#also it becomes more and more humanoid the closer it got to the surface but I didn’t know how to put that in there so whatever

[somerandomassnerd]

I think it is incredibly important what animal form the demon takes in it’s back story, and what characteristics those animals stereotypically portray. I believe it gives an insight into how the demon thinks and behaves throughout its history.

Spoilers for Dungeon Meshi below the cut btw

The demon first takes the form of a Pig. Pigs are mostly associated with being slobs and over eating. It is still young and naive in their understanding of humans and so it eats and fulfills the desires in front of it no matter what those desires are. Which forces it into a position where it is feared and then sealed away. Like Pigs in farms. Pigs will eat anything and everything that they can get to. Therefore, when they are farm animals they are usually separated from other animals and humans due to their aggressive appetite. I think this perfectly mimics what the demon went through in this first form. However it changes once it is sealed and becomes more “docile”.

After being sealed it learned to follow along with specific people’s desires and not everyone’s. It starts to follow the desires of its shepherd. Even if those desires are not always thought through. It’s being used by humans still. A blind sheep

After following the desire of utter destruction it realizes that following human desires completely isn’t the best decision. It is devastated by what it let humans do through it, realizing it shouldn’t let human desires supersede it’s own. This has lasting effects on the Demon but the main one that I want to focus on is its transition from Prey to Predator.

Instead of taking the form of a farm/prey animal it takes the form of an apex predator, a lion. A male lion specifically, who don’t normally hunt for themselves. Male lions usually let the female lions hunt for them and reap the rewards. The Demon is sealed and doesn’t take an active role until the third act when it’s input actually starts to matter. Plus lions being associated with royalty and power definitely helps it take advantage of humans.

I think the transition from prey to predator really characterizes the demon perfectly. It got taken advantage of and now it won’t let that happen again. Now it starts to hunt human desires. It starts to nurture human desires. It’s starts to try and score the ultimate prey, all of humanity all at once.

Anyway thanks for reading my stream of consciousness about this hyperfixation.

[ruiniel]

Sorry to hear you are not feeling well! Hopefully with plenty of rest you will get well soon 🩶

Here’s an HC ask if you feel up to it:

Adrian x Bold/Flirty Reader

- The twins never happened and reader just stumbled upon Alucard in the forest some day, stunned by his beauty and grace.

- Reader has an occupation that requires them to go into the forest from time to time, as kind as Adrian, he started to help them out.

- Reader developed a crush on him as they gradually got to know each other. Bold as they are, they decided to take the first move by… you guessed it, flirting. The kind that ends with his face tinged with the loveliest pink.

- Adrian is still mourning over loss over family and friends, and only sees reader as a friend (a close friend? And a pretty friend. He doesn’t even know anymore.)

- Reader’s tactics slowly working. He starts to crave your company like he does with Sypha and Trevor.

- He stares at your lips, sometimes your behind. Averts his eyes as dhampirely as possible when he catches your returning gaze and thinks you haven’t notice. You do.

- “Accidental” touches on his thigh when passing something over; warm, ticklish breath near his sensitive ear while you stand behind him when he sits and reads. He swears you are driving him crazy.

- He may just snap one day. And you hope it comes soon.

Thank you, I'm getting there slowly but surely. Going off about fictional people helps the morale, y'know?

Oh a pining HC, and bold characters are so fun!

◈ It might be that your attitude in time could draw the other side of him to the surface... one he hasn't had the opportunity to explore much beyond nighttime ventures through the wilds, chasing the malevolent things lurking there: the thrill of the hunt. The side that goes "Let's find out..."

Remember that?

◈ His instincts are just as sharp in his humanoid form as in his wolf form, and he feels it: the scent of your attraction growing stronger, the way you can't control the impulse to try and get closer.

◈ He's wary, at first. But there is honesty about you, too, and that has a scent of its own, comforting and achingly sweet. He knows he's taking a gamble by trusting you but let's face it, if his friends have been gone for a while now in this context, he's certainly more in need of someone to share his time with than even he can admit to himself.

◈ Besides, since your encounters in the woods become more frequent, you seem unperturbed by his nature, even after he's told you more of himself and some (not all) of what he's done.

◈ He still feels immensely guilty about how it all came to pass, and misses his family. It's a very confusing time in his life and he doesn't want to burden you with that.

◈ He's also afraid you'd want nothing to do with him any longer if he did tell you everything, all the moments he can't forget, the scenes that play in his mind's eye over and over.

◈ You don't seem to be deterred by anything though, and with admiration he takes his metaphorical heart between his teeth one day and sits you down one afternoon, under an ancient oak tree where you sometimes share your lunch.

It all goes pleasantly enough. At one point you try to reach for a bottle, propping your hand on his leather-clad knee for support as you lift yourself to grab a hold of the glass container.

When you try to remove your hand, he stops you, his own hand over yours. "Why do you do these things?"

Nothing gets past Alucard when it comes to danger and battle but navigating interpersonal relationships? Not his forte. He knows it, you know it.

And so, you swallow before you answer. "I Iike it. Touching you."

"Why?" His eyes are earnest, and you appear out of your element for a moment before his bluntness. But he really, really looks like he wants, no, expects an answer.

"Does it bother you?"

He ignores your question completely. "I wonder if your hand will still be here, after I share with you what I have to say." All easy manner is gone from his attitude.

You watch him, bemused, but your hand stays right where it is, on his warm, tense thigh. He's just told you in no uncertain terms: I know what you're doing. I know you want me. You're still processing that, but the words that leave your mouth are: "Let's... find out?"

He takes a sharp intake of breath at that, watching you strangely. "I never told you how I ended up alone, did I?"

You shake your head, and wait. And listen.

By the time he's done, you're staring at the patterns of the blanket, and he's regretting having broken the image you'd probably concocted of him in your head.

"People make mistakes."

Alucard raises his head. The warm hand on his thigh is still there. "What?"

"I said, people make mistakes. And people sometimes must make difficult choices for reasons beyond them."

When you smile at him, when you tuck a strand of errant hair behind his ear and suddenly hug him, Alucard stays perfectly still: with shock, with... relief? But his response is so fierce you sigh in surprise, arms winding around you and holding you there. "You're not running away screaming," he whispers in your ear, feeling the little shudder running through you. He likes holding you, he likes being held. He craves it.

"No, but you would, if you knew the shape of my thoughts when it... comes to you."

He'd love to pull your head back, to stare into your eyes as you say it. And so: he does. "My dear, dear friend... I want to know everything."

That was a mix of HCs and a scene haha I take no responsibility *blames it on the meds*

[pixelbytesquad]

Unity AU: Some lore

Welcome to my "least bakugan-like" Bakugan AU

Okay, this AU is kind of removed from what bakugan was originally (marbles becoming into beasts + the  fight for Vestroia), this is basically importing the bakugan characters into personal lore I made for an old story of mine (The “Funkinverse”, which initially started as an FNF multiverse but slowly drifted into something original-ish) and creating something different.

The basics of this AU

Bakugans are classed as “monsters”

There’s no Vestroia, so bakugans live on Earth, Vestal, Neathia and Gundalia. Bakugans are “core-beings” that always have a monster-like appearance and are tied to one element. While being classed as monsters, not all bakugans are ferocious beasts ready to strike, most of them can be great friends and companions to other “core-beings” (these being humans, vestals, neathians and gundalians).

However, the conflict on earth is started when the current ��Order of Bakugans” tries to take over Earth and the humans.

Orders

Orders are like, the deities, the leaders of a universe. Earth has 2, Neathia and Gundalia each got 1, meanwhile Vestal has none. Since in my lore, Orders can’t be humans or humanoids,  that means in this, only Bakugans can be Orders.

Orders aren’t immortal, however, they do have extended life spans compared to ordinary bakugans.

Cores

Cores are heart shaped magic vials. Almost everyone possesses a core. Anyone who has a core can use magic, however, magic isn’t something easy to learn for everyone, for example, humans have a harder time learning it, and aren’t capable of performing complex abilities, like altering their own bodies.

A core keeps a person alive. If a person dies of old  age, sickness or any other method, the core breaks. However, it is possible to die due to core/magic complications as well. When a core breaks, a spirit emerges from it, this spirit has the same color as the core, and the spirit also takes the appearance of the deceased person.

Encores are cores that went through change due to magic. There isn’t one single way to get one. The main common one is to master magic. However, sometimes even just using a magic  ability once can trigger this change. If you have an encore, that means you’ll have a higher boost of magic energy inside you, you’ll be able to use magic more easily and also be able to use more advance magic abilities, but there may still be limits depending on what you are (humans can still not do things like altering their bodies drastically). When an encore happens, the person may have a different feeling, like they’re getting stronger suddenly or that they’re about to die.

Magic/Elements

This one will be fun, since I plan to split magic abilities/elements based on the 6 attributes from bakugan (Pyrus, Aquos, Ventus, Subterra, Haos and Darkus). 

Each Bakugan is tied to 1 attribute, meaning they can only perform magic from said attribute (For example, a Pyrus bakugan can’t cast a Haos ability). There are exceptions, when a bakugan is dual attribute or has the ability to switch to attributes.

In the case of being able to switch abilities, they’ll only be able to access the abilities of the attribute they switched to, the prior attribute’s abilities being locked until they return to said attribute.

Bakugans are also creatures that have higher magical matter than physical matter, meaning they can easily perform complicated abilities, as well as getting energy from other sources other than sleeping/eating. (For example, the sunlight for Haos bakugans)

Humans have a high physical matter and low magical matter. They can still perform magic due to having a core, but it’s much harder to learn. Humans nowadays don’t really bother with magic, not even telling the next generations about it, because it’s not something easy to do.

Vestals on the other hand, while on the surface they look closer to humans, you’d assume it would be the same story. Vestals have a higher magical matter than physical, meaning they’re more easily equipped to handle magic. In fact, vestals are ‘built’ in a way that they require to get their energy through the ‘magic’ way. However, due to the royal family trying to break the bond between vestals and bakugans, they also try to break the bond with magic. Vestals quickly became technologically advanced, but there’s still some issues. If a human is usually asleep for 8-9, that’s how much a Vestal is awake, they also require more food. This is not enough to keep their bodies working. Surprisingly, children seem to not have this issue, as they still have plenty of energy, however, as they grow, they start to lose that energy.

I still need to think of something for  Gundalians and Neathians, but I don’t really have anything in mind for now.

Fragmentation

This AU is more or less a small multiverse system. It started with 1 universe, which eventually splits into two. These two universes split further into two universes. In the first split, each universe got 2 Orders. However, in the second split,  only one of the new pairs got an even split of Orders (1 per universe, these being Gundalia and Neathia), meanwhile, the second pair, one universe got 2 while the other got none.

The Orders on Neathia and Gundalia aren’t really tasked with a specific role, they just watch the universes and try to protect the inhabitants.

Meanwhile, on Earth, since there are 2 Orders, one is tasked to handle the humans, while the other is tasked with handling the bakugans.

These are just some bits of information, I still need to work on the story proper (I mainly think about the Vestal portion, and while I need to write that down, I also need to start to properly work on the Earth portion and then the Neathian-Gundalian portion).

Also a funny bit- a funny overlap since I'm importing "Orders" in here, and Bakugan in canon has a group called "The 12 Orders"... honestly I think it would be funny if I kept that name, Barodius and co thinking they're gods lol

So this is all for now. I will eventually do posts about certain characters (I plan to do one for Mirage and the Resistance soon, but then I’ll try to get the Brawlers themselves doone too), but for now, this is just some starter info.

[chaoticevilbean]

Voltron Humans are Weird 6/?

The Paladins had once again won an intense battle. It had been on the planet Cygoth, which was home to a group of humanoids. The Cygi, as they were called, had skin in shades of pale pinks and purples and blues. Their heads were like those of bald humans, but with upside down ears and eyes like felines. Instead of five fingers and five toes, the Cygi had four fingers and six toes, to aid them in their strange environment, along with bug-like wings that hid under hard green and yellow shells.

Said environment was one with 'extreme weather conditions' and 'toxic' rain. The Cygi lived in caves that were on a large cliffside. Since the elements often got within the rocks and all the animals were terrestrial and highly territorial, the aliens would hang upside down and crawl across the ceilings like spiders. They also collected rare minerals that grew down to build their homes and helped them grow food in their strange way of living.

It was these minerals that the Galra wanted. Stronger than 98.97% of all other metals or rocks, they could be used to create impenetrable ships and armor. The Cygi had called Voltron to Cygoth to aid them in protecting their resources and freedom. After they had succeeded, and it became clear that the team only wanted to help, no reward necessary, the leader of the Cygi offered an alliance. New armor and some upgrades for the Paladins and Castle, an increased amount of trade for the aliens, and a plethora of allies for both because of their union.

The talks were boring, and the four younger Paladins found themselves quickly becoming inattentive. Lance got them excused and Pidge ran straight to the edge of the central cave, ignoring how the Cygi were suddenly watching them keenly. It was likely to avoid the Terrans getting attacked by the fauna or killed by the 'toxic' rain that was cascading down just outside. A device was pulled from the depths of the Green Paladin's armor to scan the substance pouring from the atmosphere, and they all peered over the girl's shoulder tensely.

The screen lit up in green.

"HECK YEAH!" Keith shouted, his voice echoing loudly against the stone walls. "Nontoxic!"

"C'mon, Paladudes!" Lance waved his hand at the others in a beckoning motion. "It's time to explore this world and turn Shiro's hair whiter than before!"

The kids dashed forward towards the more organic part of the planet's surface, but paused and turned at the sound of buzzing.

A large group of Cygi were heading straight for the humans, frantic expressions and furiously beating wings drawing the Paladins' attention. It seemed that the team's newest allies were more knowledgeable about their intentions, and were attempting to avoid what they assumed was a dangerous situation.

The teens were not about to let that happen.

"BREAK FOR IT!" Hunk screamed, and there was no way that Shiro and Allura didn't hear that. They only had a few minutes before they would be caught in their escape. The humans dashed for the entrance, and Keith was definitely gonna make it. Pidge wasn't, and Hunk was a coin toss, so Lance took action. The self-sacrificing idiot.

The Blue Paladin grabbed his smaller friend and threw her at his bro.

"CATCH!" The cook caught the child easily, still sprinting to freedom. But the action left Lance behind the herd and much closer to the Cygi. It became obvious how close when his feet left the ground.

"What the flippity floppity flapjack‽ WOAH!" The flying aliens were swift to bring the Terran over to the suspended platform where Shiro, Allura, and all the diplomats were staring down from. It was from there that the kids had originally climbed down the rungs of the strange ladder to get to the floor. "Ah, you lily-livered sons of witches! You snackers! Oh, tick-tack snick-snack frick-frack paddlywack! My father will hear about this, you barnacle-covered Caprisun knock-offs! I'll steal your kneecaps and eat your curtains! You moldy walnuts!" He continued spouting off insults as he was carried over to his leaders, smiling slightly at the look of exasperation on Shiro's face. His words stopped the moment his feet hit the mioxite platform, smile growing exponentially.

"Lance, what were you guys doing?" The older man didn't let Allura speak, taking over the conversation immediately.

"The rain isn't toxic for us, so we were gonna explore. I gotta join the others soon."

"No, you don't gotta."

"I do gotta."

"Why?"

"You want Keith and Pidge alone in unknown territory with just Hunk as their voice of reason?"

"You definitely gotta."

"Shiro, Lance, what is going on?" Allura finally managed to interject. The humans turned towards the Altean, both confused. Lance had just said that he and the others were going to explore Cygoth.

"What d'you mean, princess?"

"What code was Lance speaking?"

"Code? What co- oh." The Black Paladin's face lit up in realization. "She meant the curses. Lance, explain."

"I was cussing without swear words."

"What?"

"I was spouting profanities without ever using actual words that are considered profane. For instance." The boy faced his fellow Terran once more. "Let me strawberries and cream go before I rocky road your face, you useless paperclip."

"Where's that from?"

"Ice cream flavors with the classic inanimate objects with no function. From Tumblr."

"What is ice cream? Is it more... omnivore things?" Allura seemed to be scared she might have to hear more about the meat-eating habits of humans.

"Nah, don't worry, princess," Lance assured her. "Ice cream is a chilled treat back home. We found out that there's many animals we can safely farm for their milk. When done correctly, it doesn't harm the animals, and we can process the milk for consumption. Process the milk properly, and then you can get ice cream. It comes in many flavors."

"Such as?"

"Strawberries and cream, and rocky road, to name some."

"Are any of those poisonous?"

"I think lactose might be, which is in a good portion of milk, and some nuts are, and definitely chocolate. So, to animals, yeah, most ice cream is toxic, but not always enough to do more than a stomachache."

"Princess, I can take over explaining, but Lance has to go make sure none of the others get into trouble."

The Blue Paladin took that as his cue to leave, climbing down the ladder once more and bolting back to the entrance. In moments, he had disappeared from view, joining his fellow humans outside the caves. Shiro watched him go, internally wishing he could join them.

But they had once again caused a situation that needed explaining, and Lance was needed to prevent an actual disaster from happening, so Shiro had to do damage control solo this time. That's what he got for letting four teenagers kidnap him back into space.

If a human seems to be speaking in code, yet other humans seem to understand them, even on a basic level, ask if they are speaking in 'slang'. This is a Terran term that encompasses many variations of speaking. Much like the difference in linguistics between Blue and Green Zithians, humans will likely have very different slang depending on where they spent their time. A place called Tumbler often fosters a more complex version, whereas Insta Gram has a simpler code.

Humans might invent their own slang in order to packbond properly with one another. Two groups of Terrans hailing from the same locations may have entirely different lexicons due to the change that each team may make. Some individuals may even know more than two versions of slang, in order to establish better relations with their fellow humans. There is very little evidence of what requirements are needed to include learning more than one variation of slang. An example of this would best be shown by the following interaction:

Terran Blue, addressing Terran Yellow: Then he just yeeted it at me, as though I was gonna sit there like a soggy popsicle.

Terran Yellow, responding: That doesn't explain why you turned him into an ice cube.

Terran Green, addressing Terran Blue: "Blue", what was the 411 on those rocket launchers?

Terran Blue, responding: The main man blew a gasket. Didn't make it far, but managed to nab a couple of the suckers.

Terran Yellow, addressing Terran Green: You throw a glitter bomb down the chutes and I'll cop all the cookies.

Terran Green, responding: Do it and you'll lose your kneecaps.

In the above interaction, it was explained that Terran Blue and Terran Yellow were discussing an instance where an object was hurled towards Terran Blue's head. He dodged the object and used a weapon to freeze his opponent in a section of ice. Terran Green was inquiring about a mission and the weapons that were supposed to be gained if it succeeded. Terran Blue informed of the partial success they achieved, after which Terran Yellow warned Terran Green to not perform certain playful acts. Terran Green responded with a more intimidating warning.

However, as seen, there were many different instances of slang usage. All three of the humans used at least two versions, yet they all hold very different positions. Terran Green is a scientist, Terran Yellow is (assumed to be) a chef, and Terran Blue is (assumed to be) a diplomat. Their needs for their positions are greatly varied, leading to confusion as to the education of humans.

In all events of slang use, please proceed with great caution. A greater percentage of this subject is unknown than the previous logs. Refrain from attempting the replication of slang unless the code has been explained to you by a Terran. Humans have not shown much aggression yet, but they may do so if provoked on an emotional level.

[moonlightsolo]

Drunken Pursuit

pairing: the mandalorian x reader (kind of platonic, kind of not)

warnings: angst and MORE ANGST also numerous drops of the f bomb

wc: 2.6k

a/n: hope ya like it cuz i do ;)

-

The familiar robust stench wafts into your face once you open the door to the cantina you’ve grown so fond of— Stale liquor, cheap cologne and sweaty bodies.

As you slyly stalk around the bar in the middle of the room, your eyes roam the countless people drinking inside. You’re not sure if you’re looking for a particular person or an empty seat to slide into.

When a large horned humanoid stumbles away from the bar with the stench of alcohol on its body, you slip your way into the now free spot.

Your pants stick to the tacky leather stool as a bartender slides around to take your order, “One blood sour and two shots of mijura.” You slide the memorized amount of credits to the bartender and the droid begins to shake up your drinks.

It’s become a routine for you to visit this hole-in-the-wall at late hours of the night, but since you’ve finished catching your bounties for the day, you’ve decided to take a break in the daylight.

You down your drinks quicker than anyone around you, the alcohol buzzes through your veins almost instantly and clouds the nerve-endings throughout your body splendidly.

Soon you’re blindly shoving credits over the bar, the people around you buy you drinks as you do the same for them. The usually annoyingly loud music you can’t understand begins to sound like the best beat to dance to. “Come on!”

You decide to grip your neighbors wrists to pull them onto your the makeshift dance floor. You can’t help but sway your hips as your feet somehow expertly tap to the beat.

A huge obvious smile is plastered on your face as one of your new friends, grabs your hands to spin your bodies in circles playfully.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, but you feel confidence like no other. Shot after shot and song after song. Your stomach begins to turn and flutter uncomfortably. This is how your night usually ends.

As quickly as possible, you tug your hands away from person in front you to sprint to the bathroom. The handle jiggles but doesn’t open. Fuck, it’s locked. Someone behind the door squeals obscenities in a language you don’t understand.

The floor is your only option. Your back curls as you hunch over with your hands on your knees. Your abdomen tightens as the burning contents hurl from your stomach onto the already messy floor. You’ll have to leave a big tip.

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, sniffling as you attempt to calm the tears and snot flowing down your face. “Disgusting.” You mutter to yourself.

As you hobble into the main area, you slap the rest of your pocket money onto the bar and head outside. Unfortunately it’s still quite bright outside, causing your body to seize from the sensitivity of your eyes. You blindly reach for the surface of the dome shaped exterior wall, running your fingers over the rough texture blindly.

You lean your back against the wall as the cool wind whips against your skin, calming you slightly. As you take long deep breaths and listen to the ships fly overhead, you feel a slight tug on the hem of your cargo pants.

Is your brain hallucinating now? It’s just the wind, you tell yourself.

The sensation happens once again so you gently slide your hand toward your blaster on your hip before you snap your head toward your feet. The grip on the stock of your gun loosens when you see the odd child-like creature cooing at you with their exceedingly large eyes.

It’s green and adorably fuzzy with large ears. The child is wrapped in brown fabric with a little tint of pink covering it’s cheeks and teeny nose. You notice a little black bowl sitting in it’s free hand full of some sort of liquid.

“Oh hello.” You giggle as it’s tiny arms reach up for you, now the soup is spilled onto the ground. Of course, you can’t decline the cute offer of holding such a delicate species.

Your arms swoop down to carefully pick up the baby, surprisingly heavier than you thought it would be. You can’t take your eyes off of it, a smile grows on your face as it giggles at you.

You bounce the thing on your hip like a baby, it seems to enjoy it from the coos of awe muttered at you. “Wheres your mom or dad, hm?” You tickle the child’s belly causing a small laugh to escape from their body.

Suddenly, a shadow covers the sun above as it looms over your smaller frame. Nervousness bubbles in your chest for a moment, then your motherly instinct kicks in as you hold the kid tighter to your chest.

As your eyes slowly rake up the expanse of the person in front of you— The shiny silver armor, the hidden weapons in the steel plates upon their arms, and the helmet. The T shaped pitch black visor and the same matching Beskar surface.

A mandalorian.

You instantly recognize who it is, well what it is. Your blood runs cold as you back up against the wall as far as possible, wishing the barrier would envelope your body to aid in your escape.

“Give me the kid.” The Mandalorian speaks. His tone is menacing under the voice modulator, monotone and deep.

You gulp as the child looks between you and him and continues to stay cuddled to your chest. “Why should I?” Your voice slurs slightly and you hiccup.

The statue in front of you takes a step closer, cornering you into the wall. Your eyes dart around in attempt to find ways to flee. “Don’t.” He threatens as he’s even closer to you now.

You gulp as you stare up at your own warped reflection in his eyes, “What are you going to do with it? You’re a bounty hunter... like me. How do I know you’re not going to sell the poor kid off?” Your breathing shudders when his forearm comes to press against your chest, now pinning you. He is dangerously close to your neck and his face is much too close to yours.

“He is mine. Now hand him over.” Your arms outstretch as much as you could as you refuse to look at your own reflection in his helmet. He grips the baby protectively and brings him to his chest.

A soft relieved sigh crackles from the helmet. The green thing murmurs incoherently and settles against his armor as he tucks it into a sack resting on his hip.

The tall man turns toward you once more, angry and close in proximity. “Why were you holding him? Were you trying to take him?” His voice booms as one of his hands slam next to your head.

A few drunken idiots stumble from the entrance, talking gibberish and laughing. The Mandalorian swings his head to the side to stare intensely at them as they walk by.

When the pair notices the Beskar-cladded man hovering over your shuttering body, their mouths clamp shut, eyes avert to the ground and they speed walk away.

Stars! You need to be saved. Fucking assholes.

The bounty hunter in front of you turns his attention back to you, “I-I—I promise, I was—wasn’t trying to kidnap h-him...” Your voice stutters helplessly, the alcohol doesn’t help your brain as it already is working slowly.

He glances down at the alien child who is peeking over the rim of the bag nervously, “He gr-grabbed my pant leg. He was wandering... He was wandering... by himself. Why was he by himself?” You suddenly gain confidence as you question the man.

“You’re interrogating me when your kid was wandering around by himself?” You scoff as you cross your arms over your chest, “What a great dad. You want to protect him? Well you didn’t. I could have stolen him, but at least I’m not a crazy asshole, right?” You grumble as you mumble obscenities under your breath.

The man scoffs under his helmet as he leans backward from being close to you, his arms lifts from your body. “You’ve got a point.” He grumbles in defeat, one of his gloved hands rest on the bulging sack which the child is in.

“Exactly. Now if you’d let me go, I’d appreciate it.” You go to push yourself off of the wall but your knees buckle which causes you to fly forward.

Your forehead slams against his steel chest plate, making a loud bang echo from the contact. You groan as the pain radiates through your head, your vision goes blurry as if you were drinking once again.

You stumble backward to fall, your arms reach for something sturdy to rest against but two hands grip your shoulders to steady you. Your body is slowly leaned back onto the curved wall of the building.

A sound almost like a chuckle emits from the Mandalorian, “Ouch.” You mumble as your hand goes to your forehead to feel the bump already forming under your skin.

You open your scrunched eyes to see your fingertips are lightly covered in crimson, “Is-is that blood?” You gasp softly as the man brings his hands to your head to inspect the cut. He pushes your hair from your eyes and gently peels the strands off the wet surface of your skin.

“It’s small. Might need sutured.” He sighs as he looks down at the baby who is now curious of what just happened.

“I’m assuming your system is full of alcohol which makes your blood thinner.” He grumbles, “Come on. Follow me.”

Your vision is still slightly blurry, either from your new concussion or maybe your own tears. Follow a Mandalorian? Fuck no.

“Excuse me? Follow you? How...How am I...” A new wave of dizziness overcomes your body as you stumble forward and gulp down the bile rising in your throat, “Am... I supposed to... Follow you..?”

The silver armor fades in and out of your sight, his image is distorted as you sway from side to side.

The alcohol has finally gotten to your brain, it’s your time. You’re going to die. Hitting your head on Beskar (the strongest metal in the universe) and drinking yourself into oblivion is not a good combination. Especially mixed along with your blood on your hands, it’s not one of your strengths.

His arms reach out to you to hold you steady once again, he opens your drooping eyelids to look at your dilated pupils. “You’ve got a concussion.” He lets out a sniffle as he leans in to smell your breath, obviously smelling the liquor. 

You fall forward in a slump, slamming your face against his Beskar once again. He stands there awkwardly with a random girl resting on his chest. His arms hook under your arms to drag you to the nearby alleyway. He carefully places you on the ground, sitting upright with your back against the wall.

He glances at your pockets, seeing a flashing red light through the tan fabric. He opts to fish whatever is is out. Finally gripping the disc shakes object, a tracking beacon.

“For the kid?” He mumbles with a sigh. He glances to see the blaster in your pocket.

He debates in his own head on whether or not he should leave you here or kill you. He grumbles frustratingly as the kid squeaks angrily in his pouch, “I know, I know.” He groans.

He drops the beacon to the ground then stomps on it to shatter it to pieces, the wiring sparks and with another stomp it puffs out. His hands reach down to scoop you up, throwing your drunk self over his shoulder before making his way back to the Razor Crest. He can’t help but think of how idiotic this idea is.

The stares of the passerby’s don’t make the Mandalorian nervous, rather more smug than anything. He knows his image is powerful.

Once aboard the ship, he drops you on his cot that he pulls out from the wall. He locks your limp wrists together with handcuffs so you don’t attempt to hurt anyone or escape the moving ship.

He scoops out the kid once in the cockpit, sitting him in his floating bassinet as he clicks a few buttons to ready the ship for departure. His hand grips the throttle to lift it into the sky. 

The jolt startles you awake. A loud groan falls from your lips from the splitting headache. You roll around in the bed, not realizing it’s not your own which causes you to fall onto the floor.

As you attempt to catch yourself, you realize your arms are bound together. “The fuck?!” You yelp loudly as look at your surroundings. Terror runs through your veins when you realize you’ve been abducted.

The ship hits hyper speed, causing your body to roll like a hot dog across the floor. You let out a loud screech as you kick your feet wildly in front of you so you wouldn’t ram into the wall, “Let me go right now or I will rip you to shreds!”

The stomping above your head shuts you up as the person climbs down the ladder. The beskar cladded man makes you gulp with wide eyes.

“You?” You growl as you attempt to push yourself up from the ground but you’re unsuccessful.

“You’re awake.” He stands to the side with his arms crossed over his chest as he watches you struggle.

You screech through your clenched teeth as your abdominal muscles fail to pick your body off the ground. “Let me go, you fucker. I’m serious.” Your face is flushing red with anger by the second.

He chuckles as he walks toward you, planting one foot on either side of your body now standing above you. “Feisty, hm?” He presses a button on his arm to unlock the cuffs around your wrists.

The metal hisses as it drops onto the floor next to you. You scramble to your feet, standing in front of the large man with an angry face. “You took me.” You poke your finger against his chest. Your nail makes a ‘ding’ sound against the metal.

“I did.” He hums simply as he stares down at you through the same black visor.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because, why?”

“You had a bounty for the kid.”

“So you put me on the same ship with the kid?”

“Yup.”

“You make absolutely no sense, Mandalorian.” You huff as you begin to pace the belly of the ship frantically as you talk to yourself under your breath. How will you get home? Is he going to kill you? What about your life?

He chuckles under his breath, the modulator illuminates the lovely sound. No, stop. For all you know he could be a creature under all of that.

“You’re gonna stick with me for a while. I’m going to need your help. I know you’re strong. Just gotta keep the alcohol away from you.”

Your head snaps toward him with a look of bewilderment, “Stuck with you? And—and the green baby?” You almost laugh in disbelief. He’s really kidnapping you.

Mando nods his head, you can almost sense a smile on his face.

And so you do. The child and the Mandalorian slowly grow more fond of you as  as months go by- as you do with them. Sometimes, you’ll catch yourself gazing in awe at how well he takes care of his tiny elderly child. You’ll never want to leave because the irreversible attachment that has cemented them both into your heart.

Countless bounty hunts by his side, combat and capturing. Sometimes, well most of the time, you’re forced to sit on the sidelines with the kid in the Razor Crest because it’s too ‘dangerous.’ 

Of course, you’ll whine and complain, but you always have more fun with the little squirt anyway. 

After the first few months of living with them, you meet his friends along the way, Cara Dune, Greef Carga and a few others. Mando slowly opens up to you, letting you know his name and where he came from. Eventually, you find out he’s more human than you thought. Tiny bits of tanned skin peek from underneath his pile of armor when he stretches or moves; it makes you feel a certain way. (Especially, if he walks around the ship in regular clothing and only his helmet,) You’ve grown quite a fascination with his bare hands. 

Through everything, you and Din are each other’s shoulder to lean on. Even when countless people attempt to take the kid away from you both, which crushes both your hearts. Maybe, you found your own little family. The universe brought you both together for a reason; to protect the child from the Empire. If you weren’t drinking that day, or if the kid never greeted you unexpectedly—Your life wouldn’t be where it is now. You’re content and happy.

Arguments still happen though. Mando and you are both stubborn creatures. No matter how bad it gets, he will always be yours as you belong to each other unofficially.

Whether it’s platonic, or a little bit more than that...

tags: @duchessnibenhu-ofpyromania @mylifeisactuallyamess @onaheroicmission @3strogen @jupitersmoon167 @unexistant​ @kimbachan​

[gigilberry-wips]

the bonds of kinship

(image used can be found here)

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairings: None

Warnings: Brief mentions of fighting and violence, Spoilers for Season 2 Finale

Tags: Reader-Insert, No (Y/N), GN!Reader, Jedi!Reader, Creative Depictions of The Force, Action, Angst, Feels, Character Study, Healthy Relationships, Hopeful Ending

Word Count: 2.9k

Summery:

You’re a Padawan training under Luke Skywalker when your master recieves a distress signal from a Force sensitive child. He follows the lead and brings you along for the ride.

AO3 link

A/N: A few days after the season 2 finale I was lurking in the mandalorian tags, as you do, when one of those “i wish someone would write-” posts (this one) got my muse to drop by long enough to toss this one shot through the window.

- Obligatory disclaimer that I don’t know a thing about Star Wars. This show is my first introduction to the franchise and at the moment I am in absolutely no hurry to enlighten myself further (is there anyone else who’s here for the authentic experience of being as clueless as Din about this show? Because I’m having a blast :D Just about every subtle reference, easter egg, and character mention has gone flying over my head and I honestly find that hilarious)

I don’t know how well I’ve written the Force here, so just ... roll with it, please and thanks.

- Apparently Luke's ship is supposed to be a one seater kind of deal, but for the sake of this fic let's just pretend it has room for two people, yeah? Yeah? Good.

While writing this I thought of the song King of the Fairies, performed by The Dubliners. It'll make more sense near the end bit of this. I hope.

@ctrlmando​ I hope this turned out alright! Enjoy! ^_^

*

The Imperial battle ship made an imposing figure in the vast, glittering expanse of space. Under the cramped confines of your knees, R2D2 stirred, blinking and beeping in a way that made you mildly concerned for your shins.

“… so, this is where he is?”

“It is.” Master Skywalker nodded, his eyes trained on the floating craft. “Do you remember your part of the plan?”

“Get in, find the kid, get out.”

“Correct.” As a port came into view, he added, “Are you sure you’re ready for this? If you want to, you can stay here with R2D2.”

You gripped your saber’s hilt where it was clipped to your belt. In all the years you’d been under your master’s tutelage, there hadn’t been much in the way of students to train with on your level, few and far between as they were. This wasn’t just the first student to contact your master first, and through the Force no less, this was the first time you were being trusted on a mission like this.

For you to pass up such an opportunity? Out of the question. “Born ready,” you said, your tone firm.

“Then by all means, lead the way.”

The ship’s hull passed through the entrance just as the comms came to life. A woman’s voice spoke through it, but neither you nor your master answered. The moment the ship docked, you jumped out and took off at a sprint.

Keeping low to the ground, you focused all your powers on stealth and speed, dodging around the combatants before they had time to react. It wasn’t your job to take care of them, not yet – and from the sounds of it, your master was doing well for himself. While he took the brunt of the fire, you focused on navigating the corridors and opening your mind to the Force.

He was there. The child was a strong, bright little beacon, his presence lighting a path that ran clear as truth. The droids that tried to block your way you shoved aside with your powers, until you were well past them and they were left to face another, far more deadly opponent to charge at.

You hardly registered the fallen bodies you skipped over. Didn’t matter. You’d think about it later. Rescue came first.

The child’s presence led you to a lift. Above your head, a humming, artificial energy grew stronger and stronger the further up you went. When the lift opened, it was to a short corridor lined on either side with battle ready droids.

But by then you had your lightsaber out. Time to fight.

In a blur of sparks and tearing metal, you sliced the first droid in half. The next to come at you got its gun tossed out of its grasp through the Force and its head swiped off. One after another you cut them down, using the lightsaber and Force as needed, switching between the two with an efficiency that had been drilled into you until it had become habit.

The last droid fell in a twisted pile at your feet. You stepped past it. You waited.

In the few minutes of sizzling silence, you contemplated the dented metal door before you, so large it encompassed to breadth and hight of the corridor. There were … five? Six? Six adult creatures, all facing the entrance. Or no – one was unconscious. There was also that bright little child. He seemed unharmed, but you couldn’t be sure until you saw for yourself.

The door slid open. You marched into the room with lightsaber in hand and smoke curling at your heels. You allowed your hood to drop, finally showing your face to the gathering.

Front and centre there stood a humanoid clad in armour. Beskar armour. In a style you never thought you’d see more than once in your life.

A Mandalorian.

And it wasn’t just one. There were two more in the back, with slight modifications in their armour design, but distinctly Mandalorian all the same. Save for the first Mandalorian, the rest of the adults had their weapons raised at you.

The Mandalorian spoke. “Are you a Jedi?”

“… I am a Jedi in training.” You tilted you head. “My master should be arriving shortly.”

He had just finished down below. You felt more than heard him board the lift; he would be there in a few moments. Deactivating your lightsaber, you clipped it to your belt and stepped to the side of the entrance, closer to where several monitors idly hummed.

A very long, very green ear peeked out from behind a chair and you were met with the beseeching gaze of a child.

He … was tiny. You doubted he’d even pass your knee. He clung to the seat with tiny, tiny hands, and he was dressed in a brown, smock-like thing that made him look even tinier. But no matter how fragile he looked, no matter how impossibly wide and dewy his eyes were, the presence that radiated out of him was unmistakable. He was the kid.

Curious, you reached your thoughts out to him. A warm, exuberant little mind eagerly found yours, shy and hopeful.

What do you want? You asked.

You were met with a flurry of sensations. A sweet smell, a full belly, a metal ball?, gentle hands, a human chuckle.

… well. That wasn’t … unexpected, per se. He was a baby after all. But he hadn’t quite understood your question.

You tried again. Why did you call my master? Why are we here?

The child’s ears twitched. He opened his mind further and allowed you to see.

There were many emotions there, confusing in how strong they were and how drastically they contrasted. Nostalgia, safety, joy, peace. Sorrow and pain, loss and rage. They all held a strange depth to them, like a mind that had lived far, far longer than its apparent youth suggested.

Eventually, the emotions solidified into thoughts. Make me strong. They said.

… You want strength? Why would he need more? He was already strong, incredibly so.

… I have been hurt and I have been lost. But he protects me. The child looked up and to the side, towards what you now realised was his caregiver. I love him, and he loves me, but I can’t protect him. He fights for me and he saves me and he will die saving me and everyone dies saving me and it’s MY FAULT. Without warning, a barrage of memories flashed through your sight, followed by feelings of fear, panic, and helplessness. So make me strong. If I can protect me, then he doesn’t have to. He can just love me, and we will be happy.

At this, a sudden wave of love flooded out from him. It was a selfish love, needy and possessive. But that wasn’t unexpected either. Most of it was just simple, baby love, a “this is mine to keep and mine forever” love. You would’ve been surprised had it been anything different.

A hand landed on your shoulder. At once you felt your master’s presence, bringing you out of your observations and back to the present.

“… he doesn’t want to go with you.”

You looked up sharply. It was the Mandalorian who’d spoken. He glanced between the two of you and his charge.

“He is waiting for your permission.” Said your master, oddly gentle.

The way you were reading into the Force meant that you could feel a little of the surface emotions coming from those in the room. You imagined that if you could see it, the Mandalorian’s face would’ve taken on a complicated, pained expression.

Not receiving a reply, your master continued. “He is strong with the force, but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the child. But he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.”

Although he spoke quietly, his words carried a weight and authority that could not be refuted. One that came from being the one and only Luke Skywalker, the Jedi master who had earned the right to use it. And when he spoke, most tended to listen.

Something in the Mandalorian seemed to fall apart at those words. But at the same time, many other things fell together, forming a picture of resolve and acceptance.

He walked to the chair and carefully picked up the child, his hands steady even as his voice shook. He spoke to him and him alone, words so soft you barely heard some of what he said.

“… I’ll see you again … I promise.”

The kid reached for him, an unspoken request. Without hesitation, without a second thought, the Mandalorian did something that shocked what little knowledge you had of the Mandalore right out of you.

He removed his helmet.

Where before there had been a nondescript Mandalorian, there now stood a man. A heartbroken man with tears in his eyes. The tears did not fall, not even when the child touched his cheek and he shut his eyes to them.

“… time to go.”

The kid’s ears drooped.

He said something else and let the child down. Straightening up, he nodded to you and your master.

While your master nodded back, you furrowed your brow. There was something strange about the emotions that came from this man. Not so much that they were bad or wrong, but that they were different from what you knew. It wasn’t just sadness or longing, as it often was in the parents and family of the disciples your master took into his care. It was more … complicated. Deeper, somehow. Even the love that came from him felt different. You couldn’t quite place your finger on how or why.

It perplexed you, made you want to reach into his skull and see what was there. But that would be rude.

“Are you sure you want him to come with us?” You asked.

Because if he didn’t, if he really, truly had a problem with it, then the kid wasn’t coming. Family drama was messy, and your master knew better than anyone else not to get in the way of that.

The man considered you. You crossed your arms. His gaze darted to the monitors, where the view from different parts of the ship still showed.

“… do you know, I took out one of those droids.” He smiled. That is, his lips tilted up at the corners. “One of them. And I barely did it. But you, you took on dozens of them. I saw you. You did it in moments, and you say you are in training.”

Glancing down to where the child clung to his leg, the smile became something sad. “This child has been hunted across the galaxy. I have done what I could, but this … this is more than I can do for him. I cannot give him what he needs me to. I cannot protect him the way he needs me to. He’s made a choice. The least I can do is see that he gets it.”

“Even if it doesn’t make you happy?”

Because it didn’t. It shouldn’t have, not with the bond that stretched between the two of them.

But he only shook his head. “I’d rather he be alive with you than dead with me.”

Before you could think further on that, a loud trill interrupted the air. R2D2 rolled past the doors and came to a stop to the right of where you and your master stood, happily beeping like it either didn’t notice the tension in the room or else didn’t care.

It caught the child’s attention. His entire face lit up – oh. Oh. There was a bond there, too. Something to ask about later that you tucked away in your head.

Letting go of his caregiver’s leg, the kid toddled up to the robot and babbled at it. R2 responded in kind. The sight created a bubble of cuteness strong enough that you didn’t have to look to know that most of the adults had eased their collective guard.

While the two conversed, the unmasked-Mandalorian idly held his helmet. And there was another contradiction – to ask, or not to ask, that was the question. To get it over with now or leave it alone. You didn’t have to; it’s not like knowing the answer would affect you in any way.

But then again, it was the first time you had a Mandalorian to give you an answer. Might as well.

“… You know, I’ve never met a Mandalorian before.” You said conversationally. “Doesn’t taking the helmet off go against your creed?”

He blinked, looking down at the helmet like he’d forgotten about it. Meanwhile, Master Skywalker did the mental equivalent of a tsk, but you ignored it.

“… yes, and no. I thought it did. But there is more to it than that. When you reach the heart of it.” His eyes settled upon the child. “I am a Mandalorian. I have my creed. I have not betrayed it, not in the way that matters. It … took me some time to realise this.”

He sighed, closing his eyes again. When he opened them, it was with a clarity that shone in his emotions. “I trust you. Both of you. Please look after him.”

“We will.”

At the sound of his voice, the child seemed to notice your master for the first time. He tilted his head curiously up at him. After a moment, he shuffled over and lifted his arms up.

Master Skywalker obliged him. Picking him up, he nodded his thanks to the room and walked out the door. Taking one last look around, you gave a slight bow and did the same, not turning back or minding the still sparking heaps of broken metal strewn across the floor. Propped up on your master’s shoulder, the kid had a good view of what you were walking away from, kept in his sights all the way to the lift.

It was when you were in the lift yourself that you saw what he saw. The gathered adults back in the room, but especially, the man who had cared for and protected him. And as you contemplated the two of them, you felt that something again, reflected in the child as he felt it from his guardian and held fast to it.

It stayed with you, as your little rescue party traversed back through the wreckage that was a once heavily armed battle force, as you climbed into your seat and your master guided the ship into the embrace of space.

Of course, he called attention to it first. “Your mind is troubled.”

You shrugged, even if he couldn’t see it. The lights of hyper space flashed by the windows, reflecting in the child’s eyes while you held him securely in your lap.

“I’m just somewhat … confused, is all. I know what I felt, but I don’t know what to make of it.” You bit your lip, giving the kid’s cheek a tap. “You felt it, too. What do you think?”

“Why don’t you ask the little one? He should be the most familiar with it.”

Ah. That reminded you. So far you’d spent the entire time referring to your new fellow disciple as “child” and “kid” and had yet to ask his name.

You mentally nudged him. He twisted around to look up at you and gurgled.

Grogu. He said.

“Grogu.” You nodded, brushing your thumb over his nose. I have a question for you. That person you cherish, he confuses me. When you think of him, what do you see?

Grogu pushed his hands against your chest, and his bright little mind painted a picture of the man who’d come to span the entirety of his world. Who’d lifted him from a life of darkness and pain and given him another, one filled with safety and warmth and home.

Through his eyes you saw what he saw. Through him you felt what he’d felt. A man who bore the marks of loss and terrible grief. A soul that had been shaped by duty, devotion, and sacrifice. Of promises that were honoured, of kindness for the sake of kindness, of extending peace when there was a choice to be had. Of an unconditional, selfless love, that gave itself freely and demanded nothing in return.

That you knew. You knew it in the way you were taught to connect with the Force and all it touched. Because the truth was that being free of attachments did not dictate that there had to be no love. To protect something, you first had to love it enough to protect it. To honour life and all it entailed, you had to accept it and grow with it and still learn to love it, faults and all.

That is what it meant to be on the side of the Light. That is what it meant to take the gift you had and use it to restore balance and peace.

The way that man had loved carried a protectiveness and freedom that was entirely for the one he gave it to. A love that was given freely, that cherished what it held and asked for nothing in return.

And this little child held it in his heart and his hands. He pressed them into your cheek, and his dull claws made indents in your skin. You dazedly blinked out of your thoughts, his face coming into focus and the warm weight of him held against your front.

“… I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a thing in someone.” Even to your own ears, you sounded faint.

Your master didn’t ask what you were talking about. He’d probably felt it as well as you had. “He has a good example set for himself.”

The ship’s dashboard blinked with lights as it exited hyperspace. It made Grogu perk up and try to turn around to see it, wiggling in your arms. You quietly smiled.

“Yes … yes, he does.”

*

*

*

I have my own thoughts on the finale and people’s reactions to it that I might share eventually, but for now I’ll give credit where credit is due:

Din and his beliefs

Din being a good father: here, here, here, and here

Din being a kind, wonderful person in general

What got me thinking of that song for Din in the first place

R2D2 & Grogu headcanon

From Grogu’s perspective: here and here

From a storytelling perspective: here and here

[elsanna-shenanigans]

February Contest Submission #4: Off-Duty

words: ca. 1800 setting: Star Trek AU (TNG era) lemon: No cw: brief mention of nudity

“Computer, being program Elsa Epsilon Sigma Two Seven”

“Program initiated, enter when ready.”

The large doors of the holodeck opened and Elsa stepped out of the corridor and into a world of her own, a beautiful landscape on a far off alien world. As Elsa closed her eyes, she felt the warmth of a simulated sun bathe her quite pale complexion.

She opened her eyes and took in once more the wonders of her favourite holoprogram. It was a recreation of an alien city she’d studied often. She was currently standing on a hill overlooking said city, a large settlement on the coast of some vast continent.

Elsa saw ships sailing in and out of the city’s vast harbour, the ships floating above the ocean with their sails being powered by sunlight, gliding across the surface of the water. Behind the city, Elsa gazed up at the tall dormant volcano, ominously looking down upon the city like a vengeful god.

As Elsa walked towards a nearby cobbled road, she thought about if she should visit the city this time. She’d been there a few times, but today, she mostly felt like taking in the scenery. Ship duties had taken a lot out of her and as such, she very much preferred to relax.

But before she had a chance to do so, she saw a cart being driven down the road next to her, a wooden cart being pulled by a six-legged reptilian creature covered in bony armour, its driver being a humanoid woman with green bony crests protruding from her forehead.

“Need a lift, stranger?” she asked Elsa, in an accent that Elsa’s translator interpreted as similar to Human Irish.

“Oh uh no thanks,” Elsa replied.

“You sure?” the woman asked. “You look a little tired.”

“I’ve had a long day,” Elsa told her. She felt a bit embarrassed that a hologram of all things was commenting on her rather weary looks. Fortunately, her Vulcan side was being more than enough in preventing Elsa from becoming too irritable.

“Ah fair enough,” the woman accepted. “Well, be seeing you.”

As the woman rode off with her cart, Elsa walked over to a nearby rock and sat upon it, gazing at the city. The azure sky and the rolling waves below her certainly helped ease her tension. The past week had certainly been rough for the Part-Vulcan Starfleet captain.

A large survey of an uncharted star system, a rather unsavoury encounter with a group of Ferengi traders plus the pressures of command had been more than enough to take their toll on her. She knew Kristoff, her first officer, could handle things, but Elsa was the sort of woman who preferred to meticulously co-ordinate and plan everything personally.

However, despite her stress, she knew she could always come here to this program, to step into a piece of ancient history from another world. She could lose herself here, to shed off all her responsibilities and be herself, even if she was going to be going back on duty in another four hours.

Archaeology had always been a great love of hers. The study of cultures long gone, pondering the wonders of the races that came long before humans, Klingons and even Vulcans. With the vast number of ancient civilisations out there, Elsa had quite a number to find herself lost in. It was a helpful distraction for her, not to mention her other hobbies.

But there was one person on the entire ship who Elsa knew helped her more than any hologram ever could.

“I thought I’d find you here,” a voice spoke to her.

Elsa looked over her shoulder, seeing the holodeck door appear again as a certain strawberry blonde Betazoid in a blue uniform walked towards her. At that moment, Elsa forgot about the simulated sun that hung in the sky above her, as her girlfriend was the one whose light and warmth were filling her world.

Anna was the ship’s counsellor aboard the Ahtohallan, a wonderful charming bubbly young officer who’d managed to sweep Elsa off her feet from the moment she first came aboard. She often remembered the rather humourous incident where they first met, here on that very holodeck no less, not long after Elsa took command.

Since this was her first deep-space assignment, Anna had been feeling rather homesick for Betazed and as such had started a program of a festival from her homeworld, one of the many occasions where her people celebrated in the nude. It wasn’t exactly the first choice for Elsa to meet the love of her life, but the memory did remind her that life aboard a starship wasn’t always serious and did have it’s lighter moments.

The freckled redhead partly undid her hair out of its bun and let it flow, sighing in content. Those ginger locks of hers flowed freely in the breeze as if her whole form was being carried on a gust of ethereal wind. Elsa melted at the sight of her girlfriend’s beauty.

“This program is beautiful,” Anna admitted.

“Have I never told you about it before?” Elsa wondered.

“No, I don’t think so,” Anna replied. “You’re always so private about your personal life.”

Chuckling, Elsa smirked at her lover. “Nothing is stopping you from looking anyway.”

“Hey, that’d be a very rude and improper use of my telepathy,” Anna stated, playfully nudging the captain’s shoulder.

Sitting beside Elsa on the rock, Anna sighed as she laid her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder. Elsa felt a sensation of warmth flow through her, perhaps Anna telepathically sharing her sensation of content with her. Whatever it was, it was definitely helping her stress fade away considerably.

“So… what brings you here then?” Elsa wondered.

“Do I need an excuse to spend time with my girlfriend?” Anna remarked. She chuckled. “I just got off duty and figured you could use some company. I don’t need to use my abilities to know how stressed you’ve been this week. Plus, Kristoff was worried about you.”

Rubbing her temples, Elsa groaned wearily in response, a clear sign of her stress. “Yes… this is the first free moment I’ve had in days.”

Anna leaned closer and kissed Elsa on the cheek, making the blonde blush. “Well… you know that I’m here for you, always. As both counsellor… and your girlfriend.”

It still felt a little odd to Elsa. There wasn’t exactly any rules against ship’s captains dating their officers. Hell, she knew an old academy friend who was actually married to her first officer. But to Elsa, it still felt a little strange unusual. Perhaps it was because she and Anna hadn’t been a couple for very long.

Looking out at the ocean again, Elsa sighed calmly, taking in the quiet moment she and Anna were now sharing. She hadn’t asked for Anna’s presence, but she was all the same very glad that she was here. It was as though Anna was the one element the program had been lacking and now that she was here, it was finally complete.

“So… where exactly is this place?” Anna wondered. “Why do you always find yourself running this program?”

Elsa smiled. “It’s the city of Vetalis on Ezlor V. Approximately 2000 years ago.”

“Vetalis… hmmm, doesn’t ring a bell,” Anna admitted.

Standing up, Elsa gestured to the city. She loved to go on about various historical facts to Anna, having a voice that made the tales of the past come alive. “It’s not exactly well known, but it is a fascinating story. I actually visited the ruins of it when I was younger, though the planet doesn’t exactly look as beautiful as this.”

“Oh?”

Elsa nodded. “Around 1200 years ago, the planet suffered a severe climate shift and this city was destroyed by not only a massive tsunami and earthquake, but it was subsequently buried in volcanic ash and lava when that volcano over there erupted.”

“Hardcore!”

The captain gave her girlfriend a look of confusion.

“Uh, sorry.”

“It’s uhh… alright,” Elsa responded, with a giggle. She walked closer to the side of the hill overlooking the ocean. “It’s truly a miracle that any remnants of this city survived at all. For centuries, Vetalis was actually considered a myth until an Andorian science team found it about forty years ago.”

“So… why do you find yourself coming here?” Anna asked. “You didn’t exactly wander that part of my question.”

Stroking her chin, Elsa pondered the answer. If she was honest, she hadn’t really thought of it. Yes, coming here relaxed her, but in all these years she had never considered why. Self-reflection wasn’t one of her strong points. It was Anna who was the therapist, not herself.

“I guess… I guess it’s because this place has always served as an inspiration for me, ” Elsa theorised. “That no matter what I’m going through in my life, I’ll make it through it and survive.”

“That’s a good outlook on things,” Anna stated. “But I find it odd that you feel that way about a city that got destroyed.”

Elsa laughed. “It is a bit weird I admit… and please, I’d rather this stay just between us.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Anna assured her. “You can always trust me.”

At that moment, Elsa got a delightful idea. Perhaps today… she’d got into the city after all. Especially since Anna was here. Showing her the wonders of ancient Vetalis had been something she had been considering for a while now. She looked over at Anna and grinned.

“Hey, why don’t I show you around the city?” Elsa offered. “I mean, if you’re not too busy.”

Anna chuckled. “Why, I’d love to, Elsa.” She held her hand. “Lead the way.”

Elsa shook her head. “Nuh-uh. We’re going there in style.” She cleared her throat. “Computer, create for us one Zyuranour, docile.”

Next to them on the path, one of the large six-legged creatures that Elsa had seen pulling the cart appeared before them. The beast groaned and Elsa walked over to the animal, stroking it softly. The beast growled back in response, nuzzling her hand.

Her Betazoid lover gulped, looking at the creature’s large bony spikes and clubbed tail. “Uhh… you sure that thing’s friendly?”

“She’s a herbivore don’t worry, ” Elsa assured Anna, “Although I wouldn’t annoy her if I were you. Supposedly, they also had a bad temper.” She climbed onto the creature’s back, holding her hand out to Anna, like some fairytale prince from an old story.

Anna smiled, taking Elsa’s hand and getting onto the creature’s back. She wrapped her arms around Elsa’s waist, the blonde blushing a little as she felt Anna hold her tightly. She had quite a grip, but Elsa loved that feeling, especially when Anna spooned her at night.

“Comfortable?” Elsa asked.

“Very,” Anna said, kissing her girlfriend on the cheek.

Nodding, Elsa petted the creature as it trotted down the path towards the city. Now that she had shown the ancient city to Anna, she wanted nothing more than to share all of its wonders with her.

[whitherliliesbloom]

toratora

[ ffxivwrite2020 ] ★ [ masterlist ]  ★ [ prompt #21 - foibles ]

[ illya & laurelis ] ★ [ 1,611 words ] ★ [ shijin au ]

takes place in an au where doma is split into 4 feuding clans who go to war every seven years over an important plot of land. laurelis and illya are part of the smallest eastern clan. 

the dawn azalea was known for her worrying recklessness, but it’s made even worse when it came to small, helpless animals

“Laurelis, you’re scaring the cat.” 

The gold hues of the setting sun baked the village in a warm glow, reflecting off the luster woven hair of the twilight sakura as she crossed her arms over her chest, watching as her companion a few summers her elder cooed and mewed at the trembling feline as if she were a child. From beneath the ominous grin of the oni she wore, the samurai’s eyebrows furrowed and her lips were pressed into a thin line.

It wasn’t as if Illya was against giving shelter to homeless animals, far from it. But it’s plain to see that the cat, lost and confused as it was, wants absolutely nothing to do with the larger, more humanoid looking cat person towering over it despite her already lowering herself onto her knees. 

From beneath the cover of the oni mask, the young samurai lets out a sigh when the cat backs away from Laurelis, only for the maiden to scurry closer to it.

“It’s okay! Don’t be afraid, kitty! I’m here to help you!”

Laurelis rolls up the sleeve of her pink haori and reaches her hand out to the kitten, a little one with matted orange fur and wide chestnut eyes that glances down at her wiggling fingers with some amount of curiosity.. before letting out a meow and turning away to run.

“A-Ah! Wait!” 

The young woman stands herself up to give chase, much to the dismay of her shorter, more sensible companion.

“Laurelis! Wait a moment- It’s-” Her voice goes ignored, as does her gloved hand reaching out to her friend, who has already sprinted through the village square and seems intent on chasing the cat all the way out of the safety of the bordered walls. “Sunset...” 

She lets out a heavy sigh, tilting her head up to the sky as she watches the hues of the sky grow darker and darker with each passing moment the light of the sun’s rays graced over them. Soon, twilight will be upon them, their last bastion before the moon will rise, and the dark of the night has been known to be far more treacherous than day, especially for those foolish enough to step outside the safety of their clan borders. 

She was ever the amaterasu to her tsukuyomi, that Laurelis.. and it was even reflected upon the titles they’d been granted by their foes and peers. It’d felt like forever since the two met, with Laurelis bright extroversion, nurtured in no small part by being spoiled by her parents, standing in stark contrast to her own tense and awkward nature around others. 

And though Illya had always been envious of Laurelis radiant personality, and the way she’d effortlessly commanded the attention of everyone around her.. she did also wish she’d be a bit more...sensible when it came to her own safety and the safety of those around her. It wouldn’t hurt to exercise some amount of caution, especially knowing just how dangerous Doma is with the much anticipated war nearing. Laurelis had as much grace as a bull in an antique shop.

It’s made even worse in the presence of animals. Illya has seen Laurelis been reduced to tears at the mere mention of a lost pet. And she’d been completely and utterly incapacitated at the sight of a group of ducklings waddling their way through the city while they had been on their way to an important meeting with the clan heads.. to which the both of them later got sternly reprimanded for their late coming.

Admittedly, Illya had far better rapport with flowers and nature, and she was in no real position to speak when she’d happily spend hours upon hours nurturing the growth of the handful of flowerbeds they had blooming in their village. And had she the time, she’d expand her interests further across the Eastern Clan, cultivating as many gardens as much as time and her age would allow her... were it not for her responsibilities as daughter of the founder. 

And it was that self-restraint, that burden of responsibility and obligation to her training that weighed her down, while Laurelis was ever free to express herself, pursue whatever she wished and wore every inch of her heart upon her sleeves.

But thank the kami that they got along as well as they did despite their differences.. and that the sakura of the twilight skies wasn’t nearly as callous as her patron deity of the moon as to leave her friend alone when she needed help. Laurelis’ safety and happiness far outweighed the importance of her obligations. 

With a heaving sigh, Illya adjusted the straps of her mask. She fastens the purple sageo of her decorated scabbard, upon which the surface had been painted with a myraid of sakura petals, and tucks it tighter into her obi before sprinting off after her friend. 

“Laurelis!” 

Her dear friend’s recklessness truly knows no bounds, Illya laments internally as she runs out the borders of clan walls, despite warnings from the guards and all the way up the hill that led up to the treacherous Ryurin fields. 

Crossing the war torn fields of no man’s land, Illya finally catches sight of her friend as she climbs up a hill, calling her name but abruptly stopping in her tracks when she sees what was ahead of them.

An orange feline, far larger and dangerous than the one that was mewling and trembling in Lauerelis’ arms, glared daggers at the miqo’te, and more specifically the prey pressed up against her chest. Small though it may be, food was still food, especially within this utterly cruel world - where you either feasted upon others, or are waiting to be feasted upon.

Its sabretooth is bared, and the tiger lets out a loud growl as if in demand for its food to be released, and Laurelis takes a step back.

“D-don’t come any closer!”

“Laurelis! What are you doing??”

The pink haired miqo’te doesn’t take her eyes off the tiger to turn her head back, knowing that doing so would lead to the helpless kitten in her care being put in danger, but she manages a nervous laugh back at Illya.

“I-I um.. may have forgotten my katana..”

“Kami forfend...” Reckless and suicidal, Laurelis’ little foibles were proving to be more than little, unimportant eccentricities at this point. 

Twilight bathes preys and predator alike in a rapidly darkening glow, and Illya slowly reaches her hand to rest upon the handle of her katana.

The tiger evidently has no patience to wait for nightfall, and with a loud roar, it lunges towards the dawn azalea with its razor teeth bared. And with no regard for herself, Laurelis turns her back to the tiger, shielding the kitten tightly in her grasp.

“Begone with you!” 

A flurry of cherry blossoms circle them, and the wind rises to blow them high into the sky as Laurelis hears but a single telltale sound of metal - the sound of a sword being drawn. And when she works up the courage to turn around, she sees Illya ahead of the tiger, the glow of her katana’s blade as threatening as it was comforting against the orange pink hues of the atmosphere, cutting through fear as if it were but a fine thread. The sakura petals that flew into the air flutter back to earth, each carried along upon the wind as if in an entrancing dance.

And the tiger behind her stood still, before the fur along its side and back falls off. And with a frightened whimper, the predator scurries away back towards the mountains, and Illya finally sheaths her sword.

“Illya! Are you okay?” Laurelis calls out and runs forward, an equal amounts of relief and remorse plastered across her face.

“I’m fine.” Illya responds, running slender fingers through her silken locks. Though her expression was completely obscured beneath the grin of the oni, Laurelis can tell her friend was herself heaving a sigh of relief. “That was a little too close for comfort.”

“I-I’m so sorry... I was.. I was being so stupid and careless.. If you hadn’t followed me.. I-” The miqo’te bites back her words, glistening tears pooling in her mismatched eyes that threatened to spill out and trickle down her face. 

Illya’s silence was no comfort, especially not when she could not tell from the expression upon her masked face just how she was looking up at her. Was Illya disappointed? Angry? She’d have every right to be both, and she was almost certain she’d permanently earned her friend’s disdain when Illya finally responds, her voice lowering in volume.

“Don’t worry. I’m just glad you’re both okay.”

It’s a tone of voice she doesn’t get to hear often, especially not in public.. a voice that stood in stark contrast to the pretense of a refined and mature warrior Illya has grown so used to, a pretense that has become wholly a part of her. But Laurelis knew this voice to be the true Illya, one of an unparalleled gentleness and kindness towards her that she believed she did not deserve. 

“So what are you going to name it?” Illya asks, turning as she begins to lead the pair down the hill back towards their village, and Laurelis pauses for a moment to contemplate before replying with a sunny grin.

“How about ‘tora’?”

“‘Tiger’? You mean.. like the one I just shaved clean..?”

A girlish giggle rises up into the air, along with an affectionate mewling of a cat.

“Well.. I was already reminded of a tiger when I saw his fur.. that was just a funny coincidence.” 

[evajellion]

Why Suketoudara is (one of) the most well-developed characters in Puyo Puyo

You ever just look back at how far the Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari franchise has come, and think about how much the characters have changed over the years? 

Some have become main stay recurring cast members, while sadly some others have been completely left in the dust or remain in Quest or other spin-off titles. Others become more amazing in hindsight, such as Schezo and Rulue (even if most can argue SEGA dropped the ball on their character in recent times), starting off as slightly minor characters, getting their own arcs.

Witch is also pretty incredible to think about, what once was a mere mook enemy became one of the most popular characters, obtained her own spin-off title, and co-starred in a Madou game with Schezo.

Then you have the most interesting case imo, which is Suketoudara. What makes him so incredible? When you look at his actual personality and character, and how it’s changed across games… for the better!

Since I said I would talk about this after seeing @superbuffalo007​‘s post, I decided it’s time the unspoken truth is finally said-- which is Suketoudara’s character across the games.

So originally, Suketoudara started off no differently than Witch and Draco. The only huge key difference was his character design, in which rather than being a cute humanoid girl… Suketoudara was a funny fish with human arms and legs that liked to dance. His design was goofy albeit uncanny (especially in the PC98 Madou), which probably got some designers at Compile to chuckle, nothing more.

He was a blank slate enemy, nothing more, nothing less. And once we got the first two Puyo Puyo games, which had “Manzai” based dialogue for comedic purposes. We learn that this funky fish prides himself and his beautiful legs. I mean, to be completely fair… he does. Usually in these games (and Puyo Sun), Arle was the straight man while Suketoduara was the goof.

Out of nowhere, the guy skyrocketed in popularity. He, Nasu, and Carbuncle were easily marketable characters due to their distinct, funny appearance which I assume made them very popular with younger fans. In commercials, you would probably often see this character be frequently used-- that’s how iconic his design was. His personality though, was about as shallow as everyone else’s.

This changed of course, in 1996 and onward, where Compile decided “hey, maybe we should do more with this character besides just having him dance”.

In 1996, Madou Monogatari Hanamaru Daiyouchi Enji (Big Kindergarten Kids) would be released for the Super Famicom. Rather than the usual dungeon-crawler, this game took inspiration from the likes of A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy, and Earthbound in terms of its overworld design. More importantly though, it took what was once mere mooks, the most popular characters, and made some of them into full-on major bosses you had to fight.

Amongst those characters are Nasu Grave, Skeleton-T, Mini-Zombie, and Suketoudara (called Jr. in this game).

You know who wasn’t? Uh… Witch and Draco, if you can believe that. Yeah, that’s right. Suketoudara was a major, if not the main antagonist for a good chunk of this game, while Witch and Draco remained mere mooks. That’s pretty incredible if you ask me!

He’s the typical schoolyard bully/delinquent, going around causing problems for several towns and even stooping as far as to steal eggs from dragons. Suketoudara constantly meddles in Arle’s quest, and it only comes to an end one day after sending Arle a letter, in which he challenges her directly at her school. Turns out he just happens to have the last Secret Stone.

And at the end of the game, after Arle defeats Devil, the true main antagonist? Suketoudara has a complete change of heart, asking for Arle’s forgiveness, realizing he focused too much on his training, even saying he wants to be Arle’s henchman instead.

He even calls her “sis”, in a relatively friendly way, after everything he had done.

Whether or not you consider this game canon, it added a lot to Suketoudara (if this is the same as the one in the Puyo Puyo titles, and not Jr. as in a child of his). Suketoudara was a foul-mouthed bully in his youth, a complete contrast to the innocent, playful Arle. But he changed for the better after Arle told him to reflect on himself. That is way more characterization than Draco has ever received.

Suketoudara got fleshed out further in a couple of DiscStation games, both a year before Hanamaru and two years after, we would get some really interesting development, which would of course come from his interactions with another character.

DiscStation Volume 9 is (presumably) when we would first see Suketoudara interacting with Serilly in the game “Madou Sugoroku”, a Mario Party-esque game that seems to have no real story, pairs of characters are just competing while Harpy serves as the game hostess. This would be one of the earliest instances of Suketoudara being shown to have a crush on Serilly.

DiscStation Volume 18 would give us Serilly’s Happy Birthday, a game where Serilly uses a magical stone to go up to the surface in the hopes that she’ll make a friend that will celebrate her birthday with her, rather than leaving Serilly to celebrate it alone.

While I am sadly uncertain about the full details of this visual novel, it seems that in Suketoudara’s route, he collapses due to a drug Witch had made, so Serilly nurses him back to health by making an antidote. This leads to Suketoudara, a normally brash and selfish character, to become warmer and open up to Serilly. Again though, this is a loose translation of what transpires.

Lastly for DiscStation, we have Madou RUN! 

A game featuring Arle, Schezo, Witch… and not Satan, not Rulue, not Draco, but Suketoudara! In this game, our four protagonists compete in a game of tag set up by Momomo, for an object known as the Dragon Ball, which can grant any wish.

Oddly enough, rather than it being about his dancing, the only wish on Suketoudara’s mind is that he wants to be closer to Serilly. Mind you that the other three characters are more interested in the power of the Dragon Ball to become stronger, while Suketoudara just wants to improve his relationship with a friend he has feelings for.

His attitude in this game is notably far less aggressive when compared to how overly competitive Witch and Schezo are, a far cry from how Suketoudara used to be in the earliest Puyo Puyo games.

In Puyo Puyo~n, we have yet another cheerful Suketoudara, as opposed to the grouchy, territorial one we saw in past mainline Puyo titles. Much like the previously mentioned DiscStation games, Suketoudara is primarily just interested in Serilly’s presence, stuttering in a shy manner around her, and feeling crestfallen when Serilly says that he’s only a friend.

He only starts to lash out against Arle once he thinks that Serilly only called him a friend because another person was embarrassing her. To be fair, pretty rude of Arle to make comments or butt in. Overall? It seems that Serilly has had a positive influence on Suketoudara, but he still had some of his temper.

In Puyo Puyo Box, nothing interesting happens, but Suketoudara definitely mellowed out in the Quest Mode. Similarly in Minna de Puyo Puyo, Suketoudara only wants Arle to watch him dance, which she ignores in a rude manner.

After a couple years of going missing, Suketoudara returns in Puyo Puyo! 15th, and is arguably, the most friendly of the returning Compile characters next to Zoh Daimaoh.

Unlike Satan, Rulue, and Schezo, who are rude and dismissive of the Fever characters, Suketoudara seems happy to meet new faces and actively encourages them through dialogue usually related to dance. No mention of Serilly is made, but that just proves that unlike Rulue, he can go without thinking or talking about his love interest for every two scenes.

And also unlike 90% of 15th’s roster, he doesn’t get screwed over by the fake wishing medal. He makes a simple, short wish where he says he wants to be first to do solo dances.

Puyo Puyo 7, in my opinion, is the peak, friendliest Suketoudara has been in any game. Ringo runs into him, and rather than being actively antagonistic, he explains that he was with Arle (possessed by Ecolo) and got lost, so he asks for her help. In exchange, Suketoudara assists for a short period of time. He tries to persuade Rulue out of attacking him, manages to hold a decent conversation with Satan and Carbuncle, even showing concern about Arle’s strange behavior! 

He, along with Satan, are the only Madou characters in 7 that were genuinely worried about Arle. Schezo, Skeleton-T, Draco, and Rulue did not care in the slightest. He has grown from not wanting Arle around at all to being a friend that does care about her!

Puyo Puyo 20th… sadly took a step back, with Suketoudara obsessively searching for his shoes. A lot of the characters were jerks in this game though, so it’s not a problem exclusive to him. If anything, I’d argue he’s the tamest example and just being plain comedic.

Thankfully, in Puyo Puyo Tetris and Puyo Puyo Chronicle, Suketoudara was back to being his cheery self, unlike in 20th. He just wants to show off his dance moves, has friendly enough conversations with Arle, Ringo, and Ally-- playing Puyo just for fun rather than an offense reason…

Ess on the other hand… yeah, she’s straight-up rude to him, and he rightfully defends himself. I should note that through all of these games, Serilly went completely unmentioned, which might mean that Suketoudara actually got over his infatuation for Serilly. Even with her grand return in Puyo Puyo Chronicle, the two never have a conversation.

That being said, I definitely do think that Serilly’s kind personality, and if taken as canon, Suketoudara’s rivalry with Arle in Hanamaru, definitely molded him into being one of the most grown characters in the entire series. He went from being the typical jerk with only thing on his mind, to being an upbeat, helpful character that is willing to put dancing aside when there are greater matters at hand. Puyo Puyo 7, Tetris, and Chronicle are the arguable proof of this.

That’s why I like this character so much. That’s why I feel the fan-base kinda takes him for granted-- they don’t know about his evolution throughout the games. He went from a funny jerk, to a guy with a crush, to someone with a confident and friendly personality.

Because of that… I am honestly completely fine with Suketoudara staying for future mainline games. Even if he doesn’t add much, at least he isn’t as actively unpleasant as he was in Compile’s early run.

[flydotnet]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. I don’t have any request left, so feel free to send in suggestions for this card!).

Adrenaline really does makes you do what you usually can't pull off, huh?

The other day, I was trying to write something that wasn't Valiant Soul because I'm not mentally ready to tackle on the FFI arc for it, so I was brainstorming. I then realized I hadn't written much Kidou up until this point, which was weird because he's one of my favorite Ina characters (really, the most I've written of him was his appearance in From the Eye of the Typhoon), so I set on to correct at least a part of this mistake. I also realized it'd be a good opportunity to write more of the Break Trio, since their dynamic is one of my favorites. Writing Endou is always fun and Gouenji is a pretty cool character too. I'm not sure of what this AU is, tbh. At first I was going for my usual magical girl-like AU setup, but the Hades inspiration was too strong, and that's when the references started to slip. I may expand on this universe or merge it with my usual set-up; I'll see. Just know people are usually hunting for stuff in teams and fight monsters I guess.

I also didn't know when starting on this fic, but the actual name of the "I Ain't Got Time to Bleed" is "Belated Injury Reaction" on TV Tropes and it was a bitch to write. I had no idea of what I was doing lmao. I tried to make most of it through.

One of my new kicks in writing Inazuma is to use underused given name (see: my obsession in Valiant Soul to do just that), so y'all get to see my weird POVs in action. Gotta do what no one else does!

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

No Time to Burn nor Bleed

Summary: As long as his sister isn't sure and safe, an older brother will pull through the pain and the blood to find her. That's something the Break Trio knows all too well as they head onto another adventure through fire and monsters.

Fandom: Inazuma Eleven (with a weird AU and aged-up characters, no minor was harmed for this piece of fanfiction)

Wordcount: 2.4K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo.

AO3 version available here.

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

Haruna is in danger and that’s all he needed to get moving.

 While Yuuto doesn’t know why he’s got that feeling, he’s sure of it: if there is one part of his instincts that never gets wronged, it’s what Endou would affectionally refer to as his “big brother instinct” (a concept whose existence Gouenji hasn’t even tried to debunk, most likely because it hits even closer to home for him). If the alarm inside his head telling him his little sister is in danger starts shrilling, he can be certain she’s in some sort of harm’s way and he won’t stand for it.

Not after they almost lost each other forever a couple years ago.

 He likes to think of himself as the rational one of their little trio, but right now, he can’t put together two thoughts that aren’t a mix of anger, panic and fear. All he wants to do is rush in and follow his sister’s trail before it’s too late, because the smell of blood and burnt ash from the Phlegethon Swamp area only inspire him further negative thoughts that are starting to catch up to him and poison the well of his mind. He knows he’s being reckless, and yet, he pushes through his barrier of rationality.

It can’t have gone over his partners’ heads. As much as he’ll give people thinking Endou is a brainless idiot credit, surely the latter can’t have not noticed a stark change in his friend’s attitude: multiple past missions and adventures have proved that to him. Gouenji, being noticeably more level-headed despite some hothead tendencies, has absolutely made note of it already and has simply kept quiet until now; perhaps because he already knows the answer to his question without needing to ask.

 He’s clutching his spear like a lifeline – it’s always given him a feeling of power, especially in times of hardship such as this one. He doesn’t think very clearly as he hacks through whatever monsters get thrown at him, sometimes throwing his weapon and retrieving it before he can get hit by another goon, sometimes seeing Endou panic and throw his shield between a monster and a comrade.

Yuuto figures this is where he should draw the line, but the fear of harm happening to his sister is too strong to stop. There’s nothing like the fury pulsing through him right now, to think of what could be happening to her, and the possibility they may arrive too late to do anything – he knows she can defend herself, she’s proven that time and time again, but

 He brushes blood that got splashed on his face from a nearby monster’s wound, swallows the taste of iron in his mouth and pressures onwards. There is no time to lose and no reason to stop for a break of any sort.

  From what he can see of Kidou and what he knows about the guy, Shuuya doesn’t think his friend is thinking clearly anymore… or that he ever did when they decided to go on that hunt for his sister’s safety.

 It’s not that he doesn’t understand the feeling: if Yuuka was in such the same position as Kidou is convinced his sister is, as she still hasn’t come back from a mission with her partner, he’d have been possessed like that too, would’ve rushed and burnt everything in his stead. It’s the most understandable feeling, to him, since he’s been in those shoes when he almost had to become a mercenary to save her from his blackmailers. He can only sympathize and, to be fair, if he wasn’t understanding of the feeling, he’d have never agreed to come.

However, since he’s not Kidou right about now, he can notice all of the sloppy mistakes his comrade is making. Usually, Kidou is the thinking head of their trio, while he’s the executioner and Endou is usually on the guard so they can avoid taking too much damage while Kidou calculates the best strategy when the situation calls for more than their reflexes and muscle memories. Tonight, however, has nothing to do with what habits they have: he’s the one who has to think so Endou and he can advance properly while Kidou is on a rampage.

Never anger an older brother – people like Kidou, Tsunami and he are perfect examples of that, and tonight’s adventure into darkness is almost too illustrating.

 Still, and as street-smart as he is, Shuuya isn’t too reassured with Kidou’s trance. They still don’t even know if their mission has a point, so he’s not been entirely on board, but there was no way to tear his friend from whatever fury he’s been in ever since he realized his sister hadn’t given a single life sign. He can’t do much except follow, he supposes…

The most concerning, however, is that he can see Kidou is bleeding from somewhere. Since the latter is in the lead and Endou is guarding their backs, the blood trail they see can’t be anyone’s but Kidou’s – to which their oh so level-headed tactician replied it may be Haruna’s, and that made him even more furious than he had been until that point. Not good, but also fairly predictable – getting caught in such a mindset does a number on your rationality. He’s learnt that the hard way.

 That does mean, on the other hand, that Endou and he need to be even more careful than he expected. There is no telling when Kidou’s adrenaline rush will end or when the blood loss will be too much: since they won’t stop running and there is no way either Endou or he will convince Kidou to stop so they can at least check if he’s injured (even though they have no need to check for that, because even Endou must have noticed the splatters of red on the ground in front of them and where they must have come from), Shuuya guessed a little while ago he’d have to muster what medical knowledge he has to make sure they don’t have a dead man on their hands.

In the meantime, he continues slaying enemies Kidou hasn’t seen as blood continues to spill, red or black, while they go through the charcoal trees of the Phlegethon Swamp. His sword slashes through hordes of monsters at a time, humanoid or not, not letting any chance get taken by them.

 He nonchalantly throws a potion of healing he’s had buckled to his belt in the direction of where he thinks Kidou’s injury is (on his right shoulder, since blood has splashed on this side of his face, and they haven’t faced a single red-blooded enemy since arriving here) and hopes everything will go as planned and they have an opportunity to do something about that wound.

  They’re finally reaching the end of the tunnel and, to be honest, Mamoru is very relieved of this fact.

 Usually, he’s the most enthusiastic of his group because, to put it bluntly, he’s always loved the thrill of a good quest. Of course, he does those to help around the people asking for them, and he’s never put much value in the prize (unlike Kidou, who always calculates the “risk-to-reward ratio” for a given mission, as he’d put it); but the thrill and adrenaline rushes are undeniably a huge part of why he’s here.

The thing is, now that he sees one of those rushes happening to someone else, he’s not sure if it was such a good idea to blindly follow his friend into a hunt when nothing except Haruna coming home late from a hunt of her own. Yes, he’s the most impulsive of the group, and he can’t deny that: that makes him a little knowledgeable on how rash that sort of decisions can be, right? Right?

Oh well, they’ve got no time to think over stuff like that: they have a mission to carry out and, tonight, he has someone whose back he needs to guard even more than usual.

 He’s been closer to Kidou than he ever has, to the point there’s blood splattering on his left side and around his shield, red droplets landing on its surface from time to time. It’s a little worrying, even if the thrill is here, and he’s glad he can pay his friend back for how many times he saved him by making him notice his own injuries and patch them up before it’d be too late.

Mamoru has never been the observant type, obviously, and he’d never pretend like he was, but even he can notice some things, especially if these are based on his habits. The one thing he’s noticing, unfortunately, is how reckless Kidou is being despite the very same Kidou usually scolding his head off at every opportunity given to make a misstep into a lesson to remember. Dashing into enemies like that, especially when he’s bleeding? Not a good idea.

 But, you know, there’s something familiar in Kidou’s rush to the lair of the enemy he suspects his sister fell to. Mamoru has felt it countless times – the most out of their trio, he’d say, due to what he’s been told is his “sanguine temperament” (he’s not a man of fancy words, this much he knows, he’d much rather call it “hotblooded” because that’s easier to understand and shorter to say) – so he knows what it feels like to power through an injury so you can arrive in time and do something.

The thing is, Mamoru is also familiar with the risks that comes with an adrenaline rush, mostly because his friends have had the patience to lie them in front of him. In the red-tinted atmosphere of the Swamp, it’s hard to tell about colours, so he has trouble seeing the paling skin typical of blood loss no matter how much he tries. What he can notice, however, is how Kidou’s pace has been progressively declining despite how hard his teeth are clenching, to the point Gouenji has gone ahead when it was the complete opposite earlier – he feels like he should do something about that, but what?

 Mamoru isn’t a talker nor a genius, so he tries to make things quick and safe as much as he can. His senses are more alert than usual, no doubt in part due to the smell of blood in the air that he doesn’t like much, so stopping incoming assaults and preventing some others by bashing some heads has to happen. He’d usually much rather hang in the back and make sure nothing creeps up on his friends, perhaps shedding some blood in exchange for their safety – but today is reverse role day, so he’s the careful one and Kidou is the one who gets hurt, apparently.

Mamoru doesn’t like that. He usually likes change and gets excited for things to be shaken up, but that change is one that doesn’t ruffle his feathers in the right way, and it makes it all wrong and unlikeable. At least, it’ll be over soon, so he better get back to bashing the enemies away and provide the backup he’s always made sure to bring to the table.

That’s pretty much all he can do aside from letting himself be bit by concern when seeing Kidou’s usually fluid movements slowly turn into a wobbly leg dance; and he’s smart enough to know which one is the better option.

  When they arrive at the clearing where Haruna was heading, he’s surprised. If he usually dislikes those because he’d much rather be able to predict every outcome to any situation, Yuuto can’t deny this one is, as is rarely the case, a good surprise: she’s safe and merely enjoying some time in private with her partner. In fact, she seems happy, waving at him as his trio steps into the calm and serene Temple of Hestia, where the scorching heat becomes a comforting warmth.

Seeing this, the energy that he had left vanishes in an instant and his knees buckle under him, prompting Haruna to run up to him screaming his name. She kneels to his level, concern all over her face and words, as they both discover at the exact same time why he’s so winded out, much more than usual:  a nasty, bleeding wound on his shoulder, barely hidden under the right edge of his cape. That’s not to forget a second injury near his side, much lighter since it’s closer to a scratch – but threatening nonetheless.

 That explains a lot of things that, now that he can breathe again, he noticed here and there, such as Gouenji speeding ahead when their usual formation has him in the middle, or Endou being so much closer to him when he’d usually barely see him and instead trust his voice rather than their eyes. They both seem very bothered about what just happened: to be fair, he did drag them through the burning swamp to discover Haruna was actually doing fine on her own. He’d be pretty miffed too if that was the case.

They nonetheless sit down next to him to take a breather as Haruna’s partner rushes to them, shield still in hand, the other holding a first-aid kit he remembers having given to his sister. He’s more than happy to drink a bitter healing potion, for once, especially since his teammates tell him they’ve been worried they were going to lose him.

Adrenaline makes you do things that should be impossible, doesn’t it? If he didn’t feel like his sister was in danger, he’d have never been able to pull through the pain and daze he’s now hit with like a hammer hitting a nail – he’s no Endou, he doesn’t have the constitution to do what this man can do on a weekly basis. He didn’t have time to bleed so that’s how he pressured on: that’s the only answer he can think of to give her when she asks how and why.

 Unlike him, Haruna hasn’t really been harmed – she managed to fight against the menace on her own with only one other person with her, whose bandaged appendages and indented shield show who protected who. She is, on the other hand, very much unamused by the injuries she’s busy patching up while she asks her partner to hand her different tool from their first aid kit.

They all deserve a nice, long break and to be away from that stupid swamp for a while, that’s for sure.

[thearchiveofaus]

The Magnus Archives | Assassination Classroom AU (version A probably)

(long post, so the rest is under the cut)

The archival staff + several other characters are part of some prestigious school’s Class 3-F, for “problem kids” and the bottom 5% of students at the school

Class 3-F always endure horrific discrimination on top of poor learning conditions and it seems this year’s class is no exception

But on the first day of the school year something mysteriously destroys around 70% of the moon, leaving it in a permanent crescent shape

Around a week later, a strange creature appears in their class proclaiming to be responsible for the moon’s destruction, and also their new class teacher

The students are then assigned by the government to kill the creature in one year, during which he will be teaching them both normal school subjects and also train them to become assassins

The unkillable teacher is Elias

(no last name given and also probably no catchy nickname)

He’s not evil or manipulative or anything, he’s genuinely polite and cheery and strict but kind to the students and really passionate about teaching them all

But he’s also really blunt and goofy and extra at times

Appearance-wise I have no idea what he looks like yet (*ﾟｰﾟ)ゞ

but I imagine he’s probably monster!Jon adjacent at least - humanoid but also clearly monstrous, maybe mothy?? wings????, EYES

His expressions do not change (maybe he has no facial features other than eyes at all) but his eyes change color depending on his mood

Normal is emerald green, smug is kinda yellow and glowy, etc.

I imagine he can move and fly really fast but not as fast as Korosensei in canon - Elias goes about mach 16-18 tops, probably

But his reflexes are mad quick it’s really hard to catch him off-guard

Maybe because he’s got multiple eyes and can see multiple directions

He’s also brilliant and can predict people pretty well after observing them enough time

Elias teaches most of the subjects all by himself

Eventually he’s joined by two other teachers tho don’t worry

Adelard Dekker is a preacher turned government agent assigned to monitor Elias and the class, while also teaching physical education and combat (unarmed, with a knife, with two knives, with various guns, etc.) and also marksmanship

Annabelle Cane is a renowned assassin who was assigned to teach foreign languages and social manipulation

Well initially she was aiming to assassinate Elias herself and didn’t care about teaching, but after seeing his dedication to teaching them she decides to stick around

If a student is willing she can also teach them the art of deception, seduction, and/or intimidation as a way to reach a target

Class 3-F is in the school basement, in the area not occupied by the boiler and pipes and other basement stuff

It’s dimly lit and musty, there’s only a classroom and a small and usually understocked science lab, one tiny office (shared between Elias, Adelard, and Annabelle), and a grubby ass unisex bathroom down there

Elias quickly gets fed up with it and digs some big tunnels for them

It’s dark as fuck and kinda spooky but it’s easy to get used to

And Elias put so much shit in the tunnels

There’s literally a sport’s field and marathon track in one of the tunnels so the students can have PE where no one can see?? he tried to add a sunroof to another tunnel??? underground library??? Elias what the fuck

The tunnels do lead to exits above ground in various places, mostly back alleys and stuff, but the students get to class through the main school building mostly

And now for some of the students

Jon was initially aloof and cold to everybody and didn’t trust Elias at all

But then he tries suicide-bombing Elias and he almost succeeds, and he gets both praised for catching Elias off-guard and also scolded for putting himself in danger and after that he warms up to Elias a lot

He’s also really observant and makes notes on Elias’s weaknesses and eventually he warms up to his classmates too

Martin was actually sent down bc he was caught working part-time at a cafe to support himself and his mum (side jobs are against school rules actually)

He’s really sweet and supportive and friendly to everybody but at the start of the story he kinda lacks much of a backbone

Then it turns out he’s got a talent for lying and tricking people and he eventually grows stronger and even gathers the courage to confront his mum

(It doesn’t exactly go well and Martin stays with the Stoker family after that, but he’s far happier)

Speaking of which, Tim’s noticed his little bro Danny acting kinda strange and has let his grades drop to worry over Danny, which led Tim to Class 3-F

Everyone expected him to excel in social manipulation, even maybe taking up seduction, but he far prefers training in marksmanship and has even learned to set up bombs

There’s two Sasha Jameses in the class by coincidence; they’re not blood related (one’s got long brown hair, the other has short red hair; brunette!Sasha is also not white, and ginger!Sasha is taller) but they can work with each other remarkably well

Brunette!Sasha’s actually really smart, but struggled through burnout during the previous year and her grades plummeted, sending her to Class 3-F

Ginger!Sasha’s talent leans closer to disguise and deception as opposed to observation

Melanie and Gerry were both suspended for the first couple weeks, for attacking several students and trashing Mr. Leitner’s office respectively, but they quickly come back in once they’ve done their time

They’re both familiar with Jon; Melanie and him get along like bickering siblings, while Gerry was close to him in first year but they eventually drifted apart

Melanie excels in knife combat especially, and she utterly hates Elias at first and actively targets him

Until eventually Elias protects her from a particularly rash assassination attempt, which earned him her trust, though she’s still mean to him at times

Gerry, on the other hand, is good at both short-ranged and long-ranged combat, and also at making traps

Actually, let’s just say Gerry’s really well-rounded in general; he’s good at a lot of subjects, but doesn’t excel at any in particular

Michael and Helen are both transfer students designed specifically to work together to assassinate Elias; they were intended to be transferred in together, but in the end Michael was sent over first and Helen came later on

Michael is a literal killing machine - a box of guns with the face of a human boy on a screen, meant to provide firepower while Helen attacked from up close

At first he had no programmed personality and only knew attacking, until Elias reprogrammed him and gave him a personality and additional abilities

He installed his program onto everyone’s phones and loves messing with them all, but is really helpful when it’s needed

Helen is considered the superior assassin to Michael, and was meant to cover the short-ranged combat

It turns out that she was actually given this gene thing similar to Elias, giving her similar-ish abilities to her (she’s faster, but doesn’t have the eyes and instead has claws and stretchy limbs(?? maybe))

Eventually Elias convinces her to let the thing go and be a normal student learning with the others

Georgie is in a regular class (3-C), but she’s friends with both Jon and Melanie and regularly defends them both from harassment by other students

There’s also the top five students in each of the core school subjects, all of them in Class 3-A, consisting of Agnes, Jude, Nikola, Manuela, and Jane

(I really cannot think of anything to say about them though ;-;)

Elias’s backstory probably matches Korosensei’s really

World’s deadliest assassin/the God of Death (that’s his literal moniker) is betrayed by his student and captured, then experimented on by some mad scientist

The scientist manning the experiment is Jonah Magnus

Gertrude Robinson was one of his right-hands (who also taught for Class 3-F during the day), but she instead grew fond of Elias and talked to him

And when Elias destroyed the lab in his escape after the moon blew up (because of an experiment rat on the moon surface, it really wasn’t his fault - you might as well read assassination classroom it’s really good and explained in more detail) Gertrude was killed in the ensuing chaos

She made Elias promise to teach the students of Class 3-F for her with her dying breath, and Elias chose to make good of that promise

(I’m also thinking maybe the God of Death doesn’t have a birthname but the disciple’s name was Elias, and the God of Death decides to use that as his own name too)

(that’s all i can think of for now ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ)

[storyswap-color-au]

StorySwap Color - Final Episode!!!

Swappy arrives at the castle once again. The puzzles were already solved, so there’s no need to do those again. Once they’re at the throne room, Swappy and Papyrus encounter once again… That is, until a bone blocks Papyrus’ to prevent it from breaking the mercy button. Sans comes into the scene, being all like “alright, here’s the deal: we aren’t gonna kill anybody.” Papyrus is both surprised and glad by Sans’ appearance, HE CAME TO VISIT!! The two skeletons have a back and forth, until Undyne bursts in holding a spear and is like “SANS DON’T YOU DARE HURT PAPYRUS– Oh hey kid”

Swappy waves, and Sans is understandably confused by this, but Papyrus is like “UNDNYE AS WELL??? IS THIS A SURPRISE PARTY???”, to which sans replies with “yeah bro, we’re celebrating the kid’s birthday” “I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS THE HUMAN’S BIRTHDAY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUMAN!!!”, Undyne frowns. Then Asgore kicks in, concerned over the well being of Papyrus (and Swappy). Sans and him share a look, but Sans shrugs it off, he winks and says “hey, no hard feelings, ‘gore, i’m over it.” Asgore coughs, he’s like “Papyrus. Please give this human.–”

But he’s suddenly interrupted by chara, who bursts into the scene as well, being all like “Don’t fight each other!! Let this human live!!” somehow avoiding all tsundereness about it, Asriel also appears to back it up. “YEAH don’t hurt Fr- I mean, the human.” Papyrus is so confused, but Sans is like “oh hey, i know that squeaky pubescent voice. oh, and asriel’s.” Chara is ticked off, but Asriel is glad to meet Sans properly for the first time.

But then Alphys and Toriel also come in and ready to protect Swappy, begging Papyrus not to kill Swappy, but he’s all like “WHY WOULD I DO THAT? I WASN’T GOING TO KILL THEM, WE WERE JUST GOING TO DUEL!” Everyone looks at Papyrus with a blank stare, perplexed. “WHAT? WHY WOULD I TAKE SOMEONE ELSE’S SOUL?! THAT WOULD BE MURDERING.” Everyone laughs nervously, looking to the side awkwardly.

Toriel looks at Swappy, being like “Child, you heard Papyrus, crossing the barrier may be a bit too dangerous as of now. You can stay with us, if you’d like!” … Swappy stares blankly, they really do want to go back to the surface. But knowing what happened before, they nod silently, agreeing to staying here for now. Surely they’d find a way, one day. Everyone is relieved to hear that.

Asriel then brings up why did everyone know to come here anyways, Undyne mentions “A weird talking flower told me that Sans was gonna kill Papyrus, so I OBVIOUSLY had to come to save him.” Sans just chuckles about it, why’d she hear a flower? Alphys and Toriel are like “Excuse me, did you just say a flower?”

Oh dear! It looks like everybody’s been imprisoned by Florescent’s vines! Swappy is taken aback; didn’t they do everything right this time?

“Don’t worry, darling, you played your role just fine! But now, it’s time for someone else to have their spotlight! BEHOLD, AS I TAKE THE FORM OF SOMETHING SO FABULOUS, YOUR FEEBLE HUMAN MIND CAN SCARCELY COMPREHEND I- wait a moment.”

Florescent looks up to one of his victims, and notices Chara, another human. “Well, well, well! Isn’t that an intriguing development! TWO humans, for the price of one!”

Chara struggles in futility, trying to wedge themselves out of the vines as Florescent cackles, delighted by it all, in a sick, twisted sort of way. “Let me go, you… you insolent weed!”

The aforementioned insolent weed starts to comply with Chara’s request… only to summon a spiky thorn pit below the two humans… which is promptly burned away by a fire attack. “Get your filthy vines off them, you damn dirty flower!”

Asriel bursts onto the scene, followed by Royal Guardsmen and other monsters that Swappy met on their journey. Chara looks around, tears welling up in their eyes for the first time in… how long had it even been? Well, it didn’t matter now. They were just happy to see everyone here! “You guys… you all cared about us this much?” It all seems like it’s going to be a nice, happy ending, and everything would work out, but… suddenly Florescent starts chuckling.

“Oh, no… human, how could you do this?!” He says in a faux-dramatic voice. “Look at me, I’m positively shaking…”

Well, he certainly was shaking, alright. Shaking and wiggling until suddenly, his face inflated to about 3x its usual size, gaining an uncomfortable amount of humanoid detail as he sported an Oscar-winning grin. “I’ll admit, kids! You almost had me! But don’t you know, a story is nothing… WITHOUT A FEW PLOT TWISTS~!”

“All these souls…”

The face started to melt, becoming more and more skull-like.

“… are MINE now!”

He began to cackle, as everything faded to white.

“Don’t touch that dial, folks! W E ‘ R E  J U S T  G E T T I N G  S T A R T E D !”

The pure whiteness fades out as smoke dissipates into nothing. Chara and Swappy cough the bits of smoke that entered their mouths out before looking around… not only was Florescent nowhere to be found, but they were in a new location entirely. They were… outside. How odd.

“Look, as much as it hates me to say this, I think we might have to team up to stop… whatever’s happening right now.” Chara says, seconds before a cane extends from out of the darkness and yanks them out of sight.

“Sorry, but Chara’s going to have to get ready for their part in the grand finale! You, however… you have front row seats, darling. Toodles~!”

Swappy walks through the dark outside area, through a giant set of wooden double doors that sported elaborate designs relating to the art of theatre. The typical happy and sad masks were there, but their eyes were more ovular and widened, and the happy one seemed to be missing an eye-hole.

Once inside, Swappy would be treated to an enthralling organ composition as they walked past rows and rows of seats filled by empty, doll-like simulacra of their various monster friends. Once they got to the front, true to the voice’s word, a spotlight was cast down on an empty seat near the organ, which was actually ginormous! The stool alone looked to be about the size of a small house.

After sitting there, listening to the music for a moment, their chair suddenly lurched back, then flung Swappy on top of the stool to see… the keys were pressing themselves. At least, for a moment they were, since they stopped a few seconds after Swappy stuck the landing. The giant music sheets flipped through themselves for a moment before stopping on a peculiar page… there were only six notes, and the time signature was 6/8.

Suddenly, the page flipped once more, and on the new page was… a little bedsheet ghost made from notes and lines used in music writing. It had what seemed to be hair covering half of its face, and it looked down on Swappy with glee.

“Ah, you’ve finally arrived! Now, we can finally move past this drab pre-show and get to the main event!” A voice rang out from nowhere in particular. The pages moved again, this time seemingly being more of a flipbook animation for this little ghost. It floated in a figure-8 pattern before the ink started… smearing… into something comparable to a rorschach blot test.

“It won’t just be like old times, it’ll be BETTER! More drama, more action, an intense struggle of man and monster, over the fate of… well, EVERYTHING~!”

Something burst out of the organ, knocking the book down onto the keys and providing a neat little bridge. Swappy runs up as more stairs twisted downwards to allow them to get up to the main platform. Fireworks sprinkled the sky with light as the human made their ascent…

Finally, at the top, Swappy stood before a figure sitting on an elaborate throne, with spotlights that previously swiveled around to light up the sky slowly lowering down to point at him. Florescent was humanoid, now, with dark hair and an eye-catching outfit that just SCREAMED “I’m fabulous to a degree that mortals will never reach for as long as they live on this earth.” Needless to say, Swappy was a bit taken aback by this.

“Ahahaha! Getting stage fright, sweetheart? How cute.” The figure stood up, slamming their heels onto the ground as they bounded down the mini-set of stairs to stand closer to Swappy. “But it’s too late now! The show’s starting, and I’d hate to disappoint a certain someone in the audience…”

Swappy would find the figure to be correct; the stairs that helped them reach this platform had disappeared, leaving only an impossible drop to a sea of ravenous audience members screaming and cheering. Delighted by all of this, the figure summoned forth a dazzling microphone. “Beauties and gentlebeauties… puts your hands together, clap and cheer like it’s the end of the world, for the grandest of returns…!”

Cue battle transition.

“It is I… METTACRIT!”

The fight begins against Mettacrit. He talks about how long he’s been waiting for this moment since he failed blooky and the Fallen Human, he misses them too much. He knows that Swappy has been keeping them in their SOUL and he wants to get them out of it, even if it means Killing Swappy to do it. He doesn’t really want to, but the two are trapped, so he tells Swappy to give up.

Of course, Swappy doesn’t agree, which causes Crit to say “I’ll force you out!” As he brings Chara out again, he grins. He forcefully takes out their soul and puts them aside. “Fallen human, I got you a body and a SOUL!”. Swapy is horrified by his actions. Crit laughs, as he shifts into his second form.

Swappy struggles, they can’t move, however… Two voices speak in Swappy’s head, and say “You can still save someone.” Which means LOST SOUL time.

After saving everyone, Swappy saves Metta after calming him down, as he’s finally accepting that maybe, they’re actually gone. The fight ends, Metta apologizes to Swappy.

“I could feel them… but… I suppose I need to accept that they’re… gone…” Swappy doesn’t hug them, they look to the side… “I suppose I can only thank you… … actually, what is your name?” Swappy replies with “Frisk”, to which Metta seems weirded out– just what kind of name is Frisk.

Mettacrit, after a moment of reflection, sighs and says “I guess I should bring everyone, including them.” he says as he looks over at Chara’s body. Swappy immediately brightens up, since, hadn’t Chara died in front of their very own eyes. Mettacrit assures them that he didn’t, he only took their SOUL, they aren’t dead really.

After breaking the barrier, Mettacrit restores the SOULs, and after waving goodbye to Swappy, he leaves as the screen fades to white…

Previous | Next

Index

[thedistantstorm]

A Gentle Truth [1/3]

A Ghost finds his Guardian in the ruins of Tokyo. She asks him for a name. He agrees, but only if she grants him one in return.

It is not yet dawn. The sky is painted beautiful shades of velvet orange, violet-blue, and midnight over the once thriving metropolis. Once, it would be loud, as bright as daylight, and bustling with activity. Now, it is silent, the flicker of half-functioning lights from collapsed skyscrapers dull and short circuiting. There is no one in sight.

Except for one tiny, nimble Ghost, darting across rubble-coated streets and into buildings. He hovers over huge expanses, cracks that run kilometers deep into the ground, casting his gaze at them quickly before continuing on. There is a purpose in his intent, methodical searching. 

Then, all at once, his entire body freezes, hanging unnaturally in the air. Flick, shift. His small plating realigns itself around his body and he dips forward before hesitating, as if he cannot believe whatever his sensors have uncovered.

He proceeds slowly, over a destroyed roadblock with large chunks of the skyscraper above crushing it into the ground. Takes a left and finds a mostly in-tact alley. A warm breeze pushes at his back not unkindly; As if telling him that he's moving in the right direction.

On the other side of the alley, he takes a moment. The sun is not up yet, though the horizon is getting brighter. He looks around, takes stock. No movement on his radar for miles. Good. He reminds himself not to get so caught up in his search that he forgets to check his own six once in a while.

And then, he begins.

He always searches the deepest recesses first. Under large boulders and ruins, in small inlets and cozy nooks. As always, his search is fruitless.  He makes another check of radar. Still good.

The next thing he does is comb the area. The unsuspecting alley opens into a small respite from the apocalypse shattered city. It becomes a wide, sprawling greenspace that is not terribly deep, but ends at the foot of a temple that looks centuries older than the decaying metropolitan architecture around it, though it is surprisingly intact. 

Behind the small temple lies the sea and the coming dawn. If he is no closer, he'll take a moment to watch the sunrise.

The Ghost scans the body of a humanoid nearby, a pile of bones propped against a decaying wall. Not his Guardian. Undeterred, the back fins of his shell spin, reorienting. His Guardian is close. The Light, the feeling of the tether between their souls is almost tangible now.

Across the archway outside the temple, delicate vines of yellow-white flowers grow, petals kicked up and swirling in the wind. The Ghost turns his optic to look through the Temple to the golden glow of the sunrise.

A pointed breeze blows through the open space from the sea, stronger than the gentle nudges from before. There is the serene clacking of wooden chimes. The Ghost doesn't hear them, though.

The wind dislodges the petals scattered across the cracked stone pathway just enough to reveal the ivory of bone. There is something terribly heartrending about this body, he thinks. All the others he's scanned in this area were hidden, likely terrified. 

This one, unlike the rest, stands in defiance. A Guardian, something deep in his mechanical body dares to hope.

He can see where something has cut through bone, their ribcage irreversibly damaged on the left side by a sharp object, likely a blade. A killing blow. He shivers. It must have been painful.

Tentatively, he spins his shell, front half clockwise, back half the counter-clockwise, preparing to scan the remains. A fragile blue beam touches the space over their sternum and widens to catch the rest. Quick as a blink, as though electrocuted, he draws back.

"It's you," He whispers, voice tiny and awed and reverent. The carmel-smooth quality of his voice is not drowned out by the synthetic overtone of it. "Finally," He murmurs, louder. Warmly. Overjoyed. "I've finally, finally found you."

With gusto, he hovers around the skeleton, taking inventory. He catalogues the rising sun, peeking just over the horizon. For as long as he exists, there will never be a more wonderful moment. Once satisfied, he opens his shell like the jasmine blooms hanging from the nearby vines that blossom to greet the day.

Light floods him, overrides his sensors, overrides everything-

-and then there is nothing but the golden glow of daybreak, and the damaged wood chimes clinking in the dawn breeze.

He blinks. They gasp.

Two glowing eyes, almond-shaped and diamond-white stare back at him.

"Hello, Guardian," He coos, trying to remember to orient them, but also trying to peel his optic away from their gaze so he can determine the rest about them as well. This is his greatest moment. His Guardian - they don't know it yet - they are his purpose. The very sun he orbits around. "You've been down for a while, but that's alright. I'm here to guide you."

Full lips and a flat, wide nose scrunch almost imperceptibly. Confused.

The Ghost's shell spins idly. He gives them a once over. Awoken. Female. Does not speak common, he reckons, based on her bewildered gaze. He lowers himself, moving slowly, as not to frighten her.

"W-watashi wa…"

She frowns, looking at her hands, watching the ripple of pastel blue illuminate her digits. Her skin is an alabaster color not unlike the moon, with an ethereal bluish tint. Darker blue markings paint the inside corners of her eyes, where the bridge of her nose and forehead come together.

She is nothing like he expected her to be. She is so much more. She is perfect.

"You might not speak the common language," He tells her slowly. "Can you understand me?"

Her pout is back, but there's something cute about it, watching her ponder. "Ano…" She trails off. "Gomen," She finishes, looking to his optic, and he does not need to know what language she's speaking to understand that she's apologizing because she does not.

It doesn't matter. None of it matters now, because he's found her. Together, they can do anything.

Without thinking, he butts his whole being into her chest. She flinches, but before he can draw back, whining mechanically, concern and regret - the fear of rejection - flaring through his every synapse, pale fingers cup his being and cradle him against her.

He can feel it. He can feel the jackrabbit beat of her heart, her fear, her wariness. But he can feel her trying to smooth that feeling over with comfort. Reassurance. She can feel their connection.

Minutes old and his beautiful, perfect Guardian is already trying to soothe him. He thinks words of gratitude to the Traveler. There could not be anyone more lovely in the absolute entirety of the universe.

And she's his!

Instead of speaking, he projects those feelings back to her, like a wave of gentle hope and safety. He focuses on telling her without words that it's alright, that he is here for her. Her fingers envelope him a little more closely, and his fins sag in relief.

They can work with this. They can still communicate.

When she cautiously releases him, he hovers close to her. "Ghost," He says.

A pale finger points at him.

"Ghost," He repeats.

She puts a hand on her chest. He sees the exact moment she realizes she doesn't know her name, can feel her panic. She should know it, he's sure that's what she thinks.

He pushes every soothing thought he can toward her, saying, "It's ok. It's normal."

"Oh-kay?"

"Yes," He agrees.

"Ghost," She murmurs. 

"Yes," He answers. "I'm your Ghost. Yours."

"Mine?"

He bobs in the affirmative, fins spinning excitedly. She might know some common, after all. Shock was common among new Guardians, he'd heard. "You don't have to talk, it might take a moment for it all to come back," He rambles. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

She smiles nervously, and nods, projecting a mixture of trust - he feels like he's been broken apart and put back together - and unsurity. Panic. Swirling together under the surface.

A loud sound, a crash, the pop of gunfire flattens his newly reborn Guardian into a crouch. Her eyes are fearful and alert, darting around. Above her, the Ghost sighs, drifting down in front of her.

"I'm sorry," He drones sadly, then erupts into sparks of Light.

She looks down at her chest, reaching for the glimmer of sparkling, warm Light in the air. He feels her terror, her grief at his disappearance is like a bomb going off somewhere in his circuits. He urges calm feelings forward, marking a location he knows will be safe for her to hide. He can't hear her thinking, but he can feel her probing tentatively in her mind, reaching for him gently after the initial fear that he's left her subsides.

I'm here, He tells her, testing the link all Ghosts and Guardians share. I'm with you, always.

Ghost, she answers. 

Yes, Guardian. We have to move. The sounds of the skirmish sound closer now.

She focuses, adjusting to the marker in her vision. Then, she dips carefully into the shadows, staying behind cover as much as possible. He continues to relay as much calm and serenity as he can.

But things become too close.

Fallen, his sensors tell him. Hide! 

She doesn't understand, the panic he's projecting overwhelms her until she's frozen under the weight of it. She cries out when a bullet grazes her arm. Out of pure instinct, she dives under a mangled barricade, breath coming in heavy pants, heartbeat escalated dangerously high. She scrambles into the skeletal husk of a building and holes up in a crack in the rubble.

The sound of rushed footsteps come through, hot on their heels. 

Breathe slowly, He instructs, praying she understands. Don't alert them.

Ghost, she pleads back. Her fingers find the wound on her arm, blood thick and tacky. She squeezes her eyes shut and tears escape. Kowaidesu.

He doesn't know what she's thinking to him, but he tries for context. She’s terrified. It's okay. It's okay. Stay calm. I've got you.

Really, he doesn't, all he can do is heal her when the coast is clear and bring her back if they kill her. The thought saddens him. He doesn't want her to die. He can tell her wound hurts. He wants to protect her. His job is to protect her.

The imminent danger passes eventually, and he phases out of her chest. She shivers at the loss, but he hovers carefully in front of her face.

"They're gone," He tells her. Safe, he says through their link. The wordless communication seems to soothe her the most. "I'm going to heal you."

Her breaths turn sharp when he sets to mending her, the gouged wound sealing back together in Light. She looks down at the torn fabric on but healed skin on her arm in confusion.

"Better?" He asks kindly.

"Hmm," She says, and holds out her cupped fingers to hold him. He hovers carefully above her palms, sinking down slowly. "Arigatou," She hums, sounding thankful.

He looks up to her. The tears on her face are drying. "We need to find somewhere safe for us to hide. I've heard that new Risen," He pauses, "That's you," He bobs, "Get tired quickly. I want you to be safe."

She focuses on him intently, and he can see her brain trying to process. It will be easier when they are somewhere safe, when she can rest and they can bond and he can explain.

"Kakusu hitsuyō ga arimasu."

"Hide," He repeats, unsure of what she's saying. "Safe."

"Yes," She agrees, and he perks up. Frowning, she stumbles through the rest. "Ghost…" She bites her lip, whispering, "You lead… way?"

He spins happily in her hands. Perhaps things would right themselves with time, as her mind adjusts to being alive once more. "Yes. I'll lead the way!"

She smiles at him, then, and releases him so that he can guide her. He thinks if he had a heart, it would have leapt right out of his body.

[writing-ro]

Fictober 19-3: “Now? Now you listen to me?”

@fictober-event​ // Set in a Multi-fandom Fantasy AU where most if not all kinds of fantasy creatures exist alongside humans, though the two cultures stay fairly separate, with many humans being afraid or prejudice against creatures.

Rating: T Fandom: Star Wars, Dragon Age Characters: Ahsoka Tano, Arista Amara (OFC), Oren Revik (OMC), Merrill (Dragon Age), Kato Shinin (OMC), Merida Mahariel (OFC), Tamlen (Dragon Age), Minaeve (Dragon Age),  Additional Tags: elf!Ahsoka, dragon!Oren, Temple exploration, Don’t Touch The Magic Mirror!, the monsters are basically the ra’zac from eragon acting like the darkspawn of Dragon Age, Three guesses who the statues are of and the first two don’t count.

She'd known something bad was going to happen. It had been gnawing at her gut since she was asked to lead the expedition. Merrill and Ashalle had been studying an old elven text and found reference to a temple. Merrill managed to use the context clues and some other old records and figured out the location and asked to go find it. The elders discussed and finally agreed to allow it, and asked Ahsoka, as one of the clan's best hunters, to lead the party. 

She told Arista of the trip, just so she wouldn't worry about her absence. Instead, she insisted on accompanying them. She had a fairly good grasp of Old Elven from her studies, and did have some talent as a mage, so she could be a help. Ahsoka had argued, that the elders would never accept her help, and that it'd be dangerous, but when Arista wanted something, she knew just how to run right over Ahsoka about it. 

So they set out, a party of seven: herself, Arista, Merrill, Merida, Tamlen, Kato, and Minaeve. Three mage scholars and four warriors. Considering the ruins were rather close to the Primian Kingdom border, that should have been more than enough to handle anything. 

The journey there took a week, and they found the ruins nestled up against a mountain, distinctly elven and covered in growth. They spent another looking through the first few chambers of the place, the ones accessible from the front door without need of another ritual like they had used to open it. Notes were taken, a few items collected, and catalogued, and each one made the scholars more and more excited to see what lay beyond. So, the eighth day in the ruins, the mages gathered together and unlocked the door. The hall behind was most impressive, gold and marble being visible even under centuries of dust. Strangely though, there was nothing inside, except a large mirror, twice as tall as any of them, standing on a dias with two statues on either side, one a elven man with a wolf sitting at his feet, the other a dragon with a elven woman kneeling at its feet. It, unlike everything else, was also completely clear of dust. 

“This place is beautiful,” Merrill said. “None of the clans have had the means to build something like this in centuries.”

“What is this mirror?” Tamlen asked.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Merida said, moving towards it with him. 

“Careful you two,” Ahsoka ordered and they flinched back just before they could take the first step up the dias. “We don’t know what it was for. Had to be important, if they locked it up so tight.”

“The room also suggests that hypothesis,” Arista said. “A vault wouldn’t have all this gold just put on the walls. Could this be a ritual chamber?”

“I don’t recall any rituals involving mirrors from the histories,” Merrill said. “Maybe there’s an inscription somewhere that can tell us what it is.”

They spread out around the chamber to look, brushes, brooms and rags knocking down dust which was then swept out the chamber with sweeps of magic. None of them realized that as more of the magic was used, the more was drawn to the mirror, and now the previously clear surface had become cloudy and mottled. 

“Did anyone find anything?” Minaeve asked, wiping her hands on a rag after polishing a plate on the east wall. 

“Nothing,” Marrill sighed as she looked in the last crevice on that wall. “Not a thing. This must have been one of those ‘everyone knows of it, so why should we write it down’ type things.”

“I think I might have found a passage,” Arista said, she and Ahsoka standing by the southwest corner of the hall. “Or at least where one used to be. The stone’s settled different than the rest.”

“Hey, the mirror’s changed!” Tamlen called, and the other turned to see him and Merida standing on the mirror’s dias, Tamlen reaching out to touch it. “I-I think I see something inside. A- It’s a city! But it’s dark, and cold and - WHAT IS THAT!”

“Tamlen!” Merida called, lunging for him.

“No!” half their group screamed as a flash of light from the mirror engulfed the two, forcing them to cover their eyes or be blinded. When they managed the blink the spots away, the two hunters were gone. 

“What just happened!?” Kato asked. 

“I don’t know,” Merrill said, moving a bit closer to the mirror. “Maybe our magic activated it somehow, but what it does, i don’t-” she cut herself off with a gasp as some things sprang out of the mirror, and Ahsoka and Kato drew their weapons while the mages grabbed their staves.

The things were humanoid, but wore black leather armor and black cloth over their faces. Wicked blades of black oily metal hung from their waists, and they made weird clicking and hissing sounds as they moved, looking over the party before drawing their blades and splitting into two groups to attack. 

“RUN!” Ahsoka ordered, but found herself and Arista cut off before they could follow those orders. Kato, Merrill and Minaeve managed to get to the door, and there they tried to hold position, Minaeve holding a barrier while the other two attacked the monsters. Arista tried doing the same for herself and Ahsoka, though it was hard to maintain it and attack.

Yet it seemed for every monster they cut down, two more would take its place. Eventually there grew to be so many, the clicking and hizzing was all that could be heard, and a sea of black separated the party. 

“Kato, go!” Ahsoka screamed over the horde. “Seal the doors and warn the clans, tell them to not send anyone else here!”

“Ahsoka-!” Kato called back, but Ahsoka screamed louder.

“GO!”

Merrill put a hand on Kato’s arm, and finally he relented he and Merrill backing up, Kato shooting the monsters while Merrill used her magic to grip the doors and pull them closed, the room growing darker as the light disappeared until all that remained was the strange, purplish glow of the mirror. 

“Think you can get that passage open?” Ahsoka asked. 

“I can try.” Arista let out another burst of magic that pushed the monsters back a few feet. “Hold them off?”

Ahsoka nodded and took a deep breath, then lunged into the fight. Her swords whirled around her in a dance of steel and gore, cutting down monsters and dodging their own return blows. As she fell more into the groove of the fight, she got faster and faster, where she could cut down several monsters before even one got a swipe at her. Those swipes she dodged, sometimes by a hair, but a miss was a miss, and the monster never got a second swing. A short wall of bodies was starting to form, but she never lost her footing. She was getting lost in the dance, and some distant part of her mind was saying it would be a story for the ages, if anyone were ever to learn of it. A elven knight sacrificing all to defend her lover and the world, taking out as many of these twisted foes as she could before her blades finally-

A grind of stone sounded behind her. “Got it! Come on!” A barrier pushed the monsters back a few paces and Arista’s hand touched the back of her shoulder. Ahsoka gave one last sweep of the monsters before turning and running after her lover down the passage way. 

However, the barrier was weaker than usual, and Ahsoka had not noticed the archers who had joined the first wave of monsters. Not until an arrow pierced her armor and into the back of her shoulder.

“AHH!” She gripped her shoulder, shoving Arista ahead when she paused. “We’ll worry about it later, for now run!”

The two ran for they didn’t know how long. The corridor was line with sconces of stone, glowing a pale blue, perhaps charged in the same manner as the mirror, or some other magic. Either way, it meant their flight was lit, and they managed to keep ahead of the horde. Every once in a while, there would be an ancient trap of some kind, always activated by the horde after their own passing, and right after a split in the corridor. A cross ways to the left and right, two sets of stairs going up or down. By unspoken decision, they always went right and up, hoping to find some doorway out. The traps slowed the horde down enough to give them some breathing room, but they would soon overwhelm it by sheer force, and Ahsoka could feel herself starting to fatigue, the exhaustion of fighting and the blood dripping from her shoulder causing her to slow. 

Finally, as they reached another junction, a giant pit trap behind them slowly filling with the bodies of the horde, she collapsed against the wall, barely keeping her feet under her. “‘Rista, go.”

“No, not without you.” Arista said, taking her hand, but Ahsoka pulled it back. 

“I’m not going to make it, I’ve lost too much blood. You at least have a chance to get out.” She raised her hand to caress Arista’s cheek, and Arista caught it.

“I’m not leaving you. Besides-” she smiled at her “-didn’t you once say you wished we would die together?”

Ahsoka couldn’t help the breathless laughter that left her at that. “Really? Now? Now you listen to me about that?” Still, Ahsoka pulled Arista close to her, burying her face in her hair as they sank to the floor. She wanted her last memory to be of her lover’s scent and the sound of her heartbeat, not the click-hiss-whoosh of the monsters and the smell of- burning bodies?

Arista screamed as a torrent of flame erupted out of the corridor they had just come down, almost drowning out the dying shrieks of the monsters as they were incinerated. The fire, heat, and smoke blocked the hall, and Ahsoka found herself growing more and more lightheaded. Black spots began dancing in her vision, and she started slumping in Arista’s hold, her lover’s calls for her to wake up becoming more and more distant. Right before the blackness overtook her, the fire finally dissipated, and she thought she saw the dragon she and Arista had met all those months ago, standing over the charred bodies and looking intensely worried about something.

[mythicallore]

Encounter with Pale Humanoids

Among the many strange encounters in the world of the paranormal, there are often those that serve to be particularly baffling. These are the cases that hover out beyond our ability to really classify them or put a name to them. Are they ghosts, mysterious animals, aliens, or what? No answers are clear in such accounts, and they lurk out there in the periphery of the fringe. Among these bizarre accounts are tales from all over of what appear to be some sort of thin, pale beings, often hunched over, crouching, and crawling, that have come to be collectively known as “Pale Crawlers,” and which are every bit as creepy as you might imagine.

Probably one of the most well-known cases of these odd entities is that of what have come to be called the Fresno Nightcrawlers. The first account of these truly bizarre and unidentifiable creatures surfaced in the 1990s, when a video came forward showing something very strange indeed lurking about in the area of Fresno, California. There was a family who were concerned about trespassers on their property, as their dogs had begun to bark out into the darkness nearly every night, and this prompted them to install a security camera outside by their garage, facing the front lawn.

That next morning after they set up the camera they were in for quite a shock, as there in the video was a pair of pale beings a few feet in height, with no discernible arms and two long, spindly, almost stilt-like legs that appear to bend backwards. Interestingly, there seems to be some sort of fabric flapping around the legs, drawing many comparisons to a pair of disembodied walking pants. In the footage the creatures smoothly and fluidly move across the front lawn and out of view, and that’s that. You can see the footage here.

The quality of the footage is sadly low, making it nearly impossible to discern any real details, but the general shape and their odd way of moving were creepy enough to have the family contact the police. Before long the media got a hold of the footage and the “Fresno Nightcrawlers” became a hot topic. Although thought by many to be a hoax, others say that this footage has captured something truly otherworldly, and the footage was subjected to a detailed analysis on the SyFy Channel show “Fact or Faked,” which showed that the footage seemed to be genuine, and they were unable to reproduce the same results by intentionally faking the video.

Following on the heels of this video was another, this time taken over in California’s Yosemite National Park in March of 2011. In this case surveillance cameras had been set up by park officials for the purpose of identifying some intruders who had been vandalizing an area of the park, and again they seemed to have caught on tape something anything but human. Again there is a pair of spindly white entities loping across the frame on a hillside, one seemingly much smaller that the other, and both with what appears to be some sort of webbing connected from the knees to the upper body. Although they appear to be very similar, it is unknown if the Fresno creatures and the ones from Yosemite are related or not, and there have been theories ranging from that this was all a hoax, to that they are Native spirits from lore, ghosts, or even aliens. No one really knows.

Something similar to these entities was sighted in January 2004, in a case documented by researcher Albert S. Rosales. The sighting allegedly happened in Manchester, Dearborn County, Indiana, when a young man was driving along a remote rural road in the area. As the witness rounded a bend, his headlights illuminated a tall, frail looking, pale being crouched over a puddle of water. As the witness passed the thing he looked back and could make out that it moved in a disjointed, odd manner, and had, according to him, “protruding joints that buckled out.”

As he watched the thing flickering in the red light cast by his tailights, the crouched, bone white creature purportedly stood to a height of an estimated 6 feet 7 inches tall and began to walk about in a “strange manner.” Interestingly, as he watched there was apparently another car that came along and seemed to swerve to avoid the thing before stopping. The witness would talk to the elderly couple in the car and they would confirm having seen the same thing, of which they said, “It was no human being, it was no man.” They were all so spooked that they decided to drive out of there in close procession together. Indiana has produced some other similarly odd reports as well. In one case from the winter of 2016, the witness was out feeding goats on a farm in Daviess County, Indiana, at around 8 PM, and when she finished she started walking back. The witness would say of what happened next:

After I had finished I began to walk back. I had crossed one field and was about halfway through the narrow path when I started to hear rustling in the underbrush. All I had with me was a little flashlight that only shined about 10ft in front of me. I was almost to the end of the path when I spotted something. It was on all fours with a bony frame, elongated limbs, and pale skin. While the first part of that description sounds pretty generic, it did seem to have a long and highly flexible neck. Not long after I noticed it it noticed me and bolted down the path. It ran, almost skuttling into the second field. This field had a small hill in the center, this thing fled and disappeared over one side. I ran as fast as I could around the other side of the small hill and zig-zagged back to my house where I quickly locked all of my doors. This thing was terrifying, but it seemed watchful more than anything, for now.

In another account from Indiana, documented in the National Cryptid Society database, we have a case from Michigan City, Indiana from 2012, in the middle of a lightning storm to add some atmosphere. The witness claims that she had been staying at the beach house of a friend by Lake Michigan and that there had been a lightning storm at the time. At around 2 AM some of them went outside to smoke and watch the lightning, and that was when they noticed the beam of a flashlight scanning the tall grass by the shore nearby as if searching for something. Thinking this to be a bit odd, the group of friends watched on and saw that the beam had captured an elongated, grayish humanoid looking creature stretched out on the beach, and the witness would say:

The light sweeps by something in the grass, then it shines back onto it. What was illuminated was very strange. It appeared to be a naked guy crawling around on the grass. Although, it had elongated arms and legs. It was moving kinda fast crunched over. It only lasted a few seconds, long enough for all of us to see it. Then, after the thing ran off, the flashlight shines directly at us. It stayed pointing at us until it went out after a few seconds. Creepy.

So, we’re all like WTF was that, we asked what each other saw. We all seen a weird stretched out naked guy. The only explainable thing it could have possibly been was a drunk gangly naked guy. But, I don’t think so because it looked abnormally stretched, the light pointed at us, and it freaked everyone out. It was something strange. I can’t say what the height of it was accurately, maybe around 7ft tall. My husband said it looked like something from a Marilyn Manson music video.I wanted to go down there. I wanted to see if we could find it. But, no one would go and they were creeped out and wanted to go back inside.

What on earth was the outlandish thing they saw? What was with that flashlight and why did it train itself on the observers of this surreal scene? Who knows? There have been a few sightings of something similar and equally baffling around the town of Effingham, in the state of Illinois. One case file of the National Cryptid Society is dated as 2010, and concerns a witness only known as “Jade.” The witness was allegedly out one night headed for the supposedly haunted Kasbar cemetery out in the deep woods outside of Effingham along with two friends. When they were out in the countryside, at around 1 AM in the morning, something very curious congealed out of the night, and the witness would say:

I see something with yellow glowing eyes off the side of the country road just past the ditch in the head lights. Too short to be a deer, but too big to be a possum or raccoon. As we get closer it gets clearer, and I realize what I’m looking at is skinny, hairless and grey, human like but definitely not human. Crazy as hell looking…thing. It was crouched down, It’s arms were incredibly long and looked like it could have been 7ft tall or bigger standing. I can feel myself get cold and my heart race and my hair stand on that back of my neck.

Complete shock and terror set in and i can’t make a sound, I’m just staring at it. By that time we are right in front of it, passing it and it just watches us drive by. It slinks into the dark. Then we all just start screaming. Literally freaking the hell out. I was convinced it was a demon for months but still doubted myself even seeing it. Thinking my mind was playing tricks on me. We didn’t even make it to the Kasbar that night, we went straight home. I couldn’t sleep that night.

The witness went on to become convinced that what she had seen was a “ghoul,” or an entity that lurks around feeding on the dead. She would say of this:

They feed on the freshly dead and normally stay close to cemeteries to be close to food. They have been known to show themselves to humans when trying to get close to them to eat in times where fresh deceased bodies are scarce. I went to images of them and could only find illustrations but they look exactly like what i saw that night. Everything i was reading was falling perfectly in place. Lined up perfectly with my experience. I couldn’t explain it away.

Also in the state of Illinois is a case from the town of Rossville, in 2010. The setting was at a cemetery and the time was just after sunset. The witness and a friend were walking down the main lane through the cemetery when something fairly weird scuttled out of the night. The witness would say:

Something came running from the gate and past us on our left. My friend had laughed and asked if I had heard that, and I stopped walking and responded that no, but I had seen it. As the thing had passed between headstones I caught a look. Looked like a pale, emaciated humanoid that was running on all fours. It had no hair at all that I could see, and I did not get a look at the face. It was moving far faster than any person running on hands/feet should have been able to. My friend and I just stayed frozen there and waited for another friend to come and get us because we were too scared to move. It continued to circle us, as we could hear it moving around. It never seemed threatening. If anything it seemed curious/scared of us. But who knows. I do know that it was not a coyote or a stray dog. I never saw the face but I did see the head; it did not have a muzzle. There was no tail, either. It definitely didn’t have fur; it had pale, almost bluish skin and I remember I could make out the ribs from where I was standing. Forgive me if this is a hot mess of a post; I was up all night researching this thing and when I did fall asleep I didn’t sleep well.

Other locations have had sightings as well, such as Ballard County, in Western Kentucky. As the witness was driving along the back roads on a gravel road one night at around 2 AM he says that he caught something in his headlights that startled him to the core. He would say:

I caught sight of something white and vaguely human crawling in the ditch. As we passed I hit the brakes thinking it was a person who needed help. “Are you crazy?! Don’t f***ing stop!” Blake screamed. I looked in the mirror and saw that it was standing up. Even though it was still in the ditch it was as tall as the stop sign next to it. It took a step towards us and I hit the gas. As we drove away I saw in the mirror that it dropped to all fours and was crawling after us. I didn’t start pulling away from it til I got up to about 40 mph. No matter how close I was to it I never got a good look at it. It was fuzzy like it was constantly out of focus. I’m not sure why but something about it makes me think of it as male. Maybe the height? When it crawled it moved like a lizard-hands and feet flat on the ground, elbows and knees up and out, body wiggling side to side. This happened when I was around 22. I’m 40 now and have never seen that thing again. I’ve taken many a midnight cruise along those narrow roads but I’ve never had the nerve to go near that particular farm road again. Call me a chicken…I’ll cluck happily.

Such accounts seem to lie beyond any easy classification. Are we dealing here with some sort of cryptid, ghosts, aliens, inter dimensional interlopers, or what? Or is it all just hoaxes and misinformation? These obviously seem to be far beyond normal reports of cryptids or ghostly phenomena, leaving us to merely ponder just what might be going on. Whatever the answers may be, these truly bizarre entities are not anything anyone would want to encounter slithering down a darkened road at night in the middle of nowhere, stumbling into your headlights.

[codyfernaesthetic]

Dichotomy

 Part 14

Summary: Mallory is searching for answers. Michael is searching for his path. They both find each other.

Author’s note: Context, context, context!!! I’ve never been more nervous about a chapter. lol. This monster might confuse you, especially if you didn’t spend hours researching the Salem Witch Trials in both history and AHS canon. This is deep cut stuff. If it’s wanted, I can answer any questions on who or what an event or person is, or whatever. It’s mostly the first part, so after you get through that you should be in the clear. Hopefully it’s explained well enough to not be confusing. I know you guys are smart, I’m just anxious about where this takes things. I want it to be interesting and evident how it’s relevant to the story. But enough rambling. Let’s find out what Michael and Mallory find out about themselves and each other! never 

Warnings: Blood, language, NSFW (Nothing explicit)

A lone woman, a refugee from her broken home, found herself weeping in a dingy motel room in the city. She was pregnant, the catalyst for her ostracization from her abusive parents. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. She’d stolen cash from her father’s wallet and run away. The guy who’d gotten her pregnant had hit the road the moment she told him, and she couldn’t afford an abortion. She’d decided to make her deathbed the ugly, stained spring mattress of the motel room. Her face was wet, her fingers trembling as she poured out a bottle of pills in her hand.

A burst of white light shot through the room. The woman screamed, dropping everything and backed up against the wall, staring as this light took on a humanoid shape.

“Do not be afraid, Agatha.”

The voice was gentle, it sounded as if it came from everywhere and nowhere at all.

“Who are you?”

The light hovered closer.

“Do not be afraid to bring forth this child.”

Agatha felt a warmth caress her belly like a hand.

“I have set aside this child for a great purpose. You shall give birth to a daughter, and upon her 18th birthday she shall become pregnant, through no will of man, but by mine. And her child shall be my chosen one, who will save this world from destruction.”

She gawked at the message, doubts and fears assailing her.

“How can I possibly take care of this child? I have nowhere to go!”

Tendrils of light spread about, “Take no care as to how you will be provided for; behold, lilies of the valley neither toil nor sow, and kings are not clothed like one of them.”

Agatha crawled closer, enraptured. She reached out her hand to touch the light, electricity buzzing on her fingers.

“All right,” she answered breathlessly, “I’ll do what you say.”

The light faded, leaving Agatha in blissful assurance that all would be well.

When she took a shower that night, she noticed a new mark on her body, like raised scar tissue.

A single star over her heart.

1692

Sarah Good was among the first to fall in the Salem Witch Trials. She was a homeless, pregnant beggar despised by the community; she was tried and imprisoned, leaving behind her husband and 4 year old daughter Dorothy, who was also taken into custody upon suspicion of witchcraft. After the 4 year old was released, the trauma she suffered left her unable to function and she spent the rest of her life as an invalid. Her mother meanwhile, gave birth in prison to her sister Mercy; but the newborn died mere hours after her birth, then Sarah was led to the gallows and hung declaring to her judge and executioner, Judge Matthers, “God will give you blood to drink.”

Heartbroken and desperate, Sarah’s husband begged the newly risen Supreme of the escaping witches to raise his daughter back to life and give her a chance to live freely. She agreed, bringing the newborn back to life. Mercy Good was given into the care of Hephzibah Green and her young daughter Jescha, and was renamed Mara, meaning bitterness. The witches escaped, leaving the horrors of Salem behind. Years passed and justice for Sarah Good was left undone…

25 years later

The town of Salem, Massachusetts lay sleeping under the pale moon, its people having put away their business for the day and said their nightly prayers for protection over their souls during the night.

All except for Judge Matthers, who sat at his desk by the candlelight working into the late hours. He stifled a yawn, dipping his quill in the ink pot.

A noise disturbed him. Something against the window. He inspected the origin of the disturbance, seeing and hearing nothing else. He had just made it back to his desk when the front door swung open with a loud bang. The old man jumped and stilled his heart, shuffling over to close the door.

“Working late into the night, Your Honor?”

He turned, startled at the new voice. A young woman in her mid twenties stood in his home, dark eyes flashing with rage.

She lifted her hand, “Detendo.”

His body was thrown against the wall, his limbs gluing to the wooden surface, paralyzed. He couldn’t make a sound.

The woman strolled toward him, “Dost thou remember a woman by the name of Sarah Good?”

His mind raced back to a gallows, a fiery, deranged woman he’d condemned as a witch.

She continued, “The woman you hung 25 years past in your self-righteousness?”

She stepped closer, “I am her daughter.”

His eyes widened in terror.

She gave him a malicious chuckle, “Aye, the one pronounced dead when you showed my mother no compassion. I hath returned from the grave to exact her prophecy upon thee. Innocent blood you spilt, but in thine own sin-cursed blood shall ye drown.”

She reached into her cloak, whispering, “Patentibus.”

His mouth opened without his consent. He started shaking.

She held up a closed fist to his face, “Behold the vengeance of Almighty God, Most Honorable Judge, and the vengeance of Mercy Good.”

She opened her hand, blowing a white powder into his mouth. He coughed violently, his body trembling harder as she waved her hand to drop him to the floor. Blood poured from every orifice, his skin turning a disgusting gray as his blood splattered all around him before he collapsed dead. She spat on his corpse and left the Judge’s home, slipping away without a trace.

_____________________

Jescha confronted her upon her return. Mara hung their clothes on the line, her adopted sister asking, “Where wast thou really?”

She didn’t look up from her work, “Repaying a life for a life.”

“Hast thou no regard for your own safety?” She scolded.

“Not since my birth hath the town known me, and even then presumed dead.”

She crossed her arms, “Thou canst not put the coven in such danger.”

She looked up at her, shrugging, “I have not. No man recognized me and I did not use my given name. All is well, justice has been done.”

She huffed, stepping beside her to help her finish her chores, “Some justice shouldst be left unto the Lord.”

Mara nodded, “‘Twas if I be His messenger.”

“Beware of pride, Mara. Lest thou think thyself too important.”

“I have thee to blame. Thou hast told me I am special.”

She smiled, “And ye are. Thou art also as stubborn as the ass of Balaam.”

She bumped her, “Aye, but the stubbornness of the ass twas the Lord’s will.”

Mara had no desire to become Supreme; she was happy to spend her days tending her garden and living in peace, despite both Jescha and Hephzibah’s insistence. She did eventually attempt The Seven Wonders at their behest, only to fail the very last.

“T’would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed,” Jescha told her after the tests as they sat by the river.

She laughed, “Should I take that as compliment or criticism?”

“Both.”

“Why?” She skipped a rock, “If I am not the Supreme, then I am not the Supreme.”

Her sister pouted, “I had such faith that ye were.”

“And why hast thou not attempted the Seven Wonders? Go and show thyself to be the Supreme.”

She balked, “If thou couldst not do it, then surely I cannot. I am merely a garden witch.”

Mara feigned offense, “Careful of thy words, I am merely a garden witch.”

She leaned her head into the crook of her neck, “No, not merely. You are among the most powerful of our coven.”

Mara patted her, “Thou art just as essential as I. Providence will grant you great things, dear Jes. I’m sure of it.”

“As I am sure of you, Mara.”

The two women continued in their happy states. Jescha eventually moving away, marrying into a rich family. Meanwhile, Mara’s descendants continued the line of powerful witches. Until a girl was born with the power of special connection to the spiritual world, claiming communication with the entity most commonly called God. This woman’s name was Agatha, who did give birth to a daughter she named Leah. And according to Agatha’s predictions, Leah did become pregnant at 18 years old, though no one ever knew who the father was. And Leah gave birth to a beautiful baby girl she named Mallory.

_____________

Mallory sat on her grandmother’s knee, listening to her story. When she got to the end, Mallory clapped gleefully, “That’s me!”

Agatha ran her fingers through her granddaughter’s hair smiling wistfully, “That’s right, Mallie. Grandma knew you would be born even before she had mama.”

“Do I have magical powers?” She wondered in awe.

Agatha cupped her face, “You have more power than anyone, Mallie. You have the blood of Salem and the heritage of divinity.”

She bit her lip excitedly, “Do you still have the star?”

“No, but you do, don’t you?”

She nodded, “Mama says it’s a birthmark.”

“It is. It’s a very special birthmark. It’s a sign that you are gonna save this world one day, Mallie.”

Leah and Mallory’s stepfather found them sitting out in the garden, dragging a pouting Mallory from Agatha to go home. Leah would always try and undo her mother’s damage, telling Mallory that her grandma was senile and delusional. But to Mallory, she was the only one who understood her, the only one who confirmed the deep sense of destiny she’d felt even as a little girl. She especially became a safe haven when Mallory turned 13 and was found levitating in her bed by her stepfather. Her parents dragged her to several priests as more powers manifested; the ability to manipulate fire, psychic visions, disappearing and reappearing, etc. They believed she was worshiping the devil or possessed by a demon. Mallory was forced to endure several painful exorcisms, her powers manifesting in the middle of them due to her emotional distress. This only fueled their fear. The worst incident was when Mallory found a dead rat in their yard, torn to shreds by a local stray cat. She brought the rat to the front porch, cradling it in her hands. Her parents screamed for her to put it down, but she only placed one hand over it, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

The rat stirred to life, its wounds completely healed, even appearing younger. It scampered off in its new life while she stared in amazement at her own power.

It was the last and worst exorcism she had before running away to live with her grandmother. When her grandmother died, she felt like she’d lost her only home.

Then, a woman named Cordelia Goode announced nationwide that she ran a school for women with exceptional powers, witches.

Mallory packed her bags and left for New Orleans.

_______________

There is no love which is not pain

There is no love which does not bruise

There is no love which does not fade

There is no love which does not live from tears...

Michael felt as if he was thrown back into his body; like he was snatched away on the cusp of discovering the final truth. He gulped in air desperately, looking around him. Mallory lay there still in a peaceful trance. She should have woken up with him.

He went to her, touching her face, “Mallory…”

She remained unresponsive.

“Mallory!”

She was still breathing, but was lost in his past, being buried beneath his darkness.

He picked her up and carried her to his bedroom, lovingly laying on his black silk sheets, propping her head on a few pillows.

Hours passed...days...weeks…

“Mallory, please,” he begged everyday, “Please come back to me.”

He refused to leave the house. His food, his work, everything was ordered to be delivered to that single room. Several Cooperative members pleaded with him snap out of it; they promised to place a guard at the house, to set up a cycle of servants so he could be notified if or when she woke up. They were met with fury.

All the while she was plunged into the deep dark waters of Michael’s past. She witnessed everything, felt everything he experienced. It was enough to surely kill her.

She finally came to after nearly two months of unconsciousness. Michael was at her side immediately, caressing her sweat-soaked face. “It’s ok,” he whispered over and over again, “It’s ok, I’m here.” Her breathing calmed, her mind cleared; she looked at him, seeing beyond him. It was as if she’d journeyed through his soul, seeing every crevice, every hidden thought, surveying every molecule of his essence. It was terrifying. She saw slit throats and corpses, demonic claws sinking into his heart, endless dark. It was sorrowful; brimming with abandonment and loss, desire to change, but no one to help, a small, scared child thrust into the arms of people who only saw him as a means to an end, a tool. Bottomless loneliness and a starving for love, true, faithful love. But more than anything... It was beautiful. He was beautiful. Despite it all. She should hate him, she should want him dead. But only love flooded her heart. There was a bond between them now that their souls were bare before each other, a golden thread that weaved among their atoms, threading them together; they were darkness and light, a dichotomy, two coexisting infinities that could never be separated. She took his face in her hands, admiring every detail of his face; she touched their foreheads together, breathing him in. “You will never be alone again.” Tears sprung to his eyes, his fingers brushing over her neck. The thread tightened, pulling them closer and closer together until their lips connected. Michael groaned the moment their lips touched, ferociously pouring out every ounce of built up sorrow and desire. Emotion overflowed in both of them; tears began to fall upon their lips, and they shared them, letting go of every pretension. Michael snapped his fingers, their clothes disappearing. They became a mess of entangled limbs and passing breaths. He kissed all the way down her body, wrapping his arms around her thighs. She sighed, her skin burning with each touch of his lips. She entwined her fingers in his silken hair, threading through it assuringly. He gave a gentle bite on her stomach, earning a surprised moan. He looked up, concerned, searching to see if she was displeased. Her pulse quickened, slick heat burned between her thighs as she looked into his pleading gaze. “I’m fine,” she whispered, “That felt so good,” she pressed her lips to his forehead, “You make me feel so good, Michael.” A desperate noise left his lips as he pulled her closer, leaving more love bites on her stomach and inner thighs, relishing every utterance of praise from her. He snaked his hands under her and started to lay on his back, Golden hair spilling on the black silk. He looked up at her under heady eyes. “Take your throne,” he begged breathlessly. She bit her lip, pulling herself over him; he made quick work with his tongue, tasting her with desperate ferocity. Her legs trembled; her grip on the headboard tightening as the pleasure exploded through her body, primal moans and worship flowed from her like a hymn. Michael’s fingers gripped and dug into her flesh; the taste of her dripping on his tongue sent a jolt of need through him. Unable to bear it, he reached down and attempted to relieve some of his growing desire for release. With a heavy breath, Mallory slid herself down his body, straddling his stomach. He was taking in air like a dying man, his tongue running over his lips with little moans of pleasure. He looked up at her, eyes begging and submissive. He traced his hands over her, cupping her breasts, massaging them, treating them like sacred objects, reverently venerating her skin. He slid his fingers up to her throat, slowly curling around it gently, whispering in an uncertain tone, “Mine?” She kept her eyes on him as she took his thumb and wrapped her lips around it, biting and sucking. His other hand traced down her body to feel her wetness coating his stomach. She leaned into his touch, sighing and raking her nails across his chest. Her own need curling into thick tendrils in her core. She leaned down, giving him a passionate kiss, “Yours.” He groaned, bucking his hips, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “Please, Mallory,” he could barely speak, the need building within him stealing all of his words. He sat up to grip her face and pull her into a desperate, devouring kiss. “Take me,” he whined, “Please, take all of me.” She kissed him again, but he pulled back with a needy grunt, “I need you. I need to feel you surrounding me, please. Oh, please, Mallory...” the rest of his pleas were unintelligible noises of wanton hunger. She slid down further, lowering herself; he released a shaky, prolonged moan as she took him. She vocalized her pleasure with each thrust of her hips, her rhythm and speed building with her desire. Faster. Harder. Both of them riding out their pleasure, their bodies relentlessly chasing its zenith until Their release struck them like lightning. Michael couldn’t temper his volume as he screamed out her name like an irreverent prayer. Mallory could barely breathe as pleasure like bursts of light shot through her veins. They collapsed together, slick with sweat and languid. Michael, with little strength, wrapped his arms around her, planting lazy kisses on her face and neck. She clung to him like a survivor to her last hope. “Mine.” He breathed into her ear. She kissed his neck, “Mine.” They would delight in each other several more times that night, much slower and gentler. A sensation washing over them that neither of them had felt in a long time... Peace

__________

The two new lovers were wrapped up together, sleeping as they hadn’t in years. Michael’s face was buried in Mallory’s neck like it was his refuge; her legs circled his waist, hands still entangled in his hair.

A faint hum disturbed her rest. She opened her eyes to find herself staring up at a night sky, stars dotting the velvet canvas. She eased herself up, glancing around at the field where she had first met the being posing as Cordelia. Only this time, instead of the greenhouse, a large, wispy tree curled its silver branches up to the sky, gorged, white fruit with speckles of gold hung low upon it. She approached, curious at the sight.

A rustling of footsteps caught her attention. The woman stood there, still in the guise of Cordelia, staring at the tree with forlorn eyes.

“This is not how I intended this to happen,” she sounded far away, “It was all supposed to be much simpler than this.”

Mallory glared, feeling no sympathy, “Why couldn’t I bring Cordelia back?”

She sighed deeply, meeting her gaze, “You can’t cheat death forever, Mallory. Eventually it comes to claim its due.”

She stepped toward her, “You’re lying.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temple, “I won’t let you, that’s why.”

“Who are you?” She demanded.

The woman shook her head, pouting slightly, “I have imagined this moment for years, eager to welcome you with open arms. And now here we are, and you already hate me.”

Mallory took another confrontation step, “Who are you?”

She smiled ruefully, holding up her arms as if in defeat, “Simply...I am God.”

Mallory stared.

“I am the bringer of light and creation. I am the light from which the daughters of Salem draw their power. And you” she dared to come closer and brush the back of her fingers over Mallory’s cheek, “...are my daughter.”

“I don’t understand,” was her dumbfounded response.

“You see, Michael’s father and I,” she chuckled, “Satan as he likes to be called, he and I are a balancing scale...a dichotomy which brings the universe into order. There is good and evil, light and dark. From the very beginning of time, we have fought for balance in the universe. However, there came a point where we stopped fighting for balance, and began fighting for dominance,” her face darkened, “He decided that he wanted to tip the scales, create chaos and violence over the whole earth. And now it is time to tip the scales back again. I am tired of his malevolence and wrath, I want to create a new world. One where death and disease is an ancient memory,” her smile returned, wistful, “And I will use you Mallory. I will use you to build this new creation. You were born to rule a new earth.”

The memories of the stories her grandmother told her crashed over once again.

“I’m just a witch.”

She cupped her face, eyes widening, “No, Mallory. Oh, you are so much more. Don’t you understand? No witch has ever been able to do what you can, because you are not simply extraordinary, you are divine.”

That doesn’t explain why you refuse to let me resurrect Cordelia.

She threw her hands down, turning in a huff, “Can’t you think of anything else?!”

Storm clouds began to gather on the horizon, “I have just told you that you are the daughter of God who will bring about a new world, and you’re worried about one stupid witch. Cordelia had to die. So did every other member of the coven,” she shook her head, frustrated, “Mallory you are my daughter, but it is also true that you are a witch. If every other witch was dead then the power of Supreme would transfer to you.”

Her words from before crossed her mind, “I wasn’t the next Supreme.”

She turned away from her, “No, Coco was.”

That was a punch to the gut. A sudden flash of a vision appeared before her. Her ancestor, Mara...and her adopted sister Jescha, who faded into Coco.

Her knees trembled. The woman went on, belligerent, “She was a vapid, stupid little girl but her powers were growing and given time and attention she would have ascended after Cordelia.” She faced Mallory again, a regretful expression scrunching her face, “Michael planned to kill everyone in the Outpost, I made sure that if no one else, Coco wouldn’t survive.”

“You wanted Michael to kill the coven,” the revelation shook the ground beneath her.

She held out her hands, almost in penance, “I know you cannot understand, but what I did was for a greater plan, a greater good.  The witches had to die...Mead had to die. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Michael’s father and I knew that in order for both of our children to be put on the right path...there had to be a catalyst. Mead’s death forced Michael to the Cooperative and allowed me to ensure that you would have all the power you needed to stop him.”

Fire exploded from Mallory’s fingertips, threatening to consume the woman; but she stopped the fireball, extinguishing it.

“You killed them!” Mallory screamed.

“Me?” her shoulders sagged, hurt, “Mallory it was Michael who walked into Robicheaux’s and erased your sisters.”

“You not only watched it,” she cried through gritted teeth, “you set up the pieces for it to happen.”

She tried to touch her, holding out her arms as if to embrace her, “I know my ways are difficult to understand!” Mallory knocked her back, “Don’t!”

The woman regained her stance, watching her daughter with pleading eyes.

“You think you’re different from Michael’s father? My life, Michael’s life, all of our lives are nothing but a game to you! You didn’t care about stopping the Apocalypse, you cared about winning. You and him are the same thing with different masks.”

“I am trying to make a new world!” she screamed, thunder peeling from the distance, “I want to mend everything that Michael has broken. And the only way for me to do that is if you defeat him.”

Mallory was shaking visibly, “I won’t hurt him. I won’t.”

She scoffed, “He sheds a few tears and suddenly you think you know him? He is a curse, an ugly blot on creation that should never have taken his first breath.”

She attempted to embrace her again, “You are my chosen vessel, my beautiful shining light that will destroy darkness once and for all.”

“I don’t want whatever world you create,” she spat.

The woman grew deadly serious, her voice dropping to a low, threatening tone. The storm rolled closer and closer, “Mallory, don’t make me hurt you. This will end on a battlefield, whether you choose to go willingly or not.” Mallory turned away from her, “Go to hell.”

She opened her eyes in Michael’s bed, hearing his steady breathing beside her. She clung to him and began to cry.

He awoke with a start, looking her over and trying to comfort her, “What’s wrong?”

“I know exactly who I am. And I wish I didn’t.”

He held her tightly, fully aware of their plight. He caressed her hair, “Every light casts a shadow, Mallory.”

She sobbed, “I won’t hurt you.”

“We won’t have a choice. Prophecy-“

“Fuck prophecy,” she pulled back, “fuck their stupid games,” she kissed him, “I love you.”

He breathed in deeply, laying his forehead on hers with an expression that declared his knowledge that this bliss couldn’t last; it was never going to.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips.

...there is no happy love.

But it is our own love.