#also the chapter MASSIVELY got away from me so its split into two chapters
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gravityskittles · 10 days ago
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Chapter 13: Family Matters
Stan watched Ford’s fingers tap across the tabletop. He could feel the fresh start to a migraine begin to dig in behind his eyes. Half blurred images kept surfacing and then disappearing before he had the chance to really focus on them. At this point he was almost certain he had ended up in that diner at least two more times during the years before Gravity Falls. He groaned slightly as another half remembered moment, this one involving a figure he couldn’t make out with the glint of a switchblade held in their hand, flickered into his consciousness for a moment before fading away again.
Ford looked up sharply from his journal.
“Stanley, we don’t have to finish going over this if it’s hurting you.”
Stan shook his head, “I’m fine Poindexter. Jus’ worried about the kids.”
He could feel that Ford wanted to argue. He could see it in the way his posture straightened, in the way his fingers stilled their blurred movement on the tabletop and the way his other hand tightened on the pen it was holding. He took a breath and Stan sighed.
Then both of them snapped around towards the doorway of the kitchen. Stan’s hands were moving towards his pockets for his knuckle dusters before he had even registered what the problem was, and a movement in the corner of his eye told him Ford’s blaster was primed and ready. Then Fiddleford zoomed into the kitchen, Pacifica right behind him, and screeched to a halt.
“Where’s the fire boys?” He looked cautious but not upset with them. Stan paused in the act of pulling out his brass knuckles and instead just shoved his hands further into his jacket pockets, trying to look nonchalant as he settled himself back into his chair. He watched as Ford sheepishly lowered his blaster and sank back into his own seat, fingers beginning to card through his hair anxiously.
Pacifica, who had ducked down behind Fiddleford’s chair as soon as she had registered what was happening, cautiously peered over his shoulder at them.
“Sorry kid,” Stan said gruffly, kicking Ford under the table, “just been a bit jumpy lately.”
Ford grimaced and mumbled out his own apology before tucking his blaster away again.
Fiddleford stared at them both for a minute then shook his head, mumbling something that sounded an awful lot like “what am I going to do with you two” before pulling further into the room and holding out his hand for a stack of papers that Pacifica was shuffling nervously.
After Stan had left Cassie’s diner, he had practically run all the way back home. He had given Ford the shorthand of events over the phone as he ran. Ford had then sent Pacifica and Fiddleford away to figure out where Deadwood was and what danger it might present to the younger twins. When Stan had arrived home Ford had made him go over the entire story twice, including the memory, in as much detail as he could remember. Stan had been surprised that Ford had believed him so quickly. Not about the diner or Cassie obviously, there was very little that surprised either of them anymore when it came to weirdness or anomalies. No, Stan had been surprised with how readily Ford had accepted that Stan trusted Cassie so implicitly. He had been prepared for an argument, prepared for Ford to tell him they couldn’t trust someone like that. Instead, Ford had just nodded and written down her warning in his journal. He had even asked Stan to repeat it several times to ensure he had gotten the wording right. It really said a lot about how much the two of them had grown over the past few years. 
He knew that Ford probably only trusted her because she had saved Stan’s life in the past, but it really meant a lot that Ford had trusted him—hell that Ford had trusted his memory—enough to gamble the kids’ lives on. To be honest, it scared him a little. But he knew he was right on this one, and the expression on Fiddleford’s face cemented that for him.
“Well, I’d say Deadwood is certainly a good bet. Accordin’ to the twin’s current travels Pacifica here worked out a trajectory for where they’d be headin’ next. Seems like they should be passin’ through Deadwood sometime in the next few days.” He carefully spread out the paper he had taken from Pacifica onto the table.
It was a map of the US with a series of hand drawn lines on it that seemed to depict the twin’s cross-country journey. It had various photos from traffic cams taped to it along with small sketches of items presumably purchased via Mabel’s credit card.
“Pacifica, did you make this?”
She started fidgeting with the end of her braid and stared down at the floor. “Um well, Candy helped Mr. Mcgucket print out all the traffic cam photos, and Grenda has been keeping track of the credit card purchases but um...”
“Yep! She made it! She’s spent the last few days working on it and she spent this morning comparing different routes to Gravity Falls figurin’ out what their fastest route would be.”
Fiddleford gave her a soft pat on the shoulder, shoving her forward towards the map.
“She did a right good job of it too.”
Pacifica’s face flushed. “I’ve been scrapbooking stuff of Waddles for Mabel. I had some extra material laying around that’s all.”
Stan leaned forward over the map, hiding his smile. “Well, it looks fantastic kiddo. Seems like your path has them heading right through Deadwood.” He glanced up at Fiddleford. “Find anything interestin’ on the anomaly front, Fidds?”
The man grinned back at him, setting down the rest of the papers he was holding. “As a matter of fact, I did. Not too sure what’s causin’ it or nothin’. It may not be overly helpful, but Deadwood, South Dakota seems to have a suspicious number of wildfires. An’ at times of the year that don’t make a lick of sense.”
Stan winced, remembering the crackling of the flames rising around him as Cassie’s diner had faded away.
“That seems about right then. Ford, any idea of what might be causing that?”
Ford was staring at the map, with a slightly unfocused look in his eyes.
“Ford, you okay?”
He didn’t respond. Stan realized with a jolt that Ford hadn’t responded to anything since Fiddleford came into the room. He glanced up at Fidds. “Well, sounds like we should get packing then if we want to catch them in Deadwood.” He said, carefully pulling on his Mr. Mystery Smile. “We’ll probably wanna leave first thing in the morning.” Fidds caught his eye and nodded subtly, turning and ushering Pacifica back out of the kitchen.
Stan waited, listening to the sound of the wheelchair zooming away back into the depths of the house, before turning to face Ford again.
“Alright, earth to Sixer. What’s going on?”
Ford blinked and then shook his head roughly like he had water in his ears.
“I’m fine Stanley.” He said quietly, and began to busy himself folding up the map and neatening the stack of papers Fiddleford had printed out of the town’s fire history.
“Ford.” Stan ran back through the interaction trying to figure out what had happened. Then Ford stood up from the table, revealing the blaster strapped to his belt, and everything clicked. “You weren’t going to shoot them, Stanford.”
He said it casually, looking carefully at his brother out of the corner of his eye. He watched him stiffen in shock, and then collapse loosely back down onto the chair.
“I could have.” He said flatly.
“Nah. You’re an ask questions first kind of guy. Helps you determine exactly how painful someone’s death should be.” He said it lightly, part of it was a joke after all. But he also knew he wasn't wrong.
Thirty years of being basically hunted for sport through various dimensions had turned Ford into a carefully honed weapon. Stan hadn’t seen it often; Ford did an excellent job of hiding it under nerd glasses and anxiety, but he had seen it. In the last few years there had only been a handful of times, whenever they were backed into a corner with no way out, when something inside the familiar shape of his brother would sharpen and detach into something precise, deadly, and more than a little terrifying to witness. However, Stan would never tell him that. Aside from very specific circumstances, he knew it tore Ford up inside to hurt people, even people who really truly deserved it. The specific circumstances in question were the list of people from Stan’s past which Ford kept in his journal. Stan didn’t know exactly why he kept that list, and he had decided a long time ago that he was never going to ask.
Ford’s expression didn’t change. “I’m dangerous Stanley.”
“Sure you are. ‘Bout as dangerous as me when I haven’t had my coffee in the morning.”
“Stanley, this is serious!”
“I am being serious! C’mon Stanford, be reasonable. I reached for my weapon, same as you did. We’re both a bit jumpy these days. Fiddleford understood. There was no harm done.”
Ford glared at Stan, who was caught off guard by the intensity of his gaze. A clear mix of anger and beneath that a genuine, naked fear.
“Your weapon can’t disintegrate someone’s atomic structure, Stanley.” He took a deep shaky breath. “It doesn’t matter that Fiddleford understood, he shouldn’t have to understand. I scared Pacifica, I pointed a gun at a child Stanley! I could have killed her! I shouldn’t be around children, I’m not safe anymore!”
Stan’s heart lurched. “Ford, I’m not tryna’ downplay what happened. I recognize you coulda’ killed them, but you didn’t, and I know ya weren’t going to.” He sighed as he watched Ford open his mouth to argue. “Ford, we should talk about this later. It’s been a long day, neither of us have actually eaten anything other than coffee since about eight this morning. You go pack, I’ll make dinner.”
Ford stood up and began to walk unsteadily towards the living room, pausing as he went to squeeze Stan’s shoulder firmly. Stan took that to mean that things were as okay as they were going to get right now.
“Ford,” He didn’t turn around, feeling his brother pause, hovering in the doorway, “You’re always going to be safer for Dipper and Mabel than their parents ever were. Just remember that.”
Ford hesitated, as though about to say something, but then there was the sound of the front door slamming and when Stan turned to look, Ford was gone.
He sighed and closed his eyes, wincing slightly at the headache that was still steadily growing.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Stan?!” Hissed a familiar voice from the doorway.
He ignored this and instead turned towards the cabinets, rifling through them for various ingredients.
For a moment there was silence and then an explosive yell from behind him and the thunk of something heavy against the kitchen table.
“Don’t ignore me old man!”  
Stan sighed again, it had been a long day, and he really was getting too old for this.
“Wendy,” He replied calmly, turning to face the girl whose hand was still gripping the handle of the axe she had just embedded into his kitchen table. “I’m gonna tell Soos to deduct that from your next paycheck.”
She took a step back, surprised at his nonchalance, and he took the opportunity to shove a bowl, whisk, and eggs into her hands.
“Here, whisk this.”
“What are you doing?!” She yelled at him. Stan winced and feigned tapping irritably on his hearing aid to cover up the actual stab of pain in his head.
“Making pancakes.” He turned away from her to dig around in the spice cabinet for glitter.
“Why?!”
“Because I’m hungry, Ford hasn’t eaten anything all day, and because I know I’ve taught you better ways to manage your anger than attacking my furniture with an axe.” He turned to face her again, this time allowing some annoyance to slip into his voice and leveling her with a stern glare. “Now, whisk.”
She slammed the bowl down and attempted to crack an egg into it. The first one missed the bowl entirely, smashing onto the counter instead in a spray of yolk and shell. The second one split on the edge of the bowl, dribbling in streaks down the side. The last one made it in in one piece, and Stan wordlessly passed her two replacement eggs. He watched as she began to whisk, at first splashing egg over the sides and at several points nearly toppling the entire bowl into the sink. But over time her movement became more controlled, and after a while he handed her the milk and began passing along dry ingredients to mix in as well.
By the time the pan was hot, and the mixture was ready, her breathing was under control again. As Stan was adding in a dash of glitter, she finally spoke, no longer yelling, although he could tell she was still angry. He didn’t blame her for that. He was angry too, he just didn’t have the freedom to show it right now.
“Why didn’t you guys tell me what happened?”
He ladled two pancakes into the pan and turned to face her. She looked good, he realized proudly. He hadn’t seen her since the end of last summer when she had been heading off to her year-long apprenticeship with the National Parks Service. He could see that in her time away she had clearly gained some muscle, and her face was flushed with freckles from how much time she was spending outside. His heart twinged painfully as his eyes rested on Dipper’s beat-up old hat which sat firmly on her head and he looked away again.
“Because we didn’t want to worry you.” He answered truthfully. “Ford and I were hoping to get them back before anyone else had to know what had happened. That way they could tell people what happened in their own time. How did you find out anyway?”
“I ran into Soos at the store earlier today. I’m home for a few weeks before I head back to the Cascades. He asked if I’d seen you and Ford yet, and I asked him what the hell the two of you were doing back here.”
“Damnit.” Stan flipped a pancake angrily, “I told the kid not to tell anyone anything.”
Wendy winced. “He uh-I really didn’t give him much of a choice. Don’t be too hard on him man.”
“Well. Ford and I are heading out tomorrow.” He ladled some more pancakes into the pan and slid the finished ones onto a plate. “We should have the kids back here safely in a few days. Assuming everything goes well.”
“Okay well I’m coming then.”
Ah. He’d been afraid of that.
“No, you aren’t.”
“Why, Stan?!” She threw up her hands in the air, defiant anger on her face once again.
“Because—”
“Because It’s a family thing? Well, I have news for you, man! I’m just as much their family as you are!”
“Because, I’m not having you jeopardize your apprenticeship on the off chance this takes longer than we think it will.” He glanced at her again. “This is something Ford and I have to do. Together. If it was just about it being a family thing, you and Soos would both be coming with us. Besides, even though I know you can handle yourself, I refuse to put more of you kids in danger when I don’t have to. You’ve been through enough.”
She gasped, and Stan grinned at her slyly. “And before you get all excited, if you ever repeat any of that to anyone, I’ll kill ya.” He paused, then laughed quietly. “No one would ever believe you anyway.”
“You’re an old bastard you know that?”
Stan smiled, flipping the pancakes idly. “I should hope so, I’ve worked hard to be one.”
Stan rolled over, looking across the room at the form of Ford on his bed. Dinner had been good., Fiddleford, Pacifica and Wendy had stayed for pancakes, and he had ended up making a second batch when Melody and Soos came over to check in on how everything was going. It had made him proud watching everyone at the table, Fiddleford doing a terrible job of explaining some math homework to Pacifica while Melody and Wendy watched on in amusement, occasionally throwing out helpful suggestions. Soos had been helping him flip pancakes while Stan pretended not to notice him miss on purpose every once in a while, letting the pancake fall to the floor where an eager Waddles sat waiting.
It should have been perfect. Except for the fact that he could feel the hole the twin’s’ absence left in the scene like a burning wound. And of course, the fact that Ford hadn’t appeared at all, instead slipping downstairs after everyone had left to grab a plate of cold pancakes and then vanish into their room again.
Stan had decided to give him space. He had learned over the last few years that Ford wouldn’t talk about things until he was ready. Stan just had to wait for him to be ready. But he didn’t come down while Stan was washing the dishes, or afterwards while he sat alone in the living room watching TV and waiting for the migraine medication he should have taken hours ago, to kick in. When Stan finally had gone up to bed their bags had been neatly packed in the center of the room, and Ford was pretending to be asleep.
He knew Ford wasn’t actually asleep. Spending years sleeping in the same room as each other had made him very good at recognizing Ford’s breathing patterns. It helped to know when his twin was having a nightmare, and when that nightmare was serious enough to warrant shaking Ford awake. It also helped to know when Ford couldn’t actually get back to sleep after a nightmare. He’d always tell Stan he could and pretend to roll over and go back to sleep, but his breathing never evened out quite right, and Stan would lie awake with him, hoping eventually Ford would decide to talk to him about it. Most nights though, Stan would fall asleep before that happened, and wake in the morning to Ford already up and several cups of coffee deep.
Stan had been lying here for an hour now and the itch under his skin was growing worse every passing second. He wanted a cigarette. To be honest what he actually wanted was a good strong drink, but he wasn’t that much of a hypocrite. A cigarette would have to do. He knew if he got up right now Ford would hear him, but he was quickly coming to the conclusion he didn’t actually care. If Ford wanted to stop him, he’d have to talk to him first.
Still, Stan made every effort to get out of bed silently. He knew the creaks in this house by heart and had made his way out of the room and most of the way down the stairs before he heard Ford stir. He ignored the sound, slipping into the kitchen and digging around behind the serving dishes for the pack of cigarettes he knew was still stashed back there. He pulled it out and headed for the porch.
His lighter clicked on at the same moment that the door opened. Ford stepped out carefully, scanning the empty yard, before joining Stan against the railing. Stan continued to light his cigarette and took a long drag off of it, breathing out slowly and watching the smoke swirl up into the cold night air.
The buzzing beneath his skin faded slowly as he took another drag. The smoke settled into his lungs with a warm familiarity and a sharp stab of guilt. He’d promised the kids he had quit. But then again, he had also promised the kids he would keep them safe, and look how well that had gone.
Stan hummed to himself bitterly. Still a fucking failure, even now. Even during what was supposed to be his happy ending.
“Do you want to talk about it, Stan?”
Stan smiled grimly; there it was.
“Nope.” He said gruffly.
“I think maybe we should talk about it.”
“I think we should talk ‘bout a lot of things Poindexter but—” he paused to take a drag, breathing out the smoke as he spoke, “a’ this point I’m not really sure how much good it’s gonna do us.”
“Look, Stanley.” Ford fumbled for a minute searching for what he wanted to say. “If this is about earlier, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply I wasn’t going to help you get Dipper and Mabel. I just. The things I had to do out there Stanley. It changed me in ways I’m still surprised by, and I’m just terrified of hurting you. Any of you.”
Stan just nodded along blankly. They had had this conversation before. The time Ford had blindly attacked him when he had woken him up after a nightmare that had his brother screaming in his sleep, he had had to fight for a week to get Ford to agree to sleep in the cabin again instead of at his desk with a locked door between him and Stan. The trouble was Ford never seemed interested in elaborating on exactly what had set him off, never seemed interested in letting Stan try to fix things.
“The things you had to do?” He said as calmly as he could. He kept staring out at the snow, tamping down the annoyance and anger he could feel starting to bubble up. They couldn’t afford to do this right now.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now, Stanley.”
“Mmmm.” He couldn’t keep the bite out of his words this time.  “You never want to talk about it, Ford. That’s the problem.”
“Well at least I’m not the one blatantly lying to the kids.” Ford growled at him, reaching out and knocking the unfinished cigarette out of his hand into the snow.
The anger flared and Stan spun to face him, a voice in the back of his head chanted frantically that he was going too far, that he was going to push too much, that he was going to break something like he always broke something. But he had ignored the voice and pushed on anyway.
“Goddamit, Ford. You’re not the only one who had to ‘do things’ to get by. You’re not the only one who’s fuckin’ afraid here. An’ I’m not the only one who’s lying.” He shoved the rest of the cigarette carton roughly against Ford’s chest and slipped his hand into his brother’s coat pocket, ripping out the flask he knew was hiding inside. He slammed it down roughly on the railing and hissed “’m goin’ to bed, Ford.”
He knew he had pushed too far, he waited, shoulders tense as he shoved the door open, for the shout that he had been sure would follow. For the inevitable fight. But there was nothing, and when he glanced back, he saw Ford staring blankly out at the sky, flask clutched tightly in one hand.
He slammed the door shut behind him, ignoring the guilt that was slowly filling the space the anger had left behind, and went up to bed.
Sleep was a long time coming that night, and it wasn’t until hours later when he was finally drifting off that he realized Ford had never come back upstairs.
The day had been. Awkward.
Stan had driven for most of it. Glancing over at Ford every so often, who alternated between sleeping and scribbling idly in his journal. He played the most obnoxious music he could find, hoping to goad Ford into talking to him but nothing ever came of it. He eventually stopped for gas just shy of Montana and when he came back to the car, holding a perfectly legally obtained bag of jellybeans and a coffee, Ford was sitting patiently in the driver’s seat.
Stan saw this for what it was and handed over his own peace offering in return. Ford had nodded a silent thanks before pulling out of the parking lot. The next few hours had still been silent, but Stan found that the tension he felt had much more to do with Ford’s driving skills, rather than the fight they had had the night before. He knew they would still need to talk about it at some point. He just hoped that for once in his life he could manage it without breaking anything.
It was pitch dark out when Ford finally pulled into a motel parking lot. It certainly wasn’t the seediest place he had stayed—he’s not even sure they made places that seedy anymore—but it did make him feel vaguely uneasy for reasons he couldn’t identify. The motel was one of those travel lodges. With a u-shape of dusty, ground floor rooms, and rusted metal gutters. The half-lit neon sign read The Sobbing Stag Motel, and the vacancy light was flickering on and off in the weak light of the surrounding streetlamps.
Ford came back a few minutes later with a room key and they had started busying themselves with pulling out stuff from the car they would need. Stan pulled the half-eaten bag of jelly beans out of the center console and was just turning to lock the doors of the car when he saw something standing at the edge of the parking lot.
It was almost a horse. The legs were too thin, and as far as he could tell it didn’t appear to have a mane or tail of any kind. It was a pale, almost silvery white, and as it moved it made no sound. Stan watched in horrified fascination as it drew closer to him. Its eyes were blown wide like a jackrabbit’s, flickering with a panicked, hungry sort of fear that he recognized from decades old bathroom mirrors. He could see what looked like every bone in its body. Ribs and spine stark against the taut skin, and he realized with a jolt that it wasn’t breathing.
Stan looked around, wondering distantly if Ford had noticed the creature as well, when he realized that there were more of them. Pale shapes crowding at the edge of the parking lot, each pair of their wide, bloodshot eyes, fixed unblinkingly on him. He looked back at the one in front of him. It was much closer now.
“Hey, uh. Sixer?” He called weakly.
There was no reply. He didn’t dare look away from it again.Stan felt the cool metal of his car against his back and realized he had been unconsciously backing away from the advancing thing. Now, he had nowhere to go. It took another silent step towards him, and he closed his eyes, hoping wildly that when he opened them again the not-horse would be gone. He felt something cold brush across his face, felt the bag of jellybeans slip from his hand—and then, Stan Pines felt nothing at all.
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tarabyte3 · 2 years ago
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I Want You to Show Me Weak
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Fandom: Andor
Pairing: Kino Loy/F!Reader
Chapter 21/27 (3.4k words)
->start at chapter 1<-
<- Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 ->
Summary: You're pretty sure Kino Loy hates you. He screams at you, grabs you, and shoves you against the wall, and it's becoming a problem because, well...it shouldn't fluster you as much as it does.
Warnings: Explicit rating, Smut, Prison, Prison sex, minor non-graphic injuries, Dom/Sub, sexual tension, dirty talk, praise, hair-pulling, choking, unprotected sex, oral, angst, orgasm denial, humiliation, slut shaming, references to domestic abuse, discussion of domestic abuse, minor violence, discussion of violence, description of violence
A/N: This chapter was supposed to have 2 scenes because I thought the first one was too short to post as its own chapter (it wasn't 🤦🏻‍♀️). Unfortunately the second scene is one I want to get right, so it was slowing the whole thing down. Instead I split them up again so you all have something while I work on the massive endeavor that has become chapter 22. Enjoy! Work title is from "Poison" by Vaults. Chapter title is from "Pyrokinesis" by 7Chariot. Chapter navigation above.
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Chapter 21 - You're setting me on fire, I don't wanna fight it. You don't need a lighter, you're a flame.
Finding Taybus isn't difficult. It's finding Taybus alone outside of your shift that's hard. He's always with Vage. And while you're excited for him because he's clearly gotten past his awkwardness and fear and is happy, you also feel a stab of jealousy. Because he's able to spend so much time with Vage. Can stand close to him, bow his head in secrecy and whisper, stare at him in adoration when he laughs at a joke, not have to worry about stares or favoritism or jobs.
It doesn't feel good to remember you can't have that. It especially doesn't feel good to be jealous that your friend can. Because he deserves that. He's so young. He's missing out on dating and making mistakes and figuring himself out and living because he's stuck in there. He deserves a reprieve and to feel his age. To have one spot of joy when he tentatively rests his hand on Vage's forearm, and Vage blushes so hard the pink of his cheeks is visible on his tanned skin.
Then you remember you get to spend part of your evenings with Kino in your bed and between your legs. Get to feel his bare skin against yours however you wish as he buries himself in you, and you exhale his name like a prayer. And he doesn't hold your hand, but he holds your throat, your hair, your hip. That's better, you think, because it's not holding back. It's not the only affection he's allowed to show you.
Suddenly your own prospects don't seem so bad.
You're interrupted from your discreet staring by Threl stepping up beside you.
"Feeling social?" He teases.
"Something like that," you give him a quick, wry glance out of the corner of your eye. Then Taybus laughs and your face softens. "He seems happy."
"He does, doesn't he?" Threl follows your line of sight to where Taybus is practically gleeful as Vage talks excitedly about something you can't hear at this distance. "Thanks to you, you know."
"Vage was already interested. I barely had to do anything," you shrug. "I merely gave him a push."
"Don't down play it," he scolds you. "You and Alis stepped up for him in a way I don't think anyone ever had before."
"I'm just sorry he had to go to prison to finally get that when he should've had it already. He deserved to have it, and it isn't fair he didn't," you lament.
Threl turns his head to stare at you. "You're a bit maudlin this evening."
"I'm actually in a good mood, I swear," you chuckle. "I had a great talk with Sorrek. Got me thinking about my own parents. So maybe a bit maudlin."
"Oh, you two finally work things out?" He sounds cautiously optimistic.
"Yeah." You finally pull your attention away from the new couple. "He opened up to me about his past and apologized for the misunderstanding. It was hard to stay mad at him after that."
Threl looks impressed. "I imagine so. He tell you about his daughter?"
"He did," you sigh heavily. "I had guessed he had kids, but I never would have guessed half of that. I mean it's Sorrek." You shake your head. "He's a good man."
"He sure is," he says quietly.
"I actually came out here to check on Taybus. I haven't gotten any updates on 'operation get the kid laid' recently, but I can see things are going well."
"They've been like that for a few days now. I couldn't tell you if there are any new updates because I try to give them privacy, but if there aren't, there will be soon." He gives them a meaningful look just as Vage bumps Taybus with his shoulder and smiles shyly up at him.
"Poor kids can't even make out in peace," you mumble. "What are the odds everyone would let them hide at the end of the hallway and just…not watch?"
"You know, I've been thinking about that, actually."
"About getting them to make out? Because if you have a plan, I'm onboard." You lean in conspiratorially.
"Or a way to let them."
"I'm still listening."
"I couldn't fall asleep the other night so I ended up just staring over the side of my bed, and…" He looks around to see if anyone is paying attention. "How do they fry two people in a cell if they aren't touching the floor?"
You tilt your head in interest. "What do you mean?"
"The panels," he gestures to the cell you're both standing near and takes a step towards it, "they're only visible on the floor, and I don't think there are any in the bench or the bed. They're that same thick polycarbonate composite material the walls and work tables are made out of. Which could theoretically be conductive with the right filler, but I've seen people touch the walls and tables when the floors are activated, and they don't react to those. Only the floor panels. And the resistance of plastic means the panels wouldn't be as effective when layered underneath because everything in here has to be very thick to be durable enough to last. It might not stop or kill someone like they would intend, and that would be a big risk I don't think they would be willing to take. In fact, the bed even has the mattress as an extra layer of insulation." He turns to give you a meaningful look. "They're relying on the floors, but you can't fry if you're not touching them."
"So. You think you can get around the occupancy limit if you climb directly onto the bench and bypass the floor?"
"That's exactly what I think. Both people keep to the bench, keep their feet up…" He scans the interior of the cell again. "It could work."
"You don't think they considered that?" You sound doubtful, but as you look at where the metal panels end along the trim of the floor, you know he's onto something.
"I think they considered plenty of deterrents so no one's tried it or thought of it. They tell us to get into bed when they fully activate the block. Make us think that's the only safe place so we assume what?" He pauses expectantly.
"That the benches aren't safe either," you say in disbelief.
"Exactly. All they have to do to keep us in line is make sure there's the threat of getting fried. Before this conversation, would you have tried it?"
"I suppose not," you mumble. You start to think about all the times you've sat on your bed or bench while someone else leaned in on the seat to chat. How it's the default way people hang out by the cells. There might be a reason for that. It's away from the floor. It's safe. But they're still putting some of their weight on it. And it's never activated a cell.
You turn to him, a mischievous twinkle in your eye. "Let's test it."
"Are you serious?" He looks at you in disbelief. "You prepared to feel like you got hit by a transport all night if we're wrong? Because I assumed you had a hot date with Kino tonight."
"I have a very very hot, sexy date with Kino tonight, but I also know you aren't wrong, so yeah. I'm willing to take the risk."
He shakes his head. "Alright."
"Who's cell is this?"
"Uhhh, this is table 5, so…" Threl looks around, then calls out down the hall, "Hey Xaul, can we borrow your cell real quick? It's for a good reason, I promise."
A tall red head that you've made small talk with once before blinks at Threl in confusion. "You want to what?"
"Borrow—" Threl sighs in exasperation. "Just come here for a second, if you don't mind."
Xaul hesitates and looks between the two of you, as if he's trying to decide if he wants anything to do with whatever you're clearly plotting. Then he leaves the conversation he was having with a few other members of his table and cautiously walks over. "Did you say borrow my cell?"
"Threl thinks there aren't any tungstoid panels in the benches. That they can't fry two people in a cell if they don't touch the floor while both people are in there," you explain.
Xaul leans around you to look at the floor and the bench for a moment, thinking about what you said. He must see something because then he moves past you to get a closer look. He kneels down in the hall, his hand tracing along the seams of the metal trim along the cell floor. The same part that caught your attention. You and Threl watch him poke and push on the steel and the wall before moving onto the bench. He repeats the same thing there, even knocking on the sides, listening for the dense thunk of metal beneath.
Finally, he says, "The edge of the metal isn't flush with the edge of the wall panel. There's a lip. The steel sticks out by maybe two centimeters. Easy to miss. Look," he leans to the side as he points. "The tungstoid panels are set into reliefs against the wall material, like tile. The wall would have to be the piece to overlap if the steel continued up behind it or into the bench."
"Meaning…?" You prompt.
"Meaning it stops there, just like you see." He stands up and turns to Threl, and his expression is almost troubled. "I think you're right."
Threl grins. "I think so too."
"You were going to test it?" He looks at you.
"Yeah. I was going to take the risk if we were wrong." For Taybus, you think.
"Who's your number two?" He gives Threl a meaningful glance.
"I hadn't agreed to it yet," Threl looks a little nervous, and you don't particularly blame him. Getting fried fucking sucks. There's a reason they use it as punishment.
"It's my cell. I'll do it." Xaul doesn't wait for a response. He steps into his cell and climbs directly onto his bench. Then he settles in and sits cross legged—careful not to touch anything but the seat—facing you. "Are you going to just climb up the side?"
You judge the height and do some quick mental calculations about your own upper body strength and momentum. "Something like that." You look up at him and give him a serious look. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," he nods, his face stern in anticipation. "Yeah, I'm ready."
You take a step back and shoo Threl off to the side to give you space. "Threl, do me a favor? If we get fried, pull me off the second it stops so they don't activate it again, okay?"
"Okay, kid," Threl says warily. "Be careful."
You take a deep breath and walk in a little circle as you start to psych yourself up, and you notice the three of you have started gathering attention. People are aware something is going on and now they're curious. Even Alis is working his way expertly through the crowd to see what you're up to, brows furrowed in confusion and a question on his lips.
But before he can say anything, you wink at him and take a few running steps towards the bench. You plant your hands wide, push hard to lift yourself off the floor as quickly as you can, and then use your momentum to pull your legs up onto the seat so you're squatting there. It's a little inelegant, but it gets you straight inside without touching anything but the top of the bench.
For a moment, everything stops. The voices in the hall, your momentum, Xaul's anticipatory wince. Even your own heart and time freeze around you, like the whole block is holding its breath.
And then nothing happens.
Xaul is on one end of the bench, staring around in shock, and you're on the other end, trying not to move too much out of anxiety. Neither of you are frying. There are no alarms. No voices from the speakers in the ceiling. Nothing.
Xaul looks at you and lets out an incredulous laugh. You grin back at him, slightly manic with relief. With tiny shuffles, you carefully turn to face the hallway where you're greeted by over a dozen slack jawed and wide eyed expressions of shock.
"It fucking works!" You shout. "There are no panels in the benches. If you don't touch the floor and hop straight in, you can have two people inside and not fry!"
There are murmurs of confusion and a few shouts of disbelief. Then someone down the hall is climbing into a cell to try it for themselves. You aren't even sure it's his cell. A few seconds later, a man from table 3 is hopping onto the bench and in after him. From inside the space, you hear excited shouting and table 3 pokes his head out. "She's right!"
Alis walks over and he's frowning at you. "Please, please tell me you didn't just experiment using your own body to test whether or not this would get you fried."
"It's called testing a hypothesis, Alis." You say smugly.
"That doesn't make it okay!" He nearly shrieks. "You should have told me! I could have tested it! We both know I'm the faster one!"
"Oh, you're just jealous we came up with this without you," you huff. "Now move so I can hop down and give Xaul his cell back." Xaul is still sitting behind you, staring at where you're touching the bench in shock.
Alis steps to the side and you hop down. You stumble slightly because your legs are a little wobbly from adrenaline, but you land safely with a slap of bare feet on steel.
"I'm not jealous, I'm fucking worried."
"It was fine," you wave it off. "Threl and I wanted to see if we could find a way to help out Taybus and Vage."
"Okay. That's really thoughtful, but doesn't make it any less stupid." He glares between the two of you. "And you let her do this?"
"Hey, we both know she was going to try it whether or not I told her no." Threl holds his hands up in defense. "I figured it would be safer with me nearby at least if something went wrong."
"Well, if I'm this mad, I can't even imagine how mad—"
"What's going on over here?" Kino's voice comes from behind you, tense and even. Everyone immediately freezes again.
"Yeah, him," Alis says quietly.
You turn, suddenly nervous, because you hadn't stopped to think about Kino's reaction to all of this. You just wanted to figure it out. To help. And you're realizing how dumb that part, at least, was. His blue eyes are wide with anger and concern, and his jaw clenches as you meet his stare.
"Hey, Kino," you start cautiously. "We, uh, we figured out a flaw in the cells."
"What flaw?" His voice lowers and you know you have to tread carefully or you're fucked. By being not fucked.
"There isn't any tungstoid in the benches," Threl steps forward to explain. "It ends along the floor. As long as no one touches it and keeps to the bench, you can have more than one person in a cell." He shifts nervously. "It was a hunch I had, so we poked around Xaul's cell and—"
"Then I tested it." You interrupt because you know lying to him won't work. And if he finds out anyway, he'll be beyond livid. At this point your only saving grace is honesty.
"You what?" He hisses. "Why?"
"You know why," you say softly. You glance down the hall where Taybus and Vage are watching your confrontation with concern. Kino follows your gaze, takes in the way the two of them are standing with their arms nearly touching, and his lips thin in frustrated understanding. He looks back at you, no less angry. "It isn't fair," you whisper.
"You should have told me first!" He grits through his teeth. "There are better ways of figuring this out without blindly testing a hunch and getting yourself fried!"
"That's what I said." Alis crosses his arms. Kino gives him a sharp glance, but sees the mutual anger on Alis's face. Instead he turns back to you and gives you a look that says "see?"
"I promise I wouldn't have tried it if I wasn't completely confident it would work. Xaul was kind enough to take the risk with me." You see Xaul shrink back when you bring attention to him, trying to avoid getting dragged into this, and you don't blame him. "And I had Threl right there to pull me off between shocks if it didn't. It would just feel like getting last place." You try to sound as placating and sure of yourself as you can. Because you're being honest.
Even though you had been afraid—who wouldn't be?—you were certain Threl was right. The Empire is notoriously frugal and more focused on mass production. Strength through overwhelming force. Panels along every inch of every cell is an unnecessary expense when they can just rely on fear. Because they're just as focused on fear as a tool and people are plenty afraid of the floors. If that wasn't the case, you would have done more investigating first.
You give Kino a pleading look.
"Fine," he sighs in resignation. "This is another one of those things I should be actively discouraging. But," he looks around to the group still watching—possibly waiting for you to get screamed at—and raises his voice, "I won't. I know what this means, and I won't take it away." Everyone exchanges glances of surprise, but they all keep quiet so they don't anger him into changing his mind somehow.
When Kino speaks again, it's in his stern shift manager voice. "As long as no one abuses it. Because this changes nothing! The same rules still apply. You will all continue to be respectful of other people's spaces. You DO NOT enter a cell without permission. You leave when asked. You keep the volume down and…be courteous of the people around you." He turns a little red when he says that last part and you think everyone catches his meaning. "Anyone that breaks this rule will answer to me," he growls. "Am I understood?"
There's a round of "Yes, Kino" as even more people gather and word spreads through the block. The voices around you start to buzz loudly as the excitement and realization grows.
"Do NOT make me regret this! And keep it down!" He shouts. Then he turns to look directly at you. "Cell. Now." He points. "We're not done with this conversation."
You nod, accepting that you fucked up and, even though it had been worth it, you have consequences to deal with.
"Tell them, Threl," you quietly urge as you begin to move down the hall.
"I will." He gives you an apologetic look as he watches you go.
Next to him Alis sighs and shakes his head, but his frustration has faded enough that he gives you a half-hearted thumbs up of encouragement before you turn away.
You keep your pace calm, your shoulders back, and your face neutral. You're determined to accept this with a quiet dignity for as long as you can. Kino walks at your elbow, just at the edge of your periphery. Far back enough that you can't see his face or judge how mad he is. It's okay, you tell yourself. You earned this one and you don't regret it. Yet, anyway.
As you move through the crowded hallway, you're surprised when people silently part for you, letting you pass unhindered. You think it's because they're trying to avoid Kino at first, but some of them give you a nod as they move. And you realize Taybus isn't the only person that this helps. It hadn't been your intention, but a lot of them are grateful as well. You're suddenly glad you gave your shift one small opportunity for comfort and rebellion because fuck this place.
With each step, your conviction that this place is rotting from the outside grows. Because the only good thing about it are the people trapped within. You just have to wait until it breaks around you. Since, surely, in all of the levels, in all of the rooms, in all of the shifts, and at all of the tables, there are others out there doing the same thing. Testing this place for its weaknesses and pushing on the cracks.
A/N: I decided to work all of my overthinking about the logistics of the prison floor into the story. Also how about that Xaul cameo? I was waiting to fit in a character from Table 5.
Chapter 22 should be out this weekend! 🤞
NEXT CHAPTER->
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avaritia-apotheosis · 3 years ago
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Phantom Children Ch. 8
What's this? An update! Massive thanks to my betas for helping me get through this chapter <3
In Which: A few answers are given to the family and Danny is rudely awoken
[Side note: If you wanna know the general ages of the batfam, its listed in the AO3 version. I also talk about katanas in the end notes ^-^]
AO3 | Prologue | 7 | [ 8 ] | 9 DAMIAN INFORMED TODD—and Drake when he arrived on his bike sometime later on—that the boy whose face is plastered across the monitor was neither a picture of himself nor of Father.
Drake took one glance at the monitor and sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Just when I thought this day was getting better.”
“What, did that café on 5th finally let customers supersize their drink?”
“God that would be the dream, wouldn’t it?” Drake sighed wistfully. “Nah, but I did get a lead on where some of that stolen Cadmus tech might’ve ended up. I was gonna spend the night following up on it, but I guess we have to deal with,” he gestured to the monitor, “whatever this is.”
Todd leaned against the edge of the computer, arms crossed over the red bat insignia on his chest. “What are we dealing with this time, brat? A clone? An alternate universe counterpart? Magic shenanigans?”
Maybe. Perhaps. All of those were perfectly valid conclusions for the enigma that was Daniel James Fenton. (Why Fenton and not al Ghul? Or even Wayne?)
Damian, too, was a genetic experiment; a ‘test tube baby’ as Drake put it at times. Damian was born for greatness, created to be perfect. The perfect soldier. The perfect assassin. The perfect heir. Was this boy—Daniel—like him as well?
A failed one, then. Perhaps the precursor to Damian’s own existence. But that would not explain why the boy was allowed to exist for so long. His grandfather demanded perfection, especially from those of his own blood. If the boy was a failure, he would have been eliminated immediately, not sent to live with some eccentric scientists in the Midwest.
Damian was not naïve enough to think that his mother and grandfather did not keep secrets from him. On the contrary, he expected it. The League of Shadows dealt in secrets as often as it did in death. Certain information was worth its weight in gold, whether it was given or buried away.
But he could not help the sharp pang in his chest. A lightning strike, quick and electrifying at the notion that they kept secrets about their family from him.
His father’s face flashed in his mind. The shock turned into a slow, dawning horror. That flicker of light, of recognition, as he scrutinized the contents of the flash drive and cross-referenced it with a public database.
And grief.
Damian recognized the grief.
Alfred, too, nearly dropped his tray of fresh-baked cookies when he stepped in front of the monitor. His usual unflappable demeanor was momentarily broken at his father’s whispered “Sixteen years. Alfred— he’s sixteen years old.”
His father knew of the boy. He was allowed to know of Daniel when he was not allowed to know about Damian.
------
Grayson returned to the cave with a distinct lack of energy in his step. His mask dangled off the tips of his fingers, chin angled downwards and covered largely by his hand. For a split second, their eyes met. Grayson shifted his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck. Father told him, then. Damian wondered how much Father revealed to his favorite son.
Damian clucked his tongue and buried himself deeper into the chair, arms crossed and pointedly looking away. If it was not for his accursed ankle, he’d have headed out to the training ring to take his frustrations out on the dummies.
“Oh, thank god you’re here, Dickface. Damian’s completely out of it.”
Damian shot him a look. “Shut up, Todd.”
“Leave him alone, Jay. Is Tim back yet?”
Drake emerged from the changing room in a dark green shirt, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He took one long sip before exhaling. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“O-kay…” He pressed his hands together, mouth thinned into a grim line. “Uh, hey Tim, glad to see you back safe. Bruce is coming down soon to explain some things.” He let out a deep sigh, carding a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing would probably be better with the girls around, but I—god, I don’t know.”
Todd raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know whether to call Steph and Cass in Hong Kong, or don’t know what’s going on?”
“Yes.”
------
When Father arrived, Pennyworth following dutifully behind him, it was with an aching slowness in his gait. His steps measured and precise, preternaturally quiet as he made his way to stand by Damian’s chair. Damian sat up straighter, shoulders squared and back an inch away from the backrest. The rest, even Todd, stood at attention; an ingrained habit among Robins and an amusing instinct even among the senior heroes of the Justice League when it came to facing the Batman.
His father kept a steady hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian, shamefully, leaned into the touch; his head inclined towards his father’s hand so much so that he could feel the ends of his hair being pushed up slightly as he brushed against his father’s forearm.
He spoke with his usual monotone, as if he was heading a Justice League meeting as opposed to unveiling the secrets surrounding that boy. He brought forward the few photos they obtained from the flash drive. “A few weeks ago, we were alerted of suspicious movement from the League of Shadows in Amity Park, Illinois. Their objectives are, as of now, unclear, though it appears to be tied to the death of Amity Park resident, Daniel Fenton.”
One photo was a standard ID picture people get for their driver’s license, the lighting deliberately horrible so that any attempt to look decent would always end in failure. Another photo was a little better; a candid scene of him chatting with two others his age, a Caucasian girl in gothic-style clothes and an African-American holding a sleek, but still very outdated PDA. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, hand reaching up to his face to stifle a laugh. There were other photos like this, some candid, others posed. At the forefront of each, a boy that looked too much like his father, too much like Damian.
His father glanced at the photos. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again, he fixed them on some distant stalactite in the Cave. “Around six months ago, Daniel was pronounced dead in a vehicular accident. A body was present, but according to police reports, he was identified via his driver’s license as opposed to any kind of DNA profiling.” He leaned over Damian’s chair to pull up a profile of Masters. “Our source—Vladimir Masters, mayor of Amity and a friend of the Fenton family—indicated his belief that Daniel is actually alive. I am inclined to agree.”
“He’s your son, isn’t he,” Drake said, more of a statement than a question.
Father gave a curt nod. “I cannot say for certain until I can perform a DNA test, but I highly suspect that to be the case.”
“First the demon spawn, now this. Great.” Todd made a hand motion towards the screen. “You know, Bruce, not knowing you have a kid once might be a coincidence, but twice? How do you do that?”
“As of three hours ago, I was still under the impression that my son never made it to term.”
“What?”
“Over sixteen years ago I was involved in a mission that put Ra’s and I on the same side. During that time, Talia and I entered a relationship that resulted in a pregnancy. Though initially ecstatic, she eventually led me to believe she miscarried the child and pushed me away. For what ends, I do not know, but trust me Jason, if I knew—” He paused, the hand that was not on Damian’s shoulder curled into a tight fist.
Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why she hid it from me then doesn’t matter. Why Talia wants him back now is important. Judging from Daniel’s records, he was adopted into the Fenton family as an infant and has since lived a seemingly normal life as a civilian. His adoptive parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, are brilliant scientists and engineers focused on the field of paranormal studies. Eccentricities aside, they have zero connections to the League of Assassins or any other concerning parties.”
“So why now?” Dick asked, shifting his concerned gaze from Bruce to the static picture of Danny’s tired smile. “Why, after all this time, decide that now would be the best time to recover him?”
------
Danny’s experienced plenty of rude awakenings before, but waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to avoid his kidnapper-slash-assassin-slash-biological-mom launching a surprise attack takes the fucking cake. He can’t believe he’s saying this, but thank god for all those late night ghost attacks that conditioned him to be a light sleeper. And, of course, the League’s insistence that everyone be in optimal condition regardless of how little sleep you actually got.
Danny kicked Talia off of him, ripping his blanket away before scrambling to his feet. Seriously, if the universe decided to spontaneously give him powers again, he’d really like an upgrade to his ghost senses, please and thank you. Something that works on humans and not just ghosts. Like spidey-senses. He’d really, really like some spidey-senses.
“Your reaction times have improved considerably,” Talia said.
He eyed the katana sheathed beside his bedroll. “Thanks. Who could have guessed that constantly challenging someone to a spar in the unholy hours of morning would make them paranoid to sleep too much? Really, how am I supposed to grow taller at this rate? ” If he could just get it--
She smiled, taking a step forward. “Prepare yourself.”
“Heh.” Danny stepped further away from Talia, keeping his back to the mouth of the cave. One hand stretched in front of him and the other, coated in a green light, was kept hidden behind his back. “Am I actually gonna get some answers today?”
“Let us make it interesting. Last 10 minutes against me and I shall tell you more about your brother.” Talia twirled her blade. “If you happen to draw blood, you may ask any one thing of me.”
“Anything?”
“Within reason.”
His face caught between a grimace and a smile. He’d rather be sleeping right now, but if he had to be awake, then he’d better make the most of it. “Deal.”
Talia’s smile dropped. She veered her body to the right, barely dodging the streak of bright green that whizzed from behind her. The ectoplasmic energy that surrounded the katana bled away as the handle connected with Danny’s outstretched hand.
She quickly glanced back at Danny’s bedding. Beside it lay an empty sheath. “You have telekinesis?”
He shrugged. “It comes and goes.” Yeah, no way was Danny gonna admit that seven-out-of-ten-times he forgot that he had telekinesis. Besides, that shit was hard to do when he wasn’t Phantom.
“A surprise attack from behind is a sound strategy, Daniel. Though it’ll take a lot more than that to harm me.”
Danny pointed to the side of his cheek. “Are you sure about that?”
Talia frowned. She reached up to her face. Her fingers brushed against her cheek and came away with a thin streak of blood.
Danny grinned, pointing his blade at his opponent. “First blood goes to me.”
------
Fact: most fights don’t last long. An average street fight could last anywhere between 25 to 40 seconds, and sword fights rarely last over a minute. Like Talia said, the goal of a fight was to end it with as few injuries to oneself as possible. Humans, even the most skilled ones, can rarely last long in a fight. Prolonged combat is suicide; it makes you tired, makes your muscles heavy. It’s nothing like what Hollywood would have you believe.
Even with Danny’s own enhanced stamina and Talia holding back, he couldn’t last a full ten-minute spar. If Talia didn’t finish him within twenty-five seconds, then he’d fall by his own human limitations.
But the goal wasn’t to spar continuously for ten minutes.
He only had to last that long.
Danny sprinted out of the cave. The sun barely peeked out of the horizon, a thin line of deep orange breaking apart the wide expanse of blue-black sky above. He couldn’t see shit; great news since that meant there’s a good chance Talia couldn’t either, but that doesn’t fix the fact that he can’t see.
Nearly stumbling on the ice, Danny veered to the left. The edges of the lake stopped at towering rocks twice Danny’s height, leaving little room for cover. Though if he remembered correctly, there should be a few crevices here and there to hide in.
“You’ll have to be faster than that, Daniel.”
Shit—
Danny stopped. He brought his sword up to parry Talia’s strike and twisted away, putting distance between them.
Well, so much for just avoiding her for 10 minutes.
He adjusted his grip, keeping his sword steady and eyes trained on Talia as they circled each other. Danny lunged with an overhead strike. Talia used one hand to block the downswing by gripping his wrists. She thrust her sword forward, the tip harshly poking Danny’s abdomen.
“Less than three minutes.” Talia let his wrist go, Danny’s arms slumping to his sides.
He sighed as he sheathed his sword. “Damn, I thought I’d last longer than that.”
“You made a good effort,” Talia assured him. “Putting as much distance between us at the beginning was a good strategy. You recognized the win conditions immediately and attempted a battle of attrition.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am very proud of you habibi, especially as you managed to draw first blood.”
A warmth grew in Danny’s stomach at the words, heating his cheeks. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work, honestly.”
“It was clever; half a second later and you might have even killed me. You are an al Ghul through and through” She brushed his hair out of his face. “What would you like as your prize, then?”
Danny’s heart clenched. He frowned, dropping his arm to his side. If I was such an al Ghul, then why didn’t you keep me? The question lodged itself in his throat, stifling his thoughts. It was something he’d been wondering for a while, actually, in the moments of solitude he had at the compound. Talia, during their training, would always remark at his potential. How talented he was, how adaptable he was, how much greater he would have been if he had been trained at a younger age.
Well then, why wasn’t he? Why did she give him up?
But each time he tried to ask, his tongue would turn to lead and the moment would pass, the question still left unsaid and simmering at the back of his mind. A Pandora’s Box that held none of the world’s evil but all of Danny’s possible shortcomings.
He could ask the question now.
He could.
He didn’t.
“Why did you take me?”
Talia tilted her head. “It is because you’re my son.”
“No. Not that. It has to be something more than that. You had sixteen years to come back for me—or, hell, you could have just never left me.” His breath hitched, fingers mussing his hair and hiding his eyes. “Why else did you take me?”
“It is true that there was more than one reason why we decided to retrieve you from Amity Park. One of which is because you are my son and an heir of the Demon’s Head.” Talia stilled. The dark skies of dawn made it impossible for him to read her. “The second reason was to protect you.”
“You kidnapped me…to protect me?”
“Knowledge of the ghosts of Amity have spread through the more insidious parts of the world. There are many out there who would pay exorbitant fees to study one of you or to use you.”
Use him? What did she mean by—
Oh.
Ghosts—Amity Park’s brand of ghosts—were a new element that the world had to contend with. Amity Park might have a crime rate of zero but that wasn’t the case everywhere else. Theft, assault, murder; the world was rampant with crimes and criminals clawing their way to the very top. Having ghosts, even ones with the most basic powerset, would be a huge advantage.
“There’s no way that would work,” Danny insisted. “Most ghosts just want to be left alone, and the ones that want to wreak havoc would never work with humans. The only reason they even work with halfas like me at times is because they still consider us as ghosts.”
“If my sources are to be believed, ghosts might not even get a choice.”
Danny’s blood curdled in his veins.
No.
Someone’s found a way to control ghosts.
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thebigbadbatswife · 4 years ago
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The Witching Hour - Chapter 1 - All Hallows’ Eve
Summary - When her friends dragged her to Gotham’s old cemetery for some Halloween ghost hunting fun, Y/N really didn’t think her life would end up changing like this.
Chapter Warnings - referenced/implied character death
Word Count - 3.3k
The cell phone on your nightstand buzzed incessantly as your friends continued to spam your messages. They had been doing so for the past hour or so. You were surprised that the damn thing hadn’t vibrated off of the nightstand yet. When it finally stopped, when you finally thought they had given up, you returned your attention to the document you had open on your laptop. Just as you were about to start typing again, your phone resumed its buzzing.
Huffing, you shut your laptop’s lid, placed it on the bed next to you, reached over and grabbed your phone off the nightstand. Over eighty messages both from your friends individually and within the group chat, begging you to come along with them to the old cemetery that sat outside of town. They wanted to go because it was Halloween and that meant it was the best time to go ghost hunting! And they wanted you to go along because of how you were usually drawn to this type of stuff. As well as how this type of stuff was also usually drawn to you.
Come on! For old time’s sake? Plus we’re going to have a much better chance at actually catching something if you come along!
The message was from your friend John, the ringleader of your group. The reason you and your friends had always gotten into trouble at school. Now he was trying to work his magic once again.
Only because I’m a meta with an uncomfortably close relationship with death…
As far as you knew, your powers were genetic instead of being caused by that arc reactor explosion that had given a lot of metas their powers. You were able to look past the “Veil”, as it was called, and see and interact with spirits on the other side. Not that you did so often or even liked to do. It creeped you out and you sometimes saw things that would certainly traumatize most people if they saw them. Not to mention the strain on your body and mind each time you did it. 
Why the obsession with the old cemetery now?
It had been years since John had mentioned ghost hunting, let alone the old cemetery. Back during your last year of high school, it had been all John could talk about. He was convinced that it was where the “cool” ghosts would be hanging out. None of you had ever actually gone because your last year had passed surprisingly quickly and before you all knew it, you were all moving to different parts of the country for college. In all that time it had never been mentioned again. Until now.
Ha! She finally replies! I knew you wouldn’t leave us to scream into the void forever!
The next message was from Tom, your oldest friend. Unlike the others, you two had known each other since kindergarten. If anyone was capable of talking you into going, it was probably him.
It’s been years since all of us were in the same place at the same time! Not to mention it’s Halloween and a full moon! I don’t think it could be more perfect!
Well, he wasn’t wrong about that.
You know you want to come! And don’t you dare lie!
He wasn’t wrong about that either. You were a little curious. The cemetery was on the outskirts of Gotham City. According to the internet, the cemetery had members of Gotham’s oldest families buried there. If you were to use your powers there to look past the Veil, there was a chance some of those people could still be hanging around. It would certainly be an unique opportunity to converse with them and, perhaps, attempt to help move on. Or maybe you would find inspiration for your next short ghost story. You certainly had been struggling with inspiration recently so maybe this was exactly what you needed.
Okay! Fine! I’ll come!
You scoffed as you hit ‘send’. Once again, Tom had talked you into joining them. A small part of you was convinced he was a meta with some sort of manipulation power.  
That’s great! ‘Cause we’re already outside your house!
John replied, causing you to roll your eyes. Of course they were already outside. Why wouldn’t they be?
You locked your phone, got up from your bed and slipped your phone into your pocket. You grabbed your jacket from your wardrobe and made your way out of your bedroom and down the stairs. You grabbed your keys from the bowl on the table, near the front door.
“Y/N? Where are you going at this hour sweetheart?” your grandma called from the living room.
“I’m going to meet up with some old friends. I’ll be back soon!” you replied. You didn’t tell her where you guys were going since you knew she would most definitely disapprove.
“Stay safe!”
“Will do!”
After your parents’ death, your grandma had not only raised you, but helped you learn how to use your abilities so that, should you choose to, you’d be able to use them. Not that she would approve of you constantly using them. Looking through the Veil could sometimes draw the attention of extremely unwanted creatures that were looking for a route to the physical world. You knew how to defend yourself from them, but that didn’t mean you really wanted to get into that situation to begin with. If you were going to use your abilities tonight, you were going to have to be extremely careful.
The entire drive there, your friends excitedly talked about what they could potentially capture on either video or audio. John was driving, Tom sat in the passenger seat next to him and you were sitting in the back with Rebecca.
A couple of hours later and the car finally pulled up in front of the cemetery. John turned off the engine and you all got out. Since it was pretty much pitch black out here, you all got out your phones and turned on your flashlights.
Tall stone walls covered in moss and vines surrounded the cemetery and an old rusted iron gate stopped the car from going any further. Threaded through the bars of the gate was large rusted chain with an equally rusted padlock. Even if you guys had the key, you seriously doubted it would have worked anyway.
“Are you kidding me?” asked Tom, as he useless pulled against the chain. “This is so unfair!”
“Uh, maybe we could try to scale the walls or something?” Rebecca suggested as she walked over to where the vines seemed at their thickest. She gave them a gentle tug. “Looks like it might hold our weight, if we go up one by one.”
Tom shook his head. “And get covered in spiders? Yeah, no thanks!”
Rebecca frowned as she used her phone’s light to have a closer look at the vines. “I can’t see any spiders.”
“That’s because you’re not looking in the right spots,” he replied as he walked over to her. He shone his own light up at the vines.
While you walked over to them, to get a better look at what Tom was trying to show her, John shook his head and walked back toward the car.
“See all of those tiny turquoise dots shinning back at us?” he asked her as he pointed above where there were a lot of tiny turquoise dots sparkling in the light.
“Yeah, they’re like little drops of moisture right?”
“You would think, but they’re not! Those are the eyes of all those horrid little spiders!”
Rebecca squealed and immediately backed away from the wall. “Tom! Why the fuck would you tell me that! Fuck! There’s probably going to be so many of them inside the actual cemetery! And now I know how to spot them!”
“I don’t think that’s going to be much of an issue considering we can’t get in anyway,” you said as you gestured toward the very locked gate. This whole thing was starting to feel like a massive waste of time.
“Oh! But we can!” John announced as he strode on over to you three with a large pair of bolt cutters in hand. He also had a backpack slung over his shoulder. As he cut the chain, John explained how he had swung by here earlier to see if there was anything that would stop you lot from getting in. When he saw the chain, he had gone to the hardware store, that was located in the worst part of the city, and bought these. “Only place I could find that had bolt cutters big enough for a chain like this!”
“Aren’t we like breaking the law or something right now?” Rebecca asked just as the cutters snipped through the chain and it clanged against the gate.
“Probably,” John replied very nonchalantly. “But we’re pretty much committed at this point now. Besides, look at this place! No one’s been here in years! I seriously doubt we’re going to get caught.”
The iron gate creaked loudly as it was pushed open and you all headed inside. The others walked ahead while you trailed behind. The way they were talking, discussing who was buried here and therefor who they could potentially “contact”, made you feel like you had time-travelled back to high school.
When you all got to the centre of the cemetery, John took the backpack off and opened it. It was filled with all sorts of equipment that was used in modern day ghost hunting. Voice recorders, emf meters, even a couple of high end night vision cameras. Damn, he had really gone all out for this. After the gear had been handed out, John began to give everyone directions as to where they were off to investigate.
Tom and Rebecca were going to be investigating the southwest of the cemetery, which was the newest part, John was headed up to the north, where some mausoleums were shaded by an old willow tree and you:
“And Y/N, you get the oldest part of the cemetery which is toward the east!”
“Right, of course, send the meta to the creepiest part of this place,” you said, playfully rolling your eyes.
“Well, you said it, not me! Good luck and we’ll meet back here in a couple of hours,” John replied. With that, you all split up and went your separate ways.
The cemetery was vastly overgrown. Most of the headstones were buried beneath the long unruly grass, brambles and vines. Every now and then your flashlight would catch a glimpse of the grey stone underneath. You also caught more glimpses of those glowing spider eyes and were doing your best to ignore them. You really hated Tom sometimes.
Thanks to all of the plants, you could barely see the path. The only thing that indicated you were walking on one was every now and then you could feel a stone slab shift underneath your feet.
The further east you walked, the darker and darker the cemetery seemed to get. It also seemed to get creepier and creepier, which was strange to you because you never really found cemeteries creepy. Instead you had always found them peaceful. A lot of people found you weird for that. There was also the feeling that something was watching you. The uneasiness that came along with that feeling was enough to prevent you from using either your recorder or your abilities. If there really was something watching you, you got the feeling that the last thing you wanted to do was attract its attention. After all, who knew what truly lurked here? Especially on the other side.
You eventually reached a group of mausoleums. Much like the rest of the cemetery, they were covered in bramble, vines and other plantlife. They were tall and the parts of them you could see, you could tell were certainly made of far more expensive stone than the rest of the place. This wasn’t just the oldest part, this was also the richest part.
You approached a few of the mausoleums and managed to clear away some of the plants covering the name plates. The majority of the names had been erased due to the elements, but not all of them. The names that were still readable were also names you recognised. Kane, Elliot, Crowne. Three of the First Families of Gotham.
You were about to approach another when you saw something large and black move, out of the corner of your eye. You spun around and shone your flashlight in the direction of the shadow, but there was nothing there.
“Hello?” you called out, which was probably a terrible idea, but it was the only thing you could think of doing. “Who’s there?” You waited for a reply, but no reply came.
Was your nerves making you see things? It couldn’t be a spirit; you weren’t using your powers. Unless… Throughout your life you had heard of non metas who had “seen” things in their peripheral vision. Sometimes they were spirits that had briefly broken through the Veil, other times it really was just people imagining things. Until now you had never experienced it before and you hated how impossible it was to tell which one it was.  
Turning on your phone’s screen, you looked at the time. You still had an hour before you had to head back to meet back up with the others. Turning the screen off again, you looked back in the direction you had seen the shadow move toward. Did you follow? It sounded like an awful idea, but the only other thing you could do was head back early and then wait around for everyone else, and that sounded incredibly boring.
‘ Okay, guess I’m doing this then,’ you thought as you began to head down the path, in the direction the shadow had gone.
You had previously thought that there was no way this cemetery could be anymore overgrown than it already was. This new part you were now walking through proved you wrong. Extremely wrong.
Branches hanging low off of trees and thorns from the brambles tugged at your clothing as you passed them. You had to keep an extra careful eye out on where you were stepping so that you didn’t trip over and injure yourself. There were more mausoleums, but you could barely make their shapes out through all of the greenery.
As you walked, that feeling that something was watching you increased tenfold and you found yourself constantly glancing back. Each time you looked you were met with the same result. There was nothing there.
‘ It’s just my overactive imagination ,’ you told yourself, but that did nothing to soothe your growing fear. What if the thing you had seen had been an actual person? And not a good person at that. This was Gotham after all and for some reason Halloween was when most, if not all, the psychopaths suddenly came out to play. Were you about to become another notch in some serial killer’s knife hilt? Oh, you really hoped not. That was not how you wanted to go.
Before your mind could lead you down a dark path of all the vivid ways you could be brutally murdered right now, the path came to an end. At the end of it sat a lone mausoleum. This one didn’t look nearly as old as the others nor was it as covered in plants like the rest. As you walked over to it you saw one of the large iron doors had fallen off its hinges and now laid on the ground.
Cautiously, you approached the entrance. When you were close enough, you shone your light on the name plate. The name ‘Wayne’ was engraved on to it. You got a feeling that that was somehow important, but you really didn’t know why. Nor why you were so drawn to it. Almost as if you were now on autopilot, you stepped inside the mausoleum.
The first two names you saw were Martha and Thomas Wayne. Even years after their deaths, you knew the names well. Before their untimely deaths they had been trying to use their fortune to help the city and its more vulnerable citizens.
The next name you saw, you didn’t recognise. Jason Peter Todd. You were shocked when you saw his death date. “Fuck, you were barely sixteen years old,” you whispered. That was... that was not fair at all.
The last name was Bruce Wayne. It stood out to you a lot more than the others had. Almost as if it was…. Glowing? What? That made no sense. Okay, you were definitely just seeing things now. To prove that to yourself, you turned your flashlight off. The name continued to glow, in fact now it was a hell of a lot brighter.
“What the fuck?”
You peered closer to see if there was any small lights or something similar causing it to glow, but there wasn’t anything. The name was actually glowing! Freaked out, you took a picture of it (without the flash of course), and sent it to Tom. A few agonising minutes passed before he finally replied.
Why are you sending me a completely black photo?
What? You checked the picture you had sent and, yeah, the name was definitely visible.
Can’t you see the glowing name?
If Tom couldn’t see it, then what did that mean?
What are you on about? There’s nothing there. Are you okay?
Was this somehow related to your powers? Is that why Tom wasn’t able to see it? If that was the case, and with each passing second it seemed to be, then he or the others couldn’t help.
Yeah, I’m fine. Nevermind.
Sighing, you checked the time before you shut off you phone and slipped it into your pocket. Thirty minutes before you had to head back. You were on your own. If this was related to your powers then what exactly did you do with it? Your grandma had never mentioned anything like this before, so you had no clue. You still felt uneasy and this new discovery had done nothing to help so you really didn’t want to peer through the Veil, unless it was absolutely necessary.
Would anything happen if you reached out and touched it? You sometimes got flashes of memories or feelings when you touched some items. Maybe this could be the same? You supposed the only way to find out would be to touch the stone. Cautiously you reached out and pressed the palm of your hand against the cold stone.
Images flashed through your mind. Movie tickets, a pearl necklace, a gun. There was the sound of the gun firing, a child’s blood chilling scream and the loud wailing of police sirens. Then it was over and you were brought back to reality, with far more questions than you had previously started with.
Before you were able to question or make sense of what you had seen, your phone vibrated. Taking it out, you saw a text from John, as well as several others.
Are you nearly here?
We were supposed to meet up fifteen minutes ago. Where are you?
Did your phone die?
It did, didn’t it. Unless you’re currently doing one of your meta things?
So what had simply been mere seconds for you in reality had been forty five minutes for everyone else. Which wasn’t all that unusual for you, but could certainly make people that didn’t deal with it daily worry. With that in mind, you fingers flew across your keyboard as you typed out your reply.
Yeah, meta thing, sorry. I’m on my way back now.
You turned your flashlight back on and walked back to the entrance. Before leaving, you looked back to where the glowing of Bruce Wayne’s name was now slowly fading away. Whoever he had been, he was asking for your help. You were sure of it and that’s exactly what you were going to do.
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damn-stark · 4 years ago
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The Dark Lord
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Chapter 11 of Different Light
A/N- Hope you guys like this chapter :) let me know what you thought?
Warning- Mention of violence and torture, angst, SLOWBURN.
Pairing- Harry Potter x Malfoy!reader, Fred Weasley x Malfoy!reader
(Let me know if you want to be tagged)
————
“It’s okay if you don’t get him on the first time,” George tries to assure you as he whispers in one ear and Fred whispers in the other.
“You’ll probably nail it on the second, again this is just practice.”
You side-eye them both and step away to spin around and face them with a fake appreciative smile on your lips. “I love your words of encouragement, I promise to try my best.”
“We’ll still be your friends after, okay?”
You touch your chest and pretend to be touched by George’s words whilst you walk back to stand on the mat, seeing said boy only grin at you before you turn to face Harry a couple feet across from you on the same mat.
Once you’re in a ready stance, you hold your wand with one hand and ignore the stares from the students watching to the side to focus on Harry across from you. Said boy also gets on a ready stance and his blue eyes meet yours before he loudly says, “wands on the ready.”
You lift your wand and watch Harry lift his own, resulting in the both of you to be in a standoff as you both waited to see if either one or the other would wave their wand to do the stun first. It took a few seconds of just waiting, of just keeping each other’s eyes on one another, but that’s when you took your opportunity to strike; you shot him a small and sweet smile and you caught as his fingers faltered on his wand, causing you to swiftly wave your wand and shout, “stupify.” Sending a small blue energy ball that hits him in the chest and sends him flying back.
You grin with excitement and pride after what you did and hear Harry groan, whilst there's murmurs from some students and giggles from others. Harry is quick to recover nonetheless and doesn’t hesitate to give you a compliment.
“Nice job, y/n. That was perfect.”
You offer him a smile before turning to the twins and pridefully offering them a small bow before you walk off to join Hermione and Clementine on the sidelines as others walk on the mat.
“ALL STUDENTS WILL SUBMIT TO QUESTIONING ABOUT suspected ILLICIT Activities.”
Isn’t that bloody amazing, the pink lady is just asking to be badly pranked.
Not like she’ll dare and pull you into her office for any sort of questioning—not because of what your house was, but because of who your father was, she knew if that one word would be sent to him from you, there would be hell to pay. The pink lady knew how to push your buttons, but this was one she couldn’t dare and press.
“A little higher,” you hear Harry instruct Cho, as he stood closely behind her and pressed his hand on hers to tilt it the right way. At the gentle action, and the way she turned to look at him, your grip around your wand tightened and anger began to boil in the pit of your stomach—you knew that you shouldn’t be angry, but you couldn’t help it, especially when he met her gaze and she got distracted and let the boy fall, it made you burn within and use a little too magic, resulting in the girl you were levitating to fly to the ceiling.
“Ahh.”
Your eyes fly to her and the anger painted on your face drops and twists into one filled with remorse. “Sorry!”
You gently bring the girl down and repeat your comment once more before you catch Clementine staring at you and giving you a disapproving head shake. Albeit it wasn’t for what had just happened, but about what she saw had just angered you—nonetheless you responded by not responding, just looking away and going the rest of the session trying not to look at Harry, making sure that once the end came you made a swift exit with the twins, following them to participate in one of their pranks against Mr. Filch.
“Now to wait,” Fred whispers from above you as he pokes his head out of the halls corner and waits like George and you do for Mr. Filch to come to his little set up in front of where the secret room door usually opens. It doesn’t take long for him to come to his post and once he does he doesn’t hesitate to open the heart shaped chocolate filled box. Making the twins and you grin proudly before sneaking off and sharing a fist bump.
“THOSE WISHING TO JOIN THE INQUISITORIAL SQUAD for EXTRA CREDIT May sign up in high inquisitors OFFICE.”
“We should join it,” Clementine suggests making you twist your head to shoot her a weird look. “I mean think about it, she can’t say anything about it, if she does just simply throw the daddy card and she’ll have nothing to do but let you in the bloody group.”
“Except the reason she’s forming this group is because of our,” you lean closer to her to continue in a whisper, “illicit activities.”
Clementine leans closer to you and finally takes her eyes off the post on the wall, smirking widely before copying your whisper. “That’s exactly why we’re joining, to have a foot on each side, trick them and guide them the wrong way.”
A smirk finally tugs on your lips and before long you’re both in her office along with other Slytherin (including your brother) joining the inquisitorial squad and getting funny medals—and once the pink lady reaches you, she hesitates to give you the medal, shooting you a discreet and well covered up glare that you simply respond with a melious smile.
You knew she didn’t want to give it to you, she didn’t want to let you join, you knew she suspected you of being in the secret group, but you didn’t let her intimidate you. You raised an eyebrow and kept your gaze on her, smiling wider as she ended up placing the medal on you and moving along. Once the object is on your cardigan you scrunch your nose at how irrelevant this really was, you didn’t express it but you knew Clementine knew it too.
Draco on the other hand thought this was the best thing ever, he hit your shoulder to gain your attention and showed off the same medal you had. The excitement on his face was hard to put down so you mirrored his grin and joined him in his excitement.
For now.
“Okay, now, Malfoy, this dummy is enhanced,” Clementine explains to you from the wooden dummy’s side as she has her hands on each side of it.
Herimone steps on the other side of the dummy and adds her own explanation, “Clementine and I made it so that as you’re ready in the middle, the dummy will move around as if it were a real enemy, okay? Your job is to not get hit and quickly disarm it before it hits you.”
“O...okay,” you sigh out as you step to the middle of the mat and hold your wand with one hand. “Sounds easy.”
“Should be.” Hermione assures you with a matching smile. Clementine and her step back and start up the dummy, leaving you to quickly react by swerving away from the stun it shot.
“Damn,” you hiss, spinning to the other side to face it after it spun around. Quickly you wave your wand and shout out, “expelliarmus!” But the dummy avoids your move and spins again, this time standing behind you and not waiting for you to turn to shoot a disarming spell; something you barely manage to avoid by ducking and turning on your heels to face its different position.
“I’m done with you,” you grumble while you grip onto your wand and swiftly have to turn to face it, shooting a spell, but missing it, causing it to rush behind you once more in attempts to catch you off guard. Albeit this time you were quick to think on your feet. You jumped to your side and threw your unoccupied hand out and in an annoyed and heated anger you shouted out, “stupify!” And in a blink of an eye the fast stunning ball shot out of your hand and sent the dummy flying back to the mirror, shattering it completely and earning the immediate attention from the two girls that had been watching.
“What?” Hermione gasped in disbelief, “how did you do that so perfectly? I mean I know that wandless magic could be performed, but it’s difficult for us here since we’re all accustomed to wands.”
You scratch the back of your neck and simply shrug. “I practice. I’ve been practicing for years.”
“That was impressive, y/n.” You hear Harry compliment you as he comes to stand by Clemtentine. “I can’t even do that.”
A heat instantly grows on your face and you smile shyly. “Thank you Harry.”
Said boy and you share a lingering gaze, but before long you have to look away as Clementine's comment caught your attention. Harry’s on the other hand remained stuck on you as he looked at you in disbelief and awe, a smile remained on his face and he had thought no one caught the admiration behind it; the hidden, unspoken feelings behind the gesture, but he was wrong. Herimone had been watching and caught on to the look and the smile.
——
“So that's it for this lesson.” Harry shared with the gathered group. “Now we won’t be meeting again until after the holidays, so just keep practicing on your own as best as you can. And well done everyone. Great, great work.”
The group alongside you clap after Harry’s little speech, not hesitating for too long for them all to disperse and walk out of the room and giving Harry a final goodbye before the holidays. While you on the other hand lagged behind, waving off Clementine and meeting Harry at the end of the room.
“You’re good at this you know,” you smile, “teaching. Plus all the students really like you as their mentor.”
Harry shrugs and a faint blush grows on his cheeks. “It’s...it’s not only me.”
You scoff, “it’s all you. You’re a great teacher. I mean I like to think I’m good, but after getting taught by you I come to realize that I can be better. So thank you for also teaching me.”
Harry slowly smiles and you see him swallow thickly, letting his eyes slowly drift down to your lips for a split second before he was forced to pull them away as Fred and George came up behind you—“we were thinking Harry, we could always slip Umbridge some puking pastilles into her tea.”
“Or fever foot, they give you these massive puss—filled balls—”
“Sounds great guys, would you excuse me.”
Without anything left to say, Harry walks off past you and you’re forced to follow the twins out of the room. Before you can leave completely you look back to what has suddenly been so urgent to Harry Potter, and see that it was only one thing, one girl more like; Cho Chang. At the sight of them two close again, you clench your jaw and scoff before fuming out of the room with the twins at your side.
They don’t notice your anger and how bothered you were at the knowledge of Harry and Cho alone together, (not like it should really be a real issue), but you just couldn’t help it, it boiled at the pit of your stomach and it only mixed with your anger on why you got mad. It was...stupid.
“Y/N?”
“Huh?”
Fred chuckles, “I said we could do it before we leave for the holidays.”
You blink and look up at him, narrowing your gaze and parting your lips in confusion. “Do what?”
“Prank...Umbridge...where are you?”
You giggle nervously and shake your head to dismiss the worry in his tone. “I’m sorry, it’s—”
“It’s that letter isn’t it? The one from your stepmum?”
The faint smile slowly begins to disappear and a frown doesn’t fail to replace in its place. “No. It’s not.” You turn your eyes away from him and sigh, lifting your lips into a feigned smile and walking ahead of them to turn to head to your common room with only a quick goodbye. “Well this is the last I’ll be seeing of you two until after the holidays, I’ll be busy so please don’t send letters.” You quicken your pace and talk quickly over your shoulder. “Okay?”
Fred blinks in disbelief and tries to catch up, but you only quicken your pace and turn to your given hall. “Wait, y/n, is that it? Aren’t we talking tomorrow?”
You finally come to a halt and fully turn around to face him, walking to him at the end of the hall and offering him a small smile before you kissed his cheek. “On the train?”
He nods and a smile slowly returns on his face. “Of course. I guess we’ll have to postpone our prank until after then?”
You grin and wink. “Until after.”
——
Just as Fred and you had agreed to meet on the train before you got to the station and you would be without contact for a few weeks, he never showed, just like George nor the rest of his family didn’t; in fact Harry, nor Hermione were on the train either, it was strange. Yet you didn’t have time to question it, or people to ask for information. You were left clueless. For a while. Until you got home and found out the reason why the Weasley family, Harry and Hermione weren’t on the train home.
Apparently Mr. Weasley had suffered an attack; the details weren’t all there since Narcissa made sure it wasn’t spoken on your first day back home, or at all in fact. Not like she was really protecting you from anything considering the burden you knew was going to be put on your shoulders.
“Are you ready?”
You stand up from your chair and turn to face Narcissa entering the room. “Yes, I think I am.” You take a look at her and realize something. “Are you not going?”
Narcissa drops her gaze and shakes her head. “No, just your father and you.” Narcissa lifts her eyes and walks to stand closer before you. “Draco is not going either. I managed to convince your father not to take him, to not get him involved...I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same for you, my love.”
Carefully you begin to rub your wrists and whisper. “Good, I don’t want Draco involved.” Slowly you return your gaze back to her and smile softly, “thank you for trying.”
Narcissa cups your cheeks and smiles warmly before pressing a kiss on your forehead and pulling away to fix the collar of your jacket. “I’ll see you on Christmas, okay? I’ve got presents to give your brother and you.”
A knock sounds on your open door and pulls your attention towards it to see your father and an upset Draco behind him. “It’s time to go.”
You nod and just before you could walk towards your father, Narcissa stops you and gives you a tight hug that she took a moment to part away from; it felt like she just didn’t want to let you go, when she did it was only because your father called again. Even then she followed the both of you until you had disapparated away.
“When we get in there, don’t leave my side, talk only if he talks to you and don’t hold back.” Your father stops in the gravel and turns to face you, his blue eyes burning into your own eyes. “Do you understand me?”
You look to the door of the dark eery hotel and nod slowly, drifting your gaze to your fathers once you feel his hand on your shoulder. “I understand,” you swallow thickly and just as you hook your arm around your fathers and continue towards the hotel, you ask one last thing in a shaky voice. “Will I become a death eater?”
Your father sighs and even if he tried to hide it there was a falter in his confidence, he showed a fear that was so rare for you to see in him. His answer was so different and made fear finally strike within you. “I don’t know.”
You clench your free hand tightly and remain silent for the rest of the way up to the hotel, feeling your nerves heighten as you reach the final door that would lead to the inevitable.
So far nothing was out of order, the hotel was empty and dark but nothing beside that was off. Not until the door opened and it revealed a small, skittish man with a goldenhand that welcomed your father and you with a creepy smile that made your nose scrunch. Yet that wasn’t the weird part of walking into the dark, dirty room, what surprised you most was seeing professor Snape inside the room, standing by the fireplace.
Once he recognized you, he straightened out his shoulders and looked at you with a widened gaze that he was quick to disguise by returning to his usual, deep nonchalant expression; that or the one where he seemed to be disappointed at the world.
“Snape, I’m surprised you’re here, I was told you wouldn’t be attending.” Your father tells Snape.
“I was told this meeting was important,” his dark eyes glance at you for a few seconds before he continues. “I can see why now.”
Professor Snape was never someone you hated like the other students did, his classes were fun until Umbridge changed everything, and he was never a professor you disliked. Yes the previous year you might have messed around in his class, but he never treated you poorly like he did the other students, he almost appeared to tolerate you more than he did others. So you didn’t dislike his presence here; it was just very surprising even if it shouldn’t be.
Regardless your father and Professor snape talked, and since you had nothing else to do but wait as the other death eaters slowly filtered in, you listened, only truly paying attention to one conversation.
“Snape, I wanted to ask you a favor. I predict the Dark Lords intentions with my daughter and with that I know that school won’t be a safe place for her to roam with what she’ll learn here,” your father explained in a more hushed tone, making sure no rats heard what they weren’t supposed to. “I want you to give my daughter private occlumency lessons. I only trust you.”
Snape glances at you and his eyes stay on you for a few seconds before they dig into your father, he sighs deeply and answers bluntly. “I’ll do it, but only if she wants me to teach her.”
Once again, the attention drifts to you and you don’t hesitate to answer with an eager nod. “I’d appreciate it.”
“Fine, every Friday after NEWTS.”
A small appreciative smile grows on your lips and even if you meant it for the professor, he was quick to ignore you. Not like he had much of a choice because not minutes after, everyone went eerily silent and you were pulled off your seat to watch as the door opened, letting in a beautiful snake with a long smooth body; it was dark and captivating, yet intimidating.
Nothing like it’s master, who walked in shortly after. No it—he was frightening and ugly; he had pale white skin, and his nose was like a snakes. His eyes were the only thing normal about him, because the rest was disfigured. His appearance made you grip onto your father tighter, like if your life depended on it.
You didn’t let him frighten you, or dismilsh your confidence, or bravery, you sat tall and confident. Only faltering slightly at the sound of his voice. “Welcome back my friends, and welcome to the new faces around the table. Today we have united to discuss the plans for some of our captured family, and the topic of our new potential member.” His eyes landed on you and then slid to your father sat beside you.
“My Lord,” your father added in a proud voice while he stood up. “May I present you to my oldest child, my daughter, Y/N Malfoy.”
After the introduction you stood up and tugged your lips into a feigned tight lipped smile, you bowed your head and spoke up in a loud voice that hid how you really felt. “It’s an honor.”
“Ah, I do remember her, she was only a baby then; the bastard child.”
The feigned smile on your lips falters while you and your father sit back down. You of course don’t add anything and felt a slight flicker of anger at the cruel name he called you.
“It’s good to see that you, my child, will follow in your fathers footsteps.” The Dark Lord continues with a wicked smile growing on his pale thin face. “Of course if it weren’t for your fathers...mistakes, you wouldn’t be here.”
“I assure you, being here,” you interject after you dug your nails into your chair, “following my fathers footsteps is an honor. I wouldn’t want nothing more.”
“So well spoken,” Lord Voldemort answers in a more calm voice. “I see why you praise her so much, Lucius. Now prove to us that she is as skilled as you claim.” Voldemort sits back in his chair and begins to stroke the snake's head, following your fathers movements with his cold eyes.
“Wormtail, bring it here.”
Said tiny man scurrys off instantly after your fathers command and doesn’t take long to return with a small cage in his hand, walking to your side and placing it in front of you before returning to where he was sitting—now you don't need anyone to tell you what to do next, they were testing you, trying to embarrass your family if you got this wrong; that was clear to see, it was painted all over the faces of Voldemort and his followers.
“Now child you do know the three unforgivable curses right?” Lord Voldemort asked in a chilling voice that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Nonetheless you stand up and nod, drifting your gaze away from him to look down at the cage that you had yet to see what it contained. “I want you to perform them on that creature inside the cage.”
“But my Lord,” your father dared to protest, “she’s simply a child, she hasn’t completed school yet, she hasn’t mastered—”
“Anyone could do it, if you put your mind to it, you claim she’s strong, so this will be nothing. Don’t worry no one outside this room will know she did it”
“I can do it,” you interject confidently, sparing your father one last look before turning your attention to the cage and opening it to see a rat run out. You put your wand on the table and slowly extend your hand out, taking in a deep breath and slowly releasing it before having to do as you were told. “Imperio.”
Your hand began to tremble a bit at the energy and strength you were using to cast the spell and have the rat do your bidding, but you were managing it; you made the rat run to the pit fireplace where before it could burn, you brought it back to the center of the table.
Now you had to perform the cruciatus curse, but that unlike the other was more difficult, you kept the rat in the middle, but before you could utter the next spell, you had to clear your mind, convince yourself that you wanted to hurt this innocent animal, that you hated it. It was a difficult task because you didn’t want to do it, but you remembered what was on the line; your family’s life, they were the only thing that mattered, and even if they hadn’t mentioned it, you knew that if you didn’t do well they would have to pay for your failure. So there was no point in hesitating.
You sigh and once again speak out a spell, “crucio.”
In an instant the rat begin to squirm and screech loudly; as you made up these fake emotions in your head, the rat only screeched out in pain louder and you only began to turn your head away so you wouldn’t see how it twisted its body, how it looked under the pain you casted. You wanted to stop, but you knew doing so early on would bring consequence, so you only increased the pain and made Lord Voldemort’s interest peak until he finally stopped you.
“Good, good, that’s enough of that, now,” he scoffs out of amusement and stands up from his chair, “do the last spell.”
You nod stiffly and return your gaze back to the animal in front of you, this time you hesitate, glancing at your father who was already looking at you. He saw the hesitance in your eyes and just offered you a simple nod that he used to gesture to you to continue. It wasn’t really comforting, but it worked.
So with one hand you grip onto the table and the other you flex before you, you look at the rat and release a deep breath, you ignore the curious stares from the silent watchers and you finally muster enough courage to cast the final spell. “Avada Kedavra.”
A bright, blinding green bolt of light shoots out of your hand and hits the rat on the table, swiftly stopping its struggle and ending its life.
After the spell, after the light disappeared and brought back the dim light that was lit from above, you stumbled back after the effect of how much power it was and your father was quick to grab your shoulders to keep you in balance, not having time to check on you as Lord Voldemort interrupted him with a slow clap.
“I’m impressed, what should have been so hard to do without the use of a wand, was so easy to accomplish from someone so young.” He sat back down and you finally looked back at his pale and thin face, but not after noticing the shock stricken expressions on the death eaters faces. “It seems your father didn’t waste his time in teaching you. You’ll make a perfect death eater, you’ll fit nicely right next to your brother.”
Your eyes widen and you clench your fists tightly. Now you should have stayed quiet, but you couldn’t. “No.”
“Hmm?” Lord Voldemort stood up and slowly made his way behind you, pressing his hands tightly on your shoulders and whispered by your ear. “What did you say?”
“No,” you breathed out shakily, “I’ll become a death eater, but not my brother.”
“Y/N.” Your father hissed.Not like you listened.
“I don’t want Draco to live through this, I want him to have a normal life until he can, he’s just a kid.”
Voldemort chuckles and pulls away, patting your fathers back before walking back and creating a tension in the room. “You’ve raised them right, Lucius. Her loyalty is admirable. She’ll do anything for her family, just like we all would, she’s fit to be a death eater. Not like she had much of a choice right?”
“Right.” Your father repeats with a small forced smile.
“She’ll become a death eater when she comes of age which is….”
“In the summer.”
“Until then.”
You sit back down and finally breathe out a heavy and shaky breath, it felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders—even if a heavy burden had just fallen upon you. There was no way to avoid what you would become, you couldn’t have a say in it even if you tried. As much as you tried to be the good person, prove that you weren’t like your family, now you would be just like them. The one thing you could try and do now is try to keep Draco from the same fate.
Wherever becoming a death eater would take you anyway….now your future was unclear.
One thing was for certain though, your standing with your secret defensive group is stronger. At least you had control of that, at least that brought a small glimmer of hope that you would avoid your dark fate, that Draco would avoid it.
Then again how could you continue in Dumbledore's army? Now that you would be Harry Potter's literal enemy, as much you knew you liked him, you were one of the people he hated.
If it came down to it, if—when you do become a death eater and it came down to it, you would have to fight Harry. Even if you didn’t want to, you would. Would he forgive you? Understand you?
What about Fred?
“This is hard,” you groan loudly as you slide off the couch.
“What is?” Draco quieres curiously.
“Stuff.” You simply throw at him.
“What stuff? If you would tell me what happened in that meeting I’d understand.” Draco kept nagging.
Again you groan whilst you sit up straight, “I told you—”
“Are you going to be a death eater, like father?”
“Uh,” you blink and rub the inner corner of your eyes, “yes.”
“What? How come I’m not!”
“Because Draco you can’t. You’re just...a kid.” You mutter.
“A kid?! No I’m not! I’m for more mature than any other student in my year, I’m smart and skilled, I—”
“Because Draco I won’t let you!” You cut him off before you jumped to your given height and stormed to your room, where you just flopped on your bed and blankly stared at the ceiling and whispered, “what am I going to do?”
You were of course without answers. You badly wanted someone to talk to, but no one would truly understand...maybe Harry would, but you couldn’t tell him everything...it wouldn’t be safe. Just like it wouldn’t be safe for anyone else to know what troubled you.
Once again you were starting to drift into a lonely secluded corner. What were you going to do?
.
.
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shera-dnd · 3 years ago
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And we're back again with some high quality knight's and magic shit. I put my...girl?...boy? Let's go with girl for now, anyways I put Weiss through a lot, but I let her cut a fireball in half so I think we're even.
The sky was beautiful that night, not that it did much to improve Weiss’s situation, but laying on the ground like she was, watching the night sky was the only thing she could really do. Of course she had rid herself of the roots and vines already, but she simply lacked a reason to rise from the ground anymore.
Perhaps in the morning Lady Blake would return and find her still laying there, unmoving, then the knight would ask her what had happened, and Weiss would have to explain everything to her. Weiss...did not look forward to that. Maybe she should have let the roots drag her down.
No, if she did that then people would start searching for her, and if they found out what happened to her then they’d hunt down Lady Ilia.
Oh, Weiss, you fool.
Even after everything you still want to protect her.
Of course she does. Of course she wants to protect Ilia, she meant the world to Weiss, and she had picked this night to tell her so. But once again things did not go the way she planned. The worst part was that Ilia loved her back, she truly did, but that only made her resent and hate Weiss, as if she had somehow manipulated Ilia into loving her.
Weiss wanted to be angry, wanted to hate Ilia back, but she couldn’t. For all the years that her father spent trying to teach her to be as hateful as he was, all it took was a few days among people who truly cared for her, for her to learn how to love instead. Now she wished she didn’t, because no one told her that love could ruin her.
No, this was unlike her, she shouldn’t be letting something like this drive her to inaction. She picked up the broken pieces of herself and put them together long enough for her to at least have dinner and then collapse in her tent.
It took some effort to achieve this, a great part of it used simply to keep herself from thinking about how this meal was made for two, but eventually she managed to put enough food in her body that she would not starve, and began the long drag towards her tent. She did not expect to sleep much tonight, but it wouldn’t do to stay outside and become sick from the exposure.
“Weiss.”
She didn’t know when her eyes had closed or when sleep had taken her. She knew only that it was still dark outside and that someone had called her name. Or perhaps not, perhaps that had been just part of some half forgotten dream. It had felt real enough to wake her up, but now that she was awake she questioned that it even happened.
“Weiss.”
That got her to stand. She stepped out of the tent and began looking around. It still felt strange, as if she had imagined it, but it was still louder and more real than before. Was this also a dream? It was infuriating that she couldn’t quite put a finger on what was happening.
“Weiss!”
Now that was real. A terrified wail, a helpless cry. Someone needed her help. No, not someone, it was Ilia. That was her voice, calling her from within the forest. Weiss didn’t question it, she didn’t stop to think, she had to help her now. She grabbed her sword and quickly dashed for the woods without a second thought.
“Weiss! Weiss!”
Her voice continued to cry, the wind carrying it an impossible distance as Weiss followed its call. It was Ilia’s magic, she thought, she was calling the winds to carry her cries for help.
She didn’t know of the other fae in these woods.
She didn’t know they had played this trick before.
Even then would she really stop to question it? Would she really risk it when the woman she loved called for her help? No, she wouldn’t. So she ran through hidden trails, and down non-existent paths. She leaped from shadow to shadow, through roots and branches, until she reached a place humanity had never touched.
And then the sound stopped.
All sound stopped. It was as if the forest had been put under a spell, or perhaps as if Weiss had left the forest altogether, and this clearing was its own world, displaced from her own. She, unfortunately, wasn’t afforded time to question those things any further.
“Lady Weiss Schnee,” a voice greeted her from among the trees.
“It is so nice of you to grace us with your presence,” another followed.
Her hand reached for the hilt of her sword instinctively, though she did not draw it yet. Cautiously she studied the woods around her, trying to find the origin of their voices.
“You wouldn’t draw iron upon your hosts, now would you?” The first voice taunted.
“And our little sister spoke so highly of you,” added the second.
“Ilia!?” She exclaimed without thinking, “where is she? What have you done to her?”
The voices cackled, their laughs melding into each other, into a single discordant sound that echoed through the once silent woods.
“Ilia?” The first voice mocked, “I don’t recognize that name, brother.”
“Do you know who that is, sister Amitola?” The other asked.
“That’s me,” came a weak response from behind her.
Weiss quickly turned around, finding that where once was a tree, now sat the bound form of Ilia’s true self. Her arms and legs were tied, her wings had been charred and burned, and her skin glowed a depressive blue.
“Ilia!” She called, rushing to her side and releasing her as fast as she could.
“Weiss,” she replied, her white eyes now full of hurt, “please go away.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Weiss insisted.
“This is a trap, you idiot!”
As soon as her arms were freed she grabbed a hold of her savior and pulled her down, both of them rolling out of the way of a jet of flames. When Weiss managed to regain her composure she was greeted by the sight of the most terrifying creature she ever laid eyes on.
It towered over the both of them, a mass of orange and white fur, with a maw that still let out smoke. Its four eyes scanned the clearing, each pair of them moving separately from the other, before they all focused on Weiss and Ilia on the ground.
It opened its mouth and the first voice spoke, “I thought you wished to help us, sister Amitola.”
Ilia flinched at that name.
“All you had to do,” the second voice spoke through that same mouth, “was lay down and let you both die.”
Flames spilled out of the fae’s mouth and Weiss barely had time to draw her blade. Iron struck against fire, and the magic that sustained it was ripped apart, killing the flames before they could do them any harm.
“I will not let you hurt Lady Ilia any further,” Weiss declared, sword pointed at that fire breathing monstrosity.
“Look at you, so eager to die for her,” laughed the second voice.
Weiss took the offensive, jumping forward with a stab of her blade. The fae dodged aside and swiped at her, but she had already retreated to Ilia’s side. They had range on her, but she had speed and iron on her side.
“She tricked you,” taunted the first voice as they sidestepped another attack.
Stab.
“Lied to you.”
Slash.
“Betrayed you.”
She split another fireball in half, anger rising in her with every word of her assailants.
“Why risk death in her name? A name that isn’t even her own,” the voices taunted together.
“Because I love her!” She shouted, slicing forward. It was as if her own words had spurred fate to her aid as her sword finally connected, burning an arc across the fae’s arm. “And I will defend her with my life if I have to!”
She heard a gasp coming from behind her, but she could not turn to see what Ilia’s reaction had been, she could only hope it wasn’t more hurt. Meanwhile the gestalt being scurried back and growled in anger. The sound was horrifying, two voices joined together, only growing more unsettling as it morphed into laughter.
“You love her?” The voices laughed and mocked, “and you think love will save you? You think this is some sweet story of knights and princesses? You think yourself some galant hero?”
Though they cackled, Weiss stayed resolute, sword firm in her hand and gaze locked on her foe. This was, perhaps, her biggest mistake, as it left her blinded to the spell the fae had weaved around her.
“We know what you are, Weiss Schnee,” they spoke, that name sounding like poison in their tongue, “you’re no hero. You’re just a pathetic little princess, playing pretend.”
Now that made her snap. She launched forward with wild abandon, swinging and stabbing without a hint of caution. The fae, for their part, only cackled louder and louder as they evaded every blow, their amusement only feeding into Weiss’s anger. Her reckless assault only came to a stop as she felt something snag under her and tripped her.
She cursed as her body hit the ground with force, her sword escaping her grip. She turned back to see what had caught her, and for a moment she worried she might have hit her head too hard. Her boots had been turned into heels, her pants and shirt had disappeared, replaced instead with an elaborate blue and white dress, and her vest had given way to a light shawl bearing her family’s crest.
Unnerving couldn’t begin to describe the feeling of seeing herself like this.
After being allowed to live her dream for weeks, to have herself forcefully dragged back to that gilded cage, it unsettled something deep within her. She felt panic rise as her breathing grew more uneven. She had to calm herself, she had to control herself or her and Ilia would be dead.
It was unfortunate then, that her foe planned to grant her no such reprieve.
“What is wrong, princess?” The voices mocked, a massive paw landing between her and her sword.
No no no, this wasn’t happening. She--She was a knight, she had trained her whole life for this, she was meant to fight people like them. She wasn’t weak, she wasn’t helpless, she wasn’t a princess!
Fire spewed from the creature’s maw, bathing the ground in it. Weiss barely had the time or awareness to roll away, her mind still caught in a spiral of ever growing panic. And those accursed fae could only laugh as they watched her suffer.
A large claw swiped at her, though it barely scraped against Weiss’s skin as she jumped away, the wound it left still bled and the force still sent her face first against a nearby tree. A second strike soon came to finish what the first started, but it was stopped short by a cloud of glowing butterflies.
Dozens of the magical insects swarmed over them, forcing them back as the fae swiped uselessly at them. Before they could even begin to deal with the swarm, a smaller fae had tackled them to the ground with all her might. Ilia had freed herself and had come to Weiss’s rescue.
She slammed her hands to the combined entity’s chest and urged the earth to take them back, calling upon the roots to bring them down with them. For a moment it had worked, but then the twins opened their mouth and fire engulfed both insect and root alike. Ilia had been lucky to escape this uncinged.
“After everything you still choose this human?” The voices growled as they stood back up, “the Schnee girl who saw you as nothing more than a tool for her redemption? Is this who you choose to die for, Amitola?”
“Yes!” She shouted back, “now be quiet!”
She had nowhere near their physical strength or destructive power, but this fae still had claws, and she wasn’t gonna let them hurt Weiss any longer. She jumped at them, climbing onto their back and clawing at them with a rabbid fury.
The twins growled as they were sent stumbling back. Though she caused them both severe pain, Ilia was still much smaller, her claws weren’t made for taking down something that size. A hand that was easily bigger than her whole head, grabbed at what remained of her mangled wings and slammed her forcefully to the ground.
Their mouth opened again, ready to reduce the smaller fae to ash, but were brought to a stop by a large branch striking the side of their face with enough force to crack it in half. They howled as they backed away, rage was clear in their eyes, but the gaze they made was unflinchingly resolute.
Weiss stood tall, even in that stupid dress, her shawl had been ripped appart and wrapped around her hands, and she held what remained of that branch as if it was the noblest of blades. Even in the guise of a princess, she stood like a knight.
“You may insult me, humiliate me, you may even question my honor,” she declared, gaze unwavering as she approached the hulking creature, “but you’re a fool if you think you can harm Lady Ilia in my presence.”
The fae cackled, insults ready to spew out like their flames, but Weiss was quicker and she had no more patience for their trickery. The branch sliced at their eyes before the first word could escape their mouth.
“My lady was right,” she added, “you two should stay quiet.”
Were there any bards to witness this battle then they would have certainly sung of Weiss’s bravery, of her resolve, and of her devotion to both her love and her cause. They would sing of how she bested the fae with unmatched skill and unparalleled wits. Though the first part is certainly accurate, in truth Weiss’s skills hardly applied to this situation, and there was only so much anyone could do to something that big when armed with nothing more than a particularly sharp stick.
Still Weiss was set on besting Ilia’s assailants or dying to buy her time to escape, and that seemed more than enough to keep her fighting on.
She plunged the branch into one of the fae’s four eyes, causing it to howl in terrible pain. Though a victorious thrill ran through the knight’s body, she was promptly reminded of her foe’s sheer might and size as a large claw slammed against the side of her body, launching her against a nearby tree with terrifying force.
Once again fire began to spew, ready to engulf Weiss whole, and once again it was Ilia who saved her.
“Catch!” She shouted as she tossed Weiss her sword, and the magical inferno was unmade under the touch of iron.
Her blade sang and her feet drove her forward, iron met flesh with a deadly puncture, but the fae still stirred. They grabbed hold of her side, claws digging into skin as they tried to force her back. But Weiss was undeterred, she took one last step forward, driving Myrtenaster into their heart, like a nail into a coffin.
And so they slumped to the ground, black smoke escaping their wounds.
Weiss fell to her knees not long after.
“Weiss!” Ilia cried, as she rushed to her side, holding her before she could hit the ground.
“Ilia,” she muttered, weakness taking over her body as the adrenaline left her, “are you hurt?”
“Am I hurt?” Ilia asked with a nervous laughter, “Weiss, you’re bleeding.”
“But are you well?” She insisted.
“Yes, you absolute fool,” she answered, worry and exasperation in her voice, “I’m well.”
“Good.”
Ilia was safe, that was all that mattered. Not her wounds, not her blurring vision, and certainly not her blood loss. What mattered was that her love was safe, and nothing else.
She closed her eyes and, with a smile on her face, was taken away to the land of dreams.
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makeste · 4 years ago
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I'd love to read some Naruto analysis by you!
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lol I might not be the best person to ask about this, tbh. Naruto happens to be one of the series I mentioned last week where I eventually stopped reading because of things related to the timeskip. it basically got to the point where I realized I was forcing myself to keep reading it, and that everything I had originally loved about it was basically gone. it had all of the problems I mentioned about timeskips -- characters splitting up (AND characters staying together, but us missing out on their development); fights becoming boring; the series becoming way darker and killing off more than a few characters for shock value; and the clumsiest attempt at a romance plot I can recall reading in a manga. I stopped reading it sometime around chapter 400 or so, which would have been around 2009 I believe. the series ultimately went on for another 300 chapters and didn’t end until late 2014, and I have little to no idea what went down in those chapters, and no real interest in ever going back to finish it. I’m not saying it was objectively bad, because I can hardly judge what I haven’t even read. but it just stopped having any type of appeal to me.
regarding Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship, the best way I can describe it (and be warned this is gonna get kind of long lol) for someone who’s unfamiliar with Naruto but knows BnHA, is that it’s basically Bakugou and Deku’s relationship, if both of them were orphaned at a young age, and in Bakugou’s case he was specifically orphaned by his evil older brother who murdered their entire family in front of him. and so Bakugou basically grew up being all “the FUCK is up with that, I am going to KILL THAT DUDE,” and so he went to ninja school to learn how to be a badass so that he could avenge his family. and meanwhile Deku went to ninja school because he was lonely and wanted to be Ninja President when he grew up so that people would finally want to be his friend. and so they both learned to become ninjas, and then they graduated at the ripe old age of Twelve and started ninja internships under ninja!Aizawa’s tutelage along with a badass girl ninja whom ninja!Deku had a massive crush on even though she herself was not-so-secretly crushing on ninja!Bakugou.
and even though ninja!Bakugou and ninja!Deku didn’t get along at first, they started doing all of the usual Rival Things like competing with each other over who is better at running up trees sideways, and their relationship gradually got a little bit better. and then ninja!Bakugou all of a sudden saved ninja!Deku’s life OUT OF NOWHERE (like this boy really had his own “my body just moved on its own” moment all of 27 chapters into the series) and nearly died, and ninja!Deku went into rage mode because of it, and so that was awesome. and so it basically went on like this, with both of them continuing to do rival things like egging each other on to become stronger and talking about how much they want to fight each other and stuff. all that good shit.
anyways though, but where it started to go south was when ninja!Bakugou, much like actual!Bakugou, eventually caught the attention of one of the villain characters who started being all “HEY KID, JOIN ME AND I’LL HELP YOU BECOME STRONG ENOUGH TO KILL YOUR BROTHER.” and at first of course ninja!Bakugou was all “wtf, no”, which, good. BUT THEN it all really started to go to shit when ninja!Bakugou’s Evil Brother came back to town because he wanted to kidnap ninja!Deku, but ninja!Bakugou found out about it and was all “OH HELL NO” and went and found his bro to try to kill him. but seeing as ninja!Bakugou’s brother was one of the strongest characters in the series, and ninja!Bakugou was LITERALLY A CHILD, to make a long story short the Evil Brother basically kicked his ass and was all “nyah nyah nyah what’s up with that you’re still so weak” and subjected him to a little hypno torture session for good measure.
and so basically, ninja!Bakugou spiraled into a mental funk and eventually was all “I GUESS I’D BETTER GO FIND THAT VILLAIN FELLOW AFTER ALL” and RAN AWAY TO GO BECOME EVIL. and ninja!Deku found out about it and went after him and they had a HUGE DRAMATIC FIGHT, but ultimately ninja!Deku lost, and ninja!Bakugou knocked him out and spent some time staring at him sadly and longingly in the rain before shuffling off. and basically after that is when the timeskip happens, and ninja!Deku and ninja!Bakugou spend three years training and then at that point ninja!Bakugou’s character starts to go completely off the rails and he’s out here genuinely trying to kill all of his old friends for Reasons, and at that point I was basically done with him and it was a whole big “YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BRING BALANCE TO THE PLOT, NOT LEAVE IT IN DARKNESS” thing, and I eventually just quit out of annoyance lol. smdh.
anyway so yeah. and after that I don’t really know too much about what happens. they basically have a whole Star-Crossed Enemies thing going on where ninja!Deku keeps trying to turn ninja!Bakugou back to the good side, even after he literally declares war on their entire country and kills a bunch of people lmao. and it’s supposed to be inspiring I guess, because he never gives up on his friend no matter what. and I think eventually it does turn out all right, or at least bittersweet, from what I’ve gleaned.
but I’m not gonna lie, for me everything I loved about the series was in that pre-timeskip relationship that the two of them had. and honestly, BnHA is such a fix-it in so many ways that I sometimes wonder if Horikoshi (who also grew up on Naruto, millennial that he is) didn’t feel the same way about it. like, there are almost specific things about it that he goes out of his way to “fix.”
first and foremost, unlike Sasuke, Kacchan point-blank refuses to join up with the villains who try to recruit him. still one of my favorite parts of the series honestly. this one specific plot is so reminiscent of where it all started to go wrong in Naruto, and Horikoshi subverts the shit out of it. there’s all this buildup to it, and everyone is all “oh shit is Bakugou really going to turn evil??”, and then when the moment finally happens, Bakugou doesn’t consider their offer for a second. there is no doubt in his mind. he’s a hero, end of story. there’s so much conviction in him, so much determination. god I just love it so much.
Naruto and Sasuke also have their version of a Therapy Fight, pre-timeskip, in which Sasuke challenges Naruto to a fight because he needs to prove to himself that he’s not weak. Sasuke is clearly hurting during this battle (this is just after his encounter with his Evil Brother, and I mean the fight literally takes place on the rooftop of the hospital he was recuperating in), but unlike Deku, Naruto never takes any notice of this. and unlike Bakugou, Sasuke keeps his feelings all bottled up inside him, and so basically they both just get swept up in the Rivalry and wind up nearly killing each other. and again just like in BnHA, Naruto and Sasuke’s fight also gets interrupted by one of their teachers; but unlike All Might, Naruto and Sasuke’s teacher doesn’t give them any sage mentor advice or make sure that the two of them are in a good headspace afterwards. and as a result Sasuke leaves that same fucking night to go join up with the villains. basically it’s almost the exact same Shounen Rival Throwdown, but with completely opposite outcomes. it’s almost uncanny.
and last but not least, unlike Kishimoto, who gives Sasuke his “sacrificing himself to save his rival” moment barely half a year into the series and then basically never refers to it again, Horikoshi spends almost 300 chapters building up to Bakugou’s own version of that moment, so that when it finally happens, it feels earned. not to say that I don’t like the Sasuke moment in chapter 27 of Naruto, because twenty years down the line and it’s still honestly one of my favorite scenes. but I do think Horikoshi’s version of it was ultimately much more satisfying. when Sasuke saves Naruto’s life, you get the sense that he was conflicted as to why he did it. but when Bakugou makes the sacrifice play for Deku’s sake, he knows exactly why he’s doing it, because he’s spent the last 285 chapters going through all of that character development and realizing that Deku is important to him, and realizing that he wants to atone for how he treated him. and so to me that moment is all the more meaningful because of it. definitely a highlight of the series.
anyway, so I’m not sure any of that actually counts as analysis lol, but there you go. fwiw, pre-timeskip Naruto (pre-Shippuuden I should say, although the manga never really made a distinction like the anime did) was and is still one of my all time favorite series. but to my mind BnHA is an improvement on it in almost every way, and with the BakuDeku relationship in particular it’s almost wish fulfillment lol. finally I get to see this childhood-friends-turned-rivals relationship play out the way I always wished it had. that’s basically what I mean when I say it feels like therapy lol. anyways it’s good stuff.
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katsumiiii · 4 years ago
Text
Chapter One
Katsuki Bakugou x fem! poc reader
boxer au!
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The putrid smell of sweat wafted in and out of the atmosphere, making some plug their noses in disgust. An eerie creaking filled the ears of those watching in slight interest, followed by the harsh grunts and groans of an male individual. The constant sound of rubber rubbing against ones closed fists caused some to wince, while others grinned at the display of strength.
A man bounces back and forth on his feet, keeping his hands close to his face as he pushes an arm forward to make contact with the large punching bag in front of him. He breathes deeply, snapping the elongated limb back to his center. His feet lightly tap against the hardwood floors as he winds up for another punch.
“Hey man, don’t wear yourself out. You have a match after this you know.”
A lighthearted voice cuts through the tense atmosphere, making the spectators groan and trail their feet away form the scene. A male wearing a white tank top and black shorts jogs up to the other, clapping him on the shoulder. His spiked up red hair was a spectacle on its own, and his sharp white teeth resembled a sharks making some shutter in fear.
“Tch, I fucking know that shitty hair.” The male responds, slapping the hand which was placed on his shoulder off of him with a sneer.
The male in question had spiky ash blonde hair and stunning crimson red eyes. He wore a simple black tank top, which seemed to hug all of his pulsating muscles, and black shorts.
The red haired male laughs, placing his hand in his pocket while shifting from left to right on his feet. “You ready to kick ass Bakugou?”
Bakugou smirks tauntingly, wrapping his hands up in boxing tape. His crimson eyes narrow in determination as he leans down to grab his dark navy blue bag. “Fuck yeah!”
The two massive men make their way into a locker room, loudly shutting the door behind them. Bakugou slams his bag on one of the many benches, afterwards opening a locker and grabbing three items out. He roughly shuts the locker and walks towards the red haired male. In his arms lay a orange and dark green robe, as well as two orange boxing gloves. He shoves the items next to the male, harshly shoving the robe on his upper body.
“Kirishima, who the fuck am I fighting again?" Bakugou asks, pushing his gloves on his enclosed fists. Kirishima leans his head back against the lockers, his fiery red hair contrasting with the cool blue tone.
"Uhh I think his name was Yo Shindo." He replies, crossing his arms.
Bakugou begins to rock back and forth on the balls on his feet, tilting his head side to side to loosen his muscles. He swings his arms back and forth, his broad shoulders tensing as he does.
"Dude after this match we need to find you a new coach. I can't believe you scared the other one off." Kirishima sighs, locking eyes with Bakugou's fierce gaze.
"Oi, it's not my fucking fault he was a weakling." He bluntly responds, continuing to bounce on the balls of his feet.
"Yeah yeah I know, but really we need to get-."
"Katsuki Bakugou, your opponent is ready." A monotone voice interrupts Kirishima, making the men turn their heads. A male with shaggy black hair and soft brown eyes inserts his head from behind the door. He waves his hand back and forth, beckoning the men to hurry up. Bakugou huffs, making his way to the door.
"You got this man, I'll be watching in the audience."
"Tch, I'll fucking win."
Bakugou disappears, the door closing behind him. Kirishima makes his way towards the stands, ticket in hand. He hands his ticket to a large male standing at the entrance, the man glances at the ticket then back at Kirishima, nodding in approval. Kirishima enters the auditorium, fans cheering in anticipation. He walks down the steps to find his seat B12. He glances at each row until he finds it, he looks up at the ring and smiles. "Hell yeah, second row."
He walks down the isle and sits down in his seat, scooting back to get comfortable. He glances next to him and soon rests his eyes on a beautiful woman. Her brown skin shimmers under the stadium lights, making his eyes widen in amazement. Her curls framed her face and looked soft to the touch. He trails his gaze down her body, she was sporting a track suit, which looked both comfortable and cute. He raises his stare back to her face, resting on her plump lips, then back to her soft brown eyes which were staring right at him. He jumps back, his face breaking out in a light blush
"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare." He apologizes, rubbing the crook of his neck.
The woman giggles, leaning towards his growing red cheeks, "Its fine, I don't mind. What's your name?"
"Eijiro Kirishima. What about you?"
"Y/N L/N. Nice to meet you." She replies, holding out her soft brown hand for him to shake. He nods taking her hand in his with a firm grip.
"You too."
He leans back in his seat, focusing his gaze back to the ring in front of him. He looks back at the girl in his peripheral, bouncing his legs up and down. "So, you like boxing?" He asks, tilting his head to face hers.
She nods, averting her gaze to meet his eyes. “Yeah, I've been into boxing my whole life."
Kirishima grins, crossing his arms, "Really? You a boxer yourself?"
She shakes her head, "Nah, I'm more of a trainer I guess. My dad was a trainer himself, he's the one that got me into it." She continues to ramble on, talking about her love for the sport. Realizing what she was doing she bashfully turns her head, hiding her face behind her curls.
"Sorry, I was rambling."
"No it's fine! I enjoyed it-"
A booming voice interrupts him, making the pair avert their eyes to the ring.
"ALRIGHT FOLKS AND NOW THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR! YO SHINDO VS THE UNDEFEATED BAKUGOU KATSUKI!"
The crowd roars in excitement as the two burly men make their way to the ring. Kirishima cheers, shouting Bakugou name, "YOU GOT THIS BAKUBRO!"
Bakugou looks up at him with a smirk, lifting up his middle finger. He glances next to him, making eye contact with the stunning girl beside Kirishima. She stares back, trailing his body with her eyes. He licks his lips then breaks his gaze, sliding underneath the rope where his opponent stood. The referee explains the rules to both players making them nod their heads in understanding. They touch gloves and turn to walk to their respective sides.
"Now let the fight BEGIN!"
The males circle around each other, their hands raised and muscles tensed. Shindo takes the first jab, but Bakugou blocks it and counters with a right hook. The speed of the punch catches Shindo off guard, causing him to stumble back in surprise. Bakugou bounds after him, throwing punch after punch, ruthlessly attacking Shindo.
"If he pivots his left food he could get more speed into his punch." Y/N mumbles, placing a hand on her chin. Kirishima looks at her in surprise, then turns his gaze back to the ring.
"You can tell that from just looking at him?" He asks, leaning foreword and resting his elbows on his knees.
Y/N nods, averting her gaze to Kirishima for a split second, "Yeah, he also puts too much weigh on his weaker side. I'm gonna take a guess and say he's left handed, if he transfers most of his weight on his left leg rather than his right, his punches would land with more power." She continues to analyze the match, watching as Bakugou continues to badger Shindo.
"Damn, you're good." Kirishima whistles.
The match continues to go on with Kirishima intensely listening when Y/N points out something important. She makes comments on how Bakugou could improve his stance and stamina, while also steadying his balance. After a while the match ends, with Bakugou declared as the winner.
"AND THE WINNER IS BAKUGOU KATSUKI! WHO ONCE AGAIN REMAINS UNDEFEATED!"
The crowd cheers watching as the blonde male raises a fist and roars. Kirishima claps, cheering Bakugou on as he walks away from the ring. He then turns to Y/N with a large grin on his face.
"Hey, would you be interested in coaching Bakugou?"
Y/N blinks, slowly turning her head to face Kirishimas grinning face. Her heart pounds in her chest at the thought of coaching the undefeated boxing champion, she soon smirks and nods her head.
"Yeah. I'd love to."
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hi-5-sunflower · 4 years ago
Text
Chapter One
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Finally decided to take the plunge and post a full chapter! Here we go!
Word count: 2,200
Summary: Laura sneaks into an alchemy storehouse at night in hopes of finding a medicinal herb for her sick father.
Content notices: Mild violence, mention of illness, mild blood
Laura never thought she’d be the type to commit a crime.
And yet, here she was.
Against a clear night sky, the alchemy storehouse loomed like a great block of granite, its entrance attended by a solitary pacing guard. Laura watched from the shadows of the field beyond, concealed amid a patch of dusty desert weeds, her spine burning from the strain of prolonged crouching. Clutching the heavy stone was cramping her hand, but patience was key if she had any hope for success tonight.
The guard’s dull yellow Glow lantern, hanging from a hook on the building’s face, did its best to fend off the gloom of the moonless night. Intuitively, Laura knew the field she hid out in was little more than a black void, but the night-vision tonic she’d taken kept fooling her; she could make out the cracks in the dirt beneath her feet, could count the twigs on the skeletal stalks around her as though a full moon shone overhead.
She watched as the guard approached the nearest corner of the storehouse before turning on his heel to march back, and Laura’s grip tightened around the stone, its jagged edges biting into her palm.
Almost.
As he reached the far corner, she seized her moment, rising up and hurling the rock as hard as she could. It sailed through the air, arcing over the field to a spot near where the guard stood.
With a thump and a rustle, it made contact with brittle shrubbery, and sure enough, the guard’s attention snapped toward it.
Now!
Laura darted from her cover, acutely aware of her footfalls pattering on the dirt as she hurried forward, pinning her knapsack to her body to silence it, making for the side of the storehouse. Giddiness fueled her as she sped across open land, not daring to look in the guard’s direction, not slowing her pace until she was tucked snug against the dark northern wall.
From here she crept silently alongside the building, staying deep in shadow. There might be another guard stationed at the rear entrance, but with any shred of luck, the first one wouldn’t raise the alarm.
At the corner, she knelt low, peering around slowly. This side was also lit by a hanging lantern, but to her immense relief, no one was back here. At least, not at the moment.
Still, that meant the first guard was responsible for watching back here, too, or there were others nearby. A stable and another low building were positioned in such a way that if someone inside looked out, they could easily see her.
No time to lose.
Unlike the front entrance, which was a standard door, the rear entrance was big enough to give entry to animal-drawn supply carts, closed off by a pair of massive wooden gates. An iron chain wound tightly between the gates, held fast by a heavy padlock. Laura approached, nodding to herself, and fished a set of lockpicks from her bag.
All week, she’d gathered every lock she could get her hands on in preparation for this moment, working at them for hours until she could’ve picked them in her sleep. Never mind that this lock was twice as big as those. That was just another of many hurdles to overcome tonight.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her as she fumbled with the greasy contraption, trying not to jangle the chain. She’d spent the last six years of her life in the Silver Guard, a faithful servant of the law, busting petty criminals for...
Well, this.
And yet, here I am.
She couldn’t afford to feel too bad about that now, though. That could come later.
With a heavy click, the lock popped open, and Laura exhaled, realizing she’d been holding her breath. The chain threatened to slide out of place, but she caught hold of it before it could make too much noise. She deliberately extracted it just enough that she could sidle between the doors and into the storehouse.
It was tempting to congratulate herself for this small success, but the job wasn’t done yet. She drew the gates closed behind her and turned her attention to the abyss she now stood in.
A broad skylight interrupted the middle of the ceiling, a dim sprinkle of stars visible through the glass panes, but the rest of the room was a jungle of silhouettes. She dug into her knapsack again, feeling around for her portable Glow lamp, as her enhanced night vision could only do so much in an area as large and dark as this. She pulled the little lamp out and switched it on, finding herself in an absolute labyrinth of towering shelves.
Oh boy.
She took a breath, inhaling the strange scent of the place—herbaceous, with a hint of horse—and reviving her determination. Lyusk root was the prize she sought, the key to alleviating her father’s incessant, painful coughing. Of the countless herbalists and apothecaries she’d visited in the last month, not a single one had the root for sale anymore, reducing her options to two: leave her father to suffer, or raid the stores of some high-profile alchemy company.
By that point, it hadn’t been a difficult choice. Now if she could only figure out where they’d stashed that damn root.
Her cylindrical lamp was designed to concentrate its Glow, but the cavernous darkness easily swallowed its faint white beam. She started down an aisle, checking crate labels, but some of the chicken-scratch print was barely legible. Squinting, she made out the words hyssop seeds on one.
The crates on the shelf beside it were labeled iceberry leaf extract, so she placed her bet on alphabetical arrangement. That meant she wasn’t terribly far from the lyusk root, assuming this place had some.
If it didn’t...
She pushed the thought from her mind and scanned labels as she hurried alongside the shelves, hoping she wouldn’t have to climb up high. Her pulse picked up as she skimmed the L’s: lavender...lion blossom...lotus concentrate...
Magnolia bark...
No!
Maybe it was up high after all. She took a few steps back, raising her lamp over her head to try glimpsing the labels on the upper shelves, but it was no good.
Taking note of her position, she went in search of a ladder, but before she could get far, a rattle echoed through the storehouse.
Someone was opening the gate.
Laura’s heart stopped. She fumbled with the lamp, switching it off, then knelt against a shelf in the dark, hardly daring to breathe.
“Okay, good try,” drawled a voice, echoing hollowly throughout the room. “I know someone’s in here. Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be.”
She could see the guard silhouetted in the thin gap between the gates, and to her dismay, he was flanked by two others. They, too, carried Glow lamps, but theirs were much brighter than hers, emitting long beams that cut through the darkness.
They split up, their beams swinging this way and that. As one set of footsteps approached Laura’s hiding place, she chose her moment and bolted, treading lightly as she wound her way through the maze.
She took refuge against a stack of crates near the exit. One guard still stood between her and freedom.
“I’ll make you a deal,” the guard called out. “Quit wasting my time and I’ll consider letting you go without reporting you.” Laura briefly considered the offer, but it was probably a bluff. She remained silent, trying not to breathe too hard or to let her nerves gain authority as she waited for her chance to escape.
The first guard’s lamp beam continued to probe into the blackness around him as he stood firm by the gate. Come on. You won’t find me like that. Any second now, one of his friends would make their way around a corner and spot her. She was stuck here until he decided to budge.
After what felt like an hour, he finally did, grumbling to himself as he made his way between two rows of shelves.
She sprinted for the gate. In her haste to get outside, her knapsack caught on the dangling length of chain, which emitted a deafening clatter as it slid to the ground.
Crap!
The guard’s beam honed in on the entrance just as she ducked away.
“Hey!”
Laura ran for it. Her heart battered against her chest as she skidded around the corner, trying to fight down her rising panic. They were pushing through the gate now. If she could make it into town, she could probably lose them, but she had to get there first.
Adrenaline spurred her forward, her hearing muffled by the rush of air in her ears. They were falling behind, she was sure of it...
And then, without warning, she collided face first into a brick wall.
Except the wall had hands, which closed around her wrists like a vice, resisting her attempts to wrench free.
“Alright, pal,” said her captor. “Fun’s over.”
Damn it.
The other two guards caught up, shining their blinding lights into her face, illuminating her failure. She squinted at them as defiantly as she could manage, and they responded by seizing her knapsack and tying her hands behind her back with scratchy rope.
“Nothing stolen in here,” said one guard, digging around in the knapsack. “Not much of a thief, eh?”
“Get her out of here,” said another. “Let the Guardians deal with her.”
They dumped her unceremoniously onto a rickety supply cart, and with her hands bound, it was a rough landing. A flash of white erupted behind her eyes as her head clashed with coarse wood, and after that, there was blood in her mouth.
It tasted like defeat.
Someone fetched a mule from the nearby stable, and a moment later the cart lurched into motion. Laura mentally cursed herself throughout the sore, splintery ride, trying not to think about the slew of problems she’d just created for herself.
Once they got into town, she was handed over to the Silver Guard as promised. As the official peacekeepers of the Tri-Realm Republic, the Guard were, to most, a symbol of leadership, protection, and upstanding citizenship. Laura grew up admiring that black-and-silver uniform and was ecstatic the day she finally got to don it herself, but at the moment, it was the last thing she wanted to see.
It was only a matter of time now before word of this incident got to her commanding officer. Before her own uniform was taken away for good. She cursed herself again.
“Alchemy storehouse, huh?” said the Guardian, mild amusement in her tone as she untied Laura’s hands. “Must be some fun stuff in there.”
Laura dropped her gaze, examining the prickly desert burs caught in the laces of her boots. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Where’re you from?”
“Silverton.” Laura sighed. “Listen, my mother’s name is Eva Alvez, and I suppose you ought to send someone to inform her of this.” Her mother was not going to be pleased with her, but better someone else broke the news first.
“You’re Senator Alvez’s girl?” said the Guardian, scanning her. “Oh yeah, I see it. Looks like the spikefruit fell a few miles from the tree, huh?” She paused to chuckle at her own joke. “Let’s getcha back to Silverton, then.”
The Guardian took her to the Rift station, which was fortunately quiet this time of night. There were still just enough people around to stare uncomfortably, though, as Laura’s chaperone took her to the front of the line and received clearance to the gate labeled ZASSK–SILVERTON.
Rift gates were the fastest way to travel long distances, and the only way to travel between realms. Suspended within a metal archway, the gate was a translucent, rippling surface, like an upright pool of water. Peering into it, Laura could just make out the blurred figures of people milling about on the other side.
She stepped through, momentarily engulfed in the familiar staticky sensation. Her skin prickled fuzzily, and not a second later, she was in the Rift station in Silverton, the capital city of the Republic and her hometown.
The Guardian led Laura to the local Guard post, though her feet reluctantly carried her there on their own. To her chagrin, astonished faces greeted her as her comrades realized tonight’s offender was one of their own. Pointedly avoiding eye contact, she let herself be escorted into the holding room, not at all in the mood to explain.
The small room was furnished with a half-dozen chairs, a low table offering a few recent copies of Republic News Weekly, and an off-white Glow lamp fixed high on the wall. In all of her years working here, she’d never known how stiff these chairs were.
Time crawled in the silence, making her acutely aware of her pounding headache and the smarting scrape on her temple. Not to mention the constant self-reminders that, for all the trouble she’d gone to tonight, she’d come away empty handed after all.
I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll get that lyusk root for you somehow.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading! Here's the full intro for the book if you're interest in learning more about it!
Tagging @thelaughingstag 🦌🙂
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realm-sweet-realm · 3 years ago
Text
A Worthwhile Investment, chapter 3
Please enjoy this Grant x Shawn story. Yes, I split it into two short chapters. Apparently I can’t be succinct with these two... hopefully I made the right choice!
Next is Thomas x Allison!
Time went by. The studio worsened in most respects. Though its installation was nothing out of the ordinary, it felt as though the ink machine was creeping through the halls, its long pipes growing into new areas. Wherever it went, it left the scent of sickly rubber ink and stained through the walls, like a creeping, musty black mold. That alone would have brought down morale, but it was nothing compared to the financial crisis. Every department was operating on a slashed budget, and yet Joey refused to lower his demands on any of them. Whenever someone quit out of anger, there was relief- it meant that those who remained would be less likely to be laid off. The studio was a rotting body, ravaged by the parasite of the ink machine and struggling to move its massive weight now that so many of its workers were gone.
Grant was not handling it well. His department understood that it the studio’s financial problems weren’t his fault, but he didn’t blame anyone else for hating the man who had decided how much to slash their budget, or who told them, while they were already underpaid, that their paycheck would be late because there simply was no money to pay them. It was his job to prevent this from happening. But with Joey spending more and more on Bendyland and the ink machine, and refusing to downsize anything when it was really overdue to do so, it was proving impossible. It was soul-crushing.
Things weren’t easy on Shawn, either. Fewer staff for the same amount of plushes meant having to work longer and faster, and making plushes out of cheaper materials meant that there was less room for error before the cheap, delicate things they’d been reduced to selling simply fell apart. Shawn was getting screamed at more than usual nowadays.
At least they had each other. During better times, their relationship had been on and off. There were periods when one of them just couldn’t handle the other’s issues or couldn’t handle being in a relationship at the moment, and they’d break up, only to get back together after a while. Shawn had even dated other people during their temporary breaks. Neither of them were especially serious about their relationship, so it worked for them. Now, they were together for the foreseeable future. There was little time or energy for romance anymore, but they stole the moments they could and hoped that things would eventually improve. Shawn had even moved into Grant’s house at the time. This was good for both of them- living with someone else made things easier domestically during this busy time, and it was good to come home from a difficult day at work and meet up with someone who loved you and brightened your mood.
“Ah think we should quit,” Shawn said one day over dinner. “None-a this is healthy. I’m sick of it, you certainly ain’t yourself, and anyhow, yer always saying the company won’t last another year.” Shawn saw Grant hesitate. “Well, Ah’m quitting. Join me or don’t, Ah don’t care.”
“I have a feeling that things will improve once Bendyland opens. It’s supposed to open in three months,” well, it was supposed to open over a year ago, but hopefully they could reach the new deadline, “so, let’s see where the studio is in five months. If we’re not having a much better time at work by then, let’s do it. Or you can quit sooner- please, don’t let me hold you back. But that’s when I’m doing it.”
“Five months sounds great! I’ll mark it on the calendar. To a chance at a better life!”
Grant forced a smile. “To a chance at a better life.” He honestly wished Shawn would just quit so that he didn’t feel like he was holding him back.
There were a few reasons that Grant didn’t want to quit. It wasn’t about money (he had some saved up), or fear that he couldn’t get another job (he had the experience to land another). Mostly, it was about pride. Grant might be the financial manager of a failing massive company, but still, he was the finances manager of a massive company- with a department working under him and his own secretary. This could be the highest-profile job he would ever have. He also worried that the next job would be just as miserable. He recognized, though, that he couldn’t stay in an awful work environment for those reasons, let alone keep Shawn in one. And no matter what, the studio would be dead in a few years, so he’d have to leave it eventually. And heck- maybe Shawn was right. Maybe it would be better.
---
It was while Grant was walking down one of the Joey Drew Studios hallways that it happened, though it had seemed rather insignificant at the time. A burly, blond GENT worker deliberately loosened a bolt on one of the ink pipes as he passed, spraying a cloud of ink fumes into his face.
“That’s for getting my buddy laid off,” the man grumbled as Grant coughed on the fumes.
“Hey!” another GENT worker, shouted, “pull another stunt like that, and you’ll be the one leaving for good!” The GENT worker ran over to Grant. “You alright, sir? I can pay for the dry cleaning if you want.”
“Don’t bother,” Grant snapped, “just teach your men some respect.”
Grant looked down at his thoroughly stained suit and dress shirt and weighed whether to arrive at his next meeting late or drenched. He decided on the former and turned for the exit. As he left, he heard one of the GENT men telling the other, “that’s how you get our budget cut even more!” It was rather strange to be such a frightening creature nowadays.
By evening, Grant was feeling sick- as though he had a flu coming on. He spent a few days laying around before returning to work, feeling just as badly. He couldn’t afford more time off if he didn’t want to end up entirely buried by work. Shawn was mildly concerned when it was a few weeks in and the illness didn’t seem to be going away- and that Grant was intent on working through it- but all he could do was support Grant through it and give him the space he needed. Even in the beginning, it was extremely frustrating that his boyfriend was suffering and unable to do much of anything outside of work, but to an extent it was nothing Shawn wasn’t used to- Grant had had bouts of depression nearly as bad as this. As time went on, Shawn noticed some more disturbing changes.
It was about two weeks in that the voice emerged and the hallucinations began. Grant had been in his office when he’d heard a pained scream- seemingly from right outside of it. He rushed out, expecting to see an injured person or an emergency of some sort. Instead, he found only his secretary, perfectly calm and looking at him as though he was an alien. “Do you know where that came from?” Grant asked.
“Where what came from?” Oh, that judgmental stare.
“The scream? You heard the scream, right?”
“No.”
Grant cringed and closed the door to his office.
The headaches, the brain fog, the fatigue, and now the hallucinations, a voice said. It was a voice that sounded as real as the scream had, but it wasn’t one he’d heard before. Do you want to know what’s causing it? There was a pause, as though Grant would answer and let his secretary think even worse of him. You’re losing your mind. You know what they do with crazy people, right? An image of an electric chair flashed through Grant’s mind, followed by an image of locked insane asylum doors and tools used for a lobotomy. Just carry on. Try to act normal, and don’t let anyone know about this. I’ll be here when you need me. Grant sat back down at his desk, taking a look around the room as though he could find where the voice was coming from. Finding nothing, he returned to his paperwork.
A few weeks later, Grant decided to coax some answers from the voice. It was absurd- if it was right, and it probably was, the voice came from him, and couldn’t know anything he didn’t. But he had few options. His symptoms were becoming glaringly obvious. Shawn had noticed that he was spacing out during conversations, and his department was noticing that he couldn’t keep track of time and was making mathematical errors he never would have before. Shawn had even seen him react to hallucinations a couple times, and it frightened him. Grant knew he needed to figure this out before it hurt his professional life, or hurt his relationship any further.
It was a cold winter’s night. Grant returned home after work- thankfully Shawn wasn’t home yet- and went to his room to interrogate.
“Alright,” he said, facing the wall. “Tell me what I have. If there’s a way to fix it, I’m going to.”
Shawn had been unable to sleep that night, so he heard Grant’s voice. It didn’t bother him, though, until Grant started yelling. Shawn got up and went to investigate. The house was totally dark except for the light coming from Grant’s room. Shawn creaked open the door. Grant was facing a wall, shifting his weight as though he might spring on his invisible adversary if it proved necessary.
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jenivi7 · 4 years ago
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First Lines Tagging Meme
I'M SO HAPPY TO BE TAGGED IN THIS TWICE!  Thank you @ink-flavored and @clyde-side !! (I almost just did this on my own too because I love babbling about my own fics...)
Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.
Now pinned and under a cut because it became a really long, really good introduction to me and my stories! 
Hello!
Unnecessary and overly wordy introduction/personal musings: I love opening lines so much. When I worked at a bookstore, I used to open books and hardcore judge them on their first lines. I had barely any free time to read at that point so if it didn’t grab me in the first line or two, I put it back. The first Harry Potter book is actually in my pile of really good openers. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” (Subtle alliteration, HELLO??) So I'm super excited to see if my own first lines come even close to the standards that I apply to other people lol. MY OWN MONEY IS ON NO. I have the feeling that I'm so frantic trying to get the story down on paper before the good words disappear from my head that I'm not actually paying attention to the first line. BUT LET'S SEE, SHALL WE.
So just straight up going backwards, I've written and posted TWO BRAND NEW THINGS after being away from fandom almost entirely for 10+ years! They're drabble length but they're shiny and new! <3 (All available fics are linked!)
1. Tango:
She teaches them to dance so that they can dance with her but when Atem gets that mischievous smirk on his face and pulls Yugi into his arms, their bodies spark and the dance floor smolders at their heels.
(The fic is so short that this is a full 1/5 of it but actually, I think I crammed all the good stuff right into that first line. This already might be my favorite. Like it says there in the line itself, Puzzleshipping.)
2. No Betting:
Anzu sat at the kitchen table writing carefully calculated answers onto sticky notes before attaching them to a fourth-grade math worksheet.
(Peachshipping! This one doesn't pop off until about line five so here's the rest of that bit:)
She had the same arrangement with her spouse as most parents had. When the kids were good they were hers. When they were bad, they were his. And when they were winning at games because they picked up rules with uncanny speed and read their opponents with more insight than ought to be available to a child, they were definitely, definitely his.
3. If you wanted honesty that's all you had to say (working title):
When he realized that the figure sitting under the game shop display window and smoking wasn’t Ryou, the physical body response was as though it had discovered a coiled snake not two feet away.
(This one! It's a NEW half finished(?) WIP. I actually started this one before the drabbles but wanted to finish before posting it. Then it got out of hand, then work got out of hand, then I started a couple more projects and well. I keep putting words on it though and eventually there will be a Kleptoshipper that turns into Puzzle and Tender for your reading enjoyment. Also, fair warning - don't use song lyrics as a working title. Every time I look at the document I get the song stuck in my head.)
Now we have polished up reposts of old stories for their move to AO3, where I'll basically keep my master archive. Not full re-writes but I fixed a bunch of typos and awkward sentences and they're much stronger for it. Most of these are from a pairings contest way back when so LOTS of different pairings and lots of AUs!
4. Human:
It was like a bad noir, the thought crossed both of their minds.
(Scifi AU, Rivalshipping. That one's not bad for a first line. Actually no link at the time of writing cause the re-edit is going up in like, a half hour? an hour? a half day? It's my next project after finishing this, finishing up the edit and posting it on AO3. Now with link!)
5. Blood:
Fingers through midnight black hair, whispers in his ear, touches that sizzled along the skin, awakening nerves and senses. 
(Dungeonshipping, Pegasus x Otogi, vampires AU. Oh that’s a nice first line! <3)
6. Crazy for You:
The keys are too large and too heavy for the doctor more used to more modern facilities but she doesn't say anything, just follows the orderly as he pulls the large door open.
(Manipulashipping, Anzu x Marik, Psychward AU. Still one of my favorites from that era. Big bold warning though, THIS ONE CONTAINS NON-CON)
7. Finality:
“What are you doing here?”
“Saying goodbye.” Bakura’s translucent arms swept across the graveyard. “Is this not an appropriate place for it?”
(First two or so bits of dialogue as the first first is a generic question. You can tell this is one of the really old ones just by that but it's a sweet, sad little Tendershipper that still has a special place in my heart.)
8. Pieces of You:
Glitter caught the light, leaving shimmering trails in the air as it got everywhere.
(Glittershipping, Anzu x Kisara. Another one that's special to me. Kisara is my girl and my first writing muse. <3)
9. Cambodia:
“It was summer of fifty three...”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, it can't have been fifty three. You might be that ancient but I'm not. It must have been sixty three.”
(Jiishipping. Yes. Sugoroku x Arthur. HEY, IT CAME UP IN THE RANDOM DRAW FOR THE SHIPPING CONTEST OK. And my writer's brain hasn't backed down from a challenge yet... Another one that takes 4 lines to pop off but it's a good start. Actually, here's the rest of the bit just because I cannot get enough of these two bickering:)
“What do you mean it must have been sixty three? You don't even know what story I'm trying to tell.”
“Am I in it?”
“What?”
“So you're deaf now as well as daft? AM I IN IT?”
“Of course you're in it, y'old coot. Don't know why I'd tell a story without you in it when both grandkids are sitting here.”
10. Coffee and Cigarettes:
"Cigarettes and coffee? That's not a very healthy lunch." 
Mana crossed her legs and took a refined sip of her own coffee even as her company was not. 
(Mischiefshipping, Mana x Thief King Bakura. Oh this one I'm actually sad that it doesn't immediately sparkle in the first line cause it's one of my absolute favorites of everything I've written. And I think it's the only time I've ever written Mana but I LOVED IT AND HER. Oh no! I lied, I've written her at least one other time though I don't think that one quite captures her sheer chaos energy like this one does.)
11. A Million Missed Chances:
Somewhere along the line, someone made a choice.
(This one. THIS ONE. I think this is by far the most epic idea I've tackled. I still don't know if the sheer scale of the thing came across in the actual fic but in my head it was massive and I remember pounding away at my teeny tiny laptop late at night because the whole thing hit me maybe a day or so before the story was due for the pairings contest. We only had a week to write each fic and my really good ideas never came to me before the very last minute. T.T Conquestshipping, Mai x Valon.)
12. A Fear of Falling:
She drove.
Like she always did when something bothered her.
(Oh the first chapter on this is also one of the really ancient ones. Like one of the very first things I wrote. That first chapter really shows its age and is a little shaky but the others are better and the last one is what fits into the chorological order here. Polarshipping, Jou x Mai. One of my very first ships. Probably THE first actually <3)
13. What Our Creators Make Us:
"Well, well." The match flared, scattering dark shadows until it was blown out and the only light that remained was the red glow from the cigarette end. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
(Psychoshipping, Marik x Spirit of the Ring Bakura. With a bit of Bronze, Angst and Tender in the follow up. Old but I'm ridiculously proud of it, hence it's place in the master archive. Ahaha you can tell how old it is though by how clever I think I am. I thought it was funny to make my audience figure out who was talking and not reveal the characters for a good fourth to third of the fic. Ahhhhhhh. Sorry about past me.)
14. A Revolution of the Spirit:
It wasn't fair.  It just wasn't.
That they were close was understandable (you don't get much closer than sharing headspace) but that even now, after deals were made with gods, endless arguments, compromises and the ultimate guilt trip that he had only been a teenager when he willingly sacrificed himself for all of humanity, things she had only half seen and only partly understood even though they had all been there to witness, that even now Atem continued to invade Yugi's personal space as though he belonged there got on her nerves.
(Woah Nelly! That third sentence should probably be three, four and five. Even if I just split it in half we'd continue the pattern of things popping off in the fourth line. I think that's one pattern that's emerging! A really good bit takes me about four lines to set up and deliver! Oh, the challenge was Revolutionshipping, Anzu x Atem, but the fic is actually Spiritshipping, Anzu x Yugi x Atem.)
So confession time, I haven't been out of fandom completely, I just hadn't written my own standalone stories in a very long time. There are a few (ok ok more than a few) long-running rps that @miss-moberg and I have been adding to on and off over the years. I can't resist throwing in a couple of these.
15. Cafe!
The door shut behind them with the soft click of the latch and the exhale of a breath long held.
(This opening line was from December of 2020 when we rebooted a very old Prideshipper and that is a damn good opening line if I do say so myself. I can definitely see the difference now between the newer works and the older ones. I've gotten better, she's matched me pace for pace and eventually something will be finished, I'll work up the courage to ask permission to post it and the whole internet will get to see how brilliant the two of us are together.)
16. Treasure Hunt!
"Ryou, I think you're going to regret letting me tag along on your adventuring this time."  Yugi didn't bother turning away from the airplane's tiny window to see if his seatmate was paying attention.  He was more thinking out loud with his friend playing the role of a convenient sounding board.  "Because I think this trip is the only thing I'm going to talk about ever again."
(One more from RP because it's got that fun, four line punch that we've discovered is a pattern for me! Opening entry is from 2017.)
Also, in truth, my count is a little off when I say I'd been out of fandom 10+ years. I've been away from YGO for that long but I did spend a brief stint in Homestuck where I read a ton of fanfic, flirted with a couple group RPs and even wrote a tiny bit. 9 years without writing a new fic isn't as impressive as saying ‘over a decade’ but it is a little more accurate.
17. What You Will:
In the land of fair Illyria, along a small, sandy stretch of its rocky shore, a ship has come to ruin and one lone woman lies still as death among broken wood.
(The beginning of a Homestuck/Twelfth Night crossover that I'm still determined to work more on someday. It's only got a single chapter but it's magic though now I'm concerned about not being able to recapture that. Not a bad first line though. The style is so different it took me reading it a couple times before going, oh yeeeeeah, that's pretty good!)
18. Relentless:
You pull him to the deck and then across it by the remains of his shirt. Let him say one last goodbye. His ship pillaged, his crew murdered, his hands bound behind his back and at your mercy.
Funny word, that. Mercy.
(The first line is pretty decent but there's that four line combo again! Five but I could basically fix that with a comma. Featuring the troll ancestors Mindfang and Dualscar because every time Hussey introduced new characters they were instantly my favorite.) 
19. Black:
There is dark and there is dark and there is dark and then there is black. She is black. Licorice and coal. She is hate and resentment and everything that tastes bitter, the kind of black that coats the tongue like oil, drips down the back of the throat and keeps going.
(Oh wow. Am I allowed to say that about my own work? A Terezi/Vriska drabble that I'm putting as much here as I think I can get away with because it's so good that it fucks me up a little going back and reading it.)
And here it gets tricky because I think the more recent of the old, old fics are in the Drabbles and Shorts collection on ff.net and I can't see a post date. So I'll just pick a good one to end on.
20. Two Princes:
It was inevitable as the rising of Ra's chariot after a long night, as the flooding of the river banks every spring, and Atem always knew that Yugi's kiss would be as warm and gentle as the evening breeze in the summer that brought relief from the scorching day. It was.
(How about the final honor going to more Puzzle/Blind? This probably has the strongest first line of its era. Actually I'm not sure when it was written. It was just hanging out in my writing folder and, thinking about it, I probably wrote it when I was fading from fandom the first time around but still trying to hang in there. No wait! That’s too sad, we can’t end on that! Lets add one more to the list for the sake of personal narrative!)
21. Linger:
The world doesn't need him anymore. It doesn't need his sword and it doesn't need his pen.
(A tiny Princess Tutu afterward that I wrote for myself. Nice one-two punch in the opener. Also it rounds out the personal story that accidentally developed here with a line later in the fic, "Words, however, never stray far from a good writer..." Like, wait, stop. Past me, how did you know T.T)
Did that take a sudden emotional turn for anyone else or was that just me. Can I offset that a little with an honorable mention? Let’s do that while I collect myself. Here’s one more.
Honorable mention: Ryou and the Thief
There was a storm gathering and too much magic in the air. Much more than occurred naturally and magic at this level was never a good thing.
(I can’t have a list of things I’ve written without having Ryou and the Thief on it. If you click on this one though, BEWARE, it’s old, it’s silly and it has a ton of explicit gay sex that… would be written very differently if we were handling it today I’m sure! This is the first RP @miss-moberg and I ever did together and our excuse to Gemship and Puzzleship turned into us running the boys through a whole adventure based on the Osiris myth. It’s the longest thing I’ve ever completed and I’d still consider it kind of my legacy.)
And that’s the last 21(+1!) stories that I’ve written! 
The clear winner of best first line for me is 15. Cafe! It’s short, elegant and manages to contain a whole mood even without the context of what’s going on and who’s involved. (Spoilers: It’s Seto and Mokuba making an AU escape from Gozoboro.) Close second is Tango, the most recent story. It’s neat to see just how much better I’ve gotten and also really cool to see that even if the first line itself doesn’t contain a punch, it’s usually because there’s a nice, strong idea being set up and delivered in the first four lines (or so). What a pleasant surprise!
AND WOW, this whole tag thing didn't need to be so long! Or personal! Seriously, if you get this tag from me the challenge is only to list the first lines to 20 stories and maybe try to draw one or two conclusions from them. You all thought I was joking when I said I loved talking about my own writing! But actually, I guess it’s fine like this as I ended up using it as a way to re-introduce myself. Like, "Hey, I used to live here a long time ago and oh my god I love what you've done with the place!" Rather than being someone who's just popped up out of nowhere a few weeks ago to creepily bother all your best of the best creators so....
^///^ Hello!
Thanks for letting me ramble!
Tags! I think I've seen most of the authors I follow do this already but on the off chance you haven't been tagged yet: @elexica (checked your blog to see if you'd already done the tag and saw that you're another person returning to writing fanfiction after 10+ years. Same! Hello!!), @danieco, @draconicmaw, @nedjemetsenen (has someone tagged you already?) and two shots in the dark, @miss-moberg and @edmondia (I'm so sorry you two. T.T Please feel free to block me forever.) And please, anyone else who wants to babble about their own writing! Do this, it was so much fun. <3
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batarella · 4 years ago
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The Commander - Part 9 (Arkham Knight x Reader)
I just want to thank you all for the kind comments and messages. I was afraid of disappointing you with the next chapters. So please let me know what you all think! It lets me know if I’m on the right track!
WORDS: 3272 WARNINGS: UHMMMM YOU FIGHT WITH JASON AND THEN THERE’S A WHOLE MIX OF ANGSTY FLUFF AND FLUFFY ANGST 
Masterlist
THE COMMANDER - MASTERLIST
-----
“So what do they call you? Peashooter?”
This kid was a fucking menace. And the red and yellow on his suit just made him even more irritating to look at. The bullets just bounced off of him. Either that, or she’ll have to face her uncle for missing so many shots at once. She gripped onto the two pistols with her life.
Aim for the head.
She saw his cape rolling into a pile of boxes and fired.
“Silver Sniper! The Mini Gunner! Come on, I can think of loads of names right now!”
The boxes had become an exploded mess by then. Robin wasn’t there. She backed off, panting. Y/N had to get out of this. She focused on the sounds, or any movement from the ground’s vibrations, but there was nothing. Which meant-
“Fuck!” Robin jumped from the ledge above and tackled her to the ground. Y/N kneed his groin, then landed a punch on his face. She pushed him off of her and ducked just as he pounced for her head.
He blocked her kicks with his arms, then grabbed her right fist, then her left, just as she threw them, but she high kicked his hold and pushed him back. She kept throwing her punches, and he easily blocked them without blinking.
Y/N growled, but Robin just smirked at her. He threw a punch at her stomach, but didn’t see her foot aiming just at his chest.
He threw back, and it was enough time for her to pick up her pistols and aim at his head.
But just as she pulled the trigger, two batarangs landed right at the muzzels. The firearms exploded in her hands and her body was thrown to the floor. Robin laughed. “You were looking an awful lot like Lara Croft there, kid.”
“You think this is intimidating me, bird boy?”
“Without your precious guns, maybe it is.”
Xxxx
Jason ran right up to her, withstanding all the bullets she could fire with his armor thick enough to go against missiles, and pushed her to the ground, picking up her guns and throwing them over the roof. The Commander kicked him in the stomach and rolled off.
“No guns.”
His voice filter just sounded annoying at this point. Y/N picked herself up and ran to him, throwing a punch aiming for his neck. He saw her alternating strikes and dodged every one of them, blocking her knee with his own wrist. She landed a kick, but he grabbed her ankle and flung her off to the ledge, her back hitting the cement.
“Stop throwing me around, asshole!” she coughed.
This man was one she wanted dead at some point and was so tempted to help kill him, she was almost at the front gates of Arkham just to do so. At the last minute, she decided against it.
She might be a killer, but she was no monster.
Then she ended up sleeping with that same man, several times, even going so far as sharing a kiss at a time and place that a kiss meant the most.
And here he was again, Jason, finishing a war that started years ago.
Jason skidded to her front, his shoes making her lose balance. They rolled around the floor, with either on top and throwing their fists only to meet the ground. Y/N was first to roll off and regain her stance, but Jason managed to duck before she hit his head.
She had to tire him out. His hits were strong. Too strong in fact. More of those and his arms would eventually weaken. It was her turn to block his fists, her torso turning around while also keeping an eye on his lower body.
Her punches were swift, fast, and almost as light as air. They weren’t enough on their own, but if she gained her momentum it would be enough to throw her opponent off. She knew Jason had that in mind, especially since he was the exact opposite. He was slower, but each hit was strong enough to land her on the ground.
It had always been hard to best him. In fact, she never could say she’d beaten him in a fight. But this will be the first.
As a fight long awaited, it was too bad no one else saw them. They were dancing. A violent, bone-crushing dance.
And it was epic.
Her legs were flying in the air as Y/N twisted his arm and placed her whole weight right on his shoulder. She pulled at his wrist, gaining a cry from him.
“Get off me!”
“You asked for this, you son of a-“
And a massive blow of his strength pushed her off. She was panting, and she let her guard down for a split second and he had her against the wall, grabbing her by the collar.
“This making you hard, Knight?” she whispered.
Jason should’ve seen her knee between his legs. He let go of her, and she tackled him to the ground. She tried hitting his visor, but her already bruised fist gave out and Jason flipped them over.
He held her down with his muscled arm hard against her neck. Y/N struggled and she could only look up to his visor. The glass had broken and his grunts were no longer filtered. She could see his face, teeth gritting, and his eyes looking straight back at her. She used the last of her strength to push him off.
It had to be hours. The Commander was panting, and all her limbs felt like falling to the ground. “Stop!” Jason said, struggling to pull himself up the floor. He had to catch his breath as well, opening his visor to let the cold air in. She leaned her arm against the cement.
The sky had lightened. And the stars had disappeared. She was breathing so hard the air just seemed too thin. Jason laid flat on the ground, staring blankly above. Y/N pressed her back against the ledge and her body melted to the ground.
The worthiest opponent. And still, no one bested the other. She waited until the air wasn’t such a blur and the floor no longer spinning, and he on the ground. They sat there for as long as they’d fought until the sun had fully risen.
He hadn’t said a word, but she could see his chest rising and falling, eventually into a steadier pace. When she thought she could, she stood up, slowly walking up to Jason.
She caught his eye, and extended her hand. He looked at her up and down, but for once, he actually took it. She pulled him up.
“This conversation never happened.”
Jason pulled his hand away. “Just the conversation or everything that happened after it?”
“Need I remind you the militia leaves for Gotham in three days. This was stupid. We don’t have time for this.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
She brushed off her suit, lasting a glare at him before turning for the hatch on the floor. She pulled it open.
“I’m sorry,” Jason said.
She didn’t even look back at him. “Fuck off.”
Xxxxx
Her head was burning. She needed ice, right at the center of her cheek. She tried not to look at Jason or else she’d attack him from across the table again. He had a new visor on, as if he kept spare ones in his drawers. If she had broken bones somewhere they’ll have to be ignored.
“I told Stagg the Cloudburst arrives in Gotham today. He’s responsible for hiding it in his bunkers until I give the signal.”
Deathstroke filled in. “How do we filter out the effects from our men?”
“Their masks give them immunity,” said the Knight.
“And does everyone have this mask? I told you we had new recruits.”
“Everyone is accounted for,” Crane said. “Our men will be fine.”
“Have you even tested the toxin recently?”
Scarecrow stood from his chair. “The Cloudburst will do much more than just release the toxin. I’ve asked Stagg to amplify its poison gas into the density of rainclouds. The city will be a barren wasteland. And if the Dark Knight fails, all of Gotham will fall.”
Jason seemed satisfied. “I’ll make sure to alert our men before I release the toxin.”
“I thought the Commander drives the Cloudburst,” said Slade.
“If it has anything to do with facing Batman head on, I’ll do it. The Commander’s tasked mainly at HQ.”
“Actually,” Crane said. “Commander Y/N has the expertise to control the tank, don’t you Commander?”
The Commander sat back against the chair. “I do.”
“She’s the best man for the job, Knight.”
“I said, I’ll do it. We had a deal. I get to kill Batman!”
Scarecrow wasn’t bothered. “And is it with the Cloudburst that you end his life with? The Cloudburst isn’t used as our primary weapon, Knight. It is used for the toxin.”
“It’s the best weapon we’ve got.”
“Then perhaps that means our drones are far from enough.”
Slade stammered, “Those drones are mine and they work perfectly.”
“I don’t care if I have a knife or a tank,” Jason said. “He looks into my eyes while he dies.”
“Your delay in Gotham tells me your history with the Dark Knight will work to your disadvantage.”
Fuck.
“We had to hack into GCPD,” The Commander finally said. She’d join in on the argument, but her jaw hurt too much. Then she took out the hacking device from her jacket and slid it across the table to Slade.
“The Commander has her own work. I will not just sit in a chair and watch everything happen from a camera.”
“We all know you won’t be doing that, kid,” Deathstroke interrupted. “I say we send the Commander.”
“Her best position is to watch and control all comms and drones at HQ. She will lead the whole army. I gave her that job weeks ago, Wilson.”
“Enough,” the Commander said. “I’ll take the Cloudburst. The Knight can take a serpent drone and attack the Alpha Target once the tank destroys his car. He kills him right then.”
Slade slams his palms against the table. “How bout that?”
“A serpent drone?”
“I fire at his car, you make sure your visor filters out the gas and you take him out from above.”
Jason seemed skeptical, but Deathstroke had already stood up from his chair. “Have at it, Commander.”
Jason wasn’t having it. He went after Slade after he’d left the room. The commander winced at the pain in her lower body, struggling to even stand up. She started for the door, and Crane blocked her out.
“Commander,” he whispered. Y/N pretended not to look at him.
“What?”
“I know what went on with you and the Knight.”
The Commander kept looking at the ground. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“I have eyes in Gotham. You cannot talk your way out of this.”
“Whatever it is you think, that isn’t the case. Nothing happened between us.”
Crane neared his face dangerously close to Y/N. And suddenly, she had a whiff of his toxin. It was in his breath. In a daze, she looked straight into his eyes and saw demons crawl out of them. Her breath was shortened and she stiffed.
“I don’t care about either of you,” he said. “But if this affects the deployment of my toxin in any way, I’ll make sure he suffers your own consequences.”
“Get out of my face, Crane.”
“I know your fear. I know everybody’s fear. The Knight is deadly, but the man’s as fragile as broken glass. And as stubborn as a mangy dog. You would know that.”
He was making her see it. And hear things she wasn’t supposed to hear. There were screams. Not hers, but of Jason’s. And she could see his face crying out in agony. But she couldn’t look away from the blackness that was Crane’s eyes.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Yes, in fact, you do,” Crane breathed and backed away.
There were still remnants of the toxin when he headed out the door.
“You have two days, Commander. Make it count.”
Xxxx
It was death.
That was what stared at her in the face.
It wasn’t just Jason, or Crane. It was death.
It was cold, and the streets were barren and full of shit. They were far away from the city, but the countryside had a small town just a mile away. She didn’t have to take her bike. Y/N walked even when the sidewalks were small enough for her to be run over at just a slight turn of a wheel.
But she didn’t care, not even when she felt it rain so slightly, the droplets disappeared as it made contact with her clothes. Y/N pulled up her hood and continued down the road.
There weren’t much people, even at this hour. She wasn’t even afraid anyone would pull her to the alleys and leave her defenseless. Her focus was on the ground, moving downward until she met the curb.
The light glowed red, even with no cars passing by. She stood there, waiting. And in front of her was a small diner.
It was the classic retro feel. There was a jukebox at the corner, red seats backed up against the window while a waitress in blue took the orders of the two people inside. A mother and her son. He seemed happy with the single slice of pie on his plate.
She looked away before she’s thought about it even more.
But even then, it was too late. It hurt before it even dawned to her.
In another world, where she wasn’t taken in by her uncle, she’d have gone into a diner just like the one in front of her, ordered a burger and a chocolate milkshake knowing the rain would fall in and it would take her too long to get home for dinner. Then she’ll take a seat at the counter.
In that world, she’d have met a boy looking at her from a few seats away, smiling. And she’d smile back when her order appears and they realized they got the exact same mix of the smoothie they wanted. The boy would take the seat beside her, ask for her name. And he’d tell her his. That boy would have the brightest blue eyes and she could already tell he had the habit of scratching his nose.
And they’ll talk all night even after everyone else in the diner had left, when the cook had to drive them out. He would offer to take her home, and she’d decline at first, but eventually give in. She wanted to give in. And by the end of the day, he’d have her number and they’ll see each other that weekend again. In that same diner.
In that world, she wasn’t a world-renowned assassin, and Jason wasn’t a vigilante with a broken past.
But-
But-
Fuck. She was so in love with him, it was terrifying.
But they had no business being kids, being cute, being so harmlessly in love and go on walks and even dates.
They had no business lying on the floor, eating burgers at three in the afternoon.
They had no business being so uncomplicated, when everything comes so easily and nothing would be at stake.
They had no business having a relationship. No matter how much she’d have wanted that. Not after their history. Not after what they’ve both been through. Not after what Floyd had raised her into and partially stripped her of anything normal.
Jason. Tortured. Being mauled on the floor while a madman beats him like a lifeless sack of hay.
Then someone stood beside her. She didn’t have to look at him.
“Stop following me.”
Jason didn’t answer. He looked on at the diner and he had the same look on his eyes as she had.
“You look at the diner, too.”
“Go. Away.”
He didn’t leave. Instead, they stood at the side of the street, not moving even when the light in front of them turned green.
She didn’t say anything more. Didn’t even look at him.
“I wish… I did something,” she swallowed. “I wish I wanted to save you.”
“Stop. I didn’t mean what I said. Forget about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I said stop.”
The woman in the diner held up a spoonful of pie and her son opened his mouth wide. It looked delicious even from the distance. The traffic light turned red and just one car drove off in front of them.
“Jason-“
“I saw the look on your face. Back at the cave. I knew you’d have figured everything out by then, about what happened to me at Arkham.”
She was stone cold and stiff.
“But none of that mattered. I didn’t care if you wanted me dead at one point. The whole day I was with you in Gotham, it was the first day I hadn’t thought about Joker… or Batman. Anything.
“I walked out of the cave hoping you wouldn’t run away after knowing who I was. So I kissed you. And you kissed me back. Then I let you hold me and I told you my name. Then… Jesus…”
Y/N still hadn’t turned away. She wasn’t crying. She couldn’t. It was the droplets from the rain that ran down her cheeks. Nothing else.
And by that time the traffic light had turned back to being green, the diner was dark and empty. She didn’t want to look to her side. Somehow, she knew Jason would just walk away, without so much as another word. He’d do something like that, and it wouldn’t be much of a surprise.
But he stayed.
For a long while, he did. So she asked, without much to expect.
“Can you walk me home?”
Just that. She could at least have that. Something so miniscule from the world she longed to be.
“Okay.”
He stayed right beside her. All the way back to the barracks. And the dark rain prevailed.
And it was the same when they reached the empty training grounds, deep into the back where the living quarters were. The walk to their rooms was silent, and their clothes drenched the floors all the way up to hers. Jason walked straight into his, without so much as another word.
She went into her room and locked the door, but her hand didn’t leave the doorknob. She stood there, silent and alone. Y/N never felt so lost.
But it had to have been long minutes, because she heard four knocks on her door before she’s even walked away. She opened it and Jason was standing there, his hair a wet mess, and he held up a coffee mug.
“Hot water,” he said. “Drink it before bed.”
Y/N didn’t have much energy left to decline. She took it from him. “Thank you.”
Jason stepped back, and she closed the door again.
Her whole body leaned against the hard wood of the door and she could feel a part of herself drip to the floor at each second she’d have to look into his hurt eyes. She’d fallen in so deep, and she hated herself for it.
She opened the door, determined to go after him.
But he was still there, at the door, just about to go into her room himself.
Y/N’s never felt so at the edge of breaking down when she met his eyes, panting. And with the pain, came the rush of cold air, the rush of cold relief. Jason went into her room, pushed her against the door to close it. He could feel her breath, wanting him.
He held the back of her drenched head and pulled her to his lips. She dug in to his hair, gripping it hard when his lips escaped hers and found their way back to her neck. Her other hand traveled down his clothed arms. She gasped, and Jason slowly guided them both to move to the bed. He’ll never pull away. Soon there were no more boundaries between them, no distance. They lasted all night, no longer with any trace of regret.
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THE COMMANDER - MASTERLIST
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SMUT FANS. YA’LL KNOW IT’S ABOUT TO GET DOWN IN THE NEXT CHAPTER
  Taglist: everyartistwas-firstanamateur  @sarcasmismyfirstlove @damned-queen-of-gotham @idkmanicantenglish @wunderstell @birdy-bat-riya @get-loki@everyday-imfangirling @comic-nerd-dc @multifandoms916 @icequeen208@offendedfishnoises @egdolan @xemiefx @arkhamtoddler @elsenthal@mythicbitchx @supremehaunter @ burning-alive  @lucy-roo
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tiramisiyu · 3 years ago
Text
【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: Main Story 7-26 Translation
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Translation Masterlist | Video
Chapter 7 – Rains of Monte Cristo: 7-1 / 7-3 / 7-5 / 7-7 / 7-9 / 7-11 / 7-13 / 7-15 / 7-17 / 7-19  ♦️ ♦️  7-20 / 7-22 / 7-24 / 7-26 / 7-28 / 7-30 / 7-32 / 7-34 / 7-35
Police Waiting Room
Marius and I immediately took what we’d gotten to the police station.
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Darius Morgan: This…
Darius’ face darkened when he saw the photos we’d brought and heard about how we’d obtained them.
MC: Captain Morgan, you…
Darius Morgan: I’ll be handing these photos upwards right away, as well as increasing investigation on and tracking Hang Jiahe.
Darius Morgan: Thank you for your hard work.
Marius: No problem. Although, Captain Morgan, I think it’s better to not go overboard on tracking Hang Jiahe right now, so we don’t scare her off.
Darius Morgan: But if we don’t follow her, what if she runs off?
MC: Based on how Hang Jiahe has operated before, I feel like she will not opt to run away for now – it would be too obvious.
MC: Captain Morgan, how about we split up?
MC: Marius and I will continue our investigation for Wang Chunchong and confuse her judgement.
MC: Captain Morgan, you can investigate her secretly.
Darius Morgan: That works.
Darius Morgan: What do you two plan to do after?
MC: We’re planning to see Wang Chunchong first and question him.
MC: Based on what we were thinking earlier, Hang Jiahe’s motive for killing Hang Fei is very obvious.
MC: But we still haven’t figured out the fingerprints on the murder weapon, the DNA in the suitcase, as well as the records of Wang Chunchong taking G24D.
MC: We also haven’t figured out Hang Jiahe’s alibi.
MC: And we also don’t know why Hang Jiahe framed Wang Chunchong.
MC: So we’ll go ask Wang Chunchong first – maybe he’ll have some thoughts.
Darius Morgan: Then how about this – the police will oversee investigating her alibi.
Darius Morgan: When we were investigating the Simon issue, we noticed an abandoned door in the natural park – we could try to look for any witnesses.
Darius Morgan: As for proof that Hang Jiahe was at the vacation villa… maybe we missed something before.
Marius: Leave the apartment part to us, then. This might have to do with Wang Chunchong.
Darius Morgan: Okay. Then I’ll send the apartment surveillance records of the 28th to you. Remember to check it.
MC: Sure.
[Obtained January 28th Apartment Full-Day Surveillance Records]
Darius Morgan: Also, we need to inspect the things you brought.
MC: Speaking of which, Captain Morgan, please pay special attention to anything that has to do with Qi Yu when inspecting.
MC: We know why Hang Jiahe murdered Hang Fei, but her murder of Qi Yu…
Darius Morgan: Maybe Hang Jiahe hated Qi Yu for being a bystander, and considered her an accomplice?
MC: That works, logically… but…
I thought of how Marius had evaluated Qi Yu’s personality, feeling like we had missed something.
Darius Morgan: I understand. I will contact you if anything comes up.
✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼
Meeting Room
After bidding farewell to Darius, we went to see Wang Chunchong again.
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Wang Chunchong: Miss Lawyer, have you figured out my case?
MC: Not completely, but there have been some excellent developments.
MC: We already have absolute evidence that proves that you were not the one who committed the murder and disposed of the bodies.
Wang Chunchong: That’s awesome! Then… when can I get out of here?
Marius: Not so fast. Though we did get absolute evidence…
Marius: There are a few things among those that the police charged you with, which we aren’t sure about right now.
MC: So, Mister Wang, we need to confirm a few things with you.
Wang Chunchong: Is that so…
Wang Chunchong: Alright, go ahead.
✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼
START QUESTIONING
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⊳ What he did on the night of the crime
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MC: Then, Mister Wang, I’ll get straight to the point…
MC: What did you do at the natural park on the night of January 28?
Wang Chunchong: Didn’t I say before that I went there to see my creditor?
Marius: Wang Chunchong, are you sure?
Marius: At this point, I recommend that you do not lie.
Wang Chunchong: … Marius von Hagen, what do you mean?
Marius: You’ll know what I mean after seeing this.
Marius turned on his phone, displaying a screenshot from the video Artem had gotten.
MC: Mr. Wang Chunchong, are you familiar with this place?
Wang Chunchong: What place is that… I’m not familiar with it…
MC: You aren’t? So you’ve already forgotten how you murdered Simon?
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Wang Chunchong: Wha-
Wang Chunchong’s face blanched immediately.
MC: We’ve already obtained a video that clearly records your murder of Simon.
MC: Mister Wang, are you willing to tell the truth now?
Wang Chunchong: How can this be… impossible… I confirmed that there was no one that day…
Wang Chunchong: H-how much do you know?
Marius: How much we know depends on how much you’re willing to tell us.
MC: If you intend to continue hiding things, either one of the murders – Simon or the Hang couple – will fall onto you.
MC: But if you’re willing to confess and provide us clues to help the police solve the Hang couple’s murder case, you will be considered for good behaviour.
Marius: Wang Chunchong, you don’t need me to tell you which choice is better, do you?
Wang Chunchong: …
Wang Chunchong: Can it really be considered good behaviour…
MC: Are you in any position to haggle?
Wang Chunchong hung his head, his face deathly ashy.
Wang Chunchong: Alright, I’ll talk. As you saw, I came to the natural park on the 28th to deal with Simon.
Wang Chunchong: We agreed to meet at around 11pm on the north mountain’s peak, so I could give him hush money.
Wang Chunchong: When he was counting the money in the suitcase, I knocked him unconscious from behind him, then tied him to rocks and threw him into the sea.
MC: Hush money? What hush money?
Wang Chunchong: About Tyson’s illegal drug development at Heirson.
Wang Chunchong: It seemed like Simon had found out about something that he shouldn’t have, so Tyson wanted to get rid of him.
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Marius: Seemed? Does that mean you don’t know the exact reason for the conflict between Tyson and Simon?
Wang Chunchong: I was neither Heirson staff, nor Tyson’s son, so why would he tell me that?
Wang Chunchong: I was merely a knife in his hands for a moment, one that killed someone for him.
MC: (Then what is the secret that Wang Chunchong said he knew?)
MC: …
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⊳ Why he murdered for Tyson
MC: Wang Chunchong, murder is not a small issue. Why did you do so for Tyson?
MC: Did he promise you something?
Wang Chunchong: Yes, Tyson promised me that he would give me 10% of Heirson’s shares if I dealt with Simon.
Wang Chunchong: With how massively successful Heirson became, it would be a waste if I didn’t go for it.
Wang Chunchong: All I needed to do was deal with Simon – easy as pie.
MC: … Wang Chunchong, watch what you’re saying!
MC: What do you take human life to be?!
Wang Chunchong: …
Wang Chunchong looked at me apprehensively, seeming to have detected my anger. Marius patted the back of my hand.
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Marius: Wang Chunchong, this reason of yours sure is perfunctory.
Wang Chunchong: What do you mean?
Marius: You’re not that smart, but you aren’t so stupid that you couldn’t have realized that Tyson was lying to you.
Marius: No matter why you murdered Simon, if something came to light, Tyson could shove all the blame at you.
Marius: Then, not only would you not have your money, but you’d also have thrown away your life.
Marius: Even a little kid would get this, so there’s no way you wouldn’t have.
Wang Chunchong: What are you trying to say?
Marius: Tyson’s promise was just a tiny portion. You must have acted because of another person.
Wang Chunchong: Who?
Marius: Hang-Jia-He.
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⊳ Hang Jiahe’s suggestion
Marius: Wang Chunchong, you must have planned for murder because Hang Jiahe said something to you.
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Wang Chunchong: …
Marius: You’re not planning to talk again?
Marius: Alright, if you’re not willing to talk, I’ll investigate myself, but think it through…
Marius: If I investigate, how many people will be alerted and how it might affect your good behaviour performance…
Marius: I can’t make any guarantees.
Marius then got up in a show of departure.
Wang Chunchong: Wait!
Wang Chunchong: I’ll talk, I’ll talk.
MC: Mister Wang, what did Hang Jiahe hell you?
Wang Chunchong: …
✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼
[Flashback]
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Wang Chunchong: What?! You want me to murder someone?
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Hang Jiahe: That’s right.
Wang Chunchong: Are you crazy? I’ve got nothing against Simon, why would I touch him?
Wang Chunchong: I don’t want to become a murderer.
Hang Jiahe: Tyson promised that he would give you 10% of Heirson shares after everything.
Hang Jiahe: Heirson’s health supplements business is at its peak, and 10% of shares is not a small amount.
Wang Chunchong: I still don’t want it. If the police find out that I did this…
Wang Chunchong: Tyson might just shove all the blame at me.
Wang Chunchong: By then, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it no matter how much money he gives me. Plus…
Wang Chunchong: Hang Jiahe, don’t think that I don’t know that you’re trying to get in Tyson’s good graces by recommending me…
Wang Chunchong: What are you trying to do, working so hard to get near Tyson?
Hang Jiahe: What am I trying to do? Aren’t I doing all this for you?
Wang Chunchong: For me?
Hang Jiahe: Yes. Think about it, Tyson’s only daughter is me. If I make him trust me completely…
Hang Jiahe: Won’t Heirson end up in our complete control after?
Hang Jiahe: But you know how vigilant Tyson is. If I hadn’t happened to hear him fighting with Simon on the observatory…
Wang Chunchong: Fighting? Over what?
Hang Jiahe: I’m not too sure on the details – I only heard something along the lines of “illegal raw materials”.
Hang Jiahe: Maybe Tyson was performing some sort of illegal drug research.
Hang Jiahe: Hah, there are a ton of secrets hidden at that Opaline River laboratory.
Wang Chunchong: Drug research…
Hang Jiahe: Chunchong, this is our best chance to get at the centre of Heirson’s power. We can’t give it up that easily.
Wang Chunchong: But what if Tyson does end up blaming everything on me?
Hang Jiahe: Don’t worry. When time comes, I’ll give my testimony in court that Tyson is the true culprit.
Hang Jiahe: You just need to act in a place where no one’s around. That way, you’ll leave no evidence.
Hang Jiahe: The criminal punishment will fall onto him, and once he meets his downfall…
Hang Jiahe: Heirson will fall into our hands, and you’ll be able to hold your head high within the Wang family.
Hang Jiahe: Don’t you hate your brother for supplanting and hurting you? When you have Heirson, how can he even match up against you?
Wang Chunchong: I can hold my head high…
An excited light ignited itself in Wang Chunchong’s eyes.
Wang Chunchong: Okay, I’ll do it.
[Flashback end]
✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼
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Marius: …
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MC: So you took a life, just for this?
Wang Chunchong: S-Simon brought it on himself, anyways, for embezzling and giving the illegal materials to Gordon Grant…
Wang Chunchong: I heard that he even tried to extort Tyson. He was asking for it.
MC: …
Marius: So Hang Jiahe also knew about your plan to murder Simon?
Wang Chunchong: She only knew when and where I planned to meet Simon, not what I’d be doing there.
Marius: Is there any proof of that?
Wang Chunchong: …
Wang Chunchong: Oh right, I fully recorded it when I spoke to her about this, just in case.
Wang Chunchong: I thought that her saying that she’d help me was just a verbal agreement, with no backup.
Wang Chunchong: So when discussing this, I had her agree to help me again.
MC: Where is the recording?
Wang Chunchong: It’s in a locked drawer in my office – the password is 1232.
Marius took out his phone and tapped on it, probably to send a message for Vincent to go get Wang Chunchong’s recording pen.
Marius: Wang Chunchong, did it never cross your mind that Hang Jiahe might have been tricking you, too?
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Wang Chunchong: Her? No way.
Wang Chunchong: She’s just a canary that I’ve raised. How could she have tricked me?
MC: (What in the world does Wang Chunchong see Hang Jiahe as?!)
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⊳ Relationship between Wang Chunchong and Hang Jiahe
MC: Wang Chunchong, I remember you told me before…
MC: You fell in love with Hang Jiahe at first sight, got into a relationship with her freely, and then started to prepare for marriage.
MC: But now, you call her your “canary”…
MC: Can your lies get any more clumsy?
Wang Chunchong: I did fall for her at first sight, o-only…
Marius: Only that your first meeting was no accident.
Marius: Rather, it had been plotted by Xu Yin for a long while, correct?
Wang Chunchong: … Yes.
Wang Chunchong: Xu Yin wanted to develop a connection with me through marriage and bind our interests with that.
Wang Chunchong: I wasn’t planning to agree, but after meeting Hang Jiahe herself, I did fall for her at first sight.
Wang Chunchong: So I went with the flow and agreed to the marriage.
Marius: Then did Hang Jiahe agree?
Wang Chunchong: She didn’t at the beginning, and was even adamant about going to some acting school overseas.
Wang Chunchong: So I secretly used some “tricks” and got her to stay.
✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼
[Flashback]
Wang Chunchong’s House
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Hang Jiahe: Mister Wang, my admission application was disqualified…
Hang Jiahe: Were you the one who had someone report to the school that I’d cheated on the entrance exam?
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Wang Chunchong: That’s right, it was me.
Hang Jiahe: I relied completely on my own ability during testing. Why would you slander me like this? Why?!
Wang Chunchong: Why? Obviously because you refused to marry me – not to mention how you keep wanting to run overseas.
Hang Jiahe: Mister Wang, I have made things very clear.
Hang Jiahe: There are no feelings between us, and I still have things I want to do. I can’t marry you.
Hang Jiahe: If you really do want to pursue me, we can try starting out as friends.
Wang Chunchong: Friends? I don’t want to start as your friend. I just want to marry you.
Wang Chunchong: As for what you want to do… isn’t that just going to that acting school?
Wang Chunchong: Look, you have no chance now.
Hang Jiahe: You… you’re despicable! Shameless!
Hang Jiahe: That was the one dream that kept me going. It was so hard for me to get a chance to leave…
Hang Jiahe: Why did you have to ruin it? Why?!
Wang Chunchong: Alright, alright, stop whining. As long as you stay by my side in the future…
Wang Chunchong: I’ll give you whatever you want, and I’ll treat you well.
Wang Chunchong: I even bought the residence under yours at a high price – see, don’t I love you a lot?
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Hang Jiahe: …
[Flashback end]
✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼
Wang Chunchong: From then on, she never left me.
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Marius: …
MC: …
Looks like this is why Hang Jiahe framed Wang Chunchong.
MC: (Then the murder weapon, drug procurement records, and DNA that we didn’t quite understand…)
MC: (Maybe Hang Jiahe did it when Wang Chunchong wasn’t aware.)
MC: (I’ll try asking.)
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⊳ Hammer and G24D
Marius: Have you seen the hammer that was the murder weapon near Hang Jiahe, or seen her ever use it?
Wang Chunchong: … No, she never let me go to her house, and I didn’t really care what she did on a daily basis.
Marius: …
Marius sunk into thought. I asked Wang Chunchong my question.
MC: Mister Wang, has Hang Jiahe ever asked you for G24D or procured the drug for you?
Wang Chunchong: … At the beginning of the year, she did ask me for G24D once.
Wang Chunchong: There was a period when she couldn’t sleep well because she couldn’t go abroad. Though she got better…
Wang Chunchong: Around January – I don’t really remember the day…
Wang Chunchong: She said that her old problem had returned, and she wanted some G24D for relief.
Wang Chunchong: I think I let her go get it from the warehouse herself and sign with my name…
Wang Chunchong suddenly froze.
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Wang Chunchong: H-how could this be… was it her that…
Marius: Wang Chunchong, looks like the canary you’ve raised aims to break open your cage and send you to your death.
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⊳ Suitcase
MC: Mister Wang, has Hang Jiahe ever opened your suitcase?
Wang Chunchong: Yes, she’s always the one who helps me pack when I go out on business.
MC: Then did Hang Jiahe touch your suitcases around the days that the murder happened?
Wang Chunchong: No, I never left Stellis during that month.
MC: (Then how did the DNA…)
Marius: Then did Hang Jiahe touch them before the police requested to check your suitcases?
Wang Chunchong: … I think so. I needed to go out on business around then.
MC: (There we go! Hang Jiahe might have framed him then!)
MC: (Wait, so the hairs were placed in them after the police found the bodies?)
MC: …
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⊳ The secret he holds
Marius: Wang Chunchong, do you still remember what I said when we met you the first time?
Wang Chunchong: What?
Marius: I said, Director Xu promised me that I could get what I want if I helped you.
Marius: You can now tell me about the secret you know on Tyson and Heirson, right?
Wang Chunchong: B-but I haven’t gotten out of here. This doesn’t count as proving my innocence.
Marius: It doesn’t? We found out about your murder of Simon.
Marius: The police have already eliminated you from the list of suspects of the Yaofu Community murder.
Marius: We’ve already proved your innocence in this case.
Wang Chunchong: But…
Marius: …
Wang Chunchong: I-I’ll talk…
Wang Chunchong: I heard from Tyson that all of Heirson’s special raw materials purchases have to do with someone named Xiao Ren.
MC: Xiao Ren? Where is he now?
Wang Chunchong: No idea.
Wang Chunchong: Tyson’s always kept this person’s occupational information on strict confidential status.
Wang Chunchong: Especially on how he’s in charge of purchasing raw materials – no one knows, aside from Tyson and Simon.
Wang Chunchong: I only found out about him when Tyson once accidentally let it slip with me.
MC: …
Marius: …
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⊳ “Sincerity”
After our questioning, we had basically solved all our questions that centered on Wang Chunchong. But I had another question for him – perhaps it was a question unrelated to the case, but I felt like I had to know.
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MC: Mister Wang, I have one last question for you.
Wang Chunchong: What is it?
MC: At this point, you probably know who it is that wants to frame you, don’t you?
Wang Chunchong: …
MC: Is there anything you want to say to Hang Jiahe, as well as Simon?
Wang Chunchong: … No. I don’t have anything I want to say…
MC: Then I’ll change my question.
MC: All you ever say when Simon or Hang Jiahe come up is “benefit” and “obtain”…
MC: When you weigh things against each other, is their benefit to you all you consider?
Wang Chunchong: … Can’t I? Is there something wrong with that?
Wang Chunchong suddenly lifted his head. The rims of his eyes were red – it seemed like he’d been provoked.
Wang Chunchong: Isn’t it normal for people to use each other and scheme together?
MC: Then does “sincerity” not exist between people?
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Wang Chunchong: Maybe it exists in your world, but not in the one I live in.
Wang Chunchong: Sincerity? Hah, that’s a luxury.
Wang Chunchong: In my world, doing your best to remain alive and not be eliminated by others is already difficult enough.
MC: …
Marius: Wang Chunchong, you’re wrong. Sincerity does exist in that world.
Marius: At least, I’ve seen and experienced it.
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Wang Chunchong: You… right, who are you? You’re the second young master of the von Hagen family.
Wang Chunchong: What’s your von Hagen family like? Close brothers, and a tight relationship with your father.
Wang Chunchong: You stand at the very summit, and you get to look down on everyone.
Marius: What did you just say…
Wang Chunchong: Marius von Hagen, do you know why I hate you so much?
Wang Chunchong: I hate you because you can maintain your goodness and sincerity, even in this circle.
Wang Chunchong: You have a brother who loves you and a father who cherishes you…
Wang Chunchong: Even if the world curses you for being a useless rich son and just plain trash, they will still stand by your side.
Wang Chunchong: Your life is so happy…
Wang Chunchong: But me? My grandfather pretends I don’t exist, and my father despises me for making nothing out of my life, wishing that he could chase me out of the family.
Wang Chunchong: And my brother supplanted and framed me for the inheritance, and even wants to kill me…
Wang Chunchong: Marius von Hagen, are you able to understand the suffering found in “people” and “family” as people like me try desperately to climb up?
Wang Chunchong: You’re trying to tell me that there’s sincerity between people? Don’t you think that’s incredibly laughable?
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Marius: …
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Marius: …
MC: Does that excuse unscrupulously murdering others?
Wang Chunchong: …
MC: Wang Chunchong, I sincerely feel sorrow for what you’ve experienced, but…
MC: This is not a reason, nor an excuse, for you to hurt or murder as you please.
MC: At the very least, there was no bad blood between you and Simon, and as for Hang Jiahe…
MC: She is a living person. She is not, and she should not be, your caged canary.
Wang Chunchong: …
 END QUESTIONING
✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼
After questioning ended, Marius and I hadn’t even spoken when Wang Chunchong bid farewell and left. Simultaneously, Marius received Wang Chunchong’s saved recording, which matched our questioning earlier.
[Obtained Wang Chunchong’s recording pen]
MC: Wang Chunchong…
Marius: He probably wants some alone time right now.
Marius: Alright, let’s not bother with him.
Marius: We got a lot of useful clues from this questioning.
MC: That’s right. In the few issues that were troubling us…
MC: We’ve dealt with the drug procurement record, the DNA in the suitcase, and why the murderer framed Wang Chunchong.
MC: All we need now is why the murder weapon has Wang Chunchong’s fingerprints, and Hang Jiahe’s alibi…
MC: To solve everything about this case.
Marius: Then next…
MC: Yep, let’s go see Hang Jiahe.
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sadaboutniall · 4 years ago
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Without Fear
masterlist | tag | wattpad
Chapter One. January.
remember that first laugh? all it changed once I had that // like a hurricane, but I don't care where I land - rome, dermot kennedy 
The whole thing had started out as a joke. Or maybe a pipe dream. Or maybe a massive mental breakdown and a poorly thought-through trip to the passport office for a rush renewal and a visa application. 
No matter how it had started, Luna hadn’t actually thought it would pan out. Two and a half months ago, standing in her parents’ kitchen in New York, reading the lawyer’s letter, it had been a shiny, exciting, half-baked idea—an escape she could cling to while everything else was going to shit. It hadn’t been a reality. 
It was hardly a reality even as it began to happen: Luna, packing her bags on a Friday night, deciding which pictures of her ex to keep and which to toss; Luna’s dad, hoisting her bags into the trunk of the car for her; Luna’s mom, petting her hair as she hugged her goodbye at the airport.
And it wasn’t real when she got to Inis Mór either: her snug little apartment above the coffee shop, the smattering of mismatched furniture that her Great Aunt Niamh had left behind, Ruairí, the black cat her new neighbor had been feeding, the mess of her suitcases, exploding on the floor, markedly different to the seemingly ancient chairs and quilts and sweaters that Niamh left for her. 
Or, just left. It’s been hard for Luna to tell what’s for her and what isn’t. 
And even now, nearly a month into living here and it only half feels real, the way she gets up every morning and putters down to the shop to open up, the cat following behind her, meowing for breakfast and Siobhan, the baker, already well on her way to done with the morning’s pastries, the smell of cinnamon and dough and vanilla and the cold air outside wafting through the shop to wake Luna up sweetly; the way old Mr. Whelan is always her first customer, never deviates from his order of a black coffee and a croissant, toasted; the rush of cold air every time someone opens the door, feeling like it’s flaying the shop open, sending napkins fluttering to the floor, causing Ruairí to hiss in protest and curl up closer to the fireplace. There’s nothing real in the way the sun sets at 4pm these days, quick as a wink over the hill outside the window, a flash of orange and purple the only reminder that day once broke in this place that always feels dark, under cover. There’s nothing real in the way Luna needn’t worry about anything here—her rent is paid and there are no deadlines anymore, no screaming bosses, no one angry with her for dropping an artist file or fucking up a coffee order. It’s not real, not even when she calls home and talks to her parents, when they tell her about her brother Sam’s new PhD research and his girlfriend Mary’s trip to Honduras. It’s not real, any of it. And it works. It’s fine. And so is Luna. 
It’s hardly real on a Monday night at the end of January, either, after Siobhan has already left for the day and Luna is quietly closing up, tucking mugs into cabinets and dropping bits of pastry on the floor for the cat. She’s not thinking about much of anything—in the month she’s been here, Lu’s found the very start and very end of her days to be the most relaxing, the way she can clear up the shop or fire up the coffee maker without having to talk to anyone, think about anything. It’s so markedly different from what feels like a lifetime ago: bustling into the office at 8:30 and still feeling like she was late, a tray of coffees balanced in one hand, someone’s dry cleaning in the other, 12 voicemails already waiting for her, 30 emails, more coming through as her phone vibrated in her pocketbook. This is quiet and slow: Ruairí is weaving between her legs, meowing gently when he wants more treats, and outside it’s dark and still and cold, despite it being only 7pm. Luna is tired but not wiped—a feeling she forgot existed before leaving New York—and it occurs to her that she can have a slice of cake tonight in front of the TV, and maybe a glass of wine, while watching Law and Order until she falls asleep. 
She’s lost in that thought—and the already building annoyance at the fact that she knows she’ll inevitably wake up on the couch at 3am and have to stumble to bed—when the door creaks open, nighttime wind rushing in, a boy stumbling after it. 
“So sorry,” Lu looks up from where she’s been wiping down the counter behind the pastry display. “I’m closing up. But I still have a few leftover slices of cake if you want—”
“Oh, erm,” the boy stills, maybe surprised, and Lu does too. He’s—well. Lu hasn’t seen anyone here who looks like him. 
He’s a mess of hat hair, dark at the roots and an unnatural blonde at the tips, curling over his ears and flopping over one eyebrow. He’s bright blue eyes, wide when he looks at her, and cheeks flushed red to match the tip of his nose, and a smattering of stubble along his face, darkening in the dimple of his chin, his pink lips chapped where his tongue darts out to soothe them. He takes her breath away for half a second—or maybe that’s the rush of wind that crashed against her chest when he opened the door. 
The boy is clutching a guitar by its neck, gloved hand wrapped almost reverently around it, and his white high-top sneakers are mucky where the rubber soles have been sludging through the perma-mud outside. He looks like something out of a dream, maybe, Lu’s heart catching a little in her throat. 
“Hi,” he says, finally, looking just as out of sorts as Lu feels. She’s not sure if that’s good or bad, but he carries on. “I wasn’t expecting—I didn’t think you would be so… uh. American? Uh,” gently, he tucks the guitar under his arm and tugs off his navy blue gloves, the cotton pilling from wear. “I’m Niall,” he reaches out a hand. It’s cold when Lu takes it to shake, when he wraps it gently around her own. “I live Kilronan.” 
“Hiya,” Lu’s voice comes out softer than she expected it to. “I’m Lu. I work here.” 
“Right, right,” Niall nods, swallows thick. “You’re Niamh’s niece? I was so sorry to hear about her passing—she—”
“Great niece,” Lu rushes over Niall, exhausted, even a month later, of every introduction on this island starting with a condolence. “I actually only met her once. But it sounds like she was a force.”
“You—once?” Niall shoves his gloves into the pocket of his puffer jacket. 
“Yeah,” Lu shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. Was there, uh,” she doesn’t want to get rid of him,  but doesn’t know where to go next. “Did you want one of those slices of cake? I’m sorry for you to come all the way from Kilronan for nothing.”
“Oh,” Niall looks like he’s only just remembered where he is. “No, I didn’t come for cake. I, uh, I have a… a question? An idea?”
Briefly, Lu worries if she should be nervous—but crime doesn’t happen here, not like this, and Lu knows the statistics when it comes to stranger attacks. Either way, Niall keeps talking before she can spiral, the words tumbling out like he knows he has to speak before he thinks better of it.
“I, uh, I was wondering if there’s any chance you were looking for someone to, like, play guitar and sing a bit? Like, live music in the shop for a couple hours a week? You don’t have to pay me or anything, ‘m not asking for that, but I could maybe leave my case open for tips? I can do covers or requests or—whatever you want, really. And I can give you my work schedule and we can work around that; I’m free on the weekends mostly, except for when I coach football, but also on weeknights if you’d prefer that and if you want to split the tips I understand, we can do that too, and also—” 
“Niall,” Lu can’t take it. He’s speaking so fast it’s shuttling her toward an anxiety attack, and throwing up on the shoes of the first cute boy she’s seen in a month was not on her agenda for today. Meeting a cute boy in general was not on her agenda for today, but Lu’s been learning that things don’t tend to pan out the way she plans them. “I like the idea. That sounds cool.” 
“I totally understand if—wait, really?” Niall pauses, hand halfway up to his face, like he was going to cover his mouth, or rub his eyes, or bite his nails. His brow furrows and his mouth drops open a little, like he didn’t expect it to be that easy. Like he didn’t accept Lu to be agreeable at all. 
“Yeah,” Lu shrugs, then nods at the guitar still tucked under Niall’s arm, “but you’ll need to audition for me,” she bites back a cheeky smile, watches Niall do the same. “I can’t have a crap singer driving away all my customers.”
“Ah, fair play,” the left side of Niall’s mouth pulls up into a smile, and Lu pointedly ignores the kick in her chest. “What would you like to hear?”
She shrugs again, as if “casual” or “easygoing” were ever words people would’ve used to describe her back home. “Your favorite song?”
“My favorite—” Niall scoffs, but there’s no malice in it—it’s playful, inviting, fun. It makes Lu feel like he wants to keep talking to her. Like he wants her to keep winding him up. “You think I can narrow it down to one favorite song?”
“I can,” Lu smiles, soft, “I’m good at making decisions.” 
“Go on, tell us then.” 
“You first,” Lu gestures toward a table, the only one in the shop that isn’t rickety when there’s too much weight on it. “Then I’ll tell ya.” 
Niall hums under his breath, approval, and settles himself on top of the table easily, feet perched on the chair, guitar natural in his lap. He strums once, to check that everything is in tune, and then glances up through the bit of hair that’s fallen over his eye. He’s striking—bright blue eyes, a shock of blonde at the tips of his hair, a lone dimple digging into his filled out cheeks—and Lu feels her stomach swoop and kick again. She takes a deep breath, crosses her arms over her chest. Niall sits up straight. 
“Alright,” he says it so quietly that Lu thinks it might just be for him. She’s suddenly struck with the notion that she’s intruding on something, a moment between Niall and his guitar and himself that isn’t for her—that, maybe, this isn’t something a lot of people get to see. 
And, if that’s true, Lu realises the second he starts strumming, it’s a damn shame. 
It takes Lu a second to recognize the song, but it doesn’t even matter. With a guitar in his hand Niall is even more mesmerizing. Hypnotizing. Completely, incomprehensibly, irresistible.
And then he opens his mouth. And Lu feels sick. 
It’s “With or Without You”. 
But there’s none of the corniness, none of the playful groaning and eye rolling that usually accompanies a U2 cover. Instead, Lu feels frozen to her spot in the middle of the shop, Niall, seated atop the table, eyes down, an anchor in the middle of this island. His voice, lower than she expected, and raspy in all the right places, is somehow vulnerable and confident at the same time—somehow makes her want to simultaneously hold him and be held by him, to protect him and let him protect her. It’s real. It’s vulnerable. It’s terrifying. Lu doesn’t know what to do with it. 
The song lasts forever and is over in an instant. Eyes closed, Niall carries out the final, desperate, confident, terrified, “I can’t live, with or without you,” as he stops playing and lets his voice take over. The whole shop shakes with it. Or maybe that’s just Lu, trembling. 
His eyes don’t open for a few seconds. Lu can feel herself breathing, she can feel her heart beating, she can feel the wind, outside, throwing itself against the shop’s ancient windows. She can feel it when Niall opens his eyes. 
“Was it that shite?” 
Overwhelmed, Lu exhales an unstoppable, lovely laugh. Niall’s cheeks are red and his eyes are a little glassy and he runs a hand through his thick hair, his bicep flexing just a millimeter. Lu already knows there’s no way this can last.
“Terrible,” she smiles. “Worst I’ve ever heard. When can you start?” 
####
They work out the schedule together, leaning over the only good table, comparing planners. Lu still keeps her old Moleskin, dark purple, embossed with her college seal and the year she graduated. She hasn’t needed it much lately—after years of her work, and eventually her social life, revolving around Google Calendar, she feels a freedom in being able to jot down appointments and approximate times in a messy journal. Niall’s got a battered leather one—doodles on the front, his name in script on the first page. He flips through it quickly, keeps it close to his chest. 
He works at a local furniture and home goods boutique most days, as a design consultant, and coaches the middle school’s co-ed soccer team on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons, with games on Saturdays. Lu tells him not to overbook himself but he does it anyway, and they settle on Monday, Thursday, and Friday nights, as well as Saturday mornings, starting the next week. He says he’ll have a friend work up posters to advertise, and tries, again, to tell Lu he’ll split his tips. 
At 10:30, he notices the time, his cheeks pinking up, his chapped lower lip caught between his teeth. They’d been splitting the final two slices of cake, and there’s a tiny glob of chocolate caught in the corner of his mouth. 
“Fuck,” he says, looking reluctant, “I’ve got to go, I’m meant to be at work at 8 tomorrow morning.” 
“Oh, God,” Lu feels a bit like she’s coming out of a daze, that feeling she gets, sometimes, when she’s been reading a book or watching a movie and then has to reimmerse herself in the real world. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.” 
“No, no,” Niall rushes, “you didn’t. I—thank you. For the chocolate cake. And the, uh, opportunity.” 
“Don’t mention it.” Lu presses her lips together, resists the urge to lean forward and thumb at the chocolate on his mouth. “You’ve got, uh, a bit of chocolate,” she touches the mirroring spot on her own mouth, “right there.” 
“Right,” he smiles, tongue darting out to catch it. “I won’t. Thanks.” 
Lu gathers the plates and cups and totes them to the sink while Niall gets his things together. When she turns around, he’s bundled in his coat and scarf, hat pulled low over his brows, free hand shoved into the pocket of his puffer. She doesn’t know how to look away from him. 
“I guess I’ll see you next week, then?” He asks, fiddling with the zipper on his puffer. He hasn’t got all the chocolate—Lu wonders what it would taste like against his lips.
“Next week,” she echoes. “Yeah.” 
“Brilliant. I’ll, uh—I’m excited. Have a good week.” 
Lu’s “and you” gets lost in her throat as she watches Niall head toward the door. His hand is on the knob when he turns back around. 
“Wait, Lu.” 
The sound of her name in his mouth makes her heart stutter. She hopes her raised brow will pass for a response. 
“You didn’t tell me.” 
“What?” She gets that out, at least.
“Your favorite song of all time,” Niall smiles, dimple prominent. “What is it?”
Looking back, Lu has no idea where the sudden confidence comes from. But, somehow, it does. She smiles, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not sure I want to tell you yet,” she says, kind. “I want to see if you figure it out for yourself.” 
####
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jincherie · 5 years ago
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tentacledipity | five
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➛pairing: jimin x reader ➛genre: alien au, space au, soulmate au, wanted au, smut (coming) ➛rating: sfw ➛words: 9k ➛warnings: ➛notes: completely forgot that i hadn’t posted it on here yet !!! sorry !!!  Im also sorry for the blue balls!! There will be relief eventually!! I was actually going to have some at the end of this chapter but uhhh plans change,,, although now i can say there is definitely some relief in the next chapter since that’s the scene i cut off the end of this one
This tale starts, as any good fiction does, with a girl crash landing on a foreign planet. And, like any good fiction, it follows a theme of serendipitous happening, and tentacles. Behold, serendipity and tentacles— or dare we call it…. tentacledipity.
— posted; 01.12.2019 // ↞ prev. || five || next ↠
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“What are you doing?”
If anyone asked, you would tell them that you were the picture of grace as you got the absolute life scared out of you. The reality was, however, that you let out a sharp, squeaky scream wherein your voice broke and you pretty much tumbled like a mannequin with recently oiled joints out of the tree you’d been climbing before you were so rudely startled.
You weren’t far enough from the ground to break anything with your fall, but you were far enough that you were pretty sure you bruised your ass from the impact. A whimper escaped you at the sharp, deep ache in your gluteus maximus that resulted, and when you looked up to see the cause of your startle you almost shat yourself once more. Of course, you’d heard his voice and subconsciously known who it was the second he spoke, but seeing Jimin looming over you with an expression that was a cross between concerned and incredibly amused really made the belated realisation sink in. Another fright doing harm to your poor, weak heart. Your time on this planet was going to come to an end due to someone scaring you to death, one day.
Wait just a second…
By thinking that, did you just subconsciously presume you weren’t ever going to leave, or…? You reeled for a moment, an odd feeling coming to life inside you. That was extremely out of character for you, and you probably needed to see a doctor or something. Or maybe go annoy Yoongi so you could get some sense knocked back into you.
The soft sound that resulted from Jimin shifting his weight from foot to foot on the grass brought you back to the present moment and you let out a pained, sheepish laugh. Right, he asked you a question. What were you doing? You didn’t really remember, to be honest. Possibly a cause for concern, but who could blame you for a little momentary memory loss when faced with a being as fine as Jimin was? The answer was absolutely no one and you’d defend that to your grave.
“Uhh…” you floundered for an answer that wouldn’t make you look like a complete idiot, and came up empty. Well, humiliating truth it was. “To be honest? I just wanted to climb the tree. I wasn’t stealing the fruits, I promise.”
Jimin’s brow rose, marks flushing soft periwinkle. “These trees are in the more open sectors of the royal gardens, taking one of the fruits wouldn’t be stealing. Although…”
He wrinkled his nose, directing his gaze to the incriminating fruit that hung, bulbous and bright pink, from one of the upper-middle branches, looking thoroughly disgusted. “I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you enjoy being violently sick for several days. They are kind of poisonous, for kelkie and humans alike.”
You made a face at that, giving the fruit the stink eye for the audacity it had to almost trick you with its pretty, appealing outside. How dare it—pink means yummy, not poison! The nerve.
“Noted,” you said, gulping. A beat passed before you turned to the male suddenly, eyes narrowed as you recalled something. “Wait, how did you know I was there? And how did you get over here so fast? If you’re going to flash-step over here and scare the shit out of me, you could at least catch me. I mean, I wouldn’t complain.”
Jimin’s head tilted, full lips tugging. “Noted,” he remarked, clowning you unabashedly. “I’ll be sure to save you the fall and yank you from the tree myself next time.”
At that, you couldn’t help the sudden laugh that tore out of you—the sound of it made his lips twitch further. He waited for you to calm a little before he continued.
“And if you must know, I was going for a brief walk. You’re actually in my gardens right now, petal.”
You balked, a flush of embarrassment rushing to heat your cheeks. Oh. So that’s what that short wall you’d jumped over while exploring had meant. Huh. Perhaps you were a little stupid; then again, that knowledge wasn’t really anything new.
Prior to this, you’d been a little preoccupied with your throbbing ass, but now, as you sat and gazed up at the magnetic form that was Jimin, you were suddenly reminded of the conversation from the other day with Joy and other raunchy parties. Your gaze flicked to his sides on instinct before you caught yourself and tore it away, averting it to the foliage to be safe. If you stare at his back he’s going to know you know, dumbass!
“O-oh, am I? Whoops, my bad,” you tried to distract yourself with a too-soon attempt at climbing back to your feet. You wobbled, voice shooting up in alarm, “To be fair though there’s no way to know these are your gardens, like, where’s the sign? You should reall—YAH OH MY!”
When you wobbled again a second time, barely a split second away from toppling off your wobbly legs and back onto your throbbing behind, Jimin’s hand shot to grasp your wrist and in one fell swoop he yanked you from your tentative crouch to standing. In the process he, overestimating your level of resistance, ended up hauling you straight into his chest. He barely stumbled as you knocked into him, your arms shooting out to wrap around him on instinct. An embarrassing instinct in actuality, but certainly not one you were about to complain about.
A beat of silence passed while you caught up to the sudden turn of events before you pulled your head back from where it had been resting over his shoulder. Utilising the fact your arms had ended up looped around his waist, you tightened your hold around him and pressed your hands firmly against his spine. You felt the hitch of his breath against your chest. When you grew brave enough to allow your eyes to stray to his face, they caught his own—deep, dark pools of molten cocoa, pupils almost swallowing his iris’ whole, hypnotised you for a moment. Even meeting his gaze like this made your lungs constrict and your heart jump in unison with your stomach. Giddy, excited—a sudden sense of shyness tickled the back of your neck but it was far overpowered by the deep, instinctive urge to push him a little. You wanted to play.
When he said nothing, you allowed your lips to twitch into a big, dumb grin— a courteous moment’s warning for what you were about to do—and then you moved your hands to his shoulder blades before pressing your fingertips in and dragging them down either side of his spine. He went rigid, yet the muscles of his back still yielded to the teasing pressure of your fingertips. Further down his back, about mid way, you felt your fingertips catch on something even through the shirt and Jimin jerked, a low rumble sounding in the back of his throat as a shudder ran through the entirety of his body.
You didn’t get all the way down his back before you pulled away, heart racing a little too fast from the sudden intensity of his gaze as it burned into you, as a result of your teasing. You hadn’t noticed his grip earlier but now you were painfully aware of the firm hold he had on your waist, fingers gripping with just enough pressure that your stomach flipped like you were a mere schoolgirl back on Earth.
As steamy as the moment was turning out to be, it was broken by a very sudden, very sharp and very loud noise—
One that sounded suspiciously like a dog.
Jerking away from Jimin at the sound of a rough bark, in either fear or surprise you didn’t really know, you spun to face the source. You were instantly rooted to the spot in shock.
Holy shit, that was a massive dog.
Well, calling it a dog might have been a bit of an insult. Whatever it was, with whatever canine resemblance it had, it was absolutely beautiful and nothing short of majestic. Instantly, you were in absolute awe and standing in a state of reverence.
The beast was over five feet tall and gave Jimin a run for his money, his entire coat the deepest space blue you’d ever seen that bled into a plethora of deep rose and cerulean that seemed to change as the strands shifted in the wind. It was incredibly canine in its features, resembling something between a wolf or a fox from earth but much, much bigger—the angled face, the mischievous eyes that hid an underlying danger. Around its eyes and down its muzzle, the same peculiar rose-aquamarine blend painted beautiful, mesmerising markings.
Something shifted out of the corner of your eyes, and when your gaze followed it, it took you a moment to realise you were looking at not one, but two big fluffy tails. Contrary to the dog-like appearance of the beast, the tails swayed playfully and in a much more feline manner. It was as though it was trying to hypnotise you with the movement, and you were only saved from falling into the trap by the sound of another soft yap.
You squeaked, jumping in what you were sure was a mixture of fright and excitement this time—although, to be fair, the line between the two emotions was awfully thin these days.
“Oh my god,” you choked, sounding very much like you were going to cry and honestly? You might have been about to. “Puppy!”
At the sound of the pure joy in your voice, it was as though a switch had been flipped in the creature that, until then, had just been standing there, looking incredibly majestic and incredibly intimidating. As though it could sense that you weren’t afraid, it immediately dropped into a crouch, behind wiggling and tongue hanging out of its mouth, before it pounced forward and you met the ground once more.
This time, with Jimin in tow.
The beast was so massive that instead of only tackling you, it had managed to catch both you and Jimin in one go. The aforementioned male was now pressed to the ground next to you as the two of you received a barrage of sloppy licks from the creature in between excited yapping and melodic trill noises. You couldn’t help the delighted squeal that escaped your lips, your hands coming up to scratch and rub behind the creature’s large, triangular ears. They flicked and vibrated instantly at your motions, and the beast moved its attention solely to you. Meaning, you got a face full of alien dog tongue and spit.
“Meanie!” Jimin gasped, attempting to sit up and somehow managing despite the incredible weight of the beast. “Off, now, Meanie! #$%#$!”
Jimin rattled something else off in kelkoe and to your complete and utter surprise, the canine creature pulled back immediately and sat down on its haunches, tongue still lolling out of its elongated maw as its head flicked between the two of you and its tails lashed excitedly behind it. Somewhat dazed and a little upset at the lack of happy dog-creature within arms reach, you struggled into a sitting position yourself, unable to tear your eyes from the animal before you.
“What is that? He’s so beautiful…” you found yourself asking before you even realised, eyes wide. You heard Jimin make a surprised noise, and turned to see him looking at you strangely.
“You are not afraid?” he queried, head tilting like he couldn’t make sense of your reaction. You watched as his marks swirled through several different colours before settling on light, playful blue.
“No?” you replied, equally as confused at his reaction. “Why would I be? I love dogs!”
“Dogs…” Jimin mumbled to himself for a moment, eyes unfocused, before he let out a soft noise and turned to you.  “Are dogs creatures on Earth? Do you have Ina there too?”
“Ina?” you repeated, turning your gaze back to the animal who was, by the way, still waiting patiently in place like the best boy you had ever seen. “Is that what this creature is?”
Jimin nodded, and after surveying you a moment longer he rose to his feet, dusting off his (very shapely) behind as he did so. A smile tugged his lips as he looked over at the animal in question. “This is Meanie, my Ina.”
He then parted from your side to move over to the creature, wrapping an arm over his massive shoulders and reaching up to scratch behind his ear. Meanie’s hind leg began thumping against the ground in glee at the movement, head rolling to press affectionately against the side of Jimin’s own. You watched on in awe, fingers absolutely itching to join Jimin in giving this good boy the pets he deserved.
“Your Ina? He’s your pet?” you asked, watching the interaction and the softness of Jimin’s countenance with increasing fondness. Even so, a part of you felt oddly betrayed. You’d been here how long and hadn’t known there were giant dogs roaming about willy nilly? An absolute travesty!
Meanie’s head whipped from where it was laying against Jimin’s, and to your complete and utter surprise he then proceeded to give you the stink eye. Jimin let out a loud, tinkling laugh.
“No, Meanie is not a pet. He is my companion.” Jimin’s smile didn’t leave as he turned his gaze from the creature, to you, then back again. “The people of my clan have very strong bonds with the Ina. From birth, we are paired with an Ina pup, and form a connection with them as we grow up.”
You rose to your feet as you listened to him, advancing slowly—although, it was more for just in case than anything, since Meanie seemed to have forgotten about your offense and had since resumed laying his head on Jimin. The creature seemed to be an absolute softie, and it tickled you that his name was Meanie when he seemed to be such a gentle soul.
“That’s so cool!” you said, mindful of not being too loud. “You two have a connection? Can you hear each other’s thoughts?”
Jimin shot you a look of surprise, smiling with something akin to pride. “Yes, actually. Although, I think that he is better attuned to my thoughts than I am to his—I mostly hear him when he is hungry, or lonely. Isn’t that right, pupa?”
The dog—you’d already resigned to recognising him as that in your head for convenience’s sake— had the nerve to roll his eyes, turning his oversized head to give you a look that had too much exasperation within it for you to take seriously. You snorted, and Jimin grinned. His eyes caught the way your fingers twitched, and he gestured to Meanie.
“You can pet him, he won’t mind. He is a sucker for it, actually. Don’t tell him that I told you.”
The dog huffed, but you caught his eye on you expectantly. Laughing once more, you sidled closer and allowed your fingers to sink into the long fur at the back of his neck. It was thick, downy, yet silken and smooth as you ran your fingers through it. It took more effort than expected to delve them deep enough to be able to deliver a good scratch, but when you finally made it the reaction Meanie gave was worth it. He wobbled, swaying towards Jimin before wobbling again at another scratch of your nails against his skin and swaying back towards you.
A surprised squeak escaped you as he sagged against you completely, your arms coming up to embrace him around his thick neck, hands still scratching where they could. “Meanie! You cutie! You’re so cute and handsome, wah, what are we gonna do with you?! I’ve never seen a puppy so handsome in my life…”
You pressed your face into his fur, feeling his resulting amused rumble and happy trill against your skin. “I’m—I don’t think I’m ever gonna let go. I can’t. You’ve beaten me, Meanie. I’m defeated. You have my heart.”
You didn’t know if these Ina creatures could laugh, but it sure felt like they could. Jimin, too, let out a soft chuckle. It was silent a moment before his smooth tone sounded in the air once more.
“Are you still hungry, petal?”
The pet name made heat blossom across your face, and you were thankful that the thick fur of the animal you currently had it buried in shielded it from view. Yes, you came onto Jimin on the daily, but that didn’t mean you weren’t allowed to have a little shame every now and then. Gotta keep yourself grounded, after all.
“I’m always hungry,” you said, trying not to voice how unreasonably embarrassed you were. Meanie made what sounded like a noise of agreement, and Jimin snorted in response.
“Then follow me,” he said, “You are already in my gardens, you may as well come further in for some lunch. I have some fruits that are actually edible.”
You pulled your face from Meanie’s fluffy neck, at first preparing to fire something sassy back but instead settling for a bright smile when you realised just how empty your stomach was feeling. Well, it was empty enough earlier that you’d attempted to climb a tree for some fruit, so you weren’t doing that great to begin with, arguably.
“Fine, since you insist,” you shot back playfully, hands still idly scratching the oversized pup before you. He was appreciative, if his happy rumbling was anything to go by. It was like there was a motor that thrummed to life deep in his chest, vibrating against your body where it was pressed to his. God, you loved animals. So easy to read and get along with.
Jimin’s lips pursed before being tugged into an amused smile, the male turning on his heel and beginning to walk away. “Well, if you’d be so kind as to follow—my rooms are right this way. Come, Meanie. If she tries to slip away, drag her back.”
Jimin was joking (you hoped), and Meanie seemed to realise so (you hoped), so you weren’t as alarmed as you might have been if anyone else directed a creature like Meanie to essentially prevent you from running away.
Which you weren’t going to do, by the way. You didn’t know if Jimin really thought you would, but you’d be surprised if it was the case since you were so open and vocal about your interest in him.
Meanie nudged his head into your shoulder, and it was only then that you realised you'd been staring absently at Jimin's retreating form a little too long. Taking the hint, you reached to rub behind one of the creatures tall, pointy ears and he gave an approving huff as he began to prompt you after his companion.
To be honest, you were expecting a longer trip than what you got; it was barely a minute later that you were emerging from the vibrant greens, blues and iridescent hues of the gardens and encroaching upon a path, and then the familiar material of the palace walls came into view. Jimin made a beeline for a gap in the wall, which you realised was actually a large doorway housing two large double-doors, each embedded with two large, glassy windows. It surprised you to see the material, since you'd noticed a lot of the windows in the palace had nothing at all guarding them, but you supposed that being on the ground floor and so close to gardens and forestry, you wouldn't want anything unsavoury crawling in.
Even though you followed the kelkie inside the room without question, it didn't click until you were several paces into it that it was his room. It was large, very spacious and somewhat minimally decorated. His bed was to the left wall adjacent to the doorway you'd just come through, mattress bigger than some of the ones you'd seen in the guest wing and blocked off by thin gossamer-looking material that spilt from the ceiling, partly obscuring the gleam of silken sheets and blankets. Jimin was the type to make his bed every day, it seemed, and it shouldn't have made you, a being that left a trail of mess and chaos behind you by accident everywhere you went, more attracted to him but it did. Somehow, it did. You thought that at this point you were honestly so far gone he could probably confess to sucking his thumb as he slept and you'd take it in stride without even so much as batting a lash.
"Woah," you muttered without realising, eyes sweeping over his room and taking in each and every detail you could. You were in his room, damn it, and it might not have been under the circumstances you really wished-- not to say they wouldn't hopefully come true one day-- but damn it if you were going to squander the opportunity for some more insight into who he really is. "Nice crib."
The alien shot you an odd, curious look at that, head tilting for a moment before he returned to whatever he was doing before you spoke-- which, it seemed, was taking a bowl of curiously coloured fruits and a jug from a table against the wall to the right of the room. He shook his head, evidently deciding he didn't need to know what the word 'crib' meant (you'd seen the question in his eyes), and turned from the table to begin making his way over. You hadn't realised before, but next to the doorway you'd come through was a small table of medium width, the obsidian-like stone polished and gleaming in the light from the doorway. Two plush cushions sat on the floor, and on top of the table was a small cube pot made of the same material as the table in a lighter shade, an endearingly flowering plant sprouting from the soil within.
Jimin moved and placed the bowl there, along with the jug, and gestured for you to take a seat while he went back to the other table to retrieve something else-- you realised after he pulled whatever he was looking for from a cupboard there that it was actually cups. Following his direction without even thinking, you plopped down on the cushion and narrowly avoided banging your knee on the edge of the table, thankful that Jimin's back was currently to you since you hadn't pulled the most attractive of expressions at your near-miss. There was a huff from behind you, reminding you of Meanie's presence, and you turned just in time to see the gigantic creature flopping down on the other side of the room; there was something there on the floor, like a thin mattress, that was covered in soft throws and blankets. The canine creature settled down and nestled into the fabrics, curling up endearingly and letting out a huff as he relaxed. He looked ready to sleep, but his lidded eyes remained open and flicked occasionally from you to the alien now approaching where you were seated.
"These are the fruits you can eat," he said, apparently still very tickled by what he'd caught you doing earlier. Fine, if it made him that happy then you supposed you'd just have to accept the blow to your pride. You were glad your limited brain cell count amused him.
“Excellent,” you said, wriggling in your seat somewhat excitedly. “I’m starving. They’ve banned me from the kitchens, you know. It’s only for a week and it’s only been a day but it’s rough, man.”
Jimin looked like he was trying very hard not to burst into laughter, a somewhat incredulous yet unsurprised expression morphing his features.  “You got banned from the kitchens? What on Kilkea did you do? You practically live there.”
“I know,” you sighed, scratching the back of your neck as you averted your gaze. “They got sick of me walking in all the time. Apparently it interrupts their groove.”
Jimin’s head tilted, but he looked like he wasn’t going to question it. Admittedly, you felt a bit insulted. You couldn’t tell him that the real reason you’d been banned was because you kept singing and nearly set the entire kitchen ablaze when you attempted to make earth cookies yesterday, though. So there you sat, accepting it as his opinion of you no doubt grew more comfortable where it sat at rock bottom.
Jimin placed the cups onto the table, taking his seat more gracefully than you anticipated after nearly falling and impaling your knee on the corner yourself. Well, some people were just born graceful, you supposed. You don’t know whether he saw the nervous way you eyed the fruits or whether he was just so used to you by now that he knew you were kind of useless, but he took a fruit—purple-tinged and very juicy looking—and went about peeling it much like you would a mandarin, before plopping it before you on the table and picking up one for himself.
Delighted and perhaps a little too eager to taste the fruit considering its insides were blue, you picked it up and broke it into the sections it naturally grew in. It wasn’t long before the first piece was in your mouth, teeth piercing it and causing tart, but overall sweet flavour to sink into your tongue. A surprised noise left you before you could stop it, quickly followed by a hum of approval in explanation. Jimin hid his smile by shoving a piece of the fruit in his mouth too.
“If that’s the case, I am surprised it took you this long to get banned,” he mused, poking fun at you once more. You sent him a half-hearted glare, popping another slice in your mouth to resist firing back too quickly. The flavour of this fruit was quite addictive, actually. The perfect balance of sweet and sour, with no unsavoury aftertaste.
“Excuse me?” you blurted as soon as you swallowed your mouthful. “They love me in there, they’ve practically adopted me at this point. Jeonghan says I’m like a daughter to him.”
Jimin rolled his eyes but couldn’t help his smile. It seemed both of you were well-aware of the pastry-chef’s—who you’d actually originally thought was younger than you— overdramatic tendencies. “If Jeonghan adopted everyone he said he would, then this whole castle would be under his care.”
You couldn’t help but laugh at that, even hearing Meanie huff in amusement in the corner. “You’re not wrong.”
You were expecting Jimin to stay silent a little longer, having seen him pick up another piece of fruit, but he surprised you and spoke in the next moment, the piece still uneaten in his grasp.
“On that note, there is something I have to discuss with you.” Jimin’s eyes met yours as he slipped the fruit into his mouth. When you sent him a questioning look, he continued. “Jongin and Jongdae are no longer watching you.”
Oh, that was something you knew already. Your first instinct was to believe you were about to get into trouble—which didn’t seem unlikely, since the two guards weren’t shy about blaming you and your many escape attempts for the relief of their duties in watching you.
“Oh. Yep,” you bit your lip, a bit of nervous laughter trickling out. You wondered whether it would be a safer bet to play dumb about it. “I haven’t seen them in a while? Are they alright? I almost miss them.”
Jimin’s lips quirked like he was trying not to smile. “They are no longer watching you because I relieved them of that duty.”
You paused, trying to follow where he was going with this. Ah, so it was his doing? Okay. But were you in trouble or not…? He had better tell you soon, because you were about to break into a nervous sweat.
“Uh, do you want an apology?” you asked, risking a shot in the dark. Jimin blinked at you for a moment before a sudden laugh came tumbling out of him.
“No, there’s no need for an apology,” he managed through his chuckles. “At least, not to me. I am only mentioning it because you are still going to be under someone’s care, it just will not be theirs.”
“Okay, well, in that case I feel I should tell you that I might have needed ‘monitoring’ when I first got here, yeah, maybe, but now I’m perfectly fine wandering on my own! If you want I’ll even promise to bother Namjoon or Yoongi if I need help or something, but I don’t think I need—” you paused mid-defensive-rant, another thought occurring to you that seemed to override the first—a shred of fear wormed its way into your tone as you sought to verify your sudden concerns. “Wait, whose care?”
Jimin plucked another piece of fruit from the rest, plopping it into his mouth and answering you somewhat nonchalantly and without so much as a blink. “Mine.”
“Well I don’t want Seokjin’s—wait, what?” You were thankful you didn’t have anything in your mouth just then because you definitely would have choked on it in your shock. “C-come again?”
“You heard me,” Jimin said, a sly look to his eyes. His marks were flushed an all-too-cheeky plum. “You’re too slippery for me to delegate the task to anyone else, so I will be the one watching you. We only have one kitchen, after all, we can’t afford to have it in flames.”
Your cheeks flushed suddenly with heat, the sensation of more of the humiliating type than the flustered. Oh, so he already knew of yesterday’s escapades. Oops. Still, that aside, you were already struggling to come to terms with what he’d told you. He was going to be watching you from now on? Like, in person? Or in a more ‘eyes in the walls’ kind of way? You didn’t know which was worse, to be honest. Was this the end of your freedom? Wait, but on the flip side…. More time spent with Jimin. Holy crap, you probably shouldn’t have been as excited as you were beginning to feel. Down, you swatted the butterflies in your stomach, down girls!
“O-oh,” you managed, still attempting to regulate the mess that had suddenly exploded in your brain. You didn’t have enough mental RAM for this. “I see. Well…”
In a desperate bid to claim back your cool and swagger, you plopped another piece of fruit in your mouth and raised your brows. Poor timing, but it seemed your dignity defence system had been activated.
“Good luck to you, then! I won’t be tied down! I will remain as slippery as ever and I’ll wish you luck in your efforts to catch me—fruitless, as they will be!”
And then you smacked your fingers on the table, grabbing the cup and taking a hearty sip. For all the bravado you’d just shown, you felt any semblance of normalcy you’d just mustered go flying out the window when you caught Jimin’s gaze and saw the challenge simmering in their depths, his marks tinted jade.
Well, maybe you should have waited until after tea time to challenge the Kelkie who was much, much faster and stronger than you.
x     x     x     x     x
 “So that’s what he said, right, and yet… here I am! I’m too good, I didn’t even leave a trail for him to follow! He should have known better than to think he could catch me… pfft.”
At the silence that followed your words, you paused in your current activity and turned to the male beside you, who in turn simply stood and blinked at you for a moment. Expectantly, you allowed him a moment to muster a response.
“So… you didn’t want to be stuck under my care and yet here you are, chatting away with me the second you slip free of Jimin’s watch?” Seokjin asked, expression telling you he was attempting to understand your reasoning and coming up blank. For a moment, you yourself were stumped for a response—you hadn’t thought of it that way! Your idiot was showing— you made a quick recovery though.
“That was the only thing you got from all I told you?” you queried, before shaking your head and clicking your tongue. “Why do I even bother? I should have gone to annoy Yoongi instead.”
Seokjin seemed to be ignoring you—or at least, what you were saying. He continued like you hadn’t just said anything at all.
“Also, as someone who, and this is a direct quote, ‘wants to climb Jimin like a tree’ at every possible opportunity, isn’t running from him somewhat counterintuitive? I mean, you currently have the perfect excuse to be near him and you are bragging about running away…?” Seokjin’s head tilted, eyes squinting at you as his fingers played with the decorations currently in his hold. He’d made far more progress with his side of the wall than you had, considering you’d spent more time talking than hanging. It was something your teachers had always commented on in school, so you weren’t that surprised in honesty.
You sputtered, several holes having been poked ruthlessly and mercilessly in your logic and your pride. Seokjin, the poker, seemed somewhat pleased at your current stuttering state.  As the pokee in this situation, you were anything but pleased.
“What? No! It’s not counterintuitive!” you warbled, grabbing one of the decorative pieces and slapping it onto some adhesive on the wall. You felt your cheeks heat, shoulders pinching up in embarrassment. “Shut up!”
Even while facing in another direction, you could feel Seokjin as he rolled his eyes.
“Always asking for the flame when she cannot even handle the heat, tsk tsk tsk,” Seokjin uttered, taking the opportunity to click his tongue at you. You bristled but couldn’t form a response, considering he was right. Humiliatingly, despite all your efforts to get closer to Jimin, now that you finally had the perfect excuse to be around him all the time, it was like too much all at once. You were just one woman! And a horny one at that. The people around here should know better than to take the randy things that come out of your mouth at face value.
“I CAN HANDLE IT!” Your outburst was somewhat indignant and left you feeling somewhat like a child, but you didn’t have time to dwell on it. “Just… after an adjustment period. I suddenly went from nothing of something to a lot of something! Give me a break, man, I’ve only got a few cells left up here and they’re on their last legs.”
Seokjin hummed, narrowing his eyes at your head. “I did think that I heard less rattling up there than usual.”
Resisting the urge to hiss at him, you soothed your hackles and decided to change the topic to something that didn’t threaten to give you a heart attack or death-by-shame. “Also, when am I going to be allowed to know about this all-secret event that’s taking place? It’s been so long! And I’m helping you set up, so it must be soon. Surely not all of these people are here helping set up without even knowing…?”
Seokjin didn’t even blink as he responded. “Oh, they know. Actually, you’ve been allowed to know for a while… I think at this point you’re the only one that doesn’t know.”
You blinked, squinting as his words sunk in. “Hey—what? That’s not fair! Why can’t I know? Seokjin! Tell me!”
Mirth played in the kelkie’s eyes as he shot you a look from the side, marks flushed playful lilac. “No way. It’s much more amusing letting you sit and wonder.”
You stared at him, mouth open in shock. This jerk was really just going to let you sit and rot, huh?! Something akin to betrayal began to fill you, a petulant glare slipping onto your face.
“Seokjin!” It was meant to be reprimanding but it came out more like a whine. “Come on, please tell me? I deserve to know! Especially considering it’s just—it’s only—how far away is it, again?”
“It’s in a little less than a week’s time,” Seokjin answered easily, adhering another of the decorations to the wall. They were pretty little things, thin and about the size of your palm but they felt like slices of crystal and glimmered as you would expect such an item to. “You’re actually expected to attend. I believe Joy has even procured a dress for you and has plans for your hair.”
“Oh, I’m invited?” Momentarily touched, you couldn’t help the turn your thoughts took, a smile slipping onto your face before you remembered your stance and wiped it off. “That’s so nice of y—wait! If I’m going then I need to know what the event actually is, Seokjin! Please tell me!”
As you might have predicted, the kelkie was having far too much fun teasing you to be anywhere close to telling you what you want to know. He snorted as he went about sticking another decoration up, pausing afterwards to scan the room and check up on the other decorating jobs being completed by palace workers. When his eyes got to you and looked over how behind you were, he frowned.
“Isn’t the element of the unknown such a thrilling thing, though?” he asked, clearly making fun of you still. “Besides, you don’t need to know to have fun—”
“Seokjinnnnn,” you were outright whining now, the remainder of your dignity having fled you where you stood on top of a stool in one of the great halls in the palace. You wanted to know so badly—for weeks you’d been wondering what was going on! By this point you were growing a little desperate. “Please? Please tell me? Oh please please please—”
Seokjin rolled his eyes and cut you off before your dramatic arm motions could make you fall off the stool. “What do I get out of telling you, though? Currently I’m getting a lot of entertainment out of not telling you, so why should I give that up?”
You gaped at him, bastard!
“You jerk!” you exclaimed, before quickly thinking better of it and backtracking. “Okay, fine. If you tell me I’ll… uh… I’ll stop visiting the kitchens and making a mess all the time.”
Seokjin gave you an amused look. “I know you’ve already been banned from there.”
With a groan of frustration, you threw your hands into the air, just barely catching your balance before you toppled. “Fine! I’ll—I’ll stop wasting your time and calling for you whenever I get bored! I’ll call, I don’t know… I’ll call Yoongi instead.”
Seokjin’s head tilted as he pondered the offer, mulling it over carefully. A moment later he flashed you a smile. “Not the best but it is a start! I will tell you something in exchange for that promise—I want you to promise me, by the way. Out loud. I know that you are slippery.”
You let out a huff, holding down the whines that wanted to escape. Something was better than nothing! If you had something to go off, you could just go and pressure someone else for the answer to the rest of it. With that in mind, you squashed down the minor offence that rose at the fact your reputation as ‘slippery’ had preceded you to such an extent, and forced out the words that would get you what you wanted.
“Do… I have to?” You let out a breath from the effort, wincing. It went against your nature to verbally trap yourself! You had a phobia of contracts!
“Yes.” Seokjin said, deadpan. “Repeat after me, ‘Seokjin, I promise that I will never again call you when—‘”
“Never?!” you interjected, appalled. “Isn’t that a bit hasty—”
“Do you want to know?” the male cut you off, brows raised. He rested a hand on his hip and the sudden movement of his body made the inky locks atop his head shift, flopping across his forehead. “If so, say it.”
Pushing down the remainders of your pride was more difficult than usual, but somehow you managed it. Grumbling, you smacked another decoration onto the wall, watching it fall to the floor in disdain because there wasn’t enough adhesive.
“Fine. Seokjin, I promise that I will never again call you when I am bored. I will… call someone else… instead…”
It might have been like he was trying to bleed water from a rock, but Seokjin couldn’t have looked more smug or pleased with himself—even despite how admittedly lacklustre your promise was.
“Excellent!” he cheered, smearing more adhesive on the wall and pasting a decoration where you had attempted to just moments ago. “Now, do know that if you go back on your word it is a punishable offence. I’m thinking…” He tapped his chin, eyes averted in thought as his marks shimmered blue. “No pudding for at least three months.”
Despite the fact it was only a threat and you weren’t actually being punished with that, you felt panic well up within you. Damn, he’s good. You gulped. “I-I won’t… Don’t you even know me, Seokjin? My honour… my integrity…. Renowned across the galaxy.”
Seokjin rolled his eyes so heavily you worried for a split second they were going to drop from his skull. “Of course. As we all know.”
You huffed, taking it in stride considering he was about to finally tell you what you’d been wanting to know for weeks now. Making a rare wise choice, you decided to clamp your mouth shut and wait for Seokjin to enlighten you. It seemed to work in your favour, as Seokjin too is a man that enjoys talking and the second you provided a conversational gap for him he was inclined to fill it.
“It’s for the King and Queen,” Seokjin said, placing some adhesive on the wall in front of you in an unspoken prompt to get back to work. “They’re back from their leave soon, but that’s not the only reason we are celebrating.”
Seokjin turned, meeting your gaze with a fond look in his eye coupled with a hint of excitement, both of which you presumed were directed at the royal couple. “They’re expecting, you see, and since the Queen is human, it has broken an unfortunate cycle that has plagued the royal line for centuries. After what happened to the King’s late parents… the people are overjoyed they won’t have to see that again.”
Curiousity instantly bubbled and burned within you, but at the same time…. You almost felt like it wasn’t your place to ask about whatever happened. It didn’t affect you, so you reasoned you should probably leave it for now. Besides, you felt like you’d find out eventually. Instead, you focused your thoughts onto the other parts of what he’d told you. Piece by piece, it sunk in.
“I almost forgot the Queen is human,” you muttered, filling space while your brain processed—it finished barely a moment later and you looked to Seokjin with wide eyes as realisation smacked you in the face several times. “Wait, she’s pregnant?! But they’re—so humans and kelkies can—?!”
Amused, and looking like he apparently expected a reaction like this from you, Seokjin snorted. “Well, we weren’t sure. But apparently so.”
“Huh. That’s really lovely, everyone must be super excited for them,” you said, a billion thoughts whirring through your mind at once. One made itself a little more known than the others, and an odd feeling filled your chest.
Seokjin seemed to tell you were attempting to try and word something, and gave you a moment to put it together. You couldn’t look him in the eye as you spoke, for once feeling oddly and uncharacteristically vulnerable.
“She chose to stay, then… Was it an easy choice?” You didn’t even know why you’d asked it, but it made it’s way out of your mouth nonetheless.
The kelkie gave you a curious look, but otherwise didn’t question you. “Well, for her… She wasn’t going to, at first. There were a few other crucial factors that influenced her decision, for a while. But ultimately, once they cleared… she chose what was going to make her happiest. I recall she once told me she felt surprisingly at home, here. Not long after arriving, she found herself wanting to stay.”
At his words, you weren’t sure how you were supposed to feel. Your entire life there has been something in a constant state of unrest within you. You’ve hopped from job to job, world to world, life to life. None have fit, and none have soothed that flighty feeling inside any better than the last. You almost grow tired of it; sometimes you’ve found yourself wondering if this is how you’re going to live the remainder of your years, never settling, never finding somewhere you feel truly at home. Earth was where you were born, but it wasn’t a home to you. None of the groups you’d ever found your way to had ever felt like the perfect fit. You’ve never once felt inclined to stay at the places you have been, or entertained the notion past that of a stray thought.
But his words gave you pause, because for the first time in your life the feeling inside you had changed, and you were beginning to realise its new form.
It was in such stark contrast to who you knew yourself to be, that it actually frightened you, a little. This feeling had a few names and you were afraid to utter any of them.
“You’ve been a lot of places across the galaxy, lived many different ways,” Seokjin’s head tilted, eyes soft, inquisitive. “Was there nowhere that you found yourself wishing to stay?”
Of course, it would be perfectly in character for you to fire back something witty and funny, but you felt oddly vacant, for the barest moment. You met his gaze without thinking, and wondered if he could see the vulnerability as it revealed itself bit by bit within you.
“No, there wasn’t anywhere I wanted to stay.” You paused, swallowing. “But, I mean, being capricious is kind of my thing, you know? I gotta stay on brand.”
Seokjin smiled, before shaking his head.
“It is okay to want to stay, you know. You don’t even have to have a reason.” The male’s eyes were kind as they met your own, and you felt your chest clench. “There is a place for you here, if you decide you want it.”
His words touched you, but in the process stirred up an entire storm of untouched thoughts and emotions within you, the type that blended in together and blurred the lines that bound them. You were nowhere near ready to delve into them right now. Ignoring the surprising prick in your eyes, you shot him a smile. “Thank you for that, Seokjin. I… I think I will just need to think on it.”
He nodded, soft look remaining before it took a different turn and his marks flushed playful blue. His gaze was on you, before it caught something over your shoulder and his eyes widened incrementally. He schooled his expression so quickly after that you weren’t sure if it had actually happened. “Don’t think too hard on it, though. You’ll overwork the few cells that you have left.”
At the return of the bickering air you were so familiar with, you slipped right back into it with ease—anything to distract from the thoughts he’d unearthed with his kind words. “Excuse me? There mightn’t be many of them but they pull their weight! My brain cells might be overworked and underpaid but damn it if they don’t get the job done—”
You were ready to keep going, you really were, you had about thirty seconds more content to burn through, but in the worst plot twist of the century you didn’t get to continue. So quickly you almost didn’t see it, Seokjin shifted in his stance on the floor, bracing one hand on the wall. You didn’t even have time to finish wondering why before you found out—the hard way.
Too quick to counter, Seokjin’s foot flew out, making harsh contact with the stool you were precariously perched on. Immediately, inevitably, you were sent tumbling and the bucket of adhesive and decorations on your arm was sent flying off to god knew where. Truly, your hubris in wanting to stand in a cool pose on the stool was to blame for how unsteady and ready to fall you were.
A few things happened rapidly; first, you fell through the air, narrowly saved from a humiliating death-by-head-bump by Seokjin’s lightning fast reflexes. He ended up catching you in a pose that reminded you of when you were dancing with someone and they dipped you—your hair was probably brushing the floor, and Seokjin’s face was much, much closer than you ever expected to see it. Second, there was the loud sound of your stool clattering onto the ground. Third, there was a round of gasps that you figured sounded because you fell.
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you were wrong in assuming everything was about you.
You blinked, the realisation that Seokjin knocked you off the stool sinking in and instantly riling you up—you were about to open your mouth and chew him out when a third, and final, sound echoed through the room. A sharp CLANG, and then the distinct sound of hollow metal rolling across the floor. It gave you pause, the sound occurring much later than it should have—it should have dropped straight to the ground, right?
A sense of dread beginning to curl within you, you dared to turn your head and peer to the side, where your back had been facing earlier. At once, you realised you were dead.
The alien love of your life stood in the doorway to the room, a mere few metres away, which should make you either giddy or overjoyed, but it was the sight of gooey adhesive dripping thickly down his face from where it had pooled in his hair that prevented such a reaction. Your bucket rolled around by his feet, some decorations joining it on the ground and others stuck in the glue that was quickly becoming acquainted with Jimin’s entire front.
His eyes had been closed, presumably on reflex, but they opened after a hand rose to wipe the thick goo from them—thankfully, it hadn’t reached his actual eyes. The dark pools flitted about the room before landing on you; his marks stained dark, dark red, and after scanning your form and witnessing the debacle around you, turned deep, murky green.
You might have been stupid, but even you knew when death was about to grab you in its clutches. You scrambled, trying to get out of Seokjin’s grip but failing miserably—oh, so he’s your executioner, huh? Bastard. And right after you bonded, too.
“y/n.” You jolted like you’d been electrocuted, eyes whipping back to Jimin; something burned in his gaze that made your stomach drop and legs wobble, even while he was covered in goo. He took two slow, long steps until he was close enough that just the three of you could hear him speak—his voice when he did, low and raspy as it was, made you shiver. “My room. Midmoon, tonight. If you are not ready then the punishment for making such a mess of preparations for such an important event will worsen. Don’t force my hand on that, petal.”
His gaze bore into you for a long, potent moment after he spoke, before it flicked to where Seokjin had his hold on you, jaw clenching so hard you saw his temple shift. Eyes harder and burning more intensely than before, he delivered you one last look—a very decidedly pissed one—before he turned on his heel and stalked from the room, beginning to wipe away adhesive as he went.
For a few seconds after he disappeared, you simply hung in place, in a state of shock. The sound of Seokjin’s amused snort brought you back, however, and instantly you recalled exactly who was to blame for your newly scheduled death.
“You rat,” you hissed, glaring at him. “How could you?! Now I’m going to die! Oh you know what, if I hadn’t just promised yo—OW! SEOKJIN!”
Mercilessly, the male released his hold, you dropped, and an instant pain shot through your behind. Why was it that you were always falling on your ass in this palace?! God! It hurts so damn much!
“The day is coming to an end, y/n,” Seokjin said, straightening and looking very much unapologetic and entirely too humoured. “You better go get ready.”
Realising just how late into the afternoon it had gotten, you scrambled to your feet, panicked and affronted. Deciding you couldn’t afford to stay and bicker if you were going to flee the solar system in time, you settled for a glare and flipped Seokjin the bird, uncaring whether he understood it.
“I hate you!” you exclaimed as you turned and started to flee. “I’m ending this friendship, Seokjin! After this don’t even look at me, traitor!”
Seokjin’s rare, squeaky laughter breached the air as you left, the sound chasing you down the hall mockingly.
If you didn’t die tonight, you were going to kill him for trying to kill you.
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kamedani · 4 years ago
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FFXIV Yoshi P. Dengeki Interview
On February 6th, Dengeki and a number of Japanese media outlets had an interview event with Yoshi P following the Showcase. Here is the interview Yoshi P had with Dengeki Online as translated by me. The original interview can be found at https://dengekionline.com/articles/66986/
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Section 1: Two Concepts for Healers and a New Melee DPS!
Dengeki: Sage was just announced as the new healer job in Final Fantasy XIV. Additionally, you announced that healers will be split into two concepts – pure healers (White Mages and Astrologians) and shield healers (Scholars and Sages). This is where we have our first questions for you. How are you planning on distinguishing pure healers and shield healers moving forward?
Yoshi P: From a balance standpoint, no matter if you play a pure healer or shield healer, we are making it so there won’t be a massive difference in power. Instead, the idea is we want players to have vastly difference experiences in gameplay.
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 For example, in the case of Scholar and Sage, the way in which they apply shields will be different. The scholar play style is being able to attack, put up shields, and heal with the help of their fairy. In the case of the sage, their weapon, the noulith, isn’t a pet so the sage’s play style is going to be different. Our concept is that we want the Warriors of Light to experience that difference.
 Dengeki: So since there are going to be shield healers and pure healers, you are going to be splitting healers into two roles?
 Yoshi P: No, there is still going to be just one role for healers. So, of course, no matter what healer you play you can clear content. On the other hand, for difficult content, we feel it is good to have healers be separatable. If it gets confusing to not have a more clear distinction between pure and shield healers, we can revisit it.
 Dengeki: On the same topic, will there be any kind of change to fight balance by making pure healers and shield healers?
 Yoshi P: Up until Patch 5.3 we heard from a lot of players that healers had a fair amount of downtime on their hands. So, from Patch 5.4, we’ve planned for the more difficult content to put out a lot more damage more often. For speed clears we are planning for it to be harder to do with just pure healers or just shield healers.
We plan on continuing to make content with this idea in mind so content will be easier to clear if you bring one pure healer and one shield healer. Also, as I said at the Announcement Showcase, we are going to be changing the algorithm behind the matching systems like Raid Finder as best we can so it will put both healer types in a group.
Dengeki: So, for example, will the limit gauge build up differently if you have double pure healers?
Yoshi P: If we change specifics of how the limit gauge builds, it will have effects on other encounters where limit gauge building is a part of the fight so we have no plans for this kind of change.
Dengeki: With the idea of healers having more specialized roles, are there plans or do something similar to tanks having main tanks and off tanks?
 Yoshi P: Right now we don’t have any plans to make healer sub categories. While, for example, there is a sentiment that paladins are more suited for off tanking, the truth is they can fulfill both roles so we want to do something like this with healers.
 Dengeki: The four tanks are distinct from one another.
 Yoshi P: That’s right. While fulfilling the same role, each job has a different play experience. In the case of DPS jobs, they feel different based on their difficulty to control and different attack abilities.
 Dengeki: Speaking of the new jobs, you said the other new job in addition to sage will be a melee DPS. There are already four melee DPS in the game now. Compared to other jobs types, melee DPS is the most. Please tell us how you came to adding another melee DPS to the game and how will it be balanced with the existing melee DPS.
 Yoshida: When it comes to the amount of jobs types, say for example, in Patch 7.0 we add another tank, that would bring us up to five tanks. Increases in job types is something unavoidable as the game continues.
Furthermore, compared to other roles, a lot of people want to play DPS. Our thinking is adding a new DPS job is a must for an expansion disc so we went with melee DPS this time. At the current moment, dragoon is the only job that uses maiming gear so the new melee job will use it as well.
 Dengeki: On the topic of melee DPS, recent difficult content seems to be going in a direction that makes things more difficult for melee DPS. What are your thoughts about this?
 Yoshi P: We are aware of this on the development side. This is a dilemma shared by many long running MMOs. If you add a lot of mechanics to an encounter, that encounter becomes more difficult for classes that require movement and positionals.
 We are currently looking at each job’s skills and making adjustments accordingly. And we are, of course, making sure to balance it so ranged DPS won’t always have the easier time.
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 Dengeki: Continuing our discussion of battle content, you said that you will be removing belts from the game. Will you be adding the stats lost from belts to other gear to compensate?
 Yoshi P: Belts and accessories tend to have lower stats on them so removing belts won’t have a very large effect. Still, we are working on moving stats so you won’t feel any change to your game experience. You don’t need to worry about it. You may, however, feel like something is a bit different after the numbers crunch we are going to do.
Speaking of belts, after what I said at the showcase about materia affixed to belts, I got a message from the development team saying that they are going to take care of the materia too. So, from Patch 6.0, you can go to a calamity salvager and collect any recoverable materia that was in your belts. Players won’t have to do any preparation in advance.
 Dengeki: After belts become no longer equippable, will we still be able to turn them in for seals or desynthesize them?
 Yoshi P: That will be unchanged. The only change there will be is we will add a description like “Once thought to protect adventurers’ waists” to the item description. (laughs)
 Section 2: Endwalker’s Main Color is Platinum!
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 Dengeki: Next we’d like to talk to you about the logo for the new expansion. All previous expansions’ logos have been pretty clear in what they were trying to convey. This time, however, the logo feels more mysterious with elements like that thing that looks like a monolith on the left side of the logo. Please tell us about the concept for this logo and the ideas that went into it.
 Yoshi P: I can’t go into too many specifics on the logo so instead let me speak about the concept Mr. Amano made for us based on conversations I had with him. I spoke with him about everything we had done throughout the course of this Hydaelyn and Zodiark story and the theme of finding hope in despair.
 I first spoke with him in the real world meta sense of launching A Realm Reborn out of the despair of 1.0’s release. I also spoke with him in the in game main scenario story sense of finding hope in the despair of the end times and what is to come. I think the nuiance came through in this logo.
 Dengeki: So you are saying, the meaning of the logo will become more clear after having played the game.
 Yoshi P: I think you will have moments of thinking “OH! So THAT is what that means.” after having played. The only other thing I can say at this point is about the planet in the background. Is it the moon? Is it the planet Hydaelyn? You will find some of these answers as you play the story for 5.5.
 Dengeki: The title screens of each expansion until now has had one main color as its theme. What is the color for this expansion?
 Yoshi P: The color as I explained to the development team is platinum. The difference is a very small nuiance but the color is not white. I told them the concept of the red moon and explained that the theme color was neither the darkness of night nor the white of the morning. I told them the color is the golden color that illuminates someone’s face in that brief moment when the light first hits them.
 I could see on the faces of the development team that I was asking them to do the impossible again. Nevertheless, the logo is neither gold nor yellow. It sits on that fine line between both. It represents the final glimmer of light between the new dawn of A Realm Reborn and the darkness of night of Shadowbringers.
 Shadowbringers opened in a world without night. For this expansion we want to make something similar to surprise players. We are using the platinum theme as the base for some color adjustments for this expansion. So, if you remember all of this, you may be surprised when you see it in the story. (laughs)
 Dengeki: In the teaser trailer the Warrior of Light is now a paladin as his main job. Why is that?
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 Yoshi P: To tell the truth, I agonized over what to make his main job. As everyone already knows I am a contrarian and I like to turn the story upside down and look at things from that different perspective to surprise the players.
 In Shadowbringers, for example, we started development with me coming up with the initial concept that players were probably getting sick of being called “Warriors of Light,” and “heroes” and instead would do away with the light and regain the darkness as Warriors of Darkness.
 This time, when we decided to write the final chapter of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark story, as is the case in all classic Final Fantasy games, I thought about the idea of hope. I thought about the desire I and many people have to carry hope as well as the desire to abandon hope. When I thought about who would be standing on the front line and shouldering all of that, I thought of a paladin.
 With that image rolling around in my head, I made the decision. Endwalker is going to be a title similar in scale to and on par with the ending story of any title in the Final Fantasy series.
 Dengeki: We may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves here but are we safe in assuming paladin will get some cool new skill to go along with all this? (laughs)
 Yoshi P: Since paladin already has Passage of Arms it is going to be hard to come up with a skill that surpasses it. Even still, every job is getting new skills players have been wanting. They’re going to be flashy and cool so as to make you like your job even more. We will do our best to meet your expectations.
 Dengeki: Let’s talk about new game experiences next. So far there have been new things added to the game like flying and swimming. Will there be something else like that?
 Yoshi P: Endwalker is made to give players the feeling of experiencing the thrilling last chapter in the Hydaelyn and Zodiark storyline on the scale to rival any other RPG. We are focused on giving players the ability to have this experience as their characters in the game world. To that end we don’t feel some new movement mechanic is necessary. We are creating an adventure that will take you through the air and under the sea.
 That’s one reason. The second reason is well… forgive me! I am out of ideas! (laughs) In this game we’re going to the moon and the development team first asked me if we should add in zero gravity. But that would be no different than swimming. You would jump once and just not land on the ground! (laughs)
 This game already has all the different modes of movement you would find in an MMO so if we forced something else in, it would be tedious. Still, if you have an interesting idea, please let me know and I’ll consider it. (laughs)
 Dengeki: Continuing with that idea, what kind of experiences can we look forward to on the moon?
 Yoshi P: For starters there are questions like what is the moon, what is going on on the other side and beneath the surface? (laughs) To be honest, I’ve been into astronomy for the past year or so and I saw two theories on the formation of Earth’s moon.
 So in response to some of these open-ended questions, this expansion will be about writing a story about the moon specific to our world. The moon in our story is a combination of concepts from the development team, the moon in the real world, and some things we made up. I hope you pay attention to it.
 Oh yeah, to any concerned Warriors of Light that may be out there worrying if there is an atmosphere on the moon, please relax. (laughs) That is explained in the story as well so please look forward to it.
 Dengeki: The music is a part of the experience that can’t be forgotten and it seems like Soken pulled out all the stops for the theme this time. What did you ask of him when making the soundtrack to this game?
 Yoshi P: I asked him to consider that even though this is the climax of the story, every single song cannot be a moving epic masterpiece. I asked him to make songs to match what was going on in the story at the time.
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 To both Soken and myself, the main theme of Shadowbringers was quite invocative. The theme of the Crystal Tower is woven into it to give it that Final Fantasy feeling. But even if you take it out, it can stand as an unconventional Final Fantasy title by itself.
 Many of our players really liked that song so it gave us a lot of confidence. Taking a step forward from this point, I told him to make something that expresses the grand finale to the first adventure of our 14th Final Fantasy. Soken kept telling me what a busy schedule he has but he’s been working really hard and I hope everyone looks forward to the music in this game.
 Section 3: New Content and More Challenging Existing Content
 Dengeki: Now we’d like to ask you about the current game. Patch 5.0 introduced the Trust System and players have been enjoying using it. At the latest Live Letter you told us that in addition to Estinien joining the Trust System, new features are going to be added. Please tell us some specific things waiting for us.
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 Yoshi P: After we launched the Trust System, many players started asking us to expand it to 8-man duties and past content. We, of course, want to make the Trust System work with all of our content for our players to enjoy.
 However, the Trust System requires specific programming for each dungeon so each character acts in a way you would expect them to. This costs a lot to do. So, we are currently exploring ways to make it work across more content.
 Right now I cannot give many more specifics about the Trust System such as when more will be coming. Please be assured we are working to find a way to expand it. All of the 6,0 dungeons, for example, will be playable with the Trust System. So, at the very least, there won’t be any issues with those dungeons so you can go into them with the Scions. Players who like to solo content can be assured of that.
 Dengeki: We are also interested in being able to do things at a relaxed place on the deserted islands. Will players actually be able to mount up and sell things to each other? Isn’t there a chance this content will ultimately benefit players who play the most?
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 Yoshi P: We are making the deserted island content to be relaxed living content players can enjoy at their own pace without competing with others. I can’t say competition amongst players will never happen but there will be plenty of opportunity to enjoy playing by yourself with reduced interaction with others.
 We want to make it an area where you create and grow your own things and use them to collect rewards. Players can do things at their own pace without having to worry about other players affecting their progress. We are making something for players who even want to do farming without worrying about difficulty.
 You can think of it as a somewhere to spend time in a place you love with your favorite minions or even enjoy raising animals you brought to the island with you.
 Dengeki: Please tell us as much as you can about the new smaller scale PvP mode.
 Yoshi P: We are making content with new rules and maps as all new content. In our current PvP system, healers shoulder a lot of the burden. Wins and losses heavily rely on the healers so because of this huge responsibility, healers are in short supply and matching is quite difficult.
 The new PvP content is going to be less strict where any job can participate. We are making a role free system where each job will have some means of healing itself.
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 Dengeki: So it is something more like The Feast than Frontlines?
 Yoshi P: If I had to choose, it is more like The Feast but in this mode you don’t just get points by defeating opposing players. We are adding more ways to get points like capture the flag to make more casual maps and a more casual playstyle. We are also making ranked and free modes that players can use to collect PvP rewards.
 Also, like I said at the Showcase, we are working on a system where the rewards will include things players are going to want other than just gear. I will have more information about this at the next PLL.
 Dengeki: There have been many posts on the official forums from PvPers who want PvP to be balanced separately for both large group PvP and smaller group PvP. Can they expect to see that in this upcoming content?
 Yoshi P: We are planning on implementing job balance adjustments along side small scale PvP. We are also currently discussing if we are going to keep The Feast as well but we haven’t reached a decision. But there is a high chance The Feast will get shut down.
 This is because we want to focus on fixing any issues with this new content based on player feedback. If we have The Feast running at the same time, it will split our resources so we would like to avoid that.
 Dengeki: In the middle of the latest Live Letter the topic of Hildibrand came up. When can we expect to see him next?
 Yoshi P: We actually saw him briefly in The Heroes’ Gauntlet in Shadowbringers so he must have somehow wound up there after we saw him last him in Stormblood. (laughs) The Hildibrand story had become kinda tedious so we took a break with it in Shadowbringers.
 We don’t plan on ending it, however. Hildibrand is a beloved character in our world and many people want to see his tale continue. Our development team has also recharged their batteries so we are going to provide players with something. Please look forward to his return.
 Dengeki: With the new expansion there is going to be a graphical upgrade to the game. Is there also going to be a change in the minimum PC requirements?
 Yoshi P: No, we are working hard on the PS5 version to make it look as good as possible but since this is going to be the final chapter in the Hydaelyn and Zodiark storyline, we decided not to make any major changes.
 I want to update the graphics engine at some point since the amount of data used has gotten quite great over these ten years. Also, we want to rebuild the data access system to support 4K graphical textures.
 Players have also told us they want their mounts to feel more alive but for that to work we will need to do a graphical overhaul. We are, of course, doing this little by little.
 Please remember that we work on schedules planned years at a time. We were able to fix some of our data center issues on this schedule over a long period of time fitting in work where we could. So, when it comes to updated graphics, it is something we want to do but don’t have much free time. It is quite a challenge to do as well so please be patient.
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