#and attach crabs to his eyelids

[gayhenrycreel]

americans are tame about insulting politicians compared to kiwis. i go into nzpol tags and people are threatening to have their dogs piss on a racists grave, or have him euthanized

[theflashdriver]

Missteps & Mistakes

A blurry, unfamiliar, ceiling hung above, tinted a familiar cyan hue. Blaze felt awful, she had no idea how long she'd slept but it hadn't been enough. Her mouth was dry, her head rang and her eyes felt crusty. Beyond those sensations was a throbbing pain in her right shoulder. An attempt to move it forced a hiss from her, brows knitted as the pain coursed all the way to the tip of her elbow. Awful as it was, the pain had more fully awakened her and made her much more aware of her surroundings...

Blaze didn't recognise the room she was in, but she only had to identify a few minor details to understand where she was. The strong smell of alcohol hand sanitiser crinkled her nose and, from what little she could see, the room was rather barren. Her covers felt thin and papery, cheap yet unused, and her bedclothes had a similar consistency. Everything was spotless and fresh but not in the typical sense, it was all just so clinically clean.

The cat was somewhere in Southern Island's hospital, in a solo room that had plainly been breached by a certain someone. A soft breeze kept parting drawn white blinds, pushing them out from the windowsill in waves. Despite the brightness nearby, what view she managed to snatch informed Blaze that night had arrived outside. The cat had no idea how long she'd been unconscious, and she couldn't even lift her duvet to check her injuries. Someone was in the way.

She'd been trying to ignore the weight of his head on her gut; the figure it was attached to wasn't laid in bed with her as he so often was. Instead, he was sat, slouched forward with his quills obscuring his face. Never before had Blaze seen Silver the hedgehog so uncomfortably sleeping, his eyelids clamped tightly shut and his body rigid even while he was unconscious. Despite that, her one free hand above the covers was currently captured by his one of his.

The prior day's events seemed to blur in her mind, falling out of sequence and fading like dreams. She could recall a fight, some ludicrous Eggman machine, but beyond a certain point her mind was blank. Well, it didn't take a genius to understand she'd been seriously injured.

Cold rationality flooded Blaze, pushing out her tiredness and easing her worry. They wouldn't be here if her kingdom had fallen, this hospital wouldn't have stood. Silver would still be out there fighting if the doctor was there to fight. If the odds had become insurmountable, she'd have awoken next to him on some mountain or far off island he'd rushed them to. Certainly not a place like this.

Still, the state of her people was in question. What had happened, just how had she ended up here? The pain still creaking in her shoulder, owing to damage significant enough to put her here, served as a frequent reminder that things had gone poorly.

It'd been a little after noon, that much Blaze recalled for certain, they'd heard the commotion from their picnic spot on the far side of the town. They'd made it to the beach just as the machine had fully made land, citizens dashing for their lives up the beachfront and for the cover of nearby buildings. It'd been an enormous robotic crab, modified to have four giant claws rather than five with each housing a different weapon. At the centre of its flat top sat the stereotypical glass cockpit used by the mad doctor, an almost too obvious weak point.

From there things became blurred, fire and psychokinesis had torn at steel in rapid succession. Fights were a mess of primal reflexes, it was rare that every blow could be recalled, but in this case so few came to mind. Things had started well enough, a thrown fireball had got the doctor's attention and left him open to a surprise attack. With little raw material to work with, Silver had opted to use swing one of the machine's massive arms, one with claws like serrated blades, toward its own source.

It was then that things became unclear, a flurry of attacks came to mind but none of them stood out. She'd pointed Silver forward, instructed him to do something specific, but, as he'd obeyed, Blaze had noticed someone else, still on the sands. That child's face was burned the brightest into Blaze's memory, a little boy no older than five sat crying on the beach. He'd been in the path of the crab's inevitable assault.

The last thing she could remember was sidestepping in front of the child but still running along the beach, directly toward a canon housed within a giant crab claw. She couldn't remember the flash of a muzzle, nor any immediate pain. Not even the dark of what had inevitably come after.

She'd overextended, gone on offence while simultaneously trying to defend. The result hadn't been some inevitability, it wasn't as though her loss was destined the moment she saw the child in danger, but it suggested she had underestimated their opponent. She should have grabbed the child and rushed out of the way, got him to safety before returning to the fray.

Blaze's stomach lurched as her eyes settled back on the hedgehog's sleeping form. Not only had she worried him, but all her people. She attempted to roll her shoulder, but the pain was too great, and the extent of her other injuries was still such an unknown. Still, it wasn't as though she was screaming or crying. She would heal, things would be okay eventually.

Her eyes flickered to a clock, ticking as it hung on the far wall. It read three but it could only be the morning, visiting hours were long over and yet here he was. The window had undoubtedly been opened by him; he'd surely snuck his way inside. As touching as it all was, she couldn't have him getting himself in trouble. Soon nurses would resume their routes, it was likely they'd check on her early in the morning.

She gently squeezed his hand, finally returning the hedgehog's grasp. "Silver…"

A low groan sounded from his form; behind fallen quills she watched a yellow eye half open. His breath hitched as he caught sight of her, he quickly sat up, "B-Blaze, did I wake you? I-I'm sorry, I just-

She squeezed his hand again, cutting off his rambling, "I don't think you did, my shoulder started to ache. I assume whatever pain killers they gave me just wore off."

It was only now, with his body fully in view, that Blaze could see his damages. There was a small laceration across the hedgehog's muzzle, cutting just shy of his mouth; it had plainly gone untended, but it wasn't especially deep. What worried the cat more was the staining across his body, blotches of dark spattered across his white fur. At first she'd worried that it was his blood, that there were greater wounds untended beneath his fur, but the colouration was too spread and thin. It was her blood, he had carried her here, of course.

"Why are you here? You should at least be resting," The cat calmly asked, already knowing the answer.

"Well it sort of looks like I was doing that," He croaked, straightening himself further.

"Not nearly enough, and certainly not properly," Blaze tutted, trying to inject some levity into the situation, knowing things were set to get more difficult, "You need to get cleaned off and some proper bed rest, I'll still be here in the morning."

"I know, a-and they told me that much," He confessed, still grimacing, "I just didn't want to leave you alone here."

Blaze attempted to match his posture, pushing herself more upright, but the pain at her shoulder kept her lying and made her time traveling companion wince. It was difficult to see in the lowlight, his powers were all that was lighting the room, but there was a redness beneath Silver's eyes. He'd cried himself to sleep, of that much Blaze was certain, but she had to understand what had happened.

Silver was an emotional person, she didn't want him to relive those fresh memories, but Blaze had to know, "Well, since you've been by my side this whole time, I suppose you know all that happened to me. My memory of those last moments is rather foggy…"

"You reached one of the crab's claws, a cannon. You managed to destroy it, but an engine or something inside it must have exploded," He recalled, filling the gaps in her memory, "That was enough to turn the tide, the pieces of the broken claw gave me enough to work with and I managed to quickly see him off, but…" Regret marred his muzzle, "I'm sorry. I couldn't catch him as he fled. I was too worried about you. He got out to sea, using a pod ejected from the crab, and then vanished in a flash of light."

After parsing his words for a moment, another question needed answering, "Was anyone else hurt?"

"No, no one," He quickly promised, eyes full and honest, "There was a kid crying next to you, I brought him here too, but he was untouched. Just scared," Silver quickly explained, alleviating the bulk of Blaze's concern, but then his eyes flickered from her, "I'm sorry."

"You should have gone after him yes, but what's done is done. Besides, the sooner I heal the sooner our defences will be shored. If I'd just been left there, things might have got more dire," She shook her head, "If anything, I should be thanking you."

"N-No. I'm not just sorry for that, I know I should have done that but," He winced, his eyelids clamped shut, but he continued to elaborate, "There are other things. For one, I should have been ready to save you."

"Silver…" She rubbed her thumb against his, "I sent you away, getting hit like that was my own fault. I saw the child and I panicked."

"I should have been ready for something to go wrong though. You sent me after the machine's legs, I reached them just as the claw exploded," He continued, his voice growing horse as he stared into the bedsheets, "I didn't realise anything had gone wrong until I'd knocked it down, I glanced back and saw you on the ground," She felt his grasp tighten, "Then, when I got you here, I messed things up even more."

"Like I said, I made a misjudgement, my injuries are not your fault. I should have planned ahead, I'm the one who sent you away. This is my responsibility, and I won't let you blame yourself, He seemed to struggle to accept those words, despite her serious tone, but Blaze was ready to hammer them in. However, his last raised point had concerned her, "What happened here, at the hospital?"

"They didn't want me to be in the room when they were treating you. They kept trying to shut me out," Words started to fail him, "I sort of… it wasn't really a fight but…"

He hadn't given the full picture, but Blaze could immediately imagine the scene. She'd probably needed stitches, perhaps more thorough work even to mend what had been done. They'd have wanted to move her to a sterilised room, tried to take her from his arms. When they'd finally managed to wrangle her away, he'd surely followed behind only to be blocked off before the surgery room.

Across their past life, no matter the extreme of their injuries, they'd always doctored each other rather than risk relying on others. Whenever he had got burned, she had been the one to bandage him, practically pinning him down so as to keep him from doing anything rash. He had done the same for Blaze of course, often having to barter with her to convince the cat to stay put and fully heal. With time though, as they'd aged toward maturity, those healing phases had become less fraught with debate and insistence. They'd simply looked after each other, cared for each other as only they could.

"I knew the doctors here could help you better than I could, you brought me to them before and showed me that," He explained, "But I didn't realise they'd take you away from me. After seeing you all bloody and hurt, it just made me panic. I started to push and shout and," He swallowed, "I-I didn't hurt anyone, I just sort of," Again, he floundered for words, "I didn't want to leave you."

It was true that he'd only visited a doctor a handful of times. Having grown up in destroyed worlds, healthcare had been so alien to him up until recently. Convincing him to sit in a dental chair had been the first of many great modernising tasks Blaze had saddled herself with, let alone having him endure the gruelling work that had come after.

Then had come a full health evaluation, vaccinations and other such treatments. The hedgehog had been quick to accept that it was all for the best, but it had all been so new and confusing to him. He'd never had a significant surgery; despite the injuries he'd endured across his lifetimes.

"I'm not supposed to be here," He glumly admitted, "Even if I was, it's after hours now, isn't it? People aren't allowed to stay overnight," He gestured to the window, "I'm just so used to us looking after each other and you being taken away, in that state," He finally looked her in the eye again, though his vision was surely blurred by tears, "I just couldn't handle it."

Blaze could tell her silence was weighing on him, but she wasn't sure what to say. Wincing more, she pushed herself to fully sit up and took in both him and the wider room. It was only now, newly positioned, that she was able to see the door. He'd set a chair under the handle and pushed a closet behind it, plainly attempting to bar other's entry in case they came to force him out again.

"Silver…" She sighed, again squeezing his hand, he was lucky no one had tried to check on her in the night, "You're so naïve."

He seemed to follow her eyeline and quickly identify what she'd seen, as evidenced by him turning away and scratching the back of his head, "I was still sort of panicking when I did that, sorry."

Blaze tried to shift closer to the hedgehog, but her shoulder wouldn't allow it. Instead, she finally slipped her hand from his, beckoning him in, "Come closer."

Rather than scoot his chair up the bed, the hedgehog rose and stepped in close before leaning down. All of a sudden, he'd gone from just a little too far away to hold to directly in her face. Snorting slightly at his over-effort, she reached up with her left hand to rub the uninjured side of his muzzle.

"Despite your panicking, not to mention your breaking and entering, I am happy you're here," It stung a little more, but she managed to lean in and push her forehead against that of the hedgehog, "There's no one I'd rather have watching over me."

"I'm just," She felt him lean into her, so very gently, trying not to cause her any pain, "I'm still not used to this, all of this. They didn't want me coming in here, not after I freaked out about them taking you away."

"I know, I know," She hummed, now moving her hand to caress the back of his quills, "I got too comfortable, relaxing at our picnic and then in battle. I need to be more attentive, no more slipping up. This whole situation is my fault, not yours."

"How can you be responsible for me tussling with the folks here?" He questioned, pulling back ever so slightly.

"It's new to you, and it's my job to teach you how to function in this world. You just weren't used to what is truly common procedure," She explained, pulling him back in.

He was quiet for a moment, considering her words, "I'll get better at it. I'll get more used to living here, so I can stay with you properly," Intensity had returned to his tone, "I promise."

"It'll all come with time, I promise too," She relaxed for a moment, simply enjoying his touch, before leaning became too uncomfortable to bear. That did though spark a new idea, "Help me up to a mirror, I need to see the damage."

"Okay, how do you want to do this?" He rose to stand again, taking her in, "Will I use my powers to…"

"I think that would be what's safest, you know what parts of me are injured don't you?" She asked, only to be met with a confirming nod, "Try to brace my right side and just help me walk,"

He did wince at her suggestion, but Blaze was certain he knew what to do. They'd done it before in their last life, whenever they'd had to hurry away and injuries had still been lingering. She trusted him now, as she always had.

With one wave of his hands the covers were removed, folding neatly at the foot of her bed. That change alone gave Blaze some perspective on her current state, revealing a long gown that could be unbuttoned at several sites for easy access. There was no sign of a cast at least, or significant damage on her right arm.

Cyan light came to coalesce around her form, seeking out specific locations to properly manifest. It wasn't like a simple cast of psychic energy, it was more akin to a harness used to redistribute weight across her body and reduce pressure on more pained locations. He seemed to work around her wound, gently drawing across the fur and skin, while spreading a psychic support across her back and down her legs. By the time it was done, she was glowing more than him.

Finally, the cat fully sat up, finding the movement entirely painless. He reached out a hand and she took it, standing was slightly more painful but his brace was doing its job. Soon she was, albeit stiffly, being led across the room.

He waved his free hand toward another door in the room, pushing it open and clicking on the light. While she'd have preferred a full body mirror, something that would let her fully check herself, the en suite he'd revealed would suffice. She shuffled inside, catching herself in the mirror.

It was fortunate that her fur didn't burn, most of her injuries had assumedly been caused by the force of the explosion or maybe thrown shrapnel rather than anything else. There were a few cuts on her face, predominantly on the right of her muzzle, but nothing that looked too permeant. She knew where the true injury resided.

A glance was thrown out the door and in his direction, it took a moment for him to realise her intent and turn away, "A metal plate got stuck in your clavicle, I'm not sure how deep it actually went," The hedgehog relayed.

Using her good arm, she unbuttoned the right side of the long shirt. The injury was as he'd described and as she'd expected. A series of stitches marked the wound's seam, reaching just slightly lower than her armpit but arching some distance up her shoulder. There were other injuries yes, what felt like a nasty bruise near the centre of her chest and another stitched wound near her middle ribs, but nothing too grievous.

"Well," Blaze started to rebutton her gown, "We've seen our way through worse."

"It was pretty bad…" She heard him cringe, "Looked like the sort of thing that would leave you stuck in bed for half a month."

"Modern medicine makes such injuries far more treatable than we're used to," Blaze attempted to relax him, taking on a lecturing tone, "I might even be out of here and walking on my on in a couple of days, as long as my actual bones are okay."

"If you're sure," He said, not sounding at all sure.

She made it back out of the room, still wrapped in her partial psychic exoskeleton, but he hadn't turned back around. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of the whole situation finally wearing off, that or maybe knowledge of her body's state had calmed the cat, but she was only now noticing the position they were in.

He'd spent a fair amount of time in her bedchamber, a few nights sleeping by her, but it was rare that they'd be like this in a different setting. Her heels were gone, she had no idea where they were, and so his relative tallness was now emphasised. Her hair was down, and she wasn't in her long coat. He'd even slipped through her window.

It was a shame about the dry blood staining his front and her present injuries, this would otherwise be an ideal night to slip away and enjoy the serene quiet of the beach at night. Not quite gently, and less than elegantly, she used her left arm to spin the hedgehog to face her. From there, she quickly took hold of his hands.

Suddenly, her confidence faded, "You know, I meant what I said."

He blinked, looking so plainly baffled, "What you said?"

"Don't make me spell it out again," The cat tutted, but his confusion remained. Her gaze dropped to his booted feet, "There's no one I'd rather have watching over me, not one-

A knock at the door halted her momentum, her last word wouldn't have the opportunity to pass through her lips, "Your highness, are you awake?"

She pushed past him and, after raising the curtains and opening the window wider, suddenly understood that they were on the fourth floor, "You need to go. Quickly," She loudly whispered.

Hoisting himself into the air, he caught up with her and set his boot on the open window frame, "But you were just sayin-

"There's no time, I need to get back into bed so you can-

Another knock resounded on the door, "Your highness? Hello?"

"Lights out, tuck me in, get out, close the window and then move everything at the door back where it belongs," Blaze quietly instructed, quickly hobbling her way across the room.

He did as commanded, the bathroom light flickered out just as the door shut. The moment she was lying in bed the duvet flipped up to cover her and her own psychic coating vanished. In a single, slightly awkward, movement he managed to slip through the open window to float just outside her room.

"Do you need anything? I can bring some stuff when I come back later?" He called in, scarcely audible as he flew various objects across the room and back into their proper places, "I could even sneak things in, if I'm not allowed to bring you stuff?"

"Is everything okay in there? What's that noise?" The voice from the door questioned.

"Surprise me," Blaze mouthed out the window, waving her hand in a now painful gesture to indicate he should leave, "Yes, everything's okay! I've only just woken up!"

Realising there'd have to be some source for the noise, wincing, she rose to sit on the edge of her bed. By the time she'd done so the curtains were closed, and he was out of view. Just in time for the door to open.

As the door swung open the light was almost immediately flicked on, an elderly koala nurse was revealed in the doorway, "Oh dearie, sorry to cause a fuss, that door was giving me a bit of bother," The elderly woman turned to the door testing the handle, "You should really lie down, that's quite the nasty cut you arrived with, you're lucky it wasn't any worse. Do you need anything?"

The cat did hesitate, almost throwing another half glance in the window's direction, "No thank you," She responded, knowing all she could ever want was but a call away.

[whimsicallyreading]

@crispypotatochip Sorry! I accidentally deleted your ask while typing :(

Prompt 1 for whump- “Nobody is going to come and save you.”

CW- this one is pretty dark. Graphic death. Blood. Mentions of torture and abuse

Six Months-

Six months down and only forever to go, Celaena notes to herself as she toils.

Morning blends to day, day to night, time is meaningless when you never see the sunlight. Her skin grows sallow, cheeks hollow, and Celaena can physically feel her skin tighten around her ribs.

As her body becomes more weary, the manacles feel like they gain pounds. Celaena knows the women shackled to her feel it too. Some of them are mothers, children, elderly.

Many of them can’t meet their salt quotas, so Celaena tips some of her portions into theirs. She can’t help everyone, but she tries to spare who she can.

Women come and go. They die from starvation, disease, or abuse. One lady wasn’t even fully dead when they added her body to the mass graves. Unlike herself, the overseers weren’t interested in preserving their lives.

Celaena is the only constant.

The woman beside her gets caught muttering under her breath. She’s young. Celaena sees the fear in her eyes. When the overseer gets close and crowds the young girl into a wall- Celaena spits in his face. That rage is redirected at her, but she can take it.

The overseer takes the whip to her back again.

Her skin parts like cloth to a knife beneath the leather. Celaena fights for every breath. Forces the screams down her belly. She would never give them the satisfaction of hearing her break. Somewhere in the dark, the young woman cries.

When they dump her body back in the cells, Celaena thinks it’s the end. Blood and energy drain from her rapidly. She watches her life force pool around her with half-lidded eyes, realizing that this may be its own ticket to freedom.

That is when the hands come.

They pressed down on her wounds and Celaena moans. A throaty gurgling noise escapes her throat against her will. The renewed pain sends stars to her eyes and she sinks further into that oppressive darkness.

Something cold grips the arch of her cheek and pinches. “No warrior, you do not sleep.” The hand twists her skin until Celaena can force her eyes settle on the petit Eyllwe woman.

Pressure returns to her wounds and Celaena groans. Her back is a slab of raw flesh filled with salt. The young woman appears and pulls Celaena’s head into her lap, carding fingers through her sheared hair soothingly.

“You need to stay awake,” the older woman’s voice says. Her accent is heavy, but Celaena’s been in the mines long enough to easily understand her fellow captives.

The young woman cradles her head, rubbed at her face and using her thumbs to lift Celaena’s eyelids when they drooped too far. She’s fighting to keep her conscious.

Conversations float over her head in a language she doesn’t understand. Even if she could, her throat was too dry to speak. The hot summer months made the mines sweltering and sucked the fluids from her body. Blood loss was doing Celaena no favors.

“Water,” Celaena croaks, but the young woman looks hopelessly confused. The elder is too busy trying to stop the bleeding to hear.

Celaena racks her brain for the word. She knows she’s heard the others use it before. Her tongue stumbles over the foreign noun, but the young woman appears to understand.

A filthy skein of dirty water is held to her lips, and she drinks.

The young woman holds the skein up and pronounces the word she’d struggled to say correctly. Celaena repeats the word back to her until it flows smoothly from her mouth.

It continues like that.

First she learns water. Then blood. Her hands, feet, heart, head. The young woman adds words to Celaena’s vocabulary as her wounds are tended.

Her nurses diligently protect her prone body from the guards. As they are forced back to work the next day, Celaena can barely keep her feet beneath her. Only loosely keeping a grasp on consciousness. The pain is debilitating but Arobynn had taught her how to compartmentalize that.

She’s chained between the two women, and today it’s them who adds the salt they mine to her bin. They teach her more words to keep her alert. The elderly woman has now joined the game, she knows enough of the common tongue to correct Celaena’a phrasing when she messes up the conjugations.

It’s a beautiful language, Celaena thinks as she braces an arm against the wall weakly.

The young women is the elder’s granddaughter, she later finds out. As her vocabulary grows, their whispered conversations become more complex.

Celaena learns that the girl’s parents had been soldiers. They were killed in a skirmish, and their homes raised. Adarlan advanced into their village and the rest of their family was split between Endovier and Calaculla.

She breaks her own rules, and as the days pass she becomes attached.

When her eyes peel open to a low keening, Celaena isn’t surprised to find that the grandmother had died in her sleep. All things considered, it was a peaceful death in these mines. What does surprise her is the ache of grief she feels.

Celaena and the granddaughter stay close together throughout the work day. Her sorrow is palpable, and it makes the overseers circle them like vultures. Despite her weakness, they are still wary of Celaena’s presence and she manages to ward them off.

The granddaughter starts flagging soon after. Celaena knows that death is coming for the young woman. Knows in her bones that the cycle of people dying around her will occur once more as she’s forced to live on.

Still she fights against it.

Celaena sleeps flush against the woman and guards her back in sleep. She gives up half of her meager water and food rations. It seems futile as the girl becomes narrower and the life steadily trickles from her eyes. Even questions spoken in her native tongue don’t seem to reach her ears.

The extra labor takes a toll, and when Celaena closes her eyes, she falls into a consuming sleep.

When she wakes it’s to a garbled crunching. Celaena’s eyes shoot open and she crab walks backwards as her eyes focus on the overseer looming above her.

Looking down, Celaena’s gut rolls. The granddaughter was dead. He’d crushed her neck beneath his boot.

“Nobody is going to come and save you,” the demon chuckles. “Kings order or not, this will eventually be you.” He kicked her head once, sending blood splattering up the wall.

Celaena waits for him to leave and start ordering the other slaves to wake. She waits for his voice to fade beneath the moans and keening of her fellow captives. Once she’s certain he’s gone, Celaena gathers the body into her arms and weeps.

They were barely friends, but the loss is like a hot iron in her stomach. Celaena’s rags are too dirty to clean the young woman’s face, but she does her best to brush the hair from her face. She croons broke words in ellywe and closes the girl’s eyes.

Sniffling, Celaena lays the body on the ground gently. It takes a moment for her to reign in her emotions, but she has to be composed before they manacle her to the line. They would exploit any weakness.

Six months down and only forever to go. Celaena blinks slowly, and for the first time, feels resigned to her fate.

[crmediagal]

Unquestionable Love: The Untold Stories - UPDATED! 🎃

Unquestionable Love: The Untold Stories

Prompt #63: A Rumbly, Grumbly All Hallows’ Eve

Synopsis: Severus finds himself on trick-or-treating duties when Hermione falls ill...and he isn’t alone.

Excerpt:

Fumbling for his hand, Hermione locked onto his skeletal digits once found, securing them in between her tinier ones.  A few seconds trickled by before realisation surfaced from the recesses of her presently dazed conscience.  “Trick-or-treat’s tonight…”

Another brief silence acknowledged that thought.  Then Severus said, “And?” with a slight hesitance that his wife’s ears, despite illness, detected.

“Sev…‘rus,” Hermione muttered, “I can’t possibly go…if I’m still like this later.  I feel dreadful.”

“Of course you aren’t going, Hermione,” he snarled in retort, his register quiet but most insistent on that score.  “It’s out of the question.”

Hermione forced an eye open to stare up at her husband, now standing beside their bed, with his free hand attached to his hip to stress his point.  When their eyes met, his expression softened a touch, however, though he appeared as wary about what was about to go down as her, as if he had sensed the dreaded question on the tip of Hermione’s tongue before it came.  “You know what that means, right?” she prodded in a strained whisper.  She may have been sick as a troll but that didn’t mean she missed his tight sigh or subsequent eye roll.  Her one open eyelid widened.  “Sev…‘rus, you have to!  The girls are depending on—”

“Yes, yes, all right.  I’ll go.  Shut it, would you?”  At her slight, rather delirious look of offence, he bent forward at the waist and drew the sheets up to her flushed cheeks, insisting more gently, “Go to sleep, my dear.”  

Without needing further coaxing, Hermione’s one eye slumped shut.  “You must go…” she asserted still, her voice muffled by the pillow now scrunching the side of her face that was pressed to it.

Hermione never saw Severus’s small smirk.  “I will…most regrettably.”

“Don’t be a crab, you.”

Severus’s irises danced with provocation.  “You’ll owe me one.”

Hermione’s eyebrows came together at an aggressive angle, her eyes remaining shut.  “I owe you shite, Mister—”

Severus glided a hand across her perspiring forehead and, with that wordless gesture, enacted silence.  “Quit talking, Know-It-All.”  He pecked the tip of her nose.  “Rest, I said.”

He had started to slink away from the bed, his intertwined hand falling out of hers, when Hermione lazily nabbed his wrist.  “Sev…‘rus?” she called after him, on the verge of sleep.

Severus growled, discouraged.  “Merlin’s balls, what now?”

Hermione was too indisposed to chuckle.  “When did you get here?”

“Last night.”

Both of Hermione’s eyes flew open.  She even attempted to raise her head but a round of dizziness saw her regretting that move.  “Wha…?” she started to prod but Severus, again, pressed the weight of a hand to her shoulder, easing her back against her pillow.

“I checked on you twice through the Floo, once after dinner and the next when you were in bed.  Both times you didn’t look well…so I came home early.”

Hermione’s head sunk further, contemplating, formulating new thoughts.  “How often…do you do that, Sev…‘rus?  Spy on me?”

A low, combative hiss met her inquiry.  “Who said anything about spying?”

Hermione wisely opted not to mind.  At the moment, she was too indisposed anyhow.  “In this instance,” she mumbled, her mouth draped in a languid, half smile, “you’re a gent.”

“You’re a pain in my arse,” he deadpanned back, those words dripping with the suggestion of a mirroring smile.

Hermione ignored him, feeling herself sliding farther and farther from consciousness.  “Go…figure out…your costume… for tonight.”

“My dear wife,” came his no longer sassy register, “I agreed to take the girls trick-or-treating—”

“Sev—”

“—but I shall not don a ruddy costume for the wretched affair as well.”

“Ugh, fine,” she grumbled, her hand, at last, releasing his wrist.  “Do as you like…surly sod.”

Available to read in its entirety at www.crmediagal.com…

[flashthescalesian-art]

Through a Shiny’s Eyes

Just a little backstory for my sweet boy Sunny since I don’t plan to go into detail with his backstory in Saving the Light, and this doesn’t contain any spoilers for StL either. I figured I’d post something today since I posted part 4 early. 

Warning: Blood and death are both described here. This is not a happy ficlet, you have been warned. I made myself cry while writing it.  —————

Sunny had been trained to fight droids. That’s what he had learned to fight on Kamino. Droids were the enemy, after all. B1s, super battle droids, commando droids, crab droids, spider droids, and even vulture droids. But Umbarans were not droids. Umbarans were sentient beings that could adapt and think and feel. Sunny had not been trained to fight other sentient beings. Sunny had not been told that he would be fighting other people. Hostile people, but still people. He felt sick every time he shot down an Umbaran. “Sunny, watch your left!” Quinn cried. Sunny jumped sideways just as a cannon blast exploded next to him, knocking him off his feet. Someone hauled him to his feet as his ears rang. 

“C’mon, we gotta keep going, we’re not leaving you here!” Trip yelled, dragging Sunny along. “Not hurt, Trip,” Sunny managed to say. “I’m not hurt.” He got his feet under himself and kept going, trying not to feel so horrible about killing so many Umbarans. I have a job to do. The Separatists are evil, and the Umbarans betrayed the Republic. Those thoughts didn’t help much. 

After what felt like years, the cannons and blasters stopped firing. Sunny followed his squad toward where everyone was regrouping when he tripped over something and fell, his helmet falling off and rolling away. “Sunny, you alright, vod?” Burnout asked.

Pawing around for his helmet in the shadows, Sunny nodded and grabbed what he thought was his helmet. “Yeah, I’m f-“ His glove became warm and wet, so he pulled his hand back and squinted at the thing he just touched. White armor stained inky black in the darkness. White armor mangled and twisted, just like the body it was attached to. 

Sunny threw up, coughing and choking as his nose and throat burned. The last gag turned into a whimper. Someone pulled him to his feet again, holding him close and guiding him along. “Here, Sunny, drink some water,” Burnout encouraged, putting a canteen against Sunny’s lips. “We can’t stop now, vod. The sooner we can take the capital, the sooner it’ll be over.” Sunny took a few gulps of water, which settled his stomach somewhat. “I’ve got your helmet, Sunny,” Rain said. “You want it back?” “Please,” Sunny managed to reply. Keeping his blond hair covered was probably wise. It could distract the other clones, even if his squadmates said it wouldn’t. He felt more than saw his helmet being placed on his head, then the ground slanted downward so steeply that he slipped and would have fallen had it not been for Burnout’s arm around him. “Any injuries over there, shinies?” 

“Nothing serious, Sergeant,” Burnout replied as he lowered Sunny to the ground and sat him against a solid object. “Quinn’s got a burn on his side, but it’s not severe.” “What about him?” 

“Sunny isn’t hurt, he’s just a little shaken up,” Trip responded. Sunny felt someone sit next to him. “Easy, vod, easy. I’m shaken up too. You’re sure you’re not hurt?” Trip asked gently. Sunny nodded, trying to take deep breaths to calm his racing heart. “Okay, just breathe. I think we’re gonna get underway again soon, so try to get your bearings before we need to move.” Sunny didn’t want to keep going. He wanted to go home. Sure, the Kaminoans hated him, but at least home wasn’t this. There wasn’t death at every turn, or screaming, or explosions, or chaos. After a few minutes, he heard General Kenobi speaking, his calm, commanding voice floating through the shadows. Trip stood up, so Sunny followed as they headed closer to the Jedi. “If we can push through this last line of Umbaran defenses, we will have control of the capital. General Plo and I will lead the assault, and Commander Kitsune will be defending the rear. Keep pushing forward. We need to take this capital.” Sunny watched as a medic stepped up next to the General, the telltale lightning bolts on his helmet marking him as the infamous Captain Volt. Sunny didn’t know how much the other battalions had heard, but Captain Volt was notoriously headstrong and commanding within the 212th. Rumor had it that the medic even scared General Kenobi a bit. Volt said something to General Kenobi, gesturing to the Jedi’s side where his tunic was burned, revealing the glimpse of a bandage underneath. Kenobi nodded and clapped his hand on Volt’s armored shoulder. 

The General is injured? That was worrying. But Sunny was reassured when the medic nodded sharply and jogged away. Kenobi must not be too hurt if Volt seemed to just be checking on him. A shout rose up as the clones charged forward. Sunny swallowed his reluctance and ran forward alongside his squadmates as the whole world exploded in cannon and blaster fire. Screams and cries of wounded filled the air along with the explosions. 

It felt like hours of battle. Sunny wanted it to be over. They were inside the city now, so civilians were in danger of getting hurt in the crossfire. But they kept pushing forward. Forward through the enemy fire. Forward through the screams. Forward through the dust and debris. Suddenly, the building Sunny and his squad were using for cover exploded, throwing them to the road. Sunny’s ears were ringing as he shook his head and looked up to see the building falling toward him. He knew he should get up, but he couldn’t make his limbs move. Someone dragged him to his feet, and he looked to see Burnout, his helmet dented and blood dripping from his chin, staining his white armor shiny black in the darkness. 

“Sunny, come on, vod, run!” Burnout snarled, obviously in pain. Sunny started running until he knew he was out of the way of the collapsing building, then he looked around for Burnout. He gasped when he saw how much farther behind his brother was. There was no way Burnout was going to make it out, he was limping so badly that he could barely move. Sunny began running toward him, but Burnout started shouting. “Sunny, no! Stay put! Stay there, you hear me?! Do NOT come to me! You can’t-��� He was cut off by the building crashing down, sending up a cloud of dust and blocking everything from Sunny’s view. “NO!” Sunny screamed. He forgot about the battle, forgot about the enemy. All that was on his mind was finding his squadmates. “BURNOUT!!” As the dust settled, Sunny began climbing over the debris to the last place he saw Burnout. He saw a glimpse of white between the hunks of metal, so he started trying to pull things off the pile. “Burnout, can you hear me? Burnout?!” Sunny cried as he shoved beams and pieces of wall out of the way. Then he found Burnout’s upper body, so he pushed one more hunk of metal away, then knelt next to Burnout and gently took his dented helmet off. “Burnout?” 

Moaning, Burnout stirred, then coughed harshly, blood spraying from his mouth and running down his chin. He opened his eyes halfway. “Sunny?” His normally bright eyes were dull and glassy. Sunny wasn’t a medic, but he knew that was an indicator that someone needed immediate medical attention. “I’m here, Burnout,” Sunny choked out. “Can you move?” Burnout tried, then gasped and laid still. “No. Hurts. Leg’s stuck,” he mumbled, eyelids drooping. 

Sunny looked around for a medic. For anyone who might help. No luck. “Burnout, stay awake. I’m gonna go get help. You’ll be okay, but you need to stay awake. I’ll be right back.” 

“Sunny,” Burnout wheezed. “Stay.” No. No this can’t be happening. No. Sunny still had to find his other squadmates, and he needed to get Burnout help. But the look on Burnout’s face said he’d given up. He was accepting death. “Burnout, you can’t leave me! I don’t even know where the others are or if they’re still alive, please don’t leave!” Sunny was sobbing now. “Please don’t leave me!” He tried to contact someone, anyone. No luck. The transmissions might be jammed or maybe his comlink was broken. “Burnout, come on, stay with me!” Sunny cried desperately. Burnout seemed saddened by Sunny’s plea, but the light in his eyes was fading fast. Sunny felt as though his heart was being torn to shreds as he could only watch his friend take his last breath. After closing Burnout’s eyes with shaky fingers, Sunny stood and looked around. He needed to find Trip, Rain, and Quinn. He found Quinn first, but his brother’s broken body was beyond any shred of hope. Sunny closed Quinn’s eyes and kept searching, his ears dead to the sound of battle around him. Trip was next, but his body was in no better condition than Quinn’s. Sunny felt like the fire inside him was going out. He was cold and numb, but there was a tiny flicker of hope that maybe Rain was around somewhere. Maybe Rain was still breathing. 

“Rain?” Sunny called, scanning the rubble. “Sunny?!” 

Snapping his head toward the voice, Sunny saw a hand waving in the air. Frantic, Sunny scrambled toward the hand, finding a very much alive Rain, his left leg pinned under some rubble, but he didn’t seem to be too injured anywhere else. He was laying in a pool of blood though. “Rain!” Sunny gasped, nearly hysterical with relief. “Kriff, Sunny, you have no idea how happy I am to see you!” Rain breathed, a shaky smile on his pale face. “I’m stuck and either lost all feeling in my leg or my leg is no longer connected to any nerves, not really sure which. The feeling is going from my fingers and good leg too, which probably isn’t a good sign,” he rambled. 

Rain is never this talkative. “I can try to get you out,” Sunny offered. He looked at Rain’s crushed leg. “Might wanna tie that leg off though. You look like half your blood is on the ground right now.” Rain frowned, looking almost thoughtful. “That would explain why I’m lightheaded and want to throw up...” “Yeah, no throwing up right now, I need to tourniquet your leg,” Sunny replied, trying to stay calm so Rain wouldn’t get worked up. 

After using what little he had for bandages to tourniquet Rain’s leg, Sunny gripped the hunk of metal pinning said leg. “I’m gonna try to get this off. You might have to drag yourself backward to get out of the way. Think you can do that?” “I can try.” Rain tucked his good leg up and braced it against the ground as he shakily pushed himself up onto his hands so he could try to scoot backward. “Kriff,” he breathed, staring down at his crushed leg. “Ready when you are.” Sunny lifted, groaning with the effort. “Can you get your leg out?” He asked through gritted teeth. 

Rain was screaming in agony, then he stopped long enough to choke out a response. “I’m out.” Sunny set the metal down again and looked at Rain. He had fallen back against a twisted beam, panting and crying as his mangled leg laid stretched in front of him. “Sunny, I can’t- My- my leg! It hurts!” Rain wailed. Sunny knelt next to him. “Can I pick you up, vod? We need to get you to a medic.” Rain didn’t agree, but didn’t object either, so Sunny scooped him up carefully, earning another scream of pain. “Hang in there, Rain. It’ll be okay.” 

They hadn’t gone far when blaster fire erupted around them. Sunny started running. He couldn’t fight back with Rain in his arms, but he wasn’t about to set him down and let him be an easy target. Suddenly, Rain seemed to thrash in Sunny’s arms, sending them both crashing to the ground. Sunny yelped while Rain made no noise, which was worse than hearing him scream. Struggling back to his feet, Sunny smell melted armor and burned flesh. He hoisted Rain back into his arms and started moving again, glancing down at his wounded brother. It felt like the world stopped. There was a smoking blaster wound in Rain’s chest, right where his heart was. Sunny ducked into a dark corner under a roof and sunk to the ground, cradling Rain in his lap. “Rain? Rain, don’t do this.” It was no use. Rain was gone, likely dead the second the blaster bolt hit him. “Rain, I’m so sorry!” Sunny whimpered, curling around his dead brother’s body. “I’m so sorry!” By the time Sunny bothered to move, Rain’s body was cold. The only reason Sunny moved was because he was cold too. So, so cold. He gently lifted Rain’s body, determined to make sure at least one of his brothers made it to the mass cremation that was done for the dead clones. That was the last coherent, memorable thought Sunny had for a while.

[gwoongi]

(draft) 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗌𝗈𝗉𝗁𝗂𝗅𝖾 ⎈ jimin

𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗌𝗈𝗉𝗁𝗂𝗅𝖾 park jimin / reader genre: siren au words: 3k

From an early age, he always loved the sea.

a/n: i decided to upload all of my abandoned works, to not only honour the hours i spent writing them but also to show how much i’ve improved. dug out this gem, definitely either a threecyphers or cosykims piece.

warnings: none apply.

*note: this is an UNFINISHED WORK that has been abandoned and therefore will not be completed in the future :3

From an early age, he always loved the sea.

At the age of three, during his first visit to the pebbled banks of a beach in a country he knew not of, he gazed with love at the way the tasteless brown waves cascaded and overturned upon milky coloured sands, a trickle of curious water leaking up into some child’s messy, damp and falling apart sandcastle. 

He loved the smell of the salt and the toe curling feeling of seaweed brushing against his toes as the waves aborted back to the deep end. He loved the sound of the gulls singing from the cliffs encircling the small, rocky cove and the lethargic noise of the waves rolling up onto the shores, and then pulling back as if allergic with an almost rewind-effect noise. And oh, how he loved the sea- the peaceful and distracting colours of muddy brown or navy blue depending on where he stood to gaze, and the curious image of the water spreading for miles upon miles for the wind and the sun to explore, no space or time for human feet to search.

At the age of seven, his mother took him to the beach on what seemed like a surprising dull afternoon, when the waves were violent and the skies were a slate colour. Jimin had stared at his mother with a perplexed expression, questioning her motives on dragging him away from his toys to stare at such a depressing sight- no children to run across the Busan sands, no umbrellas to shade them from the sun’s smile. Instead, he stared questioningly away from his mother and at the ocean itself, remembering its meaning to him and henceforth, a smile appears upon his lips, welcoming the spits of rain as he charges towards the ocean front. He let the smell of the ocean soak into his skin, the wind mess up his hair, the vengeful sound of the waves crashing like the symbols at his school’s band productions. Perhaps Park Jimin enjoys windy beach days over sunny beach ones?

At the age of eleven, he was taking trips to the beach alone with only his bike as a friend. His bike, the sea and his lunchbox.

And then, at the age of sixteen, he stopped visiting the sea. 

He isn’t sure why.

However, times changed and the seas churned until Park Jimin was nineteen, in University, with the stress hanging like heavy sacks of flour from his eyelids. Destress, Park Jimin, his brain seemed to scream at an hour of 7am, his classmates rolling out of their covers for morning lectures and half of him laughs, almost mockingly, because his classes were seemingly cancelled. Destress, and take some time off.

And so he goes to see the sea, and despite not visiting for years upon years, it almost looks the same. It’s the same sea, the same pebbles, the same dull, grey sky. Alas, he is home.

Short of breath, Jimin stands with his toes enveloped in the water, his eyes soaking up the sight of the ocean before him once more. The ripples of waves, the bubbles from fish, the fins of creatures poking up above the surface of the ocean- it all feels so nostalgic to him. A thalassophile, his grandfather had named him once from the porch of his cottage, the sandy dunes grazing upon his knees that fine evening. He always remembered the word, the meaning behind it, and how much it applied to him.

A thalassophile he is, a thalassophile he will always be.

Jimin spends the morning strolling across the length of the beach, his shoes in one hand and his hair blowing annoyingly into his eyes as he walked. His feet took him to the harbour, the pier reaching out into the ocean and underneath, a secret line of pebbles leading to the other side of the beach, towards the hidden coves he used to visit with his mother when he was just a boy. Naturally, as if remembering the memory, Jimin steps underneath the pier to walk slowly past the washed up driftwood and lazy crabs snapping their claws as he hurried by. The damp smell of old wood fills his nostrils as he walks, a sentimental smell,  that carries with him all the way until he reaches the cove. It’s just a pool of aegean blue water, swirling in the center very slowly with an ethereal glow from beneath the tide. Jimin walks slowly towards the space he always used to sit, now stolen by the sea leaving only a small space of pebbles and seashells for him to sit. He does, anyway, having missed the serene location too much to pick himself up and turn away.

The landscape was beautiful, rendering him speechless as the sun glimmered upon the waters surface, a shine mesmerising like the stars on a clear night sky. A shallow sigh leaves Jimin’s lips and his lids flutter to a close, letting the silence and the sun consume him entirely.

When his eyes close, he misses it. He misses the ripple of water crash against a boulder standing lonely in the far right of the pool; he misses the dark-grey fin slap against the rock and he even misses the strand of fiery coloured hair swim in the water. Yet when his eyes do open he sees nothing but the same as before.

But something is different; the waves aren’t moving anymore and the gulls avoid flying over the circular ceiling of the cove. The water looks darker and more pigmented with ebony hues, and- why is it suddenly so cold?

As if drawn to it, his eyes travel from the pebbles beneath his feet to the water, and he almost- almost- misses it this time. But he doesn’t, and he rises in what feels like horror- no, shock- no, admiration- as he spots a fin cut through the waves like a blade in butter. The sharp cuts smash against the rocks, towards the pebbles surrounding his shoes, like a whip in the west, the sound is so sharp. Jimin stands with his mouth hanging agape when he notices the fin attached to a tail...attached to a person.

A person, he thinks. A person.

The boy watches in curiosity as the red spirals of hair glide under the water as the person rises from the waves, shyly peering her head over one of the boulders alone in the pool. Something in him churns at the sight of her, even more when she pushes herself up on two palms to lift her body up onto the boulder, staring over at him without a wavering look. Jimin can’t help but notice- for there’s not much else he can be looking at, here- that she wears nothing on her top half, only a bare chest that he can’t help but gaze at. Her hair, actually, stops at her shoulders, cascading down like a waterfall to her shoulder blades behind her. And, almost mockingly, she spies on him with a wondering eye, innocence bleeding from her lips as she cocks her head to the side observing. He almost wants to do the same, although he is frozen in complete awe. Had he ever seen something so beautiful in his entire life?

Despite knowing nothing of her, he is mesmerised. From the way her lips are so voluptuous and blue, to the way her skin shines three dimensionally like a prism, even right down to the way her breasts curve so perkily, so round and smooth looking from where Jimin is standing from the other side of the cove. Jimin is rendered speechless, so much that he barely registers the fact that he is staring at an empty space. She disappears back under the water as quickly as she had surface, and something similar to disappointment bubbles in Jimin’s stomach. How silly of him, to have allowed something so precious and delicate escape?

The student frowns, rising to his feet and brushing off the sand that clings to his jeans. Allowing himself one final peek at the ocean, he sighs at the absence of the woman and collects his things in his free hands, carefully stepping over the driftwood and seaweed that pulls up with the tide. As his body gets smaller and smaller in the distance, the girl surfaces once more; she watches as he parts, ruffling his hair and looking back even though he could see nothing. Sourness ripens in her throat as she watches him go, as she watches him leave for the second time in her entire life. Until next time, she thinks. Will you return?

Park Jimin plans to, and next time, he’ll bring swimming wear.

His return is quicker than initially expected, she admits.

Picking fitting weather, Park Jimin fakes a sick day at University to step out onto the shores of the beach. It’s been a little less than a week, but there are many unanswered questions drowning him that he cannot cope any longer. His professor notices his wandering attention during lectures, and is actually the person to suggest Jimin taking a day off. He accepts, a little too quickly for it to be believable, and sets off towards his dormitory with little to no intention of resting away his feelings.

Instead, the boy grabs a white shirt and plain trousers before setting off, subtly, towards the doors of the dormitory and not looking back until his feet have arrived at the dusty sands of the beach he loves so much.

She watches him as he approaches the same cove as before, and she stalks his movements towards the secluded area until he is seated, in the same position, staring at the same boulder with the same expression and the same obliviousness. It’s actually, she admits, kind of cute.

Nonetheless, she waits an appropriate length of time before showing herself to him once again. She waits until he is restless, tired of waiting- she waits right up until the moment he toys with the laces of his shoes and only barely catches the flash of her hair from the corner of his eyes.

His attention is no longer on his feet but instead on her, just how she likes it.

“You are back,” she calls. And Jimin doesn’t quite know what to say.

She waits, wordlessly, and stares at him from a distance, in the same upright position with her palms flat across the ridges of the boulder. Gasping for breath, as if he were submerged under the waves, Jimin clears his throat and pulls at the collar of his shirt. She looks different, despite them only being apart for less than a week. Her hair is now chin length, and no longer a crimson colour. Her locks of hair are now a peacock shade, although darker due to the water that clings to her roots. Like before, she exposes herself to the boy standing so cluelessly on the beach, eyes everywhere, nostrils flared, heart thumping.

“Your hair,” he says without thinking.

She raises a brow: “hair?”

“Your hair is different,” he dumbly calls. “It’s shorter.”

The woman stills. “It is just hair. Your hair is different too. It is not as messy today.”

He doesn’t know whether to be offended or not, but instead he stays quiet and stares at her, in what appears to be admiration, as she stands her ground (or, ocean) by the rock. It is only when she sighs and blinks once, before disappearing back beneath the waves for several minutes. Those minutes feel like eternity for Park Jimin, who feels like he’s just been punched.

She has left again? Perhaps he scared her off with his staring. But he’s just a boy, just a kid, just a stupid kid. He can’t help his hormones! Jimin shakes his head, ridding of those thoughts as he looks back over at the ocean. It is still and dark in its appearance and he purses his lips ever so slightly, casting a gaze back down at his swimming clothes sitting untouched on the pile of pebbles by his feet. She is gone, now.

As he collects his things, Jimin slips his feet back into his shoes and starts to make his way towards the underside of the pier, ready to return back to his dorms.

“You are leaving?”

He jumps, startled, and looks back towards the pool where the girl has re-emerged, treading water idly near to the shore, watching the boy as he attempts to leave. He doesn’t.

“I thought you were gone,” he admits quietly, noting the way her features are less bright, less enthusiastic. Is she frowning? “I’m sorry.”

The girl tilts her head to the side. “What is your name?”

He opens his mouth, mockingly like a fish out of water. The mermaid (he thinks) is not phased by it, however, and he speaks loudly so she can hear: “I’m Jimin.”

A hint of a smile flashes across the girl’s lips. “Y/N.”

“You have a pretty name,” Jimin says, without really registering the fact that he just said that. Y/N smirks to herself, the corners of her mouth flicking up as her lips purse. “Are…” he starts, “you...a mermaid?”

Y/N is silent for a moment, “Of sorts. My mother bargained with a giant squid and was given an egg. That egg was me.”

Jimin pauses- “Your father is a squid?”

And the girl looks genuinely confused: “What?”

“Never mind,” Jimin is quick to brush it off. “...I...I like your tail.” He watches as the tip of her tail catches the top of the waves, cutting through the water quickly and splashing, causing ripples to quiver across the dark shades of blue.

“Thank you,” Y/N replies. Then she hesitates, looking back up at the boy through her eyelashes. “Would you like to….touch it?”

Obviously hesitant, Jimin looks at her in silence for several minutes. The sky dims to a rich, gloomy shade of grey and the wind picks up, ruffling his fringe across his forehead.

“...Can I?” he asks. He regrets asking.

“I would not have offered if you weren’t allowed to,” she points out. “You can come and touch it, Jimin. Take off your shoes and clothes and come in.”

Although he should really decline, Jimin’s feet begin to push out of his shoes, his heels digging into the sand as he crouches to take off his socks and stuff them inside. The girl watches from the water as Jimin begins to change into his swimming clothes, and she arches a brow: “What are you doing, boy?”

He pauses, “I’m getting dressed. So that I can come into the water.” He stops: “Girl.”

“Must you even dress?” she asks curiously, twirling in the water. “Come in without clothes, there is nothing to be afraid of.”

Jimin opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. “I...I would like to change.”

The girl sighs, turning to face the cliffside. “Alright then.”

He watches as she continues to stare at the cliffside and not look back, so Jimin takes this as an opportunity to change into his rather simple swimming clothes. When he is all done, facing the ocean-front winds, he takes gentle steps towards the tide and shudders when his toes are submerged in the contents of the sea. Y/N looks over her shoulder to see that he is changed and approaching, and something close to amusement rises in her body.

“Just come on in,” she calls. “The water is not cold when you are in it.”

He finds it inside of him to nod and he steps through the waves, freezing all over. Y/N watches his every movement and her tail cuts through the water roughly as he approaches. By now, the water is at his knees and her body is pulsing with excitement. She extends her arms outwards, and Jimin notices her webbed fingers and is fascinated, reaching out to hold them and she pulls him forward encouragingly, all the way until he is only breaths away from her. He realises their closeness but does nothing to try and move away. Instead, he stares right at her; he stares at her misty eyes, the stardust-like freckles upon the bridge of her nose, the way her lips part at his arrival, the way her skin is naturally highlighted and glowing in the dull sunshine.

“I have never met a human before,” she muses. Then pauses, laughing, “Well, besides the sailors.”

“I’ve never met a mermaid before,” Jimin replies. “Ever!”

Y/N smiles, “I saw you before, when you were younger. On the beach with your Mother. I wondered if we would ever meet again. And, here we are.”

Jimin is quiet, “here we are.”

bloody hell back then i didnt know what plot development meant lmao.......tragedy luv....

[subukunojess]

Summoning Her Demons

Because I’m self indulgent this evening and I got inspired to write a parody scene with my self insert and Tamatoa! I changed a few things around as well as added some OCs for this. Read under the cut:

“No, you're supposed to be scared!” Jess exclaimed angrily as she put her foot down. After everything she did to make sure everyone would be scared enough to leave the house for good, everyone liked being possessed? What was this?! This wasn’t a freaky funhouse show. This was a haunting!  “Jessica, we're so sorry! It didn't work!” Scale apologized with a look of sympathy for the poor woman. He and his friends tried their best. They really did and Jess couldn’t blame the three for it. But this was too much. She bit her lip and shook her head from making any visible tears as she snarled and started for the stairs. “There's one thing that can still stop him.” It was honestly her last resort, but if she were going to stop her younger brother to making the biggest mistake for their lives, drastic times called for drastic measures! Jess was stopped when Clef and Grave grabbed both of her wrists. “Jess, no, you don't know what will happen.” Clef tried to reason.

Grave added, “If you do it, he might-” 

Jess was having none of it right now. She snarled and pulled away from the two ghosts, her heart pounding and her lungs racing as she marched up the stairs. “I can't keep living like this!” Her heart was making the decisions now and it was saying to throw caution to the wind and do it no matter what the cost! As she climbed up, Jess spoke aloud. “Tamatoa.”

Her heart skipped a beat as the whole world slowed down all of a sudden except for Jess. From upstairs in his realm, a certain demon heard his name and couldn’t help but chuckle and grin mischievously, his golden tooth glistening within the night. The ghost couldn’t contain his excitement. “Ooooohoohoohoo! I'm so glad you changed your mind, mon petit pion.” Tamatoa purred in praise. “You are never gonna regret this!” “Tamatoa...!” Jess growled out as she strode quickly to her room where Tamatoa was waiting for her. She didn’t notice her skin glowing or chains and shackles attached to her own shadow. The man stared at the breather with his arms crossed and an eager face barely in control. It was finally happening. Finally, he’ll be free. Finally, he’ll be visible! “We are gonna make such a great team!” Tamatoa laughed as the room got darker and glowing markings started to appear on his body. Of pink and blue. Just one more unbroken word. Beckoning for Jess to come in the middle of the room in front of him, Tamatoa stared at Jess’s eyes with his own glowing ones that bore into her true core. 

“Give me just one... more!” He encouraged as a red circle appeared underneath her feet. Jess made direct eye contact with him before she threw her head back and roared at the top of her lungs. “TAMATOA!”  That did it. As Jess screamed, glowing purple chains appeared and wrapped around her wrists while the other end wrapped around the ghost’s wrists before disappearing. Her skin burned all of a sudden and ink bubbled on the surface before forming into a tattoo of a coconut crab. Jess panted after her scream. Then everything became dark save for the sleazy demon’s blue and pink eyes. He then whispered in a deep, low growl.

“... It’s showtime~!” Jess felt his large hands forcing her eyelids, prompting her to close her eyes. Suddenly, there was a huge gust of wind that seemed to push against the entire house. Jess felt herself being picked up and carried with the sounds of screams in the background and doors opening by themselves. She even heard a few gulps! Or was it her imagination?

After a few more moments of this, Tamatoa spoke up.  “It’s our house now, kid!” Jess opened her eyes to find herself back in the living room. In an empty house. With a demon right in front of her licking his fingers clean. ““Wow...” Jess couldn’t believe it. All of her problems and stress were gone in such a short time. And she had Tamatoa to thank for that. She felt free now. Happy. Herself. And for the first time in months, Jess smiled from ear to ear. “Looks like we're not invisible anymore, huh?” Tamatoa smirked as he held his hand out. Jess gladly took his hand and held it firmly. Now it was just the two of them against the world and no one was going to stop them. No one. With much resolve, Jess looked on to the near future, unaware of the giant crab shadow behind her holding her hand’s shadow.  This was going to be fun.

[fenthyr]

Karkinos (Bucky x reader) part 1

Karkinos: crab that helped Hydra to defeat Hercules.

Summary: you’re captured by HYDRA and they torture you. One day you get help and escape. Do you plan on joining the avengers? And what are the effects of HYDRA’s torturing.

summary part 1: your time in HYDRA.

Warnings: cursing, fighting, torture

“Shit” i muttered  to myself grabbing my bag and running as fast as possible. I could hear them yelling behind me, footsteps not far away and gunshots echoing off the walls. A few days ago I found a secret Hydra base. I spied on the base and concluded that it was a small one, easy to take out on my own, but boy was I wrong. I know I should have given an anonymous tip to the avengers but I really thought I could do this one. I don’t want them to bother with something if I can easily solve it myself.

I can hear the soldiers yell at each other, they are getting closer. Taking a turn I see 5 hydra soldier running up to me, when I look back I see another 6 of them getting closer and aiming their guns. I can’t take 11 heavily armed soldier out on my own, I know that but I have to try. Launching at the 6 soldier behind me and able to kill one off them I feel a sting in my leg. I fall to the ground and the soldier grabs me and put handcuffs on me they rid me of my weapons and drag me down the hall. I feel the blood dripping down my leg. We enter a room with unknown machinery and people in lab coats. The soldiers throw me in a chair and make sure I can’t escape. One of the ‘doctors’ approaches me with some tools and start digging in my leg, I scream out in pain while de man tries to get the bulled out. The man finished and quickly stiches me up. the soldier suddenly stand straighter and a man walks in the room and stands in front of me. “Look at that, (y/n)(y/l/n). What a pleasure to finally meet you.” I spit in his face and he waives his hand at a soldier behind him. The soldier walks up to me and hits me in the face. “You should know better than to spit in my face, I’m not the one trapped in a chair.” He wipes his face and gives the ‘doctors’ a nod. The chair starts leaning back and soon I’m laying down. “You probably wonder who I am, my name is John Wilson and I am the director of this base.” Of course I knew who he was. I have been spying on this place for the last few days. He walks next to me while explaining himself. “ I have been keeping an eye on you miss (y/l/n), you are trained in Hung Ga, Wing Chun, Ninjutsu and Judo. You work small jobs to pay for the chitty hotels you’ve been staying in and have no social life whatsoever. Nobody will miss you because you’re already a ghost. The perfect candidate for another experiment don’t you think.” He looked at the ‘doctors’ and left with a smile. 4 of the soldiers following him out of the room, 2 of the other soldier guard the door, one stand against the gray ugly wall on the left of me and another on the right. The other 3 soldiers stand at the other side of the room but a can’t see them. 4 doctors in total, all of them working with chemicals and serums. I try to pull at the straps on my wrists and ankles but it’s to tight and strong. One of the doctors puts a mask on my face I try to move away but I can only move a little and the doctor succeeds. My eyelids become heavy and soon I fall asleep.

I wake up in a dark room. Dark grey dusty walls, the air is damp and cold. There is only one door and no windows. The door opens and 2 soldiers walk in, I am too drugged to fight back an let them handcuff me and take me out of the room. Another soldier stands at the outside of the room and takes the lead walking through the small dark halls. I don’t recognize the hall although I learned all of them when I was preparing for the mission. They open a door with a code and when I look inside I know for sure I am somewhere else. The room is big and has a white floor, white walls and white ceiling. Again they strap me in a chair and the soldiers leave. At my right side I notice a window and at the other side of the window I see doctors and computers. I hear a door open and close behind me and a doctor wearing a protection suit comes up to me holding some kind of tube with green liquid he pours the liquid into a flask and adds a yellowish kind of liquid. He pours the mixture in a syringe and walks up to me. “after you have given her the serum you must leave the room as quickly as possible.” I hear a doctor say on the other side of the window. I try to move and grunt but again no luck. The doctor injects me and leaves. It burns, I can feel the liquid moving in my body. The doctors stare at me as if I just did the impossible. “ first test on subject 48 is a success, 48 shows no sign of burns, rash or others symptoms.” I grunt and tense my whole body as a reaction to the pain. “ 48 shows signs of pain but nothing else.” Again soldier come in and take me back to my room. Everyday they inject me again sometimes more, I only get 1 meal a day but I don’t lose weight. All I do is lay on the cold floor of the cell and still, I get stronger, but I am exhausted. I can’t sleep because I don’t have any kind of bed, I have to pee in a bucket that gets refreshed every week. And I never see the sun or hear the birds. When I’m in the cell I hear nothing but the footsteps of the soldiers passing by every now and then. After a few weeks maybe months of this the doctors decide to give me another formula of the serum. They inject the serum and this time it doesn’t burn it almost tickles like when you drink water after a long work out. It feels refreshing. Again they put me in my cell but the feeling doesn’t pass. I don’t get any injections anymore, I just sit in the cell.

Until one day. I feel my hands warming up, warmer and warmer. I started screaming but nobody is going to help me here, they just walk past. My hands start glowing and suddenly I gave this little ball of light floating in the palms of my hands. It’s peaceful but how did I do that. The next day, well I guess it’s the next day, soldiers once again take me to a room this time there are other people and guessing from their appearance they went through the same as I did. “ subjects 50,48,26, 67and 41 welcome to the training room. Each one of you survived the first phase to a new world. But we only need 1 subject and that is the strongest, smartest and most skilled one. Those who claim unusable will be executed. So don’t hold back. The first test is speed. If you don’t outrun the trained dogs you will die, as dogfood. They haven’t eaten in a long time and don’t mind killing for it”. One of the walls opens to see a open field and after that a forest. From the other wall we hear barking and grumbling. One of the other subjects starts running but doesn’t get far.

“No cheating, or you will suffer the same fate as subject 26.” The voice says. The dogs are free and everyone starts running. I quickly pass the field and get to the forest. I climb into a tree as high as possible and start jumping from branch to branch. the barking faded and when I look behind me I see one of the others getting attacked in the open field. The screaming stops and the only thing i hear are the dogs growling and feasting on the fresh meat. I keep going further into the forest until I see a wall. This base is way bigger then the one I attacked a few months ago. A door in the wall opens and I go inside. There is a doctor and several soldiers waiting for the ones that survived. As the doctor starts talking you realize that this is the same man as the one giving you the orders. “ well done 50,48 and 67. You are the survivors of the first test. The next exam will test your mind. Each one of you will walk into a different room through one of the doors to your left. 50 you take the left, 48 you take the 3th door and 67 the fifth. Good luck.” The man smirked and left. We walk up to our doors and open them. I go inside and when I turn around the door closes and there is no handle to open it. There are no other doors in the room. “I need to escape this room as soon as possible I guess.” I look up  but the ceiling has no escape options. The room is dark so I concentrate and make a ball of light in my hand. I try to put it down on the table in the middle of the room so it’s easier to look around and search through the boxes and move the furniture with both hands. “ I guess I need to find the handle of the door because there are no other escaping options and the door used to have one.” After searching for a while I find clue, a note that read. ‘I am here, I am now and I am everywhere. You can’t see me but you know I am here. You blame me for what I take and never thank me for what I give.’ I repeat the sentence in a whisper while I look around the room. I look at the wall and see a clock. “of course, it’s time!” I walk to the wall and take the clock. There is a piece of the handle for the door taped at the back of the clock. “Okey that’s one. Now the other part.” After searching for a while I still haven’t found any new clues. “ I need to improvise. I have the part of the handle that attaches the actual handle to the lock on the door so in just need something to use as a handle that fits the part I already have.” I notice a metal pipe that could be useful but it doesn’t fit. I see gum and use it to attach the pipe and the other piece together. It works. I open the door and see that I am the first one out. A few minutes later the second one opens the door and there is screaming from the still locked room. Again the doctor approaches us and claps his hands together 3 times. “ well done 48 and 67. Now for the final test you will need to fight each other until only one of you is still standing and breathing. If you don’t fight you will both die.” He leaves, guns that are controlled by computers aim in our direction and 67 looks me in the eyes. “we don’t’ have to fight we can escape together.” “Then we will both die and I rather don’t take that chance.” 67 wad a male, tall and muscular. He looks me in the eyes and launches himself towards me. He goes for a punch but I dodge it and grab his arm twisting it the wrong way. He screams and I let go. He falls to the ground and the bones in his arms cracked back into place. He healed his arm and attacked me again. I dodge down so I lift him up and let him fall to the ground. “ we both have abilities and we can use them against the soldiers and if we don’t succeed we at least died with dignity and a right mind.” The man looked at me but didn’t listen he stood up and ran to the side of the room. He grabs a pipe laying on the floor and throws it at me with an unhuman force. I try to dodge but he controls the pipe and hits me in the stomach. I fall down and the man starts hitting me in the face. I try to get him off without hurting him to much but I can’t. If one of us survives it should be the one that wouldn’t cooperate with HYDRA and I was sure that this man would do anything to survive. I placed my hand on the man’s head, I concentrated and soon light came out of his mouth and eyes. The light overwhelmed him and his body went limp. I calmed down and pushed the man off of me. Again the doctor came in. “ subject 48 you have proved us that the formula we gave you is the most powerful one you are the first of many superhumans that not only have more strength or stamina but also powers. 48 you are the first of many whom we call Karkinos.

[activatingaggro]

INKTOBER - 18 - EXPOSED

CALICO KUANFU | 9.23 SWEEPS / 20 YEARS OLD

RICKSHAW CC-R, EAST ALTERNIAN SEA | 2,937 WORDS

CW: body horror, helms

If you're perfectly honest, you put up a good face of things, but you don't actually care that much about the other Rickshaws.

You love your community. There's nothing that you wouldn't do for II-J, and you know every face on it, even if you don't know their names. They're your people, and you're their leader. It's a role that you were hatched for, one that you were made for, and you could never be anything less than in love with the position, because it's carved into your very skin.

But the other Rickshaws are not yours. This has always been your greatest flaw, and your guiltiest secret, but that's just the fact of the matter. All you can do is try to work around it.. and when you get an opportunity, try to do your best despite it.

Case in point: you're on CC-R tonight, here to figure out why their engines keep sputtering, and, in the name of honesty, you kind of want to burn the entire place to the ground.

Everyone here speaks - well, literally every fucking language, pretty much. There were teals chattering away in Eastern at the bistro. There's been hands flashing in seadweller sign everywhere, constant little flits of movements to compound each spoken word. There's people speaking the imperial mainlander's tripe everywhere you turn, others slinging around some northern coastal variant, and constantly, constantly, there's fucking Standard clattering against your ears like rocks, nasal and harsh over the din of the rest of the Rickshaw.

You had to take out your worm five minutes ago, just to keep from going insane. Noise's never bothered you, but CC-R is one of the oldest Rickshaws, and it's over three times the size of II-J. This city's fallen into the waves more times than you can count, and it's come back larger each time, with the remnants forming the bobbing islands you can see off in the distance. "Those work off of solar power," Afzudi tells you. He's one of the only trolls on here who actually speaks Seacant, and part of you is desperately, soppily grateful to him for it. "You don't need to worry about those."

"Right, 'course."

Afzudi is the ceruleanblood who manages CC-R. He's shorter than you, like pretty much everyone on here, and bone-thin, also like everyone here. It's weird. There's a lot of things weird about this place, like the fucking language, but the starvation factor?

You've got the blubber stores to rival a goddamn seal, and half of your Rickshaw's passed seal and gone straight into walrus. That's part of the way II-J works! It's part of why you work so hard to make sure it keeps working. No one's ever so much as missed as a meal since you became Calico, one way or another, and no one's ever looked like Afzudi in front of you, so skinny that you can count each knob in his spine. It's weird. You hate it. But you hate a lot of things about other Rickshaws, from the language to the architecture to the starvation and disease that permeate them.

That's fine. That's why you're out here helping. Some folks compare trolls to crabs. They say if one pops up, the rest'll drag it back down into the basket, just to make sure none of 'em get free. You've never believed that! You've improved your Rickshaw.

You're going to improve the rest, too, one city at a goddamn time.

"So! How many helms do you have working in the main generator?" It's strange to walk through a Rickshaw where every building hasn't been reinforced and rebuilt. You've had your residents working for sweeps to redevelop the city, in a mixture of solid carbon-fiber struts and flexible panels that'll absorb the blows of the water, or the rain, or the rare bouts of gunfire. It's never looked pretty, but it looks better than this. The buildings in CC-J are just.. shanties, aluminum siding and wood that's been bleached bone-white over centuries of saltwater and air, and they sway in the wind above you as you walk. The only thing holding them up is the webbing stretched thick between all of them, shining like sails in the moonlight, and spotted with white bodies.

"Four? Five?" you hazard.

"Eight," he says, leading you past the buildings, and straight down an alley where there's pupas playing ulama. CC-R's got more sparkplugs than you've ever expected. They scatter into the air like kinglets when you approach, the rubber ball clattering to the ground in the aftermath.

You snatch it up and spin it on a finger as you walk. "Eight? Seriously? Like, not harshin' on you, dude, but - why? I know it's big, but --"

He shrugs. "Our infrastructure's just old, and it's easier this way." He looks back at you. The light here's weak. Shadow curves across the sharp planes of his face, deepens the hollows of his cheeks. But when he smiles, it softens him. "I was hoping you could help," he says.

Your stomach does a strange flop. "Right," you say, and you don't let your gaze linger on the way his mouth quirks, or the sudden surge of warmth in your voice. "That's what I'm here for!"

CC-R's engine room is buried deep within the rickshaw. He leads you from a shady plaza into a side room, and then down a winding set of stairs, where the chatter of the populace is finally fading, and the drone of engines is gradually replacing it. The original architects of the Rickshaws tried to make every surface sloped to force the seawater to run off, rather than collect. But the concrete here's straight. The engine's have to stay steady.

And biowire's a delicate construct. "Careful," Afzudi warns you as you walk. He's flipped on a light attached to his forehead, and the bug's glow casts an uneven glow: in the darkness, you can faintly see the outline of biowire pulsing on the ground, shadowy impressions that stretch as far as the eye can see. "We had to move all of them further downstairs, after the fifth century raid. It's not ideal, but it keeps people from getting at the engine. Hey, babe -"

A spider is slinking out of the darkness, its eyes focused on you as it steps over him. It's only the size of a dog, high enough to hit his ribcage, but there's venom spooling on the end of its mandibles, and you hesitate until Afzudi waves you forward. "She doesn't bite," he tells you. "You're with me, don't worry. Mum just keeps some of the extra bodies down here to guard them."

"Haha, no problem, dude. She's great! I love her, like.." Afzudi raises his eyebrows at you, like he's encouraging you to continue. So you gesture towards her, rolling your shoulders. "The whole smooth, shiny, bloodless carapace look? Really hot," you declare, then pause, because he's looking at you. The spider is looking at you. You're pretty sure, if you paid attention, even the biowire would be looking at you.

"Uh, not in a weird way, though. Like, I am absolutely not a spider-fucker, although I know that sentence kind of implied it, but no?" It's fine! You can save it, because Afzudi's smile has turned into a proper grin, like he's two moments from laughing. So you grin back at him, careful to show off your teeth, and step in close. "I absolutely person I am a person fucker," you say, earnest, holding out a hand, palm up. Then you curl the rest of your fingers in, until only your smallest one is out. "Pinkie promise, dude."

"You've talked about fucking my mum too much for me to shake hands," he says. "Sorry about that."

But he's still grinning as he starts walking, and when you laugh, he joins right in.

The underbelly of CC-R's much like the rest of it: wet, damp, and, as it turns out, totally moldy. There's webs everywhere as you walk, coating the biowire and the ceiling. ("It's to waterproof it," Afzudi says, and you're so glad you don't mind bugs.) But at least the mold's glowing, adding an uneven sort of light to things, just enough to make the shadows longer and deeper, and catch on all sixteen of eyes of the spiders that keep passing you by.

And eventually, shortly after the pressure shifts and your ears pop, you get to the core.

The helms, as it turns out, aren't any healthier than anyone else on this Rickshaw. It's the opposite! It’s.. honestly one of the most appalling things you’ve ever seen. Back on II-J, you keep your engines healthy, with columns that you replace annually, trolls trained up each cohort cycle specifically to work on them, and wire that’s custom bred to work with their systems. The whole system is hale enough that you don’t even have to run diagnostics: the engines’ll run their own diagnostics and e-mail them to you each week, keeping an eye on each one’s levels and needs, because it knows that each one will get a response.

The helms here don’t look like they could send messages, even if they wanted to. Each engine barely looks like it’s even alive. They’re hanging from the wires like skeletons, their arms bone-thin, the bodies bloodless and stark under the gray-white skin. There’s ash forming on them, like no one bothers to take care of them. There’s mats in the hair, like no one’s ever even thought to shave it.

"Holy shit," you breathe, and Afzudi starts to laugh, say something - then he catches sight of your face.

"Ah -"

You don't wait to hear what he's trying to say. You're striding forward, taking the first helm firmly by the chin and pulling its head down. It's so limp that there's no reaction when you pull an eyelid back. There's streaks all the way through it, black creeping like rot through the yellow of its sclera. When you release the lid, it takes a full five seconds for the skin to fall back down, and when you pinch the skin of its cheek, it doesn't even react.

It's so blanched, you're not even sure what blood colour it is. There's only the fuchsia of where the biowires cut into the skin, and the liquid flooding the veins pink.

The next one isn't any better.

You're not sure, at first, what you're feeling. There's just a certain cold numbness as you step from one column to the next, moving carefully to avoid the wires strewn across the floor. Because that's the only word for them. There's shards of scaffolding on the ceiling, jagged strips of metal where it once must've been, but it's long since folded under the weight of the wires. And the wires are everywhere. They're tangled in masses connecting the columns. They're stretching heavy across the walls, thick enough to pass as wallpaper, and oozing a viscuous pink slime that sticks to your boots as you walk.

It's hard to see where the floor end and the wires begin. Tripping down here's inevitable, really, and that's why, on your way to the seventh helm, your boot finally catches under one, and you fall directly into it.

The worst part of it all is that the helm doesn't react. It's a twiggy little thing, and you fall full-force into it, your hand scrambling at the jumpsuit just to keep yourself up. Your claws hook in, tearing into the fabric, and it's only last minute horror that makes you jerk your chin up, angling your horns back and away from them. It just means your face hits it instead, landing right in its ribcage.

It should've made it howl. When you scramble to your feet and back, there's heat blossoming across your face, and there's brown blossoming on their newly exposed skin. But all they manage is a languid blink, like someone stirring from sleep.

And the chill forming in your chest finally solidifies when they fall still.

"Are you okay?" Afzudi calls. He's still lingering by the door, watching you. From this distance, his face's a blur of darkness.

"Yeah." You're walking over, more careful this time, but Afzudi doesn't know you well enough to recognise the flat edge to your voice. He's only met you a handful of times. The other Rickshaws change leaders too often for them to really know each other: you're one of the only ones that's actually stayed the same, the past four sweeps. "I'm fine. You're going to need serious work down here. The biowire needs seriously cut back - that'll take about eight perigees to avoid shock, and then you'll need to start training it to stay in the scaffolds again. New scaffolds, obviously. Like, your helms need a full treatment, for the veins and the overall."

"The columns need rebuilt. I can do all of this, obviously, but - what brand is all of this, redHotx20? I'm not even going to bother running a diagnoistic, you've got voidrot trying to spread all the way through the lines. You plug in any bugs to this, or a technomancer, and all you're going to do is infect your tech. And -"

Afzudi reaches out, takes you by your shoulder. He's got long, calloused fingers, with gently tapered edges. They match the rest of him, rail thin and delicate in the same way. "You're sure about all of that?"

"Absolutely," you tell him. It's a shame. You'd liked him. "I'm thinking three hundred thousand, max, but at least one hundred and fifty, for all the work I'm going to have to do. And that's just supplies. I'll thread in some of our cultivar, but the medical work your engines are going to need alone is insane. And it's all going to have to be manual."

".. we don't have the money for that." He blinks at you, owlish. You'd thought he was handsome a few minutes ago, with his cheekbones and his frailty, but there's something repugnant about that weakness now. "We'll just get new helms," he says. "We have plenty of psionics on the rickshaw. It's their duty."

"Uh, no. You're not going to go and kill your people to play engine parts, when we've got the mainland right there, and reputable engine sellers, like, literally everywhere. Like, how do you not have the money, dude? CC-R's the biggest Rickshaw in the ocean. You have markets every perigee. Are you saying you can't pull together a few hundred thousand to keep your city from sinking?"

He can't even stop his people from starving. Of course he can't.

"II-J doesn't sell. You don't understand how it works," he says smoothly, like you're a pupa, and when your eyebrows shoot up, he shrugs. "It's not an insult. It's just a fact."

"I don't need to sell to manage a fucking budget. Show me your books, and I'll figure out how you can get the money together." He's already shaking his head before you finish. "Let me help you," you say, frustrated. "That's what you brought me here for. I don't know what you're doing wrong, but, like - your people are starving, dude. And your Rickshaw is dying, all the way down to your goddamn helms. Like, what the fuck?"

"I think," he says, "you need to leave. I appreciate your help, but -"

It's a shame, because you really, really liked him.

You don't like bullying smaller trolls. But he makes it easy. When he pulls his hand back, you snatch him by the collar and you slam him into the wall, one swift move that pins him right against his mother's webbing. She hisses next to you, surging forward, but you tut at her, pressing your hand harder against his collar.

He squeaks. She backs up, her two front legs rising in obvious distress.

"I'm sorry," you tell him, "that I'm having to shame you in front of your mom like this, dude. And I'm sorry that you thought this was a conversation. But it's not. Either you're going to listen to me, or else your entire Rickshaw is going to sink. Or else I'm going to spare your people, and sink it for you. Because this -"

You jerk a hand towards the helms. Everything on this Rickshaw is dying, from the buildings to the residents to the engines themselves, and -

You absolutely want to burn this entire place to the ground. But it turns out you do care about the other Rickshaws, more than you'd ever thought you could.

"- this is not acceptable. And you should know that. You're supposed to be the leader of this place. You chose to take on these responsibilities. You made this fucking choice!" You take a step forward. Your voice's dropping. It's not that you're unaware of his lusus right next to you, or the building tension in her body. But you know how lusii work. How many times have you used their desire to protect their charges against them?

And right now, you've got him pinned like a fly against her own webbing.

Afzudi looks at you. "You're supposed to protect them," you tell him, gazing into his eyes. "So, like, let me help you, and do your fucking job, man."

Then he holds up a hand. His lusus quiets, flattening herself to the ground in a clatter of keratin. "Fine," he says. "What do we have to do?"

[the-siren-and-the-sailor]

The bottom of the ocean was a lot warmer than Daphne expected.

Granted, it wasn’t exactly a hotspring, but she wasn’t shivering either. Mostly, though, it was dark. Not a dim, shadowy dark, but a thick, inky black; the kind that pressed on your eyes and filled your skull. The only trace of light here were the glowing creatures far off in the distance. Even then, however, Daphne easily could’ve taken them for wishful thinking as she pressed on through the deep sea midnight.

Daphne dragged her hands and the fins of her long tail through the sand and dirt, feeling around for any treasures that may have drifted down from the Night Children’s ships far above. Every now and then, she would come across a spoon or a comb, but nothing that she didn’t already have. She would place them in the bag tied to a long fin that extended out from her back, stopping occasionally to check the bag for any crabs she had mistaken for items.

At this point, she was getting bored, and wanted desperately for something interesting to happen. She was tired of the same old sand, the same old trinkets, and the same old fish that would try to chew on her tail a few feet back. Yes, the dirt, the pebbles, the dust, and the gravel were all painfully dull by now, she lamented to herself. But she wasn’t touching these things anymore, was she? Her hands had run across something different now, something that jutted downwards instead of straight ahead. Rock.

A trench!

Daphne giggled at her luck and and swum along the side of it, looking for an elongated piece of kelp to guide her down. Trenches always had the most interesting things, as there were so many nooks and crannies for them to hide in. With this in mind, she found her way down and immediately began feeling about for anything she could get her hands on.

She was quickly rewarded, as she felt an alcove filled with small, flat circles. Not pebbles- she had felt plenty of those by now- these were coins. She greedily began depositing them in her bag. Part way through, however, she felt her mother’s ring slip off of her finger. Oh, no. It was fine though, just don’t move the area too much, and it would be found in just a moment!

Needless to say, she didn’t find it in just a moment. In fact, she searched for several minutes, and still nothing. Now she was really getting worried. That ring was her mother’s, and it was what insured Daphne her place as lady-in-waiting, and as royalty. If her mother ever found out that it was gone, if she knew where it had been lost, she would surely punish Daphne to hell and back for it.

Daphne continued to search, but to no avail. It was like it had simply disappeared. Daphne almost sobbed, her thoughts firing off in every direction. Maybe there was still hope? No, of course there wasn’t. The ring was gone and Daphne would be in serious trouble when she did decide to go back. She wasn’t even supposed to be in the ocean in the first place! Perhaps she could lie... No, no, her sister had the ability to read thoughts and always snitched. This was it, the straw that will break the camel’s back. Daphne was done for.

She let herself sink as she began to cry. Not even the glinting of the leftover coins could distract her from her misery.

…But if seeing the coins wasn’t a distraction enough, how was she able to see them?

Daphne perked up at this thought, looking back towards the coins. Yes, indeed, a faint blue sheen was reflecting off of them. Was one of the glowing creatures near by? No. So what was causing this? Daphne picked up one of the coins, put quickly let go of it. She could see her hands, too. Not from whatever light was being cast; rather, that she was the one casting it.

She looked at the rest of her. From her hair, torso, fins, the tip of her tail, and the several feet of frills that extended off of it, indeed, all of her was glowing! She was at first, taken aback by this. How could this possibly happen? She may have had several feet of scales attached to her, but she wasn’t a fish. Regardless, the light continued to grow, and the frills of her tail showed something caught on a rock far below her, glinting in the light.

It was the ring! Daphne quickly scooped it up and slipped it back on, amazed and relieved at her luck. Then that was it- it didn’t matter how she had managed to start glowing, only that the ring was found. Satisfied to take the secret to her grave, she swam back towards land, admiring her newly shining scales as she went.

~*~

Ever since discovering her gift of illumination, Daphne had discovered a variety of ways to harness it. It seems that it was activated in the beginning by the intense emotions she had been feeling, but now she was able to use it just as effortlessly as any of her other abilities. Ever since running away from her kingdom, she had used the ability to guide her and help her build a home for herself underwater.

Her luck in treasure hunting had greatly increased as well, in part due to a ship that had wrecked a few miles from her home. This was no ordinary ship, however; it was filled with all kinds of mechanical wonders and was made of metal instead of wood. Clearly it had belonged to one of those humans that Daphne had heard so much about.

The storm that wrecked the ship had caused it to go down near an underwater cave, and had spread it’s contents to and fro. These contents were what Daphne was now searching the cave for. It was pitch black in here, as was most of the ocean, save for the pale, moonlight-like glow radiating from Daphne’s scales. She hummed to herself as she picked up the trinkets, looking around before gasping.

There, washed up in an air pocket, was a human. Not just any human, however; a man, whose arms glittered like the machines littering the cave. Daphne stared at him before concluding that he was unconscious and hesitantly approached him. She looked him over and touched his face. She lifted his lips to see if his teeth were pointy. They were not. She lifted his eyelids to see of his eyes were red and found the colour of the sky, instead.

He didn’t seem like a threat; if anything, he was sort of cute. But what to do with him, Daphne wondered. He was likely the captain of the sunken ship, but then, where were his crewmates? Did he have any? And should she use her voice to revive him, or simply let him rot? No, in the end, Daphne decided that she would not be responsible for hurting the man, and began to sing a healing song.

And besides, why not? He was quite beautiful, after all.

[pengychan]

Te Rerenga Wairua - Ch. 14

Title: Te Rerenga Wairua Summary: Found by the gods drifting at sea, Maui always assumed he had been thrown in it to drown. When that assumption is challenged, there is only one way to find closure: speaking to his long-departed family. But it’s never a smooth sail to the Underworld, and he’ll need help from a friend - plus a token that fell in the claws of an old enemy long ago. Characters: Maui, Moana, Tamatoa Rating: K Prologue and links to all chapters up so far here.

Tupuna had absolutely no idea what to make of that kid.

She’d been sceptical from the start, to be completely honest. Larvae were always tiny, of course, but the one that had come out of Tīaka’s surviving egg was even smaller than average - a rickety thing she wouldn’t have expected to live past a week, really. She had wondered, though not aloud, whether the egg had been damaged in the fight with the eel that had eaten the rest.

“Ah well,” she remembered saying. “Can’t win them all. I’m sure you’ll have better luck with the next clutch.”

It had seemed like the best thing to say given the circumstances, and she had shrugged off the way her daughter had turned her head away. Tīaka had always been a bit funny in the head, after all, and of course losing her first clutch - not to mention both of her claws due to her very questionable choice of a mate - had been a blow, but she’d come to see things her way eventually.

She wasn’t the first nor would be the last to lose her eggs; Tupuna herself had lost plenty back in the day, and Tīaka was the only one of her brood she’d seen surviving into adulthood, except for a son who had done his duty and then had been consumed by his mate, as every self-respecting male should. Shame that none of his offsprings had survived, but that was how life went.

Given some time, Tīaka  would come to her senses, shrug it off, and leave the doomed offspring alone - or eat it, though it wouldn’t make much of a snack - before moving on to look for another mate. Life without her claws wouldn’t be easy, but Tupuna was willing to share meals and watch her back for as long as it took, if it meant ensuring her line wouldn’t end there.

Except that Tīaka was stubborn as a rock and dumb as a barnacle, and she hadn’t come to see things her way at all. She stayed in the back of the lair, hardly talking and eating just enough to survive and limbs folded around her only offspring, for weeks. Tupuna had known they were in trouble when she decided to give the larva a name, because naming things is the first step to getting unnecessarily attached.

Defying Tupuna’s expectations, Tamatoa did live past a week and even began getting slightly bigger, if at a slower rate than one would expect. He would remain easy prey for a long time in Lalotai, and there was simply no way Tīaka would be able to protect him for that long, maimed as she was. That would certainly force her to face the facts and give up, Tupuna had thought.

Gods, had she been wrong.

“You can’t be serious! Are you even listening to yourself? Leaving Lalotai! We’re not supposed to–”

“There is no way Tamatoa can survive here until he’s big enough. I can’t protect him from most of what lives here, and you can’t watch us all the time. If we find someplace safer to be until he’s grown, then he’ll have a chance.”

“This is beyond stupid, even for you - you really got your father’s brains. It’s a runty larva. It’s not worth the hassle. You need to have another clutch of eggs and forget all about– Where do you think you’re going? Don’t turn your back to me, young lady! You come back here right now! If you do this I won’t be coming with you, you hear me? You’ll be on your own out there, you and that–”

“Gran! Look! Look what I found!”

Tamatoa’s frankly annoying voice rang out suddenly, snapping her out of the memory. Tupuna allowed herself a moment to roll her eyes behind closed eyelids before she opened them and glanced down. Tamatoa, still smaller than one of her eyeballs, was waving a claw for attention, yet another piece of mother-of-pearl in his other one. Just how many of those useless things did he have to find before the novelty wore off?

“You have an entire pile of those,” she pointed out.

“They’re so shiny!”

“It doesn’t make them any more useful, small stuff.”

That caused Tamatoa to huff. “I’m not small!” he protested, and Tupuna snorted out a chuckle almost in spite of herself. To be fair the boy was growing quickly enough, at a rate that came remarkably close to their species’ standard, and would likely hit a growth spurt soon. Maybe he wouldn’t stay a runt after all, but he was still so tiny compared to her.

“Oh yes, you are,” she said, flicking an antennae at him. “Tinytoa.”

“I’m getting bigger! This seashell is almost too small for me, see?” he added, spinning on the spot to show her. “I’ll need a bigger one soon!”

Oh Gods, not again. Last time he’d changed seashell - a necessary measure until he became old enough to harden his own shell - he had been absolutely insufferable: no shell seemed to be good enough for him. He’d refused to get into perfectly fine ones, claiming that they were too ugly, and for some reason Tīaka  had agreed to look for better ones until that fussy little nuisance saw one he liked. And then he’d insisted on keeping the old one, too.

She was spoiling him, that was it. Who even cared what the shell looked like, as long as it did its job? It was for protection, not for something as pointless as decoration. Back in her day she had to fight her clutch mates for decent shells, sometimes to the death. It was eat or be eaten, siblings or not. That at least ensured that the strongest would come out on top; she had little doubt that, had Tamatoa had to go through the same, he wouldn’t have lasted–

“Oh! Can I have one with mother-of-pearl in it? That would look perfect!”

Gods, he must have taken after his father.

With a sigh - why, why had she agreed to leave with them? - Tupuna leaned her head down and closed her eyes. “Ask your mother when she comes back from her evening stroll. Until then, how about a fun game of keeping quiet?” she added, hoping he wouldn’t start singing like he had last time she’d been trying to take a nap. No self-respecting giant crab would waste their breath on something as pointless as singing, but since he’d heard some human fisher singing Tamatoa had gotten into his head that he should do it, too. And, somehow, he seemed to think he was good at it. “First one to make a noise loses and–”

Her words were covered by a sudden rumbling noise, which was nothing new: there were occasional eruptions in the archipelago, but they generally resulted in a little noise and nothing more. However, what followed that time was new: before the echo was even faded there was another rumbling noise, much louder and much closer, and something caused even their cave to shake, the pool of water connecting it to the ocean suddenly rising in ripples and small waves.

Tamatoa let out a shriek, dropping the piece of mother-of-pearl to go hiding behind one her limbs; Tupuna, on the other hand, immediately stood. The cave stopped shaking within moments, with no damage to be seen anywhere, but something had happened outside… and all of her instincts were now telling that something was wrong.

“Gran?” Tamatoa called out, voice shaking, when she stepped towards the entrance. She turned to glance at him with one eyestalk, not breaking her stride.

“You stay here.”

“What was that?”

“How would I know? Just stay where you are.”

“Where’s Ma?” he asked. Tupuna didn’t bother replying to that last question before leaving, because of course she could only repeat herself - “How would I know?” - and that would be pointless. She would know once she was out, anyway.

And, as it turned out, she didn’t need to get very far from the cave to figure it out. The peak that turned one side of the island into a steep cliff had halved in height, and the tons of rocks, boulders and other rabble that were now into the water, explained everything: a collapse, caused by the tremors of a nearby eruption. All said and done, nothing to worry about.

Except that Tīaka, who never wandered far from the cave’s underwater entrance, was nowhere to be seen. With a renewed feeling that something was not right, Tupuna slowly approached the mass of rocks that had fallen down into the ocean. She only realized exactly what she’d been looking for when her eyes found it.

One of Tīaka’s limbs was poking out of it, limp and still. Tupuna didn’t really need to approach any further to know she was dead, but she did either way, and smacked it lightly with her claw. It stayed limp, and she let out a long sigh.

“Of all evenings to go out and stretch your legs,” she muttered, reaching to get the rocks off her daughter’s body. Her shell should have been tough enough to withstand even that crushing weight, and indeed it was barely cracked, but her head, thick as it had always been, simply wasn’t thick enough. With no pincers left to shield it, she’d had no chance.

It had been quick if nothing else, Tupuna supposed. It wasn’t something she’d had ever wished to see, but death was part of life, and she’d seen too much of it in to let it take her aback for long. She had tried her best to keep it at bay for as long as possible, but the time comes, sooner or later, with no distinction for the old or the young. It had happened, so she may as well make the best of it. She dragged the body in shallow water closer to the cave’s entrance, used her pincers to widen the cracks on the shell to expose the flesh beneath, and walked back into the cave.

“Gran? What was it? What happened?”

For a few moments Tupuna said nothing, staring down at her grandson. Leaving Lalotai to give him a chance had been Tīaka’s idea, one she’d gone along with rather grudgingly and for her daughter’s sake alone. Giving him a chance at all had been Tīaka’s idea, her wish, but now she was gone and nothing was left to keep her there. She could leave him to fend for himself, and return to Lalotai. Even on his own, he’d have more chances to live than he would in the realm of monsters; that wouldn’t be going entirely against Tīaka’s wish, all things considered. His mother’s body would provide nourishment for a time. If death claimed him regardless, then it was meant to.

I can go home.

He’s all that’s left of your line. Tīaka is gone, but he’s still here.

He’s weak.

He’ll grow stronger.

Unaware of her thoughts, Tamatoa took a few hesitant steps forward. “Gran?” he called out.

Tupuna stared down at him for a few more moments, a tiny little thing with a fancy seashell and no clue of what had just happened, no clue of her musings. Finally, she sighed and turned back to the exit.

“Come, boy,” she finally said. “It’s time to eat.”

***

“Human, we’re out of food.”

“I know.”

“If we just stop for a bit to catch some fi–”

“We can’t stop.”

“So, can I eat–”

“Both chicken and pig are off-limits.”

“Aw, c’mon! How about a compromise? I just eat the chicken’s wings. I mean, it can’t even fly, so why would it need them?”

“Tamatoa. You’re a decapod, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“So correct me if I’m wrong, but you happen to have a pair of limbs you have absolutely no use for, either.”

“Well, I guess– Hey! That was a low blow!”

“I know. My chicken’s wings are off limits.”

“Fine, fine,” Tamatoa grumbled, and rested his chin down on his claws again. “But I’m still hungry. Aren’t you– Oh. I guess you’ve got to be. You look terrible.”

“Noted,” Moana said, her voice flat. Truth be told, she wasn’t just hungry: she was also bone tired. While the Ocean pushing the boat forward was making their journey faster, she still had to maneuver it to make sure it stayed on course - which meant she couldn’t take a minute’s break. Stopping wasn’t an option at all, not with time so tight and Maui’s life hanging on how quickly they could get to him.

“No, really. I am sure that if you turned me back my size, I chewed you some and then spat you out, you wouldn’t look half as bad–” Tamatoa paused when Moana gave him one single, long look. “… Right. Not a nice thing to say.”

Moana managed a ghost of a smile. “You’re getting the hang of it,” she said, reaching to tug at the sail. Her limbs felt stiff and heavy as wood, but she forced herself to ignore it. She would rest later, she thought. After they caught up with Maui she’d hit him with her oar, then sleep for a couple of days, and finally resume hitting him with renewed energy. She refused to imagine a scenario in which she didn’t get to see Maui again.

“Would you like me to sing?”

“Huh?”

“To help you stay awake.”

Oh no. Please, don’t.

“Talking will do just fine,” Moana said quickly, raking her brain for something to say in order to distract him.

“Oh. By the way, you never told me if you liked–”

“Is the entire island an entrance to the Underworld?” Moana blurted out, causing him to trail off and blink at her for a few moments before he shook his head.

“Nah, not really. The island is big - and I do mean, big. What we’re looking for is the cape at the northwestern tip. You can’t miss it, because there’s this big cliff - Te Rerenga Wairua.“

“The leaping place of spirits?”

“Yep. It’s quite a drop, and word has it that spirits have to leap from this cliff to get to the Underworld. No idea why. Maybe to make sure they’re dead? ‘Cause if not, they can be certain they’ll be deceased when they get to the bottom.”

“And that’s all they need to do to get in? Leap?”

“And then climb down the roots of some old tree. Hine-nui-te-pō is usually hanging there - like, not from the tree, just around there. And by usually I mean all the time. If you’re dead, no problem - she’ll let you through and then come and go as you please. If you’re alive, she kills you and then lets you through. Unless you’re the Manaia, of course. They got on well - she chose them as the messenger and all.”

“… Any chances she may be off for a stroll?”

“While I like your optimism, human, there is literally not a chance in hell. She never leaves the entrance unguarded. That’s how Maui managed to get away when she caught him trying to sneak in - she couldn’t follow him.”

“If he got away once, he could do it again,” Moana pointed out, gaining herself a rather unimpressed look from Tamatoa.

“Because he ran off when he realized he couldn’t win, babe. Do you think he would run off now, after coming this far?”

No, Moana knew, he wouldn’t: this time it was personal, not just a stunt like many others before. “So our only hope is to catch him before he tries.”

“Exactly. Also, you’re gonna have to watch it when we approach. Two seas kinda meet right off Cape Reinga and that creates some pretty strong currents. Not a problem for me, but for your boat…”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, adjusting the sails slightly. “Do I keep going this way?”

Tamatoa glanced up at the stars, tilting his head one way and then the other. “Yes, this direction for a while more, then we turn south. I’ll tell you when.”

Moana glanced up at the stars herself and, through the veil of exhaustion, she thought she’d seen something familiar. “… I’ve sailed these waters before.”

“Oh, right. If you go north instead of south, you’ll wind up at Te Fiti’s island. It’s… maybe a day and a night of navigation away? I could say something corny about life and death not being too far apart, but I’m too hungry to bother. By the way, if you still had the heart of Te Fiti we might actually have a chance against the Goddess of Death, but noooo, you had to give it away, huh?”

“I didn’t give it away. I returned it.”

“Pfft. Semantics,” Tamatoa muttered, and leaned his head down on his claws again. Too tired to even begin to argue - what would be the point? - Moana just focused on staying on course, occasionally glancing up at the sky. Stars were still there to guide her, only a few of them hidden by a veil of clouds, but it wasn’t stars she was searching for, not really. What she hoped to see, each time she lifted her gaze, was the outline of a hawk flying against the moon. She had no such luck.

Maybe he’s already there. Maybe he’s already dead.

Moana’s grip on the rudder tightened, and she forced herself to chase away the thought. She would find Maui on time, and she couldn’t allow herself not to believe as much, even for a moment. “If he dies on me, I swear I’m going to kill him,” she growled, causing Tamatoa to snicker. Somehow, the sound made her feel a bit better.

At least until he began humming a suspiciously familiar tune.

***

It was just dawn when Maui finally came within sight of Cape Reinga.

The ocean below him raged, as always in the meeting point of two seas, but soaring through the air he was unconcerned. He had plenty to fear, sure enough, but not from the ocean - not that time. He flew past the raging waters, onto the island, and came to land at the very top of the steep cliff. Te Rerenga Wairua, the leaping place of spirits. Maybe he would take the leap that day, after all, but not without a fight.

Never without a fight.

Maui let his gaze wander across the horizon, taking in the sight, and finally drew in a deep breath. Trying to sneak past the entrance was a far more attractive strategy, but one that was doomed to fail. He would know: he’d tried before. And besides, last time he’d gone all sneaky on a goddess, he’d sort of almost broken the world. He’d rather not make that mistake again.

This is on my head, and finally called out.

“Hine-nui-te-pō! Great woman of night!”

Nothing happened for several moments: there was only the sound of the waves and the wind, but Maui did not move. Nothing happened in Cape Reinga that Hine-nui-te-pō could not hear; she must have heard him, and she would soon show hersel–

Maui had no time to finish that thought: all of a sudden the wind stilled and, with the faintest sound of splashing water, she rose within his sight. Tall as a mountain, feet firmly planted before the entrance down below, Hine-nui-te-pō towered over the cliff Maui stood on, blocking out the sun and causing a cold, cold shadow to fall over him.

Her skin was red as the earth she’d been made from, her eyes black as night and her mouth too wide - a cut from ear to ear, filled with sharp teeth of black obsidian. Mouths opened on the palms of her hands as well, and those palms were now upturned, as though she was accepting an offering. Her hair was a tangle of dead seaweed, which fell onto her shoulders and down her back like a shroud.

“Maui of the Men,” she spoke. Her voice was the gargling of the deadly riptide, the last breath of a drowning man, and it held no small amount of mockery. “No longer trying to sneak your way in like a thief?”

Maui gave a somewhat sheepish grin. “Yeah, about that… I’m sorry. That wasn’t a nice thing to do, trying to sneak past you and kind of subvert the laws of existence. I figure I do owe you an apology.”

A tilt of a massive head, and a sneer. “Why, you are capable of this much. Very well. Apology accepted. Shall you do it the right way and throw yourself to your death?”

Well, she was about as pleasant as Maui remembered her. He made him best to grin and make himself look as nonthreatening as possible while still holding onto his fishhook. In the end, he resolved to lean on it. “We both know the fall wouldn’t kill me,” he said. “But hey, thanks for the suggestion. Nice to see you’re still so friendly. It’s been a while since last time.”

“Not long enough,” was the remark. Her eyes, black as the blackest night, narrowed to slits; even her eyelashes looked much like fangs. Maui shrugged.

“Fair enough. Look, I know we didn’t part in friendly terms, and I know there is a good reason why I’m not exactly on top of the list of your favorite people…”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” Hine-nui-te-pō spoke up. Her voice was different now, she caress of water rising to cover your nose and mouth. “I’ve disliked you from your first breath. It had nothing to do with your actions - fools must be expected to act like fools.”

Well, Maui thought, that was new. He opened his mouth to ask what exactly had he done before he was even born, but she resumed talking first, and the reply chilled him to the bone.

“Saved by the gods. You think they saved you from the brink of death, but you were past it, Maui - you were dead. You were mine, as all of the stillborn are. You came into this world too early to survive . ”

Stillborn. Something about that word was terrifying, but in a way there was relief there, because it confirmed everything he’d suspected and hoped since Tamatoa had revealed him what he’d witnessed one day, long ago. It gave him a certainty he’d been desperately looking for.

I was not abandoned. I was buried at sea.

“And yet here I am,” Maui heard himself saying. Hine-nui-te-pō spread her arms. Yes, she seemed to be saying, here you are.

“Your soul was on its way to me before the Ocean took you and the other gods decided you should live - though the reason why is a mystery to me. Why you of many? And what right did they have to take what was mine, without even consulting me? Death is my domain, not theirs. That was a slight I could not ignore. That first breath you drew was stolen from me, like all those you’ve drawn since. To make you a demigod was adding insult to injury.”

From this moment on, every breath you take is a gift from me.

His parting words to Tamatoa after he had ripped off his leg echoed in Maui’s memory, but of course that had been different. He had taken the decision to spare him; Hine-nui-te-pō had to bow to a choice someone else had made. And that someone had not been him.

“It wasn’t my decision, either,” he finally said, and to his mild surprise the goddess nodded.

“No, it was not. I am saying your very existence is an insult, not that I blame you for it.”

“Ah. Thanks?”

“Should you decide to forfeit your life and take your place in my realm, you’d be welcome in it. But,” she added, her unnaturally large mouth stretching in a smile, “I suspect that is not what you’re here for.”

All right, Maui thought, that was it. “I am here with a plea,” he said, gaining himself an unimpressed look. Between that and Te Fiti, it seemed that getting unimpressed looks from goddesses was what he did best those days.

“I do not listen to pleas. Other gods may be prayed upon for good winds and currents, for good harvest and nets full of fish. With them, you can bargain. Death does not bargain. It grants no boon, it heeds no prayer.”

“Just hear me out. I only ask to be let through for the shortest time. There is someone I need to find, and once I do–” Maui began, and trailed off when the goddess laughed, with a sound like crack of thunder. He sighed. “Can’t you at least let me finish before you laugh your head off?”

More laughter. Maui rolled his eyes and threw his fishhook over his shoulder. “Okay, really. Glad to see you have a sense of humor after all, but– sheesh, are the mouths on your hands laughing, too?”

The laughter finally died down, and Hine-nui-te-pō looked at him, fangs still bared in a grin. “You cannot truly think, even as a joke, that I will allow you to come through alive. No living, breathing being can cross this entrance. Not humans, not monsters or animals, not gods and certainly not you. Other gods may have made exceptions for you, but I will not do the same.”

“The Manaia could cross,” Maui pointed out, and the smile immediately faded from Hine-nui-te-pō’s face. When she spoke again, her voice was icy. Not a surprise: if there was anybody she had been in truly good terms with, except for the souls of the dead - her children, as she put it - that had been the Manaia.

“The Manaia is the messenger. They–”

“I hear they’ve vanished.”

“No one else alive will cross the entrance,” the goddess bristled. “Which begs the question - how desperate are you to get in? Because that can be arranged, at the price of your life. You cannot gain access without losing it first.”

Oh well, Maui thought, that had been worth a shot. It wasn’t like he’d expected it to work, but sneaking in undetected was impossible, and at least he had tried to be polite about it first. “I see. I am pretty desperate, really, so I guess I’m going to have to go through you.”

A snort. “Do you truly think you have any chance to best me?”

“Not really, but I might surprise myself. I did that a couple of times lately,” Maui said with a shrug, and lifted his hook. “And if I can’t, then I die and get through regardless.”

“That is the only possible outcome.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, tho–” Maui began, but he didn’t get to finish that sentence: the next moment Hine-nui-te-pō let out a drum-shattering shriek, the kind that could almost split the sky, and lifted a hand to bring it down on him, the mouth on its palm wide open. She was almost fast enough to get him.

Almost.

“CHEE-HOO!”

The hand struck the ground he’d been standing on, but missed him; all that those teeth got to bite into were rocks. In his hawk form, Maui darted away - and barely managed to avoid being hit in mid-air by the goddess’ other hand, and yet another set of teeth. She had more teeth than anybody had any right to, and not only on her face and hands: she had teeth on the back of her head, too, and in other weird places.

Being pierced by any one of those meant death, and Maui was all too aware of it. With a screech, covered by Hine-nui-te-pō’s own, he flew up above, blood rushing in his veins. He may be dying soon but at the moment, in the heat of the battle, he felt wonderfully alive.

It’s Maui time.

***

When the horrifying shriek reached her, cutting through the air and mist like a knife and making her feel as though her heart had suddenly stilled in her chest, Moana instantly knew who it had to be. One look at Tamatoa, who had stilled as well and was looking up at her in what was nothing short of horror, confirmed what she feared: they were too late. Hine-nui-te-pō had been roused.

No, Moana told herself, exhaustion suddenly gone. It was late to stop that fight, but it wasn’t too late: it would have been worse yet to arrive to find only silence, the signs of a battle, and no Maui. That would have meant it was over.

But it’s not. It’s not over until–

“It’s over,” Tamatoa croaked, taking a few steps back. As though that would get him any further away, with the boat still sailing forward through the fog. “Human, turn the boat and– oh, wait. You’re not going to turn the boat are you?”

“Nope.”

“You’re going to head straight for Cape Reinga and in the middle of the fight.”

“Yep,” Moana said, and glanced at Pua - who seemed paralyzed with terror. “Pua, get in the hold with Heihei.”

No reaction.

“Pua–” Moana started, but was cut off when Tamatoa suddenly took it upon himself to open the latch, push Pua in - causing both him and Heihei to protest loudly - and slam it shut.

“There. Not that your pig is any safer now, unless you listen to me and turn this boat!”

You don’t have to come, Moana wanted to say, but she had no time to: the next moment there was another shriek, carried by a sudden gust of wind that caused the mist to finally, finally lift.

And there, before them, was Cape Reinga.

In any other circumstances, it would have taken Moana’s breath away - not out of terror, but simply for the sheer magnificence of that place: above raging waters stood a majestic, steep cliff under an iron gray sky. It had an otherworldly beauty to it, and she could very easily believe that was where the world of the living and that of the spirits were connected. At the moment, however, there was no time for her to marvel, because all he could focus on was the gigantic form of red earth form towering over the cliff, lashing out at something - someone - who flew and danced and shifted just out of her reach. Maui.

“He… he’s holding his own,” Moana muttered, breathing out a sigh of relief.

“Great. Amazing. Looks like we’d actually hinder him. So how about we sail away and let him do his thing?” Tamatoa spoke, a hopeful note in his voice, only to groan when Moana shook her head and kept maneuvering the boat towards the island. Hine-nui-te-pō was still trying to strike Maui, causing stones and rocks to rain down into the raging waters below. “Human! Seriously! Turn this boat! There is nothing we can do that Maui can’t!”

“We’ll just get closer, so that if Maui needs any help we can intervene!”

“And get ourselves killed!”

“We might not need to do anything! Unless something goes wrong–”

Another furious shriek caused them both to recoil, and they turned just in time to see Hine-nui-te-pō striking out at the sky in a vicious backhand… and, this time, hitting its target. Maui was struck out of the sky, once again in his human form, and hit the ground violently while his fishhook plummeted down the side of the cliff, into the churning ocean below.

“… You mean, something like that?” Tamatoa spoke, deadpanned.

“Yes,” Moana heard herself saying. “Exactly like that.”

***

Losing his hook again was, to put it mildly, a gigantic pain in the butt. And more pain would be on the menu if he didn’t get his hands back on it as quickly as possible, because of course he had absolutely no chance without it as opposed to having about one in a million with it.

And I was doing so well.

He had taken one hell of a blow in mid-air and the impact with the rocky ground hadn’t been much better; if he lived long enough to bruise, he was going to feel that for a week. It might even have been enough to make him lose consciousness if not for the fact good old Hine wouldn’t stop shrieking, keeping him from blacking out even if he’d wanted to.

He saw the jaws in her palm coming down at him with a triumphant cry, and he rolled aside just on time, avoiding being crushed by a hair’s breadth. He ducked under another attempt at swatting him with the other hand, and ran as quickly as he could towards the cliff’s opposite edge. He’d seen his fishhook falling there, and he could only hope he hadn’t fallen someplace where the water was too deep, because without shapeshifting powers there were limits to how deep down he could go. It was a desperate attempt, because he knew Hine-nui-te-pō would almost certainly get him before he could even try finding it, but it wasn’t like he had any other choice.

At least I’ll go with a bang and without dragging anybody else with me. If Moana had come with me, she’d be–

Maui reached the edge of the cliff, ready to leap, expecting to see churning ocean below. And he did see just that, raging water and sea foam barely covering rocks as sharp as fangs… plus something else, something in the middle of all that chaos that really shouldn’t have been there.

A familiar sail with the symbol of a spiral in the middle.

… Well, of course Little Miss Wayfinder had found the way. It was what she did best, other than reading minds and proving him dead wrong. He never learned a lesson, did he?

Momentum working against him, Maui very nearly stumbled down the cliff and into the ocean, but he was able to stop himself by throwing himself on the ground. He rolled aside just one time to avoid yet another blow, mind scrambling to come up with another course of action.

That’s where the hook fell. She’s trying to get to it. And if Hine-nui-te-pō sees her, she’ll kill her where she stands.

All right, he decided, new plan - keep the her attention well away from that particular area. It wasn’t much of a plan, and it was seriously lacking in the ‘how not to die’ department, but it wasn’t like he could be picky at that point. He’d improvise. Shapeshifting may be his main ability, but ‘sort of winging it’ came a close second or third. Definitely in the top five, anyhow.

With a leap - he didn’t need his hook for those - he landed well away from that side of the cliff, and turned back with a grin. He would have never thought he’d be pleased to have the undivided attention of the Goddess of Death, but then again life was unpredictable, always a surprise behind the corner.

All things considered, he didn’t think he was done with life just yet.

“Come and get me, lady,” he called out, shifting his weight and ready to leap out of reach again. “You’ll have to be faster than that.”

***

“Can’t you go faster?”

“I’m trying!”

“If she sees us, we’re so dead.”

“I know! I got it the first ten times you said it!”

If you really got it you would have turned this boat around, Tamatoa thought, but he didn’t say anything; at that point, it had become clear it was useless to insist. Instead he just clung to the mast, and tried his best not to throw up.

The ocean around them was raging, pushing back against them, and there seemed to be rocks everywhere they looked. He had no idea how the human could manage to keep that boat afloat without it capsizing or being thrown against the rocks or the cliffside by one of those violent waves, but it made his admiration for her go up another notch, if somewhat grudgingly. After all, she was getting them on the path to certain death.

Or, more accurately, slightly to the left of it.

Tamatoa refused to turn, he refused to see just how close they were to Hine-nui-te-pō as she shrieked and howled, hitting and clawing at the cliff where Maui was, surely trying his best not to be turned into demigod purea. He seemed to be holding her off for now, but without the hook he had no chance.

“I can’t get any closer!” the human groaned in frustration. “The current is too strong, and–”

A rumbling sound caused her to trail off, and Tamatoa looked up just on time to see a couple of boulders and a rain of smaller rocks falling from the side of the cliff to plunge down into the ocean, clearly dislodged by Hine-nui-te-pō’s onslaught. They missed the boat, but not by much, and the impact raised enough water to throw them back. As the human struggled to overcome the backlash, Tamatoa peered up at the cliff above them.

You’re not blind, are you?, his Gran’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. Half a cliff crumbled on her, that’s what happened. Stop asking questions with your mouth full.

Tamatoa shuddered and flattened himself against the floor, feeling immensely tiny, like he had been that day millennia ago. After all, right now he was only a little bigger than he’d been–

… Wait. Wait a minute. Why am I still small?

Tamatoa stood again, frantically looking around, and he saw what he needed just moments later: the tip of a rock just above the surface… and little to the right of the boat, close enough for him to leap on it. Which was precisely what he did.

“Wha– Tamatoa! What are you doing?” Moana’s voice reached him a moment later as he struggled to hold onto it despite the waves crashing against him. Two sets of pincers came in handy for that kind of thing, but he really could have used another leg to hold on. Clinging to the rock with all he had, he looked back at Moana.

“You can’t get through here with the boat.  Get away from here - out the current!”

“But the hook fell–”

“I know where it fell, I’m not blind! Just get further away and then turn me back my size! I’ll get the hook for you!”

Comprehension dawned on her face the next moment, and she immediately nodded, maneuvering the sail to get out of the rough spot. It took her less than a minute to get to a safe distance and, once she did, the lifted a hand to point at him. Tamatoa didn’t hear the word - she wasn’t close enough for him to hear through the raging water, inhuman screeching and whatnot - but he felt its effect, and how. The next moment there was that indescribable sensation of being inflated, and he found himself sinking beneath the raging water and towards the bottom of the ocean, the rock he’d been clinging onto hardly large enough for him to rest a limb on.

It was a good drop down to the bottom of the ocean, maybe a hundred feet, but it worked fine for him. Down there the current was less strong and, despite the sand being raised by Hine-nui-te-pō’s movements - Tamatoa preferred not  to wonder just how close she was, and was inwardly thankful of the fact she hadn’t spotted him before he sank into the churning water - he could see around easily enough if he squinted a bit. And, thankfully, he didn’t have to look far.

Back when he’d found it, almost a thousand years earlier, Maui’s fishhook had been stuck in the middle of a coral reef, and getting it out of there had been kind of a pain, especially since it had gotten him into a heated argument with a Megalodon who happened to live nearby. Now it was resting on sand, thank the gods, and it was easy to pick up. Which was good news, since the moment he stepped away a huge boulder crashed into the sea and sank right on the spot he had been moments before.

It wouldn’t have been anywhere near enough to hurt him through his shell, especially underwater, but– half a cliff crumbled on her, that’s what happened – Tamatoa still didn’t like how close it had been. He moved quickly, away from the cliff and well away from Hine-nui-te-pō. He had no idea what they next step may be, but hopefully the human had a plan. She usually had one, and hey, he’d recovered the hook, hadn’t he?

As far as he was concerned, he’d done his part.

***

Moving away from the worst of the currents was a struggle, especially since she didn’t dare move too far away from the island: should the wind change, it may have been nearly impossible to get ashore quickly. So Moana just moved along the coast, and maneuvered her boat closer when she finally saw a spot where she could get her boat on the ground. She couldn’t seen Hine-nui-te-pō now, as she was hidden by the cliff itself, but she could hear her all too well… as she could hear Maui’s shouts and jeers, unmistakable even though he was too far away for her to grasp the words.

Please, just hang on a bit more. Only a bit longer. I’m sure Tamatoa will–

There was another shriek, a crash so violent that the entire cliff seemed to shake, and then a rumble that Moana immediately recognized as trouble. She looked up to see several boulders falling off the side of the cliff… and plunging down straight at her.

For a moment, it was as though time had frozen. She knew in a split second that there was simply no way for her to move away quickly enough, that even jumping off the boat wouldn’t be enough to avoid them, and she found herself unable to move at all, the hands holding her oar suddenly numb.

Grandma–!

“Hey! Human!”

Moana recoiled when something huge suddenly blotted out the sun, coming between her and the falling rocks so quickly she had barely enough time to register what was happening. The realization hit her the same moment the boulders hit Tamatoa’s shell, causing him to stagger and give a noise that sounded a lot like all air had been blown out of him. They bounced off along with more than a few handfuls of trinkets, raising huge splashes, but Moana hardly even noticed.

“Tamatoa! Are you all right?”

“Uugh,” he groaned before stepping back. He shook his head and looked down at her, the grimace turning into a grin. “Sure I’m all right, babe. My shell’s tough,” he said, but his voice sounded somewhat shaky despite his best efforts. Still, Moana had no time to wonder about that. “Let’s… just get out of the way before this whole thing collapses on us, okay? I think we can get ashore on that spot over there.”

“Did you find…?” Moana began, and to her relief Tamatoa held up a pincer, Maui’s hook firmly in its grasp. “Yes! You’re the best!”

“Oh, I know.”

Getting ashore was mercifully quick: there was a small sandy spot at the base of the cliff, with a path that led right up towards it, and that was where Moana drove her boat. She jumped off onto the sand the same moment Tamatoa stepped out of the water and put the fishhook down.

“Okay, how do we get it to him? I was thinking I can try throwing it, but I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, because I can’t really see the top of the cliff. What if I miss and throw it back in the ocean? Or hit Maui? Or I could hit Hine-nui-te-pō, and I think that would only make her madder…”

“It’s all right. You’ve done enough for us,” Moana said, kneeling down to grasp the hook. “Stay here. I’ll take this to Maui.”

Tamatoa blinked. “Wait, what? Let’s pretend for a moment that’s not suicide, but there is no way you can drag that thing all the way up to–”

“Iti haere.”

“… Oh, right. You can if you cheat, I guess,” he muttered while Moana stood again, the hook now small enough to fit in her hand and mercifully easy to carry. “But my point that it’s suicide still stands. The moment Hine-nui-te-pō sees you–”

“No point in getting his hook back if I don’t give it to him,” Moana replied, and turned to run up the path that led to the top of the cliff, praying the gods yet again that she wouldn’t be too late.

She didn’t get very far.

“Wha– no! Hey! Stop running!”

Moana let out a cry when a huge claw grabbed her by the waist and pulled her up, keeping her from going any further. She tried to squirm out of Tamatoa’s grasp, but her efforts were entirely fruitless. “Let me go!”

Tamatoa scoffed, holding her before his eyes. “To have you go die for sure? Nope. There is no way I’m letting you–” he began, and suddenly trailed off when Moana pointed at him with the hand wearing the bracelet. His eyes widened a fraction when she spoke in a hiss.

“Let me go. Now.”

“Human–”

“I’ll shrink you if I have to, and then you’d never get to return your normal size should I die there. Good luck getting the bracelet back from Hine-nui-te-pō,” she said, causing him to recoil. For a moment he looked genuinely hurt, and she sighed. “I don’t want you to risk your life, but I’m going. So please, let me go. I don’t want to do this.”

For a moment, Tamatoa just stared at her, looking utterly confused. When he spoke again, it was in a whine. “I don’t want you to get killed, babe,” he said, and Moana bit her lower lip.

“Believe me, that makes two of us. But I’ll never be able to live with myself if I do nothing and Maui dies,” she pleaded. Above them the sounds of the battle - shouts and drum-shattering shrieks, cries of defiance and the sound of shattering rocks - seemed louder than ever, covering the low rumble of thunder in the distance. “And besides,” she found herself adding, forcing herself to smile, “I made it past Te Ka, and everyone said it was impossible. I might just get lucky again.”

You’re not getting past this one by singing at her, Maui’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of her mind. But Tamatoa, who had no idea yet how she had exactly dealt with Te Ka, hesitated. Then, finally - and slowly, in a way that bespoke all of his reluctance - he put her down.

Thank you, Moana wanted to say, but every word she uttered was wasted breath, every moment she lingered wasted time. So she just nodded at him, turned, and ran as quickly as he could up the path. As she ran, the shrieks and the wind and her own rushing blood filling her ears, she failed to hear Tamatoa’s mumbled plea.

“… Please be back.”

***

In case anyone’s wondering what the jab about a useless pair of limbs was about, here you go.

***

[Back to Chapter 13]

[On to Chapter 15]