just to hear an old man drone on in a voice that put him to sleep whenever it was not a story about lion dens or fighting giants with slingshots.  The sign for the country barbeque across the street is gone.  There are more churches than restaurants in town now.

“Look wizard boy, I’ll tell you what I told muscles yesterday.  My friend is about as close to perfect as humanly possible, but at the end of the day they are still human, which means one day they will slip up, and when they do it will be bad.  You need to watch out for that.”

“That seems like perfectly obvious advice about anyone working on a team doing what we do.”

“You still haven’t noticed, have you?  The way they make everything feel like it’s going to be alright just by being there?  How easy it is to trust them and go along with whatever course of action they suggest?  That voice saying that even when a job goes badly surely they’ll find a way to get you out?  Not that they can help it.  It’s just the way they are now.”

“It almost sounds like you are telling me to be wary of Road.”  The very notion feels wrong.

“I’m telling you to be wary of yourself for my friend’s sake.  The worst they’ve ever been hurt was always because the people around them put them on a pedestal.  I’m hoping that you and muscles have enough in common with them that you won’t be so blind.  The techie’s a lost cause, but as long as she’s content to stay in her lab playing with her toys she shouldn’t be too much of a liability.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.  Not yet, and if there’s a drop of Fortune’s heart that doesn’t hate me yet you never will.”

The silence of uncomprehended warnings, outgrown smallness, and withered remembrance.  Ashan looked up his hometown once after Eris gifted him his laptop.  It confirmed the impression he got when he first returned to this place alongside Aliana.  He was not the only one that left this place for good.  The population today truly is but a fraction of what he remembered.

“What if I had not given the answers you hoped for?” Ashan asks.

“Ah, classic wizard,” Sullivan chuckles.  “Asking questions you’re better off not knowing.”

“A question I am better off knowing then: What manner of creature are we searching for?  ‘Cryptid’ is a designation vague as it is broad.”

“I don’t rightly know.  The reported sightings were all contradictory when they described it as anything more than a shadow moving in the night.  It could just as well be multiple creatures or a shapeshifter.  If I hadn’t had access to first hand confirmation that this place has a history of monsters crossing over –” Bridgewood glances pointedly at Ashan  “–  then I might well have written the whole business off.”

“You sound far too amused by your own ignorance,” Ashan says.

“Mystery is one of life’s greatest spices.”

“Let us get on with the solving then.  I assume you have already gathered the names and addresses of those who witnessed this alleged cryptid.”

“Obviously, but as long as I have convenient bait and a local expert on hand I see no reason to involve middlemen when I can skip straight to luring our quarry out.”

Ashan silently chides himself for not having seen this coming.  Magic is spread thin and weakened on anchor worlds by their nature and monsters whose very biology relies on magic instinctively find themselves drawn towards those whose presence warps reality’s rules to their will so that they might sustain themselves.  That was the very reason he needed rescuing by Aliana all those years ago.  For similar reasons, wild and predatory monsters on other worlds will often target young and inexperienced mages as their favored prey.  More powerful mages however, are treated as greater predators that all but the mightiest monsters will give a wide berth.

“Suppressing my presence to avoid attracting monsters was one of the first things I was taught,” Ashan says, “and even if doing so were not a subconscious reflex for me by now I suspect that my aura would function more as repellent than as bait.”

“What, your mentor never taught you aura flaring?”

“I am aware of the technique, but it is a pointless one.  It takes little practice to control how much one passively warps the ambient flow of magic, so it is useless as a tool for gauging a mage’s power when they may just as easily be hiding their potential as bluffing about their strength.  Moreover, it is crass.”

“Crass?  That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

“Vulgar as a contest of urination.”

“Huh, must be an Orthonian thing.  Anywhy, I’m going to kindly request that you do that to make yourself look as appetizing as possible.”

“What part of it being a crass and useless technique did you not understand?”

“In that case I’ll just need to find some other poor unwitting schmuck.  If there’s a monster hanging around for as long as this one apparently has been, then odds are decent that there’s a potential mage in town.”

Ashan follows the nod of Bridgewood’s head out the window and realizes that their van has slowed its cruising around town to a crawl in front of the high school he never got to attend.  Ashan waits for the pang of loss for a part of growing up he missed out on, but it never comes.  That realization brings a loss of its own.  How disconnected from one’s own culture must one be to not even feel a desire for the milestones that were denied?  He tries and fails to imagine what it would have been like, sitting in classes and studying all day, making friends his own age, joining a club or band or sports team.  All he has for context to build the fantasy off of is a handful of blurry memories of elementary school and television shows.  It all feels so alien to him now.  

What would he even have been doing at that age?  High school spans four years, does it not?  So the year spent sailing the western archipelago up through the infiltration of the gala at the oasis palace a year before his falling out with Aliana, with the catastrophic failure of his old translation charm roughly halfway in between.  No wonder he cannot relate.

“If you’re looking for your baby brother,” Bridgewood says to the staring Ashan, “classes don’t start for another two weeks and he won’t be attending here for another couple years yet anyway.”

The question of why he would be looking for his brother dies on Ashan’s lips and his stomach drops alongside the crumbling barrier between compartmentalized knowledge.  He is in the town where he grew up and his family lives.  He is in a town that is being stalked by an unknown monster.  His family is in a town with a monster.  He was attacked by monsters and saved by mages seven times as a child although he was only allowed to remember the last time.  He has a brother who has never met him and is only slightly older than he was when he was taken.  

“We are not using my brother as monster bait,” Ashan says coldly.

“Of course not,” Bridgewood replies, unperturbed by the condensation gathering on the van’s windows from the sudden drop in temperature.  “You know as well as I do that magic has nothing to do with bloodlines.  Your parents might have let you run wild in the woods to live in whimsy and believe in impossible things, but him they shower with so much protective affection that the possibility of playing in the backyard unsupervised or visiting friends without a chaperone could never even occur to him.  No fairy tales in that household anymore to inspire another child to go wandering off.  If he ever develops any potential for magic, it won’t be until he’s out on his own, burned out from the med school path your parents already decided for him and wondering what else he could have been.”

“What.”

Bridgewood grins wide, showing too many teeth for a proper smile.

“Why, my dear fellow, it’s my job to know these things.  I dare say that I know more about you and your compatriots than you do yourselves.  I know why muscles never got to meet her grandparents or even learn their names and why her parents were so dead set on assimilation.  I know that the techie’s great grandparents were a pair of witches and why they kept their kids in the dark about it.”  He leans across the van’s center console as close to Ashan’s face as his seatbelt will let him and tilts his head sideways.  “And I know that Aliana Glassgaze is currently on this iteration of Earth.”

There is hunger in those dark eyes, and for the first time in years Ashan’s instinct is for flight rather than fight as he reflexively shrinks back into his seat.

Bridgewood snaps back upright and the seatbelt whirs to catch up with him.

“But that’s beside the point,” Bridgewood chirps.  He stares at the seemingly empty school and blinks several times in rapid succession.  “Pity.  Nothing appetizing amongst the summer school kids taking makeup classes.  Always a tossup whether groups like that are going to be against the grain enough to be prime candidates or too beaten down in their self-worth to have any chance at all.”

The van lurches back into motion once more and Ashan recovers enough to say “We are not kidnapping children to use as monster bait.”

Legs burning from strain long after losing the strength for another step.  Each breath like knives in his lungs long after he’s covered his mouth to muffle the sound.  Crying in the dark long after tears have run dry.  The sight of eyes shining in the dark.  The smell of rancid breath.  The sound of heavy footsteps drawing closer.

“There is a cave in the woods on the far side of town from whence we arrived,” Ashan says.  “I played there often as a child and if there is a monster, cryptid, or other fiend in the area, it will likely be making its lair there, and even if not it is a secluded enough spot that when I make myself into a lure there should be no risk of a Masquerade breach.”

“Excellent,” Bridgewood replies.  “Let’s be off then, shall we?”

For all Bridgewood’s earlier chattiness on the way in, the drive out of town is mercifully quiet with no words exchanged beyond the occasional instruction from Ashan to take a turn.  This lasts until they pass the small cemetery at the edge of town.

“Do you want to stop and pay your respects?” Bridgewood asks in the softest voice Ashan has ever heard from him.  “I find it helps.”

“I would rather you not joke about that.”

“I’ve left four different graves with four different names on three different worlds.  Saying goodbye always helped me move on.”

“I have already seen it once and that was more than enough for a tombstone with a name that is not dead.”

“I see.”

The only other words spoken for the next quarter hour are a single “Turn off here” from Ashan, followed by a “We shall walk the rest of the way” five minutes of unproductive off-road driving later.

These woods and hills are more familiar than the town.  Less changed.  Less diminished.  Maybe the trees feel shorter now that he has grown and maybe their distance from his old home no longer feels so great now that his world is bigger, but they are still dense enough that it does not take Ashan long to lose sight of the van.  As he comes to the rocky ledge he once scrambled to climb up and over, he finds himself, for a moment, back in those long summer days of trekking out from the house at dawn and exploring uncharted lands full of creatures he still is unsure if they were imagined or not.  And then he casually waves a hand and ascends a ramp of glass to the top of the ledge within a forest that was charted long before he was born.  He hesitates to focus his senses on the mystical just yet.  He has not made up his mind how he might feel if he were not to find his childhood playmates. 

The sight of the cave freezes Ashan in his tracks once he locates the opening at the end of an unassuming shallow gulch.

Darkness.  Wedged back into a crevice to hide.  Curled up on top of a thin mattress and chained to a tentpole.  Waiting for the not-a-dog to either give up or find and gobble him up.  Waiting for the frightful old men to decide his fate.  A light in the dark, a screech, silence, and a voice telling him he is safe now.  The light of a tent flap opening, silence, a hug, and a voice telling him that she has a plan to keep him safe.

Faded memories from long ago swirl with the preserved fears of a child who had not yet processed and overcome his fear of the close dark spaces he gained two years prior.

Focus on the here and now.  The late summer breeze on his skin.  The buzzing of insects in his ears.  The sight of a metal grate over the mouth of the cave.

That last one had not been here before.  Ashan goes to investigate, concerns of lurking cryptids forgotten for the moment.  The metal is rusted where the black paint has worn away and a grimy padlock holds the hinged segment closed.  An orange and white sign bolted to the bars warns of danger and a second plaque affixed atop that one says a child died here.

On that fateful day, all those years ago, Aliana told the child she would later name Ashan not to look while she cast the glamor to disguise the remains of the strange hound that tried to eat him.  To further distract him, she had assigned him the task of setting up a trail for others to find the cave.  In that energized state of having just gone from terror of impending death to the promise of being a real wizard doing real magic, it had seemed like a game.  Did she cast something on him to stifle his fear at the time?  All the same, he still snuck a peak at what his soon-to-be-mentor was doing.

The sight of her dragging his own dead body into the darkness of the cave became a recurring feature in his nightmares over the following weeks.  They continued until the night that he confessed what he saw to Aliana.  That was the first time she hugged him.  It was also the first time he caught her quietly crying when she thought he was not looking.  The former became frequent and regular.  The latter would not occur again for several years.

“Now that’s curious,” Bridgewood’s voice brings Ashan’s voice back to the present as he kneels down next to the young wizard.  “It looks like water’s flowed through here lately but there’s no branches or other debris stuck on the grate, and everything else around here is dry as a bone.  Hmmm… Terrible idiom, that.  Bones are wet and full of marrow when you first pull them out.”

As he says that last part, Bridgewood runs a finger along the condensation gathered at the bottom bars of the grate, revealing it to be more viscous than water.  To Ashan’s disgust, he licks his finger clean afterward.

“Was that truly necessary?” Ashan asks.

“No, but it was informative,” Bridgewood answers as he stands back up.  “I do believe we have an ooze on our hands.  Or maybe a slime.  I never could remember the difference.”

“An ooze is an undifferentiated mass whereas a slime has a central core,” Ashan says.

“I’ll take your wizard’s word on that.”  Bridgewood taps the grate with a knife Ashan did not see him draw.  “Anywhat, shall I open this up for a spot of spelunking?”

Just another summer day of adventure.  Just another afternoon with friends he was not ready to call imaginary just yet.  Just another fun game.  A new creature he had never seen before and a hungry growl that set him on edge.  A brave stride forward and a sandwich offered in friendship.  A bitten hand and a flight to a favorite secret place that was not as safe as he thought.

“No need,” Ashan says.  “Better to draw it out into the open than to potentially fight in tight quarters.”

“In that case I’ll make myself scarce while you make yourself bait,” Bridgewood proposes as he follows Ashan out of the gulch and onto the hill above the cave entrance. “I’ll be watching for the moment to make my move.”

“Shall we agree upon a signal for when to make that move?”

“No need.  Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to make myself unpresentable.”

With that, Bridgewood unbuttons his yellow vest and slides it off.  With a flick of his wrists he inverts the garment and Ashan catches a glimpse of the inner lining as it flips around to become the outer pattern.  There is an impression of a color almost but not quite violet; an extra-spectral blend between stygian blue and self-luminous red.  And then Bridgewood is gone with a record skip hitch in the sounds of the woods.

Curiosity regarding how Bridgewood disappeared right before his eyes loses the battle with Ashan’s relief at not having eyes on him for this next part.  Even if a part of him knows that Bridgewood is technically watching from hiding, the lack of a visible witness eases the embarrassment of what he is about to do.

It is said that each mage perceives the way magic flows through and intertwines with the background of reality differently.  To Ashan, it has always appeared as something like floating threads, colored shapes, and heat haze refractions in the air; nearly imperceptible whenever he is not actively focusing on them but always there and ever moving on arcane currents.  Anything living or possessing a mind causes an interruption in this flow, whether as a slow spot to gather in and concentrate like most people, an obstacle to divert the current around like Eris, or as a bubbling spring adding its own chaos of colors and threads to the stream like the average mage.

Most mages learn early on to suppress their own aura of distortion to just-noticeable levels.  Too quiet and it is as if one has something to hide.  Too loud and it is a terrible rudeness to every other magically-sensitive individual around that has to put up with such noise.  To flare one’s aura to make more noise than necessary is the domain of untrained children and hot-blooded youths thinking with organs other than their brain as they try to show off.  And even without considerations of etiquette, there are the practical concerns of overactive auras attracting monsters or spontaneously manifesting unintended effects on one’s surroundings.

Thus are the ingrained best practices that Ashan shoves to the side in order to mimic the telltale signature of a mage accidentally coming into their powers for the first time.  At first he attempts to relax to loosen up that self-restraint, but the exercise is self-defeating.  Restraint is his resting default and too much of his training has inextricably intertwined the concepts of calmness and control.  

Agitation then.  Ashan opens the mental compartment he has tried to sequester his younger self’s regained memories in all day, reaches in, and grabs ahold of those feelings.  The excitement over arriving at the Convocation of Mages after a week of thinking they would not make it in time, which led to his running off on his own.  The confusion at the strange things one of the elder mages he recognized from the previous year started saying to him.  The fear when he heard his mentor shout at the elder to get away from him and the things the elder said in return as six more elders filed in to surround her.  The desperation that caused him to lash out at the mage that finally managed to land a hit on his mentor.  The guilt over his conjured barrier slicing the elder’s arm clean off.  The despair at the sight of Aliana falling beaten, bloodied, and restrained when she had been so close to saving him

The anger.

At her for being reduced to begging.

At her for proposing that they seal away his potential.

At her for taking those memories away from him.

At her for taking him away.

At her for making it all seem like a game.

At her for failing him.

At himself for being angry when he knows she only ever did the best she could for him.

Ashan wraps his arms around himself.  He closes his eyes.  He curls in on himself.  He falls to his knees.  He shudders.  He throws his head back.  He opens his mouth wide to scream.

No sound escapes his lips.  No tear escapes his eyes.  No catharsis finds him.

The air ripples and shimmers around him.  Glassy conjurations flicker in and out of existence.  Frost coats the ground.

It all stops even more abruptly than it began.  With an abashed effort, Ashan reins himself and his aura back in, cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the unseemly display.  Even apparently alone in the woods, he cannot help but feel much as he would as if he had just caused a scene by screaming at the top of his lungs for no reason in the middle of a crowded street.  

He distracts himself with the more delicate task of keeping his mage’s aura of reality distortion just slightly more noticeable than normal while also intermittently flickering it in and out.  If that initial flare had been a piercing cry of pain, this is the weakened flailing that follows it.  The tired wiggling of the worm on the hook.  Not something that would fool anyone intelligent and trained, but enough for a beast or the insatiably curious.

Enough time passes in the eerie silence of woods gone quiet that Ashan begins to worry he overdid the initial flare and scared off his quarry instead of luring it in.  Then he catches sight of something moving between the trees, obscured by the tangle of low-hanging branches that nearly touch the ground.  The silhouette is that of a deer, but the gait is all wrong.  Once it finally emerges from the tree line into the clearing of the hill Ashan stands atop of the reason for the wrongness becomes apparent.

It has the shape of a deer, yes.  It even has the skeleton of a deer arranged in mostly the correct configuration.  Yet it lacks the flesh of a deer, save perhaps for a few mostly-digested scraps hanging suspended alongside dirt, leaves, and twigs within the translucent cyan goo that has wrapped itself around those bones.  It half shambles, half undulates closer in a loose imitation of quadrupedal locomotion.

A slime then, not an ooze if it is capable of this level of mimicry.  But then why is there no central nucleus in sight for him to extract and incapacitate it?

Ashan’s contemplation of the apparent contradiction in esoteric biology is cut off by the sound of movement behind him.  He turns his head, keeping the slime deer in his peripheral vision, and spies a dog.  Then a coyote.  A second deer.  All reduced to skeletons lending shape to cyan slime and still not a core in sight.  A smaller bone-filled blob drops out of the second deer’s abdomen and assembles itself into a rat, or maybe a squirrel.

Ashan stays still, allowing the slime animals to get closer, surrounding him.  The first deer stops just outside of arm’s reach, then collapses into a blob, contracts, and launches itself at him.  A quick rotation on his heel and Ashan propels himself into the air atop a conjured spiral.  He lets the spiral fade, cups his hands as he falls, thrusts his arms downward, and slides down the side of a glass dome as it appears between him and the now trapped slime animals.

Ashan steps back from his conjuration and draws his wand.  The creatures begin pressing themselves against the inside of the dome and he can feel the barrier grow thinner as they absorb its magic.  No matter, a few quick lashing motions with the wand is all it takes to reinforce the conjuration.  So long as the slime animals trapped inside do not concentrate their efforts all in one spot he can easily keep up such a simple spell for more than long enough to convert the dome to a sphere to transport to the van and from there to the crossover point.

He raises his wand and the dome stretches to raise with it.  He makes a scooping motion with his free hand and the dome reshapes to reach under as well as around.  He makes a fist and the great floating glass egg full of slime and bones and dirt contracts, merging the slime animals into one another.  Or ooze animals.  Still no sign of a core, strange as that strikes him.

A tingling sensation around Ashan’s ankle draws his attention downward to see a tendril coming up from the soil.  The buried gelatinous mass shoots out of the ground, climbs up his leg, and keeps ascending until it bursts out from the high collar of Ashan’s robes.  He has barely enough presence of mind to take a deep breath and close his eyes before it envelops his face.  It tries and fails to push between his tightly shut lips and eyelids while he tries to slide his hands between it and his cheeks.  

He forces himself to stay calm.  Focus on what he needs to do, not on what will happen if he fails.  A precise-yet-simple forcefield that moves outward with his hands is all it should take.  He does not even need to get all of the ooze off in one go, only the majority so that it lacks the force to keep pushing.  An easy feat.

The ooze works its way up his nostrils and into his ears.  His sinuses ache from the pressure.  The tingling intensifies into a burning.  Serenity is lost.  The conjuration flickers out.  Ashan’s hands start frantically tearing at the thing trying to digest his face.  His eyes shoot open from shock and pain.

On the other side of the blurry cyan haze there is a flicker of chimerical violet.

The ooze, slime, or whatever it was is gone and Ashan is gasping for air.  His vision is clear save for the tears of irritated eyes.  The burning is now a rapidly-fading tingling and the pain inside his head has reduced to a dull throbbing.

“You’re welcome,” Bridgewood whispers from behind him, close enough for Ashan to feel his breath on his ear.  “Now look sharp, your new friends have gotten out of their playpen and want to say hello.”

Ashan wipes his vision clear and looks up to see that the slime animals are indeed upon him now that he dropped his conjuration in his moment of fear.  He attempts to say something and falls into a coughing fit.

“Still need a moment?” Bridgewood purrs.  “Then allow me.”

Ashan feels a hand on his shoulder as Bridgewood pushes past him.   The back of his head and his shoulder come into view.  And then the not-purple of his inverted vest.

Bridgewood is gone again.  Ashan is breathing easier and his eyes have stopped watering.  The slime animals have all been beheaded.

Being headless only stops them for a moment before the blobs around their skulls extrude pseudopods to reconnect to their bodies and lift them back into place.

“I do so detest oozes,” Bridgewood’s voice echoes from somewhere amongst the trees.  “Utterly unsatisfying and unproductive to stab.  I’ll leave the rest of this in your capable hands.”

“You would abandon me?” Ashan calls out while tossing up a quick barrier between himself and the slime animals.

“No, but this is one of the rare problems that can’t be solved well with knives, so there’s not much else for me to do here unless you want me to try eating the rest of them and that doesn’t work well with live capture.”

“Surely there must be something you can do.”

“How about moral support?  I have full faith that you won’t make the same mistake twice and can handle the rest on your own.  Go team.”

Irritating though his delivery may be, Ashan has long held enough faith in his own skill to agree with Bridgewood’s assessment.  Now to prove them both correct.

A conjured ramp that retracts behind him as he ascends suffices for getting Ashan off the ground to forestall any additional subterranean surprises arising from momentary overconfidence.  Curling the edges of this new platform into a bowl around him prevents the bone-wearing mimic slimes from reaching him by launching themselves up or combining their masses to extend a single long pseudopod.  Adding lotus-like layers to the protective bowl gives him time to analyze the situation uninterrupted when the creatures try to eat through the conjuration.

Standing nearly level with the treetops (not that they are much more than twice Ashan’s height and he has never been called a tall man) Ashan gazes down at the slime animals below as they mill about and start to haphazardly merge with one another in an attempt to reach him.  He still maintains that the prey mimicry is too complex for an ooze, so where are the cores necessary for processing that behavior?  Within the animal skulls, taking the place of the digested brains like a hermit crab repurposing a mollusc shell perhaps?  Partial merging or absorption of those brains – whether physically or psychically – would aid with the mimicry as well.

An interesting theory, but how to keep the ooze still enough to safely perform the delicate operation of opening the skull to confirm without damaging the potential core within?  Freezing has proven effective in the past when facing such monsters alongside Aliana, but that has never been Ashan’s speciality and he is far enough out from the crossover point right now that he is still relying on thermodynamic redirection to power his spells so too much lowering of the ambient temperature could cause complications down the line.

Ashan cocks his head in consideration of the conundrum for a moment and then lets out a hum of realization.  His ability to access other magic systems is no longer sealed, and he is passing familiar with a foreign style lauded for its efficiency in energy draw.

Ashan focuses on the gelatinous mimics below and intones the words that caused him no small amount of grief a month ago.

Winter's lash falls harsh. Wind bites, snow cuts, frostbite gnaws, Scouring flesh and soul.

The storm drowns voices Blinds the eye, and steals all warmth Nothing left but white.

BLIZZARD!

The Dorbreithan Long Chant spell completes and a bitter chill wind swirls about the slimes below.  Their movements slow as frost forms on the surface of their cyan bodies.  Once that ice spreads inwards in crystaline formations toward the suspended skeletons within, the mimics have come to nearly a complete stop.  That is enough to work with, although it takes Ashan several seconds to mentally wrestle with the unfamiliar spell to get it to cease its effects lest it do permanent damage to the slime cores he hopes to extract for relocation.

Once the blizzard wind stops, it is a simple matter to conjure a barrier thin enough to act as a guillotine above the neck of the devoured coyote and let it fall.  Then it is a mere flick of his wand to draw a wire into existence and reel the falling goo-covered skull up to him.  

Fishing with only conjurations as tools had doubled as both training and a means of keeping himself and Aliaina fed on the road since the early days of his time on Orthon.  She started him off with nets before moving on to hooks and lines conjured directly into the fishes’ open mouths once he learned finer control.  Later still came the creation and manipulation of razor-thin barriers in the place of knives for preparing and fileting the catch.  Or at least on the days when Aliana was not feeling lazy enough to simply drop the catch and a portion of river water into her own complex conjuration combining autoclave, centrifuge, and blender.  In retrospect, getting used to the alleged stew of superheated fish slurry might explain Ashan’s general ambivalence towards the taste of food.

At any rate, it is the experience in dissection and bone removal that is relevant now as Ashan peels back the wriggling semisolid layers of slime from the coyote skull hovering in front of him.  The glass scalpel that appears at the tip of his wand is sharp enough to glide through the minimally digested bone like bread crust and he does so with a steady hand.  He cuts out a square from the top of the skull and pulls it out to reveal… nothing.  Only more undifferentiated teal jelly fills the skull’s inner cavities.

Ashan takes a step back as the slime surrounding and permeating the skull begins to flail pseudopods once more with full motive ability despite still harboring an unabated outer layer of frost.  Ashan flings it outside of his observation perch, back to the ground with the rest of its mass, and takes another look at the scene below him, trying to figure out what he is missing.

More of the slime animals have arrived and more amorphous tendrils like the one that grabbed him earlier are beginning to extrude from the ground.  Strangely, the new arrivals that were not present to be hit by the Blizzard spell also carry a layer of frost cold enough to cause the ambient humidity to condense into a thin mist around them.  None of the creatures seem to be hindered by the cold any longer.  Stranger still, now that Ashan thinks about it, the soil layer here should not be thick enough for a slime or ooze to hide within.  But if there are cracks in the limestone beneath the soil leading to the cave below…

Ashan’s eyes skip over one particular point between the trees, and his train of thought is disrupted as everything shifts slightly, from the movements of the slimes below to the positions of the clouds above.  He tries to find and focus on that spot again, and once more there’s a skip as if a fraction of a second was lost.

Concerning, but he can confirm what that is once he tests the other hypothesis he was building up to.  Ashan picks out the straggler furthest from the growing mass of prey mimics and begins another chant that was once used against him.

Storm's wrath gathering, Glistening blades fall and scourge Earth lies bare, burnt clean.

LIGHTNING!

With the final word Ashan points his wand at his chosen target.  The air takes on the scent of ozone.  His hair rises from the static.  A bolt streaks from the tip of his wand and splatters the slime furthest from the main group, scattering the bones of the hopefully wild pig it had consumed.  

As expected, over the course of the next minute, the slime pig pulls itself back together, albeit sans half its bones.  More importantly, sparks between arcing between other slimes that he knows he did not hit with that spell.  That supports one hypothesis, but best not to rely solely on sight.

Ashan closes his eyes and opens his less physical senses as much as he can.  It is no substitute for vision when navigating, but much like smell or touch, that is not its primary purpose, even if it can augment.  “Looking” down he confirms that the slimes, while barely disturbing the flow of magic otherwise, have become reservoirs and conduits for the energy comprising the spells he threw at them.  Though that reservoir thins in the empty space between the slime animals, “seen” like this it is all one continuous manifestation.  A continuous manifestation that, though dulled and made hazy by the intervening stone, extends underground into the cave below where it flows down into a distinct central nexus.  

Ashan returns his focus above ground to the point his eyes refused to see and finds what he can only conceptualize as a gaping hole in the fabric of everything.  In all his time as a wizard, Bridgewood is the only individual he has ever encountered with such an overdone metaphysical cloak.  Watching and waiting from the sidelines, just like he said he would be.

Ashan is about to open his eyes and act on his confirmed suspicions when another set of presences further out in the woods catches his attention.  They feel familiarly green to him, with hints of orange, and purple, and gray.  Fae, he now knows to classify it as, albeit vastly different in power and temperament from the Count of Curses and Dust.  He thinks once upon a time he simply called them friends.

For just a moment, Ashan allows his expression to twitch into a smile.  Resolve redoubled, he opens his eyes but continues to stare at nothing.  Eyes fixed forward, single-minded and unfocused he holds his wand upright in front of him.  His glass gaze stares through the candle flame that ignites above the wand’s tip and pours his will into it, fuel for the fire.  The glass lotus descends to the ground, unfurls, and fades, leaving him exposed.

The slime animals… no, the singular slime with multiple remote segments mimicking devoured prey does not approach him.  It is too enraptured by that.  Through the flame Ashan can feel its simple mind relaxing just as well as he can see the skeletons surrounding him go limp as the slime nodes containing them begin melting down into shapeless blobs.

It is surprisingly hard not to let himself mirror that feeling and sink with it.

But a motionless, enraptured slime with its core hidden away is hardly progress towards capture and relocation, so Ashan calls to mind the more advanced applications of this spell he studied in Whispers of the Sun, and puts them into practice.  “The Flame of Yearning” that tome from the sorceress Bridgewood’s very own library called this spell, and it is now that emotion which Ashan feeds to the flame.  Yearning for two different homes he cannot return to, one just down the road and the other hardly further yet literally a world away.  Yearning for three different parents he did not choose, two he ran from and one he drove away.  Yearning for four friendships that have already been extended to him, all of which feel varying degrees of confusing and unearned.  Yearning poured into one candle flame that becomes a torch, a beacon.

There is more fuel for this flame than he realized he had.  Once they have been dredged up, it is a relief to feel the flame consume them.  Not that they are truly gone.  The flame is a part of him and it does not extinguish when the spell ends, it returns.  The healing flame came from without as a praise to the sun for providing the warmth of life.  The flame of yearning hails from another world that saw pyromancy as life’s warmth originating from within, and how can one not yearn to connect in the face of a soul bared?

From without or from within, so long as an anchor world mage can hold both as being true both can be called upon.

The yearning becomes the flame that draws the moth and Ashan shapes the feeling into a desire.  A desire to approach, to reveal oneself, source to source and heart to heart.  

Frankly, such an application treads dangerously close to the sorcerous taboo of mind alteration for Ashan’s comfort.  He tells himself that it is just a nearly-mindless slime that he is influencing.  What is more, one might even say that he learned this spell, however indirectly, from the true sorceress Bridgewood herself and now he is casting it with her chosen consort and keeper of her legacy for an audience.  The old childhood dream rekindles and then becomes further kindling itself.

It is hard to worry about much with such a pretty fire.

The flame fills his vision and his mind.  

He has spent nearly half his life with trained serenity.

Calmness and control intertwined.

It is how he keeps his spellcasting precise and powerful.

It was how he kept from going mad when his own mind became incomprehensible.

Falling into the flame feels like such a natural extension of that.

A polite cough from right behind Ashan snaps him back to full awareness.  Awareness of the flame sputtering out.  Awareness of a quivering cyan blob towering over him.  Awareness of a sphere of bones hovering in the center of the slime that is pulling itself closed over a nucleus that had exposed itself to the now-extinguished flame’s light.

Ashan’s stomach drops at the realization that the ball of bones contains at least one skeleton that is human shaped but far too small even for an infant.  While no sign of such remains, Ashan is certain it once sported a pair of gossamer wings.  He refuses to wonder if it ever played with children in these woods.

The slime shudders, contacts, and stretches to fall on top of the tantalizing young wizard overflowing with magic before it.

Springing backwards out of the way is hardly a challenge for Ashan.  Nor is slamming a hollow cylinder through the center of the slime to extract the core like a post hole digger.  Nor is stripping away the shell of bones giving a wall to the nucleus.

Wrapping the slime’s core in a floating sphere and then having that sphere grow a series of inward-facing needles to just barely pierce the core’s outer membrane and send it into a paralyzed state is a somewhat more delicate procedure.  But it is a procedure he has carried out before, albeit not on so large, dispersed, or magic-absorbing a specimen.  Nonetheless, the rest of the slime’s body loses cohesion, dropping the skeletons that had not yet been absorbed into the central mass unceremoniously to the ground.

Ashan lets himself breathe and shiver in the chill that his magic has brought to the late summer afternoon.

“Well done I say.  An expectedly excellent performance.”

Ashan turns around to find Bridgewood approaching him, buttoning his vest back into place, yellow side out once more.

“Thank you,” Ashan says with a nod, “and all due credit to you for the role you deigned to play.”

Bridgewood takes an exaggerated bow.  “But of course.  What is the star without the stagehand?  Or the hero without unseen Fortune plucking the strings?  As I said when we first met, the spotlight is not for me.”

“I imagine whatever enchantment you have on that vest makes that easier for you.”

“Not an enchantment, but a color,” Bridgewood tuts.  “I can never seem to recall the name, but Carnette called it the color of forgetting.”  He pouts.  “She never would tell me where she found a tailor capable of working with xenochromatic threads.”

Ashan’s stomach drops with the realization of why the world seemed to lurch every time he caught a glimpse of Bridgewood.

“In the future, please provide warning before exposing your allies to amnestic elements,” he states.  “Or better yet, refrain altogether.  I have had more than enough of my memory being stolen, even if it is only for a second at a time.”

Had Ashan not been staring him down with a glare, he might have missed the split second of Bridgewood’s mask slipping; of the man in yellow going wide-eyed and stiff as if physically struck.  When the lazily elegant posture returns, the smirk maintains its absence.

“I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again,” Bridgewood says.  The lack of over-acted affect in his voice is as off-putting as his genuine affection when speaking of his dearly departed wife.

“Good,” Ashan replies, wondering what old wound he just touched upon, but still bothered enough to be curt.

The moment passes, the smirk returns.

“Anywhom,” Bridgewood croons, “you go on ahead and get that thing loaded up for transport –” he gestures at the paralyzed slime core floating next to Ashan “– and I’ll be right along after I clean up the leftovers.”  He sweeps an arm to indicate the now-inert piles of goo and bones covering the clearing.

Ashan nods in assent and turns to leave.  A scooping motion of his hand brings along a portion of the slime’s cyan body mass in a separate bubble.  It should be enough to healthily sustain the core for a time, but not enough for it to cause trouble with in the short term.

The walk back to the armored van feels shorter than the trek from it to the cave, even with maintaining a pair of mobile containment conjurations.  Is it that the weight of memory is lighter after having faced the place he left his life behind?  Or is it the ease of navigating from a recollection whose age is measured in minutes rather than years?  Maybe it is simply the benefit of traveling downhill.

Ashan finds the van unlocked.  He opens the rear doors, floats the slime in its two parts into the back, speaks the activation syllables to light up the warding glyphs painted on the inner surfaces of the vehicle, closes the doors, and lets his glass bubbles holding the slime vanish.  If the captured creature is making any futile attempts to escape its new confines, the wards are keeping it muted and preventing the van from rocking.

A soft rustle of tree branches draws Ashan’s attention and he turns around, expecting Bridgewood or another threat that they missed.  His posture relaxes and his wand slips back up his sleeve at the sight of three tiny figures hiding within the boughs of the nearest tree.  A brown-and-white-furred bullfrog with nubbly horns.  A twelve-legged weasel draped across the branch like tinsel.  A humanoid figure barely taller than his hand bearing a moth’s bark camouflage wings.  Beings that Ashan now knows to be Nameless fairies without a court or master.  In hindsight, it is a wonder none of them ever took his old Name for their own.  Or maybe they tried and failed (or were thwarted) and that was one of the six times his memory of the world Backstage was erased before even Aliana found him.

All the same, Ashan smiles and waves to his onetime playmates.  They low and chitter and giggle and disappear back into the woods, safe in the knowledge that the latest monster to threaten this place has been locked away.

He wonders if they remember him.  Probably not truly.  A sense of familiarity may remain, but with how closely Names, memory, and identity are intertwined it is difficult for the Nameless to hold onto experiences which they are not regularly reminded of.

Ashan tears his gaze away from the direction the fairies fled just in time to catch Bridgewood returning.

“Everything’s secure and ready to go I see.  Delightful.”  Bridgewood leans a hand on the side of the van and blinks at it several times in rapid succession before turning back to Ashan.  “As for my end, thanks to one of Carnette’s gifts, I can assure you there’s no longer a trace of our new delicious friend here to be found.”  He pats the side of the van and then pushes himself off with a twirl that set him walking towards the driver seat door.  “Let’s be off shall we?  We still have a crossover point to examine.”

“Indeed,” Ashan says while returning to the passenger seat.  “I presume you have some inkling of which world we will need to attune the crossover to in order to return this slime.  It is not from Orthon – not unless something has changed drastically on that side of the crossover – but beyond that I am less certain.”

Two doors open and close.

“Right on both counts,” Bridgewood answers.  “Yes I do, and no it isn’t.  But…”

Two seatbelts whir, stretch, and click into place.

“We don’t technically have to return it to its homeworld.”

A diminished slime silently surges against the wards, unable to reach the front seats.

“What are you implying?” Ashan asks.

A key slides into an ignition lock and waits to be turned.

“There’s a room in the Manor positively packed with stasis chambers for the sort of delectable specimens Carnette liked to collect for study and preservation.  We could let our passenger hang out in the back a little bit longer while we survey the crossover point, skip the trip offworld, bring it home, and toss it into storage.  Maybe I’d even give you a tour of some parts of the house you haven’t seen yet.”

“That hardly sounds like what we set out to do.”

“Doesn’t it?  What are you implying?”  Bridgewood’s tone hovers between bemused and mocking.

“First you stride into the room and begin handing out assignments for the day without consultation and now you propose keeping a creature you said was meant to be relocated.  Is this organization truly Road’s or do you pull the strings?”

“I assure you, this is my friend’s venture, through and through and everything I do is to support them.  This morning was merely me reporting back with the status of tasks that had been delegated to me.  We’ve been together long enough that we’ve long since reached an understanding about leeway and how I do things so long as certain lines aren’t crossed, and the important thing in this case is that we keep the creature from hurting anyone without killing it.  Storing it in stasis accomplishes that while saving us the headache of interworld transit and ensuring that it won’t ever wander back across the crossover and cause a mess all over again.”

“And Road is okay with this?”

“My friend trusts me enough to not ask questions.  But I’ll leave this one up to you.”

“Why?”

“I’m curious.  What will you do with the options on the table and what will you tell my friend afterward?”

The key turns.  The engine rumbles to life.

“No need to answer now,” Bridgewood continues.  “We’ve got a whole drive back ahead of us for you to take your time contemplating.”

The drive passes back through Ashan’s hometown in silence.  For all that Bridgewood must surely know why Ashan pointedly looks away from the window when they reach an intersection that they pass straight through, the expected remark never comes.  The exposed nerve remains untouched.  In that moment, there is no smirk.

Ashan tells himself he managed not to glimpse the couple taking a walk down their neighborhood street with their young son watching the strange, unmarked black van pass through their tired little town.

He suspects that Sullivan Bridgewood saw them clearly.

*******

“Ashan… If you ever remember this, please know that I’m sorry.  For everything.”

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost

[ctl-yuejie]

I adore WinTeam but P’Pruek is the true delight.

His face when Win told him and Dean that he had already slept with Team.

Truely the expression of a man who is well-meaning but about to smile very widely at the kind of psychological damage that has been suddenly unleashed on him

[blueish-bird]

sorry if I don’t remember your name or conversations/experiences or basic things about myself, every few weeks my brain gets factory reset and I have to relearn how to be alive