#and Wendy's blanket pile nest

[pencilofawesomeness]

Hey.

You wouldn't happen to have a happy HTRYDS drabble / side story / prompt on you, would you? I could kind of use some cheering up / distractions rn.

Thx

🐧

P. S. I'm starting to think Loki is not going to make a contract with Lucy immediately, and that he may end up as the fourth (sorry, fifth) member of the FT team against OS, which SAD BOY STICK MUCH?!

Hey Penguin! Sorry to hear life's been getting to you. (And boy do I Understand...) Sadly I don't have anything ready/anywhere near ready I can drop or finish, but, I do have a snippet from an upcoming side story that isn't entirely depressing, so... Yeah!

“Here,” Acnologia said, handing him an open book. “It’s not much, but it’s… interesting.”

Erik didn’t even need to hear Acnologia’s thoughts on the matter; his tone portrayed enough, and Erik knew he was in for it. He took the proffered book, glancing down at its contents.

…huh.

“Acno.”

“Yes?”

“This is a poem.”

“I am wildly aware.”

Erik stared at his older brother incredulously, even though he could hear that Acno was not, in fact, screwing with him. 

With a sigh, Erik read the damn poem, knowing that Acno wouldn’t have bothered if it wasn’t at least somewhat relevant. Honestly, Acnologia was probably trying harder than Erik was to figure out why his ears decided to take a random growth spurt, so there really wasn’t a reason to begrudge him this, even if Erik himself was already giving up and accepting his ears’ random metamorphosis as just another thing that happened. 

Also for the funsies (and some actual fluff) here's some old, unposted drawings from a sleep series that I started back in 2021 and never finished, mostly because I focused on other projects and now I look back at the technical skill applied and cringe a little. So I probably will never finish it... (Maybe I'll tackle their rooms when I am less scared of interior drawings, lol.) Nevertheless: have some soft babies

[teleiapotami]

⋆ “god, you’re freezing! come here, let me warm you up.”

NaLu please ✨🔥

I'd love to! Anything for you, lol.

Words: 1,600 (Oops, that's longer than I meant it to be!)

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Lucy watched the snow begin to fall, coating the hood of her car thickly. “Typical.” She let loose a few colorful swearwords and glared at the ‘No Mobile Network Available’  that blinked unrepentantly on her phone. The snow was only coming down faster, and if the cell networks were down because of the storm…

She let out a low sigh and grabbed her jacket and purse. Staying in the car waiting for her phone to work was likely a death sentence. With one last glance at her mutinous phone, she shoved it into her purse and climbed out of her car.

“Holy fuck!” she muttered to herself. Inside the car, it looked like a peaceful, if heavy, snowstorm. Now, standing in it with the wind screaming around her, it was anything but peaceful. It was hard to tell exactly how far from town she was in the dark (which is exactly how she had run out of gas in the first place), but it didn’t matter. She didn’t have any other choice but to seek shelter wherever she could. With a shiver and a pit of growing dread, she began walking.  

She was just starting to think she was going to have to go back to the car if only to stay out of the wind when another car pulled up beside her. The window rolled down and a man leaned over. “Get in! You’re gonna freeze out there!”

Lucy hesitated for half a second before climbing into the car. The stranger in the car might be dangerous, but she was going to freeze to death if she stayed in the storm. The heat in the car drew a low whimper from her. “Thank you,” she managed to whisper.

“No problem. You belong to the car back there?”

Lucy managed a small nod, shivering too hard to respond properly. “Well, I’ll take you back to my place until the storm ends. My little sister should be there, so at least you’ll have someone besides some strange guy around. I’m Natsu, by the way.”

“L-L-Lucy.”

They pulled into a long driveway a few miles down the road and Natsu let out a low curse. “Looks like the powers out. Come on, let's get inside and see if Wendy’s been able to start a fire.” Lucy followed him into the house, gritting her teeth against the shivers that still racked her body. The house was dark and quiet when they entered, and Natsu sighed from the kitchen.

“She’s gone. Says she went to her friend’s house when the power went out. Give me a minute, I’ll get the fire going. Lucy moved slowly through the dark house, following him. It took him less time to build a fire than she had ever seen, and soon he was carrying in a stack of wood from the backrooms of the house.

“Here,” he said gently once he had finished building up a pile. “You need to get out of that jacket, or you’ll never get warm. I’ll hang it in the closet.” He watched her struggle with the buttons and zipper for a moment before he reached out. “May I?”

Lucy nodded and he helped her out of the jacket easily. He returned and took hold of her hands, rubbing them slowly. “You’re way too cold Lucy. How long were you out there?” He didn’t seem to expect an answer. Instead, he brought her hands to his mouth and blew on them, keeping his eyes on hers. She felt pinned under his dark gaze and her fingers trembled against his lips lightly. He was incredibly handsome, she realized, with messy pink hair and black eyes that glittered in the firelight.

He took in the paleness of her face and she felt his lips twitch into a frown against her hand. “Sit by the fire. I’ll get some pillows and stuff so you can stay beside it.” He waited until she tugged her hands out of his grip before he moved away. Lucy knelt beside the fire, trying to keep herself from shivering so violently, but the fire just didn’t seem to be enough.

Natsu came back with a veritable mountain of bedding and set about building a cozy nest of pillows and blankets. He frowned at her again. “Your lips are too blue. He reached out and brushed his hand against her cheek and his frown deepened. “God, you’re freezing still! Damn, why’d Wendy have to run off now?”

He kicked off his shoes and sat down on the pallet of bedding. “Listen, I know how this sounds, especially as a stranger who picked you up on the road, but the best way to warm you up right now is—”

“B-body heat,” Lucy said, nodding as she kicked off her own shoes. Natsu shed his shirt and glanced over at her.

“I can….I can help with those buttons, if you need me to,” he offered slowly, eyeing her button-down blouse. Lucy fumbled with the buttons for a moment with stiff fingers, then dropped her hands with a frustrated huff and nodded. “Why were you out in the storm instead of in your car?” he asked, making quick work of removing her shirt.

“I-I was trying to find y-you I g-guess.”

“Me?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“S-someone to h-help, I mean. Staying in the car,” she cut off, biting her lip when his hands dropped to hover over her hips.

“These too,” he mumbled, waiting for her permission to remove her jeans. She looked away and nodded.

“I-I know. U-Um…no one would have f-found me i-in the car. I was looking for help or somewhere t-to stay,” she finished, moving to sit on the blanket once he helped her out of her pants. She could hear him shedding his jeans behind her before he appeared beside her.

“Well, I don’t think this is gonna get less awkward, so let’s get comfy, yeah?” he said, gesturing vaguely at the pillows. Lucy couldn’t help but smile at his effort to dispel the tension and lay down, pulling a blanket over herself. At least if he couldn’t see her, it might be easier to snuggle with a stranger in her underwear. He crawled into place and tentatively pulled her against his chest.

“Jesus Christ,” he hissed when her cold skin pressed against him. At the same moment, Lucy let out a low moan at his warmth.

“How are you so warm?” she mumbled, unconsciously pressing tighter against him. He chuckled and nudged her legs until she tangled them with his.

“I’ve always run warm. Guess it’s a good thing now, huh?” He smiled when she let out a shaky giggle and relaxed slightly against him. She tucked her head under his chin and closed her eyes, letting out a soft hum.

“Can I sleep?” she asked after a few moments of silence.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure you wake up,” he murmured, slowly running his hand along her back soothingly.

“Natsu?”

“Lucy?”

“Thank you…I’d be d-dead if you hadn’t shown up,” she whispered. His arms tightened around her slightly at the thought.

“Nah, I was always gonna save you. Always will if you want me to,” he mumbled. Realizing how strange what he’d said was, he was glad Lucy couldn’t see the blush that dusted his cheeks. He cleared his throat nervously and pushed the thought away. “Sleep. I’ll keep the fire going.”

The storm raged through the night, turning the world silent under a thick blanket of white. Lucy stretched slowly as she woke, her fingers brushing over someone’s bare chest. Her leg was draped over one of his, her head rested on his chest, and a warm arm held her close to his side. She tensed slightly when a low, raspy voice sounded against her ear.

“Please don’t freak out. The floor isn’t the most comfortable spot in my house, and I have a headache.”

Lucy turned her face into his chest and let out a soft sigh that turned into a giggle. “It was Natsu, right?” she asked as she sat up, holding a blanket against her chest. He nodded with a tired grin.

“Yeah. How’re you feeling? You slept like a rock,” he chuckled, sitting up on his elbows as she pulled on her shirt. She smiled over her shoulder at him as she buttoned it.

“I feel better than I expected. I really can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, pulling on his jeans. “Let’s get you back to your car so you can head home.”

It took far longer than it should have to get back to her car even though the highway had already been cleared. Lucy tried to get out and help him, but he just shot her a look that seemed to dare her to disagree with him before he ventured out into the weather on his own. It took him all of five minutes to come back.

“Keys? I’ll warm it up for you,” he said, holding out his hand. Lucy rolled her eyes and handed them to him after a huff, which he endured with a maddening smirk. He leaned against her door while her car warmed up and glared at her when she rolled down his window. “You’re letting the heat out,” he grumbled.

Lucy giggled. “I’m not going to get that cold again in a few minutes. Besides, you can warm me up again if I do, right?” At Natsu’s quirked eyebrow, she blushed darkly. “That’s not what I….I mean…”

He chuckled and opened the door for her. “Don’t worry about it. I’m glad I was here when you needed me.” Lucy gave him a small smile, hyper-aware of his eyes following her as she moved over to her car. She tossed her purse into the seat, then turned to him after a moment’s hesitation.

“Natsu?”

“Lucy?”

She blushed again and bit her lip before continuing. “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

His face split in a grin. “Absolutely.”

[pastelwitchwritesstuff]

More dragon slayer headcanons!!!!

Mwhahah

After the whole GmG thing Sting and Rogue go too Fairytail to get to know the other dragon slayers better.

And Wendy bless her comes up with a dragon slayer bonding day!

So they all go over to Natsu's house and everyone just brings stuff from their nests to make one HUGE NEST but...

Right up until now Sting and Rogue haven't made their own nests because Jiemma is a (huge piece of sh*t) and they just look lost.

So queue Natsu Gajeel and Wendy just fawning over Sting and Rogue.

The go to the market and are on a Mission!

They need soft things and shiny things...

Natsu goes with Sting.

Gajeel and Wendy with Rogue. And they go searching!

Wendy asks Rogue questions about what he likes and what he doesn't.

They walk past a herb shop and something just pulls Rogue in. He ends up buying a whole bunch of different dried out herbs that remind him of Skiadrum.

Gajeel has disappeared, but Wendy has a knowing smile that eases some of Rogue's worries.

They continue shopping buying pillows and soft blankets. This is the most Rogue has smiled in so long. He treats Wendy to icecream and they just both let out this adorable little purring sound ad they relax.

Natsu and Sting are children TM

They buy a huge stuffed white plush teddy bear and nearly destroy the shop.

They quickly move on to the,food court completely loosing track of time as they sample the different foods.

As they finally leave totally out of their own free will( read they got a glare from Gajeel ) they make their way to buy soft blankets.

BUT something catches Sting's eye and its a super glittery amethyst geode and he MUST have it. But it costs a lot of jewel so he leaves it.

They all meet up again after shopping, to go and build the Nest.

Gajeel has been very quiet only appearing once or twice during the shopping trip.

As they start building the nest Gajeel gives Sting and Rogue a gift.

He's the oldest of them all and Big Bro Gajeel is a big old softy.

He gives each of the boys a soft blanket Sting a soft blue. And Rogue a dark maroon.

He also got Sting the damn geode becuase he is as mentioned a big softy.

He also gives Rogue a few books that Levi had recommended.

The nest is massive, and soft and very chaotic.

Its filled with shimmering stones. Bright feathers a few pieces of metal blankets upon blankets. Wendy is buried under the pillows and is purring.

Everyone gets in and just has a massive cuddle pile. They pass out from the busy day they had soon after.

It's the best sleep Sting and Rogue have had in years.

And doing something that makes their dragon side happy is a added bonus

They do this once a month now. And each time Sting and Rogue get nore and more comfortable bringing their own things for the nest.

DRAGON SLAYERS ARE JUST HUGE CATS FIGHT ME.

Stay tuned as I do these for the couples

After I crash for a few. Hopefully the coffee will be out of my system by then

[tseneipgam]

‘before she left Britain an iceberg the size of Delaware broke off the Larsen C ice shelf and floated away. The Gulf of Mexico was full of dead fish, there was a trash heap circulating in the ocean that would take a week to walk across. She tried to limit her husband’s addiction to the tumble dryer, she never flew anywhere more than eight hours away, but even lying here on her back she was probably despoiling something. What a waste, what a crime, to wreck a world so abundantly full of different kinds of flowers. Kathy hated it, living at the end of the world, but then she couldn’t help but find it interesting, watching people herself included compulsively foul their nest.’

‘Bodies: hers wasn’t feeling good....she was so happy and tired, a crop of spots by her mouth, drinking too much coffee, getting caught in a storm on 1st Avenue, running up the street jumping puddles in rain so hard it took her shoes two days to dry.’

‘There was currently, Kathy thought, a problem with putting things together. It had always been a problem but the blind spot had been bigger. Ten years ago, even five, it was possible to ignore atrocities, to believe that these things happened somewhere else, in a different order of reality from your own. Now, perhaps because of the internet, it was like the blind spot had got very small, and motionful like a marble. You couldn’t rely on it. You could go on holiday but you knew the corpses washed up there, if not now then then, or later.’

‘When she was anorexic in the aughts like everyone she was conducting an assault gravity, she was the apply that would go upwards, that simple. How nice to astonish the philosophers, to goof like a firecracker in all their faces. She wishes her history would go away, leaving holes. There is no story, she writes, I’m going crazy.’

‘She might as well do that as anything else, she might as well have chicken for Lauren’s birthday and file a review, she might as well continue with her small and cultivated life, pick the dahlias, stake the ones that had fallen done, she’d always known whatever it was wasn’t going to last for long.’

‘Kathy wasn’t a conspiracy theorist, though Kathy was fairly paranoid she didn’t like subscribing to anything, but all the same she was fairly sure someone was moving pieces somewhere out of view. Someone was getting rich on all this, she knew they were. Food insecurity, water insecurity, the collapse of the state, sick desperate people, it was an excellent way to make a buck, to make what Gary Indiana once described as a Freudian faecal pile.  Anxious, uneasy, with a small persistent pain in her left knee, Kathy began to itemise the things that were on her table, a blanket box that had previous belonged, like the room itself, to her husband’s previous wife, a famous writer who had died the previous year. Flexitol heel balm, Comme des Garçons wallet, almost empty bottle of green mineral water from Sainsbury’s. Moth trap, sunglasses, Pantone 7461 mug of pens, ten stones, an unattractive ring she’d bought in a car boot sale several maybe even ten years before. There were no moths in the moth trap, just one small fly. Would they die? They would most certainly die. There was also her phone, a prehistoric Nokia given to her by her friend Matt, and her diary, mustard-coloured, given to her by her half sister, Wendy, who was a comedy agent, soon to be partner, extremely high-flying. Burns, shock waves, radiation, that was how it went, then obviously other more secondary things like associated violence, or lack of food or something quite random. Everything was so intricate, it was amazing how much of it sustained from day to day. The city panics, she writes. Bombers terrorists’re going to take over!’

‘The reason she liked tattoos was that she liked something getting under skin and staying there, it was pretty much the only experience of permanence she had. Oh Kathy, nobody wanted you. Oh Kathy, now they do.’

‘Trump’s face with its white sweating eye-holes. How had all this happened? Some sort of gross appetite for action, like the Red Wedding episode only actual and huge. It didn’t feel actual, that was the problem. It felt like it happened inside her computer. She didn’t watch the news or listen to the radio, in fact she’d imprisoned the TV inside a cupboard she’d had specially built. If she walked away from her laptop what was there, a garden, birches, that Malcom XXX man chatting in the queue. Walk back, Armageddon. A bird had landed in the tallest birch. She couldn’t make it out with her glasses on, or with them off. 40, not a bad run in the history of human existence but she’d really rather it all kept going, water in the taps, whales in the oceans, fruit and duvets, the whole sumptuous parade, she was into it thanks, she’d like that show to run and run.’

‘Virgin TV, she won’t pay that she’s been a TV refusenik since was seven, standards have to been maintained. Cleaners, fine okay she has entered a new era. The cooking and shopping list is more endearing, it is 100% her husband’s style. On the morning of their wedding, at 9:30 precisely he proposes to go to the market for salad materials, rosemary, potatoes, courgettes, and strawberries (the Oxford comma is his)... Fine. Kathy will be ambling and complaining, failing to put her bowl in the dishwasher, stalking the internet, rehanging pictures. Everyone needs a job, and she understands hers. 11:10 ice cake, what a very nice man. He’s taken to sunbathing naked in the garden.’

‘I hate you, you’re stupid, she’d said over and over again, neither of which was remotely true. He was the cleverest nicest most lovable man she’d met but she was like a feral animal, she had no idea what to do with love, she experience it as an invasion, as the prelude to loss and pain, she really didn’t have a clue. All day she worried that he might have a heart attack, like Hemmingway’s wife Pauline, who died after an arguement y phone, years after they’d divorced. Why couldn’t she be calm like water. I want to kill you, she’d said that, her throat hurt all afternoon. He hated shouting, he hated all sudden noises, a dropped fork would make him flinch, if he broke a glass he felt bad all da. He wasn’t fragile exactly, he was just transparent, transparently hurt or scared, closing up around himself like a star fish, a sea anemone. It was her responsibility, she was about to vow to protect him, literally sign her name to it & vice versa. Please, Kathy, do this right. She’d also dreamt about a stately home, a pile of silk and linen in a garden, dusty pink and beige.’

‘You think you know yourself inside out when you live alone, but you don’t, you believe you are a calm untroubled or at worst melancholic person, you do not realise how irritable you are, how any little thing, the kind of touch or tone, a lack of speed in answering a question, a particular cast of expression will send you into apoplexy because you are unchill, because you have not learnt how to soften your borders, how to make room. You're selfish and rigid and absorbed, you’re like an infant.’ 

‘They wanted to prolong it, they didn’t want September, they had seen a tiny hole in the sky, not the eclipse, a different one, but they hadn’t been fast enough and now depressingly it was back to business as usual. Which was what, just turning words, just talking, just eating cereal, the same each day. She was bored, she wanted novelty and heat, she wanted to unhook herself.’

‘What republic did any of them want? One where no person was ever not the same, and therefore no one would ever get left out of account. Bitch please, are you truly that stupid? A republic worth burning 11 million illegal immigrants for, as Kathy had heard KKK leader bow to do on TV that morning. They wanted milk and honey, the whole Biblical mine yards, and also the rivers of blood and burning cities, Slave Street up and running again, reanimating those abject bodies. It was like living in a Philip Guston painting, it was that dumb and rotten, that cartoonish, blood stains on white robes, good old boys with night sticks going on patrols, then a pile of shoes and jackets, you know exactly where the owners are.’

‘Somewhere along the way Kathy had read an essay comparing sexual excesses of the Maquis de Sade’s novels to an office. The pursuit of both was apathy, hierarchy, repetition, endless bureaucracy. The article compared the libertines in 100 Days of Sodom to the management committee; the children to interns and then, audaciously, to the very 81/2″ x 11″ multi-use acid-free paper on which the workplace discourse is pitilessly inscribed.’

‘She needed clean air, vegetables, she despised comfort, there were too many pastries and radiators in her life. Christ, time accumulating in rolls around her stomach. She felt like she was hastening after agendas and appointments with a butterfly net, not able to make anything stick.’

‘At 3 they had a choc ice and celebrated their one-week wedding anniversary with new vows; I vow to wash up more, I vow to be less of a dick. It was hot, it was magnificent, there were several drunk butterflies and a dragonfly her husband characteristically praised. They’d talked themselves into tatters, now they needed to recharge on sunbeams and the basic smell of grass and dirt.’

‘panna cotta like severed breast, a hazelnut cake, white wine, red wine, espresso. They walked home, hand in hand kissing by the swans. They were wrapped up in five-pound notes, in their mutual wealth and good fortune, which had arrived from nowhere, from very unpromising conditions. You cannot be immune to downfall, loss and dirt, Kathy knew but sometimes an afternoon is operate, its own gold sphere.’

‘she said she wished everyone in the world would be gentle....purity, it was lethal, you had to just let people be. She wanted to do it anyway, find little spaces inside herself and ease them open.’

‘You’re filling the house with your nervousness... You’re making a complex architecture of anxiety and fear.’

Crooning “Now this is where we live and when you come back it’s out eight-week wedding anniversary, and an eight on its side means infinity so then we’re permanent” which wasn’t true but was nice to think about.

[toynbeees]

idk i felt like doing a breakdown of how I imagine post-game wendigo!josh in a saved AU since im back into until dawn again lmao. bear with me bc im super tired and only like half coherent but im trying

Appearance Okay so we all know wendi!Josh has that gross torn open mouth & sexy sharp teeth. Blind eye? Weird second white eyelid like reptiles have? But yeah these are my hc on wendi!Josh’s appearance.

-His ripped up jaw looks like a really extreme Chelsea/Glasgow Smile that’s torn up mid way to his ear with a couple of extra gashes spreading towards his eye. It looks super gnarly and painful but actually, it’s just a by-product of his jaw stretching to accommodate the extra teeth. The extra gashes heal up and yeah, he’s left with a stretched mouth that exposes half the inside of his mouth and makes Heath Ledger’s Joker look like a harmless cartoon character. It’s basically how his jaw is supposed to be in order to adapt to the fangs, though. The fangs themselves have entirely replaced all of his regular human teeth, not just the gross side, but they’re smaller and flatter on his “human” side - his wendigo side is filled with razor sharp teeth that stick out at odd angles since his mouth hasn’t really stretched enough to fit them. He can’t close his mouth great because of it and the teeth dig into his lower lip if he tries. Later on, he probably gets them filed down as best he can - which still leaves them too big for his mouth and peeking through, but at least they’re blunter and not quite so huge. Surgeons can’t do much for his mouth, though, as the skin around there is too tough to stitch/graft and anyway, the stretched gash is kind of needed in order for his teeth to fit, filed or not.

-his nails are also super sharp and talon-like, thick curled claws. They’re darker than regular nails too, almost black, making them look pretty fucking creepy. They’re tough, designed for ripping apart prey and skinning them, which means he has to be suuuuper careful when touching anything fragile. He files them down, which takes a fucking age because they’re so tough, but it helps make them not quite so dangerous.

-he isn’t actually blind, though the milky eye on the wendigo side suggests he should be. Wendigo eyes are just pale, like the rest of them, and although Josh’s sight isn’t as good as it used to be he isn’t completely blind. His sight is fuzzier than it used to be, designed for detecting movement than noticing details - but since he isn’t fully transformed he doesn’t have total “wendigo sight”, which is good. They do kind of glow in the dark though, like reflective lights. The eye on his human side is a little messed up too; his eyelid is damaged and kind of receded back which makes it look wider than his other eye. Maybe he clawed at it, trying to stop hallucinations or maybe it happened when Hannah dragged him away. His white eye is corrected with coloured contacts, nice and easy. His receded eyelid is fixed with surgery, leaving him with a small scar but it heals to almost nothing.

-although Josh isn’t totally wendigo, his body has started to elongate - mostly his limbs, though torso too. He went from five-foot-something (5′7 if we’re talking Rami’s height) to well over six foot. He’s... mostly in proportion still at least, except for the fact he’s a lot thinner and more spindly than he was before. This fingers are elongated too, more emphasized by the claws.

-I like the idea that Josh grows antlers just for the hilarity of it. Something slender like a chital deer maybe, but much smaller. He grows them in early spring (April-ish) and sheds them once summer starts to cool down in August-September.

Voice His wendigo transformation isn’t just physical! His voice is drastically different though still vaguely Josh-like, but there’s a lot of new and very weird quirks in his voice he didn’t have before.

-Josh’s voice is a lot raspier than it was, deep and gritty like a long time smoker with a slight, growly undertone that’s present even when he tries to be soft. It basically sounds like someone who’s started to lose their voice, but permanent. Actually speaking seems more difficult for him now, and his words are either too slow in concentration or come out all at once in a rush if he’s panicking. There’s no middle ground.

-when Josh is excited or happy, he makes these high pitched trills and chittering sounds that sound almost like a bird if not for the eerie humanness to them. A lot of the time these noises happen completely of their own accord, a kind of subconscious thing he doesn’t pay much attention to. He makes deeper, slower versions of these noises when he’s quietly content;  for example if he’s about to fall asleep or curled up comfortably on the sofa.

-when he’s angry or startled, though, Josh makes loud, inhuman screeches that really sound like something out of a horror movie. They’re shrill, loud and if people aren’t expecting it, it can give quite a scare. It’s something he always apologises profusely for after but like when people get a fright and scream, he can’t help it.

-growling is also a common thing, usually when he’s pissed off - or, occasionally, using it as a warning. Josh will duck low when he does this, adopting a defensive stance, hands resting on the floor and letting a deep growl low in his throat. This is one of those things that is completely intentional, an intimidation tactic, and usually one that works.

-his laugh isn’t much of a laugh any more - it’s more of a raspy coughing sound that’s sometimes interrupted by shrieks, like when a person snorts. Since laughing isn’t something people can really control there’s not much he can do to try and change it, but sometimes he tries to make his laugh more human. It usually ends up a creepy mess of wendigo and human.

Habits The wendigo in him makes Josh a little less... human in his actions. Everything has a vaguely creepy, uncanney valley feel about it now, mostly caused by his appearance but partially because some of the stuff he does is just damn weird

-Josh was pretty tactile before; no sense of personal space. It's even more obvious now and he seems to seek out physical contact a lot for comfort. Wendigos aren't social creatures so while his ways of showing affection aren't too human, the reasons for it certainly are. His favourite thing is to nuzzle into the crook of someone's neck and, if they're sitting, curl his limbs around them as if they're a human sized pillow. This is usually accompanied by the weird chittering sounds he makes.

-like all wendigos Josh can imitate people perfectly, which is pretty fucking cool. He can mimic anyone as long as he hears themsay the words, but if he knows a voice well enough he can mimic it without needing to hear something first. He often mimics by accident - if someone asks him a question and he's thinking it over, if he doesn't understand something or even if he just isn't paying attention to his words. It’s fun to use it to mess with people too, though.

-while his ceiling hanging skills aren't much on a full wendigo, Josh can scale pretty much any surface and cling to it for a while. His claws dig into the surface, fingers padded with a rough texture for extra grip. To make it easier to climb, Josh's elongated limbs a d torso are super flexible. He can hang from a ceiling if he really wants, but that will probably end in him falling face first to the floor.

-he doesn't blink as much now, which gives the impression he's staring at people or off in a daydream. It's extra creepy without the contacts, white eye on show. It's a tactic wendigos use to keep track of prey, so they don't lose sight of their food, but since Josh doesn't need to hunt it's just that he forgets blinking is a thing he should do.

Eating Human food is still essential since he's mostly human. That hasn't changed - except now he needs extra nutrition too.

-Josh eats a lot more meat than he used to. Doesn't matter what cut or what animal - as long as it's raw he's good. He can eat it cooked - and if he's eating a regular meal it will be - but raw meat and animal blood are a big part of his diet now. Wendigos are pure carnivores so it makes sense he has similar eating habits. 

-of course, since munching on a human corpse, regular animal meat isn't what he really craves. He only ate one bite down in the mines but it was enough to start some serious cravings for chowing down on a hunk of human being. The raw meat helps these cravings, but that doesn't mean they're totally gone. It's something Josh angsts about a lot.

Sleeping Of course turning half wendigo fucked up his sleeping pattern. Sleeping pills help, the rest he has to deal with alone. Sharing a bed with someone else helps.

-wendigos are nocturnal, sensitive to sunlight and vision suited to the dark. Josh is stuck half way between, sleepy during the day but unable to sleep at night. It's like his body is nocturnal but his mind isn't. On the bright  it's like he has an internal clock that always lets him know the time of day. Unfortunately it also means he's exhausted half the time. This is later helped with sleep meds, iron pills to supplement what he doesn't get from blood and short naps in the afternoon.

-rather than sleeping on a bed with covers/duvets, Josh loves sleeping in a kind of nest. Bed, sofa or floor - it doesn't matter as long as he has a pile of cushions and blankets. Living on a snow covered mountain he was used to freezing conditions with lots of layers to stay warm. It's unclear whether this is a trait he shares with wendigos or simply the result of having to make do in the mines and the subsequent recovery.

[harpers-mirror]

For @wendy-comet, who asked for “BUAA, 77: ‘Your dad is really excited to meet you soon, it’s driving me crazy.’” Set at the end of Renée’s pregnancy in precious and fragile things. No angst here for once (and maybe coincidentally, no Eiffel) - just pure fluffy happy-expectant-parent Mindelka. (Dominée?)

Renée sighed and kicked off the covers. Just minutes earlier she’d been freezing and now she felt as though she’d surely sweat to death if she stayed under the blankets even a moment longer. No matter how she twisted or turned, she couldn’t get comfortable, and her range of options was rather severely limited by the swell of her pregnant belly, as unwieldy as ever now in her ninth month of pregnancy.

Resting a hand against her abdomen, she whispered, “You guys feel like coming out any time soon? Maybe?” A sharp kick struck her hand seemingly in response and Renée smiled. Swinging her feet over the side of the bed, she carefully got to her feet, grabbed her robe, and headed for the door. Dominik turned over in his sleep but didn’t wake as she made her way out into the hall.

She checked on each of the kids in turn first. Margot must have been thrashing around in her sleep and had worked the covers into a twisted mess. She was frowning in her sleep, a look which lessened somewhat as her mother gently untangled the blankets and smoothed them back out. Renée leaned over to kiss her eldest, nearly overbalanced, and settled for kissing her fingers and touching them to Margot’s brow.

Morgan was buried under a pile of blankets and stuffed animals and so Renée lingered only a moment, brushing a hand over the shock of pale hair she could see peeking out from the nest and dropping another proxy-kiss.

Satisfied that everyone was asleep and well, Minkowski found herself in the newly-finished nursery. She lowered herself into the rocking chair and gazed around the waiting room before addressing the children she carried.

“It’s amazing we got this room ready in time. And amazing your crazy father and crazier Uncle Doug didn’t get themselves in more trouble than they did in the process. I swear, if they’d mentioned the dangers of ladders or the ‘brain-melting properties of paint fumes’ one more time...” Her sigh turned into a startled laugh as she felt two sharp kicks. “You like hearing about everyone out here in the world, don’t you?” She patted her stomach. “Well we’re all very excited to meet you too. Your big siblings don’t really quite know what to make of you but I think you’ve got them interested. Your Uncle Doug can hardly wait. In fact, I think if he gets any more enthusiastic, we’ll have to lock him in the closet again.” She smiled softly. “And your dad...you can’t even understand how happy you two already make him.”

“What makes who happy?” asked a sleepy voice from the doorway. Minkowski shifted in her chair to see her husband standing there, rumpled and only half-awake.

“Nothing. What are you doing up?”

Her husband smiled. “Well, I heard a crazy pregnant lady walking through the house talking to her stomach and thought I should investigate. For safety reasons, you see.”

“Right. Um.” Renée was flushed bright red. “Sorry, Nik. I couldn’t sleep.”

Dominik knelt down beside her and placed a hand on top of hers, joined and resting on her stomach. “Hey, it’s all good. I know you can’t be comfortable. But do you want to come back to bed and at least try to sleep? Soon enough, the Terror Twins here will burst forth and we’ll be doing this midnight routine a lot more. Might as well sleep while we still can.”

“Sure, I can try,” replied Renée with a yawn. “Thanks for understanding. Help me up?” Together, they maneuvered her up and out of the chair. Once she was on her feet, Dominik stayed holding her, arms wrapped around her from behind, lips pressed to the back of her neck.

“I love you very much,” he said softly. “And I am so amazed every day at how strong and brave and wonderful you are. You know that, right?”

“I love you too,” she answered back, her voice a little wobbly. “Thank you, Nik.”

They stood embracing in the dark and silent nursery for a long moment - before Renée yawned again and the mood was broken.

She felt her husband smile, his lips still brushing her skin. “C’mon, darling. Let’s get you three back to bed.”

[pencilofawesomeness]

Dragon Den Floor Plan

Okay so I was thinking about doing this for myself and writing purposes, but someone else mentioned it, and... Uh, it was time to put my Interior-Design-elective skills to good use. (Which is to say, I know scaling is practically non-existent, but I was lazy, and this isn’t exactly a masterwork in-story either, lol.)

Random notes about the “Dragon Den” (will add as I think of stuff)

The kitchen counters are part storage, part work space, and part seating. 

The storage room is also the work room. There’s a lot of stuff in there, and half of the room is enchanted so only people allowed can see and/or cross. This is in part because of questionable magic items and in part because the dragonlings want to keep their hobbies somewhat secret. (A moot point because almost everyone has already figured out that Sting likes origami and Gajeel makes figurines.)

The third room up top is truly reserved for the questionable magic items and books, mostly occupied by Acno’s stuff. It is also where the rune circle connected to the cave is placed.

It’s not squarely on top of the second floor, instead jutting out to the side, being built later. It’s easier to pretend it only functions as a room to the garden area that way.

The dragonlings discovered a love of bean bags. They are everywhere.

Literally no one sleeps normally. It’s either piles of blankets and pillows, hammocks, extra pillows, or weird sleeping positions. 

Gajeel has the most minimal set-up, his ‘bed’ being a mat on the ground with a couple of pillows and a single blanket. He’s not immune to soft things, but he’s also used to sleeping on hard surfaces.

Acno’s room connects into a sun room where he has a small garden. It’s not as big as the one in the cave, as of yet, but it grows.

Natsu has sky-lights on the ceiling to let more light (and heat) in. It gets incredibly hot in his room, so much so that sometimes even Happy has to sleep downstairs 

Rogue has a very impressive terrarium. It’s multi-layered.

Cubellios sleeps on a repurposed futon next to Erik’s bed. However, as she got bigger, she began to invade his bed as well.

Erik grows poison ivy on his window sill because it, for reasons unknown to everyone, makes really good “spice tea,” and while Acno supports his interest in gardening, he will Not have that devil plant near his garden. 

There are knicks-knacks everywhere. None of matches. It’s not about interior decorating, it’s about souvenirs. 

Contrary to popular belief, there is no cloaking magic on the house. It’s just far and hard to find. However, Acno has cast an invisible spell on it once or twice if a nosy guildmate got too close and he noticed.

Rogue has his own stash of stuff he collects. It’s mostly weird stuff, like rocks, keyrings, broken pieces of things he found in the woods, happy meal toys, etc. He keeps them on shelves, but as he collects more, he has to place them higher up, so he’s always grabbing Gajeel or Erik or Acno to put them up for him.

Wendy has stuffed animals. A lot of them. The fuzzier, the better. They are all on her bed/nest because she would feel bad if she left any of them out.