#and did not have the capacity to understand why his ear felt like poison

[knifegremliin]

realized i completely forgot to upload this. probably because i kept hoping to finish it. but don't think that's happening so. werewolf mike.

[ejlovespie]

Hold Me Up

Fandom: Supernatural

Author: EJ (@ejlovespie)

Summary: The reader falls very ill when she unknowingly touches a cursed object. Luckily, Dean is there to care for her.

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word Count: 1966

Warnings: Angst/Cursing/Fluff 

Reader’s Request: Can I pleaaase request a dean x reader one shot where the reader gets hit by a witch curse but none of them noticed, then during their way back she starts getting sick and by the time they arrive to the bunker she has a raging fever and it keeps getting high no matter what dean and Sam do. I looove when dean gets worried and when he cares too much. Also I live for angst so feel free to make it as angsty as u can.

A/N: I tweaked a few details but this wrote itself, thank you for the request anon; I really hope you like it! 💙 Any feedback is greatly appreciated and any mistakes are mine. Thank you for reading! :) 

Driving down a long mountain road, you were headed back to the bunker after a difficult hunt in Colorado. Garth had called about a case where people were being burned alive in their homes. You, Sam, and Dean had found the cause was from a vengeful spirit who had happened to be a witch in life. Apparently, she had been killing the ancestors of a rival coven in order to get revenge when she and her people had all been rounded up and burned at the stake in the 1600’s. With no bones, this left you guys with the challenge of finding whatever was tying her to this world. It had taken longer than it should have but eventually you found the item; it was her old spell book. You were the one to salt and burn the thing. It had been small, fitting into the palm of your hand, but you remembered the weight it carried before you had tossed it into the flames. 

You had been feeling strange ever since. It was almost like just by touching the book, you had been physically affected by its power and it was making you sick. Your head was pounding and you were fighting back the nauseous feeling in your stomach. Dean would kill you if you threw up in the backseat of his baby. Deep down, you knew something was wrong but you told yourself you were just feeling sick from the drive through burger you had eaten earlier. You had food poisoning. It was no big deal. You slept, off and on, during the long car ride and somehow managed to not throw up. Now, you were finally pulling up to the bunker. You heard Dean mumble something in front of you that sounded like, “Home sweet home.” 

After Dean parked the car, you made the move to open your door but you kind of just slammed into it without properly pushing it open. Vertigo made your head and stomach swim and you rested your cheek on the cool window’s glass for a moment, breathing deeply. Dean had witnessed your attempt to get out and had come around to the other side of the car to open the door you weren’t currently laying on. Knowing something was wrong, he half climbed inside to unbuckle your seatbelt and pulled you to him. You flinched when a cool hand felt your forehead then moved to feel your cheeks. Opening your eyes, you looked up to see Dean’s handsome face full of worry. His green and gold eyes were concerned, looking you over, while he continued to move his hands. He pushed a few damp strands of hair from your face before cupping your cheeks again. 

“You’re burning up Y/N.” 

You could see Sam standing outside of the car, observing what was happening and you blushed a little. You brought your hands up to Dean’s larger ones on your face and pulled them away. 

“I’m fine Dean. I think the burger I ate was bad, that’s all.” 

To prove a point, you had turned back around and swung the door open but the motion was too fast and you toppled out of the car in a mess of limbs. You groaned when you hit your head on something and Dean swore behind you. A second later, Sam was helping you up and asking if you were alright. Before you could assure him that you were fine, your legs gave out and Dean was there, swinging you up into his strong arms. The movement had the vertigo coming back and you shut your eyes tightly and buried your face in Dean’s neck as he hurriedly carried you inside. You heard him telling Sam to go get the med kit before he brought you into your room and laid you down on your bed. Opening your eyes was a mistake. The room spun around you and shut them tightly again before the spinning made you puke. Oh God, you thought to yourself. Please don’t let me throw up in front of Dean Winchester.    

You turned over on your side, away from Dean, just in case you lost your cookies. The spinning sensation was so strong, you groaned in pain and kept praying. Dean was sitting on the bed, running his hands over you, looking for some kind of evidence of the cause of your illness. He yelled at Sam to hurry when your breathing became more labored. Pointing to the trash can in the corner, you hoped Dean would understand. He jumped up quickly and brought it to you right before you started heaving. Sam was rounding the bed now, holding a large white case. He sat it down and started refilling through it. Breathe through it. Do NOT puke in front of both of these guys. Finally, the spinning had slowed down and you were able to calm your breathing a bit. Dean had his hands on your face again and was telling Sam to get the thermometer. A second later, he was shoving the tip into your mouth and telling Sam to go get towels while he waited for the reading. You tried pushing his hands away, to tell them you were fine but you felt so damn weak.

The thermometer beeped and you saw Dean’s eyes go wide when he read it. At some point you had started to shiver and Dean was now murmuring to you, telling you he was going to help you, while rubbing your back. Sam rushed in with towels and Dean put one on your forehead while he put another on your chest. Your teeth were chattering and it sounded so loud to your own ears. Was it loud to Dean too? Dean barked at Sam a few more times while he tried getting you to drink water, most of it dribbling down your chin. You had a hard time focusing on Dean and what he was telling Sam. 

“She has a fever of 101 Sam. This sure as shit wasn’t caused by a burger. Can you hit the lore? I’m going to stay here and try to get it down.” 

"Maybe we should take her to the hospital Dean." 

Dean was opening a bottle and shaking a few pills into his palm. You complained a little when he reached over to bring them to your lips and then made you take a sip of water. You were so cold. You just wanted to curl into your blankets and go to sleep. Noticing your shivering, Dean took a minute to pull a blanket over you before he stood up and walked out of the room with Sam. You were so delirious it could have been a few minutes or a few hours but Dean came back into the room and sat on your bed again. You didn’t complain when he popped the thermometer back into your mouth. When the thermometer pinged again and Dean read your temperature, he cursed and started peeling the blanket off you. He jumped off the bed and was out of the room so fast your foggy brain couldn’t keep up with him. He was back in the room in a minute and bending to pick you up. You groaned and complained but he wasn’t listening to you. You were being carried again but this time he was rushing you to the bathroom. 

The shower was running. Why was the shower running? Did you smell? You were pretty sure you hadn’t puked on yourself. Dean sat you on the toilet and was standing in front of you, peeling his clothes off. Wait, what? You questioned him groggily but he ignored you until he was stripped down to his boxer briefs. Turning to face you, he grimaced before saying, 

“Your turn. I’m sorry for this sweetheart.” 

Dean’s hands reached out, his fingers grazing your abdomen as he pulled your shirt above your head. You shrieked and pushed at his hands, confused about what was happening and somehow still feeling self-conscious in this moment. Gripping you around the waist, Dean stood you up and started unbuttoning your jeans. Your legs were so weak, you had to lean on him as he pulled your jeans down your legs before ripping them off completely. You were now left in your bra and panties and you felt so exposed but Dean was barely looking at you. He was laser focused and pulling you into the shower. If you were at full mental capacity you probably would have realized what was happening but as it was, you were shocked when the freezing spray of water touched you. You screamed and tried, weakly, to fight Dean, to get out. Gritting his teeth, he just wrapped you into his arms and stepped fully into the shower. Your teeth were chattering violently and goosebumps appeared on your skin. HIding your face in Dean’s chest, you let him hold you up as you shivered violently from the cold. 

You both stood like for a while until your entire body was numb from the cold. After what seemed like an eternity, Dean reached over to turn off the water and pulled you with him out of the shower. He wrapped you up in a towel before slipping one of his shirts over your head and carried you back to your bed. He wrapped you back up in your blankets before stepping out of the room for a minute. When he came back, he was once again fully dressed. Dean brought a glass of water to your lips and made you drink half of it before he set the glass down and felt your forehead. Suddenly, Sam was stepping into the room again with a book. He started talking at a fast pace.  

“I think Y/N’s illness was caused by her touching the spell book. I found some lore here that some witches would put curses on their spell books to keep people from being able to use them. If Y/N had read anything inside the book, she could have died. The lore says some cursed books can be so dangerous that just touching one can cause ‘disease to the bearer’.”

That didn’t sound good. In an impatient voice, Dean asked, ”I suspected as much. How do we fix it though?” You had started to lose focus again, fatigue was pulling you under as Sam explained the details to a cleansing ritual. 

-

The next time you woke, you were surprised to find Dean sleeping next to you in bed, his large arm draped over your body. You had a slight headache and a hungry stomach but the aching fever was gone. You felt completely fine. Did they do the cleansing ritual or whatever? You gazed at Dean and his peacefully sleeping face and blushed remembering the events from the day before. Other than not puking, you had made a fool of yourself. Embarrassment heated your cheeks as you thought about falling out of the impala and being stripped down to take a cold shower. Dean had seen you in your underwear. You groaned and Dean stirred in his sleep before opening his eyes groggily. Looking up at you he smiled and asked you in a sleepy voice,

“How are you feeling sweetheart?”

“Much better...Uh thank you for taking care of me Dean. I didn’t know you could be so attentive and...motherly.” You giggled as Dean groaned and smacked you with a pillow at the last part of your statement. “Seriously. You’re good? No fever. No puking or anything?” Nodding, you leaned over and kissed his stubbled cheek. “I'm good. Thank you. You guys will have to fill me in on what happened but for now, I am going to go make us some breakfast.” Dean smiled and whispered, “Anytime Y/E. I’m just glad you're okay.”

His eyes were soft looking at you and you blushed before climbing out of bed. You blushed harder when you realized you weren't wearing pants and Dean laughed as you darted to your closet to find some. In a hurry, you got dressed and rushed out of your room, not missing Dean's teasing wink before you went.

Tags:

@akshi8278

[kikis-writing-service]

Closing the Gap (Todoroki Shouto x F!Reader)

Like a flower after the rain, you loved to soak up the sun. You weren’t sure if it was a product of your quirk or not—if your ability to manifest plants meant your body needed to photosynthesize. And you didn’t much care if it was one way or the other, as long as it got you special access to the roof of UA. It was the perfect spot to enjoy the warmth of the sun.

And on a day like today, where the UA teachers were busy preparing exams, it was easy for you to sneak up a plus one onto the roof with you. That’s what led you to lure Shouto up to the roof with the promise of zaru soba later.

You sat down on the concrete roof comfortably, trying to ignore the curious stare of Shouto as he stood a few feet away. You glanced at him and lightly patted the ground beside you. Shouto hesitated, but he sat down after a moment, leaving a significant gap between the two of you that made you frown slightly.

“He’s always so far away,” you thought, but quickly shook that thought away. You closed your eyes and breathed in deeply, focusing on the warmth of the sun above. Shouto allowed you your silence for several minutes, but eventually his confusion got the best of him.

“Why did you bring me here, (Y/N)?” He asked. You released a deep breath.

“Because you’ve got storm clouds hanging over your head,” you told him. You opened one eye for a brief moment to look at him. “I figured the sun would help chase them away.”

Shouto hummed and allowed the silence to set over both of you again. As you continued to take deep breaths under the embrace of the sun, Shouto couldn’t help but stare. You always looked so peaceful and kind, but here, under the light of the golden sun, you seemed to have an almost otherworldly glow to you. If Shouto hadn’t already considered himself unworthy of your kind presence, he did now.

“I think,” you started suddenly, breaking Shouto out of his daze, “that things are a lot more complicated than you see them.” You opened your eyes and stared out into the distance, but you could see Shouto’s head tilt cutely to the side out of the corner of your eye. “Nothing is neither purely destructive nor purely creative,” you continued. You caught his head turning away from you, and you knew you were now both on the same page. You turned your head to look at him. He was looking down at his left hand.

“I cannot see how my father’s quirk—my quirk,” he corrected himself, “can be anything but destructive.” Shouto looked back up at you and your gazes met. You smiled softly at him and you saw his muscles relax slightly in response.

“Have you ever heard of a technique called controlled burning?” You asked. Shouto shook his head.

“Well, in some places, people purposely start fires to help with things like forest management,” you explained. Shouto furrowed his brow. “It helps to reduce the natural fuel in the area, which reduces the likelihood of out-of-control fires. It controls competing vegetation, clearing out competition for some plants so they can release their seeds. And some seeds depend on fire, remaining dormant until fire breaks down the seed coating. It also helps control tree disease, improves short-term forage for grazing, and, ultimately, cycles nutrients in the earth. So, you see? Fire helps life flourish too.”

Shouto’s face flushed slightly as you finished. He quickly turned his gaze away from yours and looked back over at his left hand.

“But only after leaving destruction in its wake,” Shouto said.

“So? Everything has a destructive side. Even a quirk like mine.”

Shouto tilted his head as he looked over at you. He opened his mouth to ask how your quirk, which created, could also destroy, but he stopped when he noticed a plant growing in front of him. It had a tall green stem which was littered with dozens of bright pink flowers. He reached out to touch it with his right hand, but your fingers wrapped around his wrist and stopped him.

“Digitalis, also known as Foxglove,” you said with your eyes on the plant that you had created. “If you touch it, you may get a rash on your skin.” Shouto’s eyes widened, and he pulled his hand out of your grip and settled it onto his lap. “Every single part of this plant is poisonous—the flower, leaves, roots. If ingested, it can cause vomiting, diarrhea, and even death.”

Shouto frowned as his eyes intently focused on the plant before him. His attention narrowed as he attempted to understand how something so beautiful, something you had created, could be so destructive.

You frowned as you Shouto’s stare harden as he stared at the plant before him. You couldn’t tell where his thoughts were leading him, but you knew that wherever it was, it was far away. You needed to bring him back.

You crawled over to his side, transforming the gap between the two of you into a significantly insignificant one. You were close enough to smell the scent of his shampoo now. Close enough to want to get even closer. But you didn’t.

“It isn’t like you to zone out, Shouto,” you said right by his ear. Shouto jumped. He turned his face to his left and met your bright eyes with his own. His face flushed as he realized how close your faces were. Your reaction, in comparison, was lukewarm at best. You simply smiled your usual soft smile, which frustrated Shouto to no end. “You sure are thinking hard,” you commented before pulling a few centimeters away from him.

You grabbed Shouto’s wrist before he could pull it away like usual and held it out in front of the poisonous plant before him. “Your problem is that you’re looking at things as too black and white. For example,” you continued as you brought his hand closer to the plant, “is it bad if what you’re destroying is something destructive?”

Shouto listened to your words while focusing on the tips of his fingers. He knew what you were asking of him—you wanted him to burn your creation. You wanted him to destroy—something that he was more than capable of. He was also very aware of your hand wrapped around his arm, and the last thing that he wanted to do was harm you. His fingers stopped a centimeter before the plant with your own still holding his wrist.

“Everything has the capacity to destroy and to create, Shouto. Nothing is purely destructive. Not even fire; as long as you—”

“—control it,” he finished your sentence. You smiled as small flames formed at the tips of his fingers. They reached out for the plant that still stood before you, slowly engulfing it in flames. Once the plant was completely lit, Shouto extinguished the fire on his fingers and you pulled your hand back.  

“Thank you for your words, (Y/N),” Shouto said. “You didn’t have to—”

“I know, but you don’t have to thank me. It was for selfish reasons, really.” Shouto looked over at you, perplexed.

“What do you mean?” he asked. You hummed as you looked away from him. A slight blush dusted against your cheeks.

“You always pull away when I try to touch you,” you explained. You steeled yourself and turned back to meet his gaze. “At first I thought it just made you uncomfortable, but after you refused to train with me, I realized—you’re just afraid of hurting me.” Shouto gulped and looked away. He suddenly felt terrifyingly vulnerable under your gaze. “You’re not inherently destructive Shouto.” You reached out for him. “Please don’t be afraid of touching me.” 

Shouto was silent for a while. You sighed and let your arm drop back down. But before it could fall back to your side, Shouto’s hand grabbed onto yours. You looked up at him to see his heterochromatic eyes looking down at you with an intensity that you’ve never seen there before. Your face heated up under his gaze. 

“Um,” you muttered, unsure how to proceed as your attention hyper-focused on the warmth of his hand as it enveloped yours.

“We’re still getting Soba later, right?” he asked, easing the tension in the atmosphere. You smiled.

“Of course.”

[astringofmadhousefloozies]

Slumber Party Massacree

Not a typo!

Yuu has a sleepover, and things go to shit. Second person, as always. Let me know if you liked it!  And You can find more on my blog under the “twisted wonderland fanfiction” tag.

~*~*~*~

"Thank you for inviting me, Yuu."

"Thank you for coming, Mal. You too, Idia."

The tablet made a cheery ping as it hovered in the air.

Mal tilted his head as he inspected the strange object. "Why is it that you couldn't show up in person, and instead used this," he poked at the screen, "device?"

You said "Ortho maintenance night, can't be skipped" Idia said "Sleepovers mean touching hair and I don't know you that well," and Ortho, from some distance, said "I don't want her putting her hands on my brother," and you sputtered.

"I... see." Malleus sounded as serious as the grave. "At least you are present in some capacity. I do appreciate it."

You'd invited them both for a sleepover at your dorm, but only Mal was here in person. Ortho still hadn't forgiven you for laying hands on Idia, even if you both explained to him that you'd made up (vigorously), and he refused to allow Idia to come. You really needed to make up with him, or you wouldn't have even the beginning of a love life.

"How are we to begin? I understand there are... rituals involved with sleepovers."

"I mean, sort of. Like, pillow fights. Scary movies. Popcorn. Braiding each others hair."

"Lesbianism!"

You stared at Grim in horror. "We're missing a very important aspect for that, and also, no. Who taught you that."

"Your movies?"

“Shut.”

Malleus raised a hand, and thankfully did not ask what lesbianism was. "I would like to start with the scary movie."

You clapped your hands. "Perfect! I have a few."

~*~*~*~

"Yuu."

"Yes?"

"Deadites are not a real occurrence in your world, are they?"

"No, dear. They are entirely fictional." You swatted at the tablet as it issued a hissing laugh. "Don't make fun, you asked me if the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was real."

"That said it was a true story!"

It was going excellently, if you did say so yourself. Grim had his own little bowl of popcorn, watching the screen with rapt attention. Idia had synced his own file of the movie to play, although you were fairly certain he was paying more attention to some Fortnite equivalent or other. Mal had you splayed over him as you both lounged on the couch, watching the screen with curiosity as he stroked your hair. "If we are supposed to braid this, there is really not enough to properly do so. Shall I grow it for you?"

"What? no."

"A pity. You would look fine with hair to your ankles."

You lightly thumped his chest. "I would not. You've never seen me with my long hair. It was all split ends and hung like lead. At least like this, there's volume."

"I would keep it very healthy for you, if you ever decide to let it grow." He leaned his cheek on the top of your head, and switched from fussing with your hair to your earlobes. "These are very nice."

"You like them?" You'd gotten a set of tiny pearl studs from a "secret admirer" that you were fairly certain had sharp teeth and a streak in his hair. "They're pretty cute. I got more, too."

Mal hummed as he looked at them. "They suit you well. I don't see you with much else but earrings."

"They stay out of the way. Do you want to try any of mine on, later?"

"I am afraid I cannot, as I lack holes in my ears for them."

You sat bolt upright with a great idea.

~*~*~*~

"And this is safe?"

"Safer than Claire's." You'd already wiped his ear with peroxide, and done the same to a sewing needle. "I've done this dozens of times, and the only girl who got an infection went to the beach the next day and got it there."

"Was that Claire, then?"

"No, that's a store. Kitschy, little girl shit. They use a piercing gun and are legendary for giving people dreadful infections because they don't clean the gun properly. Their jewelry's cheap as shit at turns your skin green. Fantastic place, you'd love it."

"I'm still surprised that you simply did not grow the holes naturally."

"We don't work like that. We've been shoving things in out soft bits for forever."

Idia, through his tablet, wheezed, but otherwise didn't comment.

"And just think, my dude, you get one of the most authentic sleepover experiences ever. And you get to be sparkly!"

"I could sparkle plenty if I so chose." He turned towards you slightly, doubt on his face. "Only a small amount of blood?"

"Just a little bit. Beauty is pain, as Schoenheit would say. Deep breath now."

He obeyed, and as quick as you could, you drew the needle through his earlobe. He didn't bleed much - his blood had a curious oilslick sheen to it, and after sanitizing again, you placed a plain gold stud in. "One down! You want to see?"

He nodded heavily, and you held up a small hand mirror. The gold stud shone pleasantly in his ear, and his face shone with a sweet, childish wonder as he turned to you. "I like it very much."

And then he keeled over on top of you.

~*~*~*~

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO LORD MALLEUS?"

"I- DON'T- KNOW-" Sebek was shaking you furiously as Lilia peered over his charge and Silver tried to coax him into not giving you whiplash. "IT- JUST- HAPPENED-"

"Please do not arrest her I don't know how to break people out of prison-"

"He'll be fine."

Sebek dropped you to the floor and walked away. "Thank the seven! We must take him away from this assassin right away!"

"What was it?" You still felt like you were moving, though whether it was Sebek-caused dizziness or stress over hurting your friend was unclear.

Lilia held up the needle. "You used this, right?"

You nodded.

"What's it made of?"

"Steel?"

"What's steel?"

You thought for a moment, before you put your head in your hands and howled.

"YOU TRIED TO GIVE THE PRINCE IRON POISONING?" If he kept shaking you like this you’re going to wind up with a concussion.

"It was an accident please stop-"

"Ziegvolt, please. He'll be up in a few minutes, we can go and leave them all be."

"I refuse to leave him alone with her!"

"I said he'll be fine." Lilia came and clapped him in the shoulder. "We can go. Take Silver with you, he's already out."

He was, indeed, already out and asleep on one of the couches, peaceful as could be.

Sebek only left, cradling Silver to him, at the insistence of Lilia. Lilia, before he left, got on tiptoe and placed a kiss on your forehead, which you accepted with grace and more than a few sniffles.

"Honest accident, don't cry. Make sure he gets some water when he wakes up. Next time you try that, use gold needles, they clean easier and won’t make anyone sick, fae or not. I'll calm the kids down so it'll be all good. Play safe now." He tucked an old paisley handkerchief in your hand for your running nose and flew out the door, leaving you with an unconscious friend, another friend not present but in the midst of a panic attack, and a deeply annoyed not-cat. First things first.

Mal was fine, breathing regularly, on the floor with a few pillows to support his head. He looked a bit grey, but alright, otherwise. At least this wasn't a sleeping curse, while you loves Mal dearly you weren’t sure if friendship was the right kind of love to break- Lilia did the other ear for you, what the fuck.

[kanamesharisenwrites]

kh’s story snippet celebration sendoff, entry #6

God, what do I even say about this piece? It's so old - the timestamp from my FF.net import says 2012 - and I don't remember much about it. I almost left it out of this collection after cringing my way through a re-read of the first paragraph. Then, I made myself reframe the narrative.

This piece needs to be here; it shows how far I've come as a writer.

Don't let anyone tell you that fanfic is a waste of time. Just look at this piece compared to my recent projects! I'm living proof that fanfic is every bit as valid for honing your craft as traditional written media

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Sai/Sakura Haruno Word Count: 2931 Genre: canon-divergence!AU Rating: T Warnings: canon-typical violence

... [ hypocritical ]

Pain.

The dull throb of injury greeted Sai as his consciousness reluctantly returned to him. This particular circumstance perplexed him greatly. Had he not been merely put to sleep? Sakura's loyalty was steadfast and her medical skills knew no equal but that of their esteemed Hokage, of this much he was certain. Therefore, the probability that this harm was inflicted by her drug, hastily administered though it was, seemed highly unlikely. No, this feeling was not akin to that of being poisoned. Nor did it seem to come from any external wound; a quick scan of his person negated that possibility. Yet, it was still very clear to him that all was not right or as it should be. His throat felt unbelievably tight, the sensation bringing to mind scenes of Naruto shoving complete bowls of ramen down his throat in a singular motion. Sai's heart raced uncontrollably, palpitating to a foreign rhythm, and his insides quaked. There was something wrong with him internally.

Nearby, his companions began to stir. As they also scanned for injuries, all the while cursing Sakura for her heroic stupidity, it became clear to Sai that he alone suffered from any malady. He rose gingerly, taken aback by how easily he could still function in spite of all his present symptoms, and questioned Kiba for his teammate's last known trajectory. The best course of action, for now, would be to find Sakura before his symptoms got worse. With but a nod, he left his temporary workmates and headed out in search of the pink-haired kunoichi.

Sai dashed through the woodland at breakneck speed, something as of yet unnamed urging him on. Something about the whole situation unsettled him. He should have anticipated Sakura's actions and been ready with a countermeasure. Becoming her victim was irresponsible and now his comrade could be engaged in a treacherous encounter with that traitor, possibly without backup; whether or not Kakashi had caught up to her in time remained to be seen. Her tenacity, even with her insane strength, would be no match for the Uchiha prodigy. It was as clear as needing air to breathe. Surely Sakura herself could see that. She had proven time and time again over that her intelligence was more than adequate. Why then would she willingly engage in actions where death was not only possible but the most probable outcome? The shinobi's stomach lurched, forcing him to stall his forward progress in favor of retching in the forest undergrowth. He had no time to waste now, his symptoms now progressing.

Another half-hour of hurdling over branches did little to ease his discomfort. A cold sweat, unrelated to his current exertions, came over Sai making his hands unnaturally clammy. Barely perceptible, yet uncontrollable shaking started to take a hold of him. His body was starting to go into shock. He would need to find her soon.

Sai lost all track of the distance he had traveled, the trees and thickets becoming but a verdant blur in the peripheral. It was of no consequence anyway. His mind was too clouded to focus on those kinds of details anymore. Instead he focused what was left of his cerebral capacity on what he considered to be his mission objectives: to find and determine the condition of one Sakura Haruno, and to have her administer a thorough health examination on his person. As Sai mentally rallied around these precepts, her chakra signature finally came into range. The worn shinobi redoubled his efforts. His reward finally came into view, accompanied by silver and gold and black, and Sai dropped from the sky with a resounding thud.

"Took you long enough to catch up." A weary, whiskered grin greeted him. "Sakura sure knows how to pack a punch, huh? And not just with her fist."

Sai merely nodded. His exertions had taken a toll on him and for the moment he was finding it hard to catch his breath. Non-verbal means of communication would have to do for the moment. And so his black eyes became intent on catching the attention of a pair of viridian ones. It did not take long.

"Sai? Are you okay?" Sakura gave her blonde teammate her half of their current burden, a half-dead kunoichi, and rushed over to Sai with healing chakra at the ready. "You look awful. My sleeping potion shouldn't have had any adverse effects. Were you attacked?"

The moment she touched his damp forehead, the symptoms began to ease. His heartbeat slowed to a near-normal pace and the tension in his muscles started to give way. "No. I... I don't..."

"I can't find anything wrong with you," the kunoichi replied after letting her chakra probe his entire form, puzzlement showing clearly on her face. "Talk to me, Sai. What's going on?"

"I woke up in pain, but I couldn't locate any wounds. It has to be something internal. I think my body started to go into shock. But..." Though his expression remained stoic, his eyes reflected confusion.

"But what?"

"I do not understand. You haven't treated me, but the symptoms are subsiding."

"Sakura," their tired sensei spoke up. "Check his tongue."

"Okay?" Sakura turned back to her patient. "You heard the man. Open up. Now, what am I looking for?"

"A seal. Danzo placed one on every member of Root. It was supposed to keep them quiet, but I have a feeling it sealed more than just their words."

"Are you sure, Sensei?" The pink head turned towards Kakashi for confirmation. "There's nothing here."

"The seal must have broken when Danzo died." The older man scratched his head. "Normally seals don't work like that. They stay in place even after the one who placed it there gets killed."

"I don't get it." Naruto chimed in. "Then why would Sai's seal be gone?"

"Well, his methods were questionable at best, but he was loyal to the village." Kakashi sighed. "My initial guess is that Sai has some information that Danzo thought may be of use to us in the event of his death. I doubt there's anything wrong with Sai. He's probably just feeling the after-effects of the seal being removed."

"I see. Then it could be possible..." She turned back to Sai, a sudden realization dawning in her eyes. "What were your symptoms? I need all of them in the order in which they appeared."

"Constricted airway, heart palpitations, a dull ache in my abdomen, nausea, shaking and cold sweats."

"Okay. You probably felt your throat, heart, and stomach first, right?" The girl tapped her cheek as she sorted out her theories.

"Yes."

"The nausea came later?" His nod confirmed some suspicions, so she continued with her line of questioning. "What were you doing when it came? Were you thinking about something?"

"I left the others to resume my mission. I..." The words left his mouth slowly, reluctant to be heard. "I was thinking that only a stupid kunoichi would drug her teammates so she could run into a suicide mission alone."

"Sai." His name fell softly from her lips and his eyes became glassy. Her lithe arms lifted to embrace his neck. "I'm sorry I worried you."

The warmth of her body against his was strangely comforting, so Sai chose to mimic her posture. "Did he hurt you?"

"Yes." The word came out as a sob and Sakura squeezed him just a bit tighter. "But I'll be okay."

"Good." Sai closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then detached himself from Sakura. "An injured medic is of no use to her team."

"You stupid..." Sakura paused mid-punch. The faint track of a fallen tear graced his tactless cheek. Breaking his face no longer held any appeal, so she contented herself with a measured thump to his shoulder. "Whatever. Let's just get home."

Chapter 2: reclamation

Running without sparing the slightest moment to turn back, determination and desperation lent their power to her limp limbs. In a maze of ever-growing darkness, she wandered. Alone. The silence filled her soul with dread, its death toll ringing in her ears. How long had she been running, been searching? It felt like countless fathoms of time with the quiet, suffocating loneliness contorting her senses. But onwards she ran just the same, hoping beyond all hope that something, anything would change this state of purgatory in which she found herself. Just what had she been searching for? It had been so long, even she forgot. All that was left was to go on. And though she knew to do so bordered heavily on the side of insanity, on she went. And on. And on. Always running. Always moving forward. She was hurtling herself headlong into her destiny and the outcome, she remembered only as it became too late, was always the same. The electric blade, crackling with some emotion between love and hate, ravaged the recess that once held her heart and ended her struggle. She was caught in the red.

Sakura awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. Her hands came to her chest of their own accord, trying in vain to cover the ache of betrayal that now resided there. It was becoming a morning ritual. It took but a moment to collect her faculties, the shock value of such torturous nightmares dulling with each successive night that they had been endured. It had been ten days since her brush with death at the hands of her most beloved and Sakura was no shrieking violet.

The first night had been the worst. In her panic, she had roused the rest of the team and their prisoner with her struggling. When the spell of the nightmare finally broke, thanks to a sound slap from their venerable sensei, Sakura whispered her fake assurances and rearranged her bedroll. She could feel the knowing eyes of the scarlet prisoner on her for the rest of the night. Contempt for her own weakness, rather than that of his discarded pawn, ran through Sakura's veins under the scrutiny of that gaze. Sleep would continue to elude her.

The next few days were but a blur. Arriving at the village, handing in mission reports, and reporting for duty at the hospital were second nature enough that she could perform these tasks on autopilot. She had joined the ranks of the walking dead. It took a couple of days, but eventually, her friends staged an intervention. It took another bit of friendly violence, this time supplied by an indignant Ino, to set her straight, but it was effective. She went to plotting. After all, one should play to one's strengths and Sakura had always been known to have an intelligent head on her shoulders.

It took a couple more days for her to realize that there were holes, numerous and large ones, in the scheme she was cooking up. Like it or not, Sakura was going to have to call in some back-up. Invitations went out and she lost no time in starting preparations. Time would be of utmost importance; some of the major players could not be counted upon to stay in the village for any length of time.

One by one they arrived, exchanging smiles and civilities before being seated at the kunoichi's small dining table. Sakura did a fair job of hostess duties, pouring tea and filling plates with second and third portions, in between fielding off-color comments between the two younger males attending. When the eating and drinking and carousing seemed to slow, she smiled and began clearing the used dishes.

"It was a pleasant meal, Sakura." The silver-haired shinobi seated at the head of the gathering handed over his empty plate. "But what are we really here for?"

"Observant as always, sensei." The girl added his plate to the pile growing near the sink. "I think it's time we discussed what should be done about Sasuke."

"Sakura." Her name came across Naruto's lips as an impatient growl. "There is nothing to discuss. I already promised you that I would bring him home to you. I don't go back on my promises."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm just asking how we intend on doing it." Sakura spoke carefully, making eye contact with all there as she did so.

"We?" The blonde stood up, knocking the chair out from under him as he did so. "Oh no! I don't think so. You're not going anywhere near him again! It's my responsibility. I'll bring him home."

"We've already discussed this." A sigh came from the direction of their sensei. "Sasuke is my responsibility. He was placed in my care."

"No, sensei. It's me he wants and I'm..."

The table between them splintered, a feminine fist having smashed through it in frustration. "Shut up both of you!" The furious kunoichi bit out. "Have you forgotten what happened the last time one of us tried to take him on by ourselves? Huh?  Huh  ?" Sakura paused to look at them. "Well, I do. I see it every single freakin' night in my nightmares. He was going to kill me. And he was going to enjoy it. Now when I say 'we' that's exactly what I mean. So   we   had better start coming up with a plan so   we  can deal with this once and for all the next time we see that traitorous bastard. Understand?"

"Fine. I get it." Naruto gave his sulky consent.

"You know he's not going to come quietly." The reminder came from Kakashi. "It will be easier to kill him than to capture him."

"But Kakashi-sensei!"

"I know, Naruto, but he might not give us a choice."

"It's fine," Sakura spoke up. "If we have to kill him, it's fine. There's nothing left of our Sasuke in there anyway."

"Sakura?"

"Come on, Naruto. We're deluding ourselves if we think that we'll bring him back and everything will be just fine. He wants to destroy the village and everyone it! If we don't do it, the powers that be will just execute him. If he has to die, I'd rather it be by our hands in the manner we think is best. I only see three choices. We kill him, they kill him or he kills all of us. And if I have to pick one, I pick the one where we get to have the most say." For the first time in days, Sakura gave in to the desire to break down.

"No." A soft, monotone voice cut through the discussion. Three sets of eyes turned his direction in wonder. "You are wrong, hag. There are four choices."

Sakura wiped her wet face with the back of her hands. "Sai, I don't understand. What other choice? Do you actually want to try to save him? Is that the choice you're talking about? Why would you? He's nothing to you."

"Please do not misunderstand me. This is not out of compassion. It is just the opposite actually."

"Yeah, I don't get it either." Naruto scratched his cheek in puzzlement.

"He has rejected the bonds he created with all of you. He has caused you pain. Even now, he makes the hag cry." Sai paused to rub his chest. "He does not deserve death. That is too light a punishment for his transgressions."

"What do you suggest?" Kakashi leaned forward, resting his elbows on what was left of Sakura's table.

"There are things worse than death and we will give those things to Sasuke." The smirk he gave them instead of his usual smile seemed genuine, laced with just a bit of malice. "I have a plan."

The rest of Team Kakashi eyed each other, looking for the unspoken cues as to what each was thinking. Each saw what they felt mirrored back at them, but no one wanted to speak up. No one wanted to be the one to confirm their resolve to do whatever it takes. They were about to change the rules. Sakura would regain her heart by first breaking it. Naruto would leave his childhood behind once and for all. Kakashi would learn to put the needs of the many above his own selfish wishes. They would do what their mentors could not. They would be the ones to break the cycle. They would rain retribution upon one of their own.

"Fine. But if we're going to talk nefarious plans, let's take it to the sofa. I'd rather not get splinters." The kunoichi glanced back at the other half of her team. "Oh, and you two owe me a new table."

"But Sakura..."

"Of course. It's no problem." Kakashi covered the blonde's mouth with a firm hand until the girl turned away. "Don't worry, Naruto. Yamato owes me."

"I can hear you guys, you know."

Darkness invaded her dreams once again. She was running, always running. Desperate and determined. Always moving on. Always moving forward. Again, not a person was in sight, but she did not feel alone. The inky air that enveloped her did not frighten her anymore. It felt... alive. She felt the familiar burn of her overexerted muscles. She knew where she was going. She was meeting her destiny. It was unavoidable. She could hear the lightning closing in, causing the hair on her neck to stand on end. But this time as her destiny hit critical mass, the collision with her heart imminent, the crackle of the electric blade was drowned out by a soft trickling of black liquid. The sound grew and grew until it became palpable, swallowing the chidori in its entirety. The red receded and refused to return.

[skyprincesscommander]

A Heart in Crisis

Summary: Angst, post Kara finding out the truth - The Monitor delivers a prophecy of Kara’s death, and Lena isn’t dealing so well. 

The irony was almost poetic. Not long ago, Lena had lied to Kara about seeing apocalyptic visions in her dreams. Now, she was living that reality. Every time Lena closed her eyes, she saw her world die.

It started with the visions she’d seen before but didn’t truly understand at the time. Nanobots consuming Supergirl in Jack’s lab. Kara crashing into the ground, bloody and broken and a breath away from death after her fight with Reign. Kryptonite infecting her body from her toes to her eyelids as the very air poisoned her, lighting up her veins with sickness.

It only went downhill from there. Lena started dreaming about her own simulations, watching Kara die by her own hand. When she awoke she would run to the bathroom, emptying the contents of her stomach (which unfortunately did not include the crippling anxiety that seemed to find its home there). She had even shut Hope off entirely, dizziness overcoming her the second she heard that automated voice. Hope only ever inquired as to her well-being, but all Lena heard was a robot who had offered to kill Supergirl.

Finally came the images she’d never seen before. The Monitor with his hands around Kara’s neck. Anti-matter consuming only her, leaving the world untouched around it. And no matter which dream her mind chose from the lottery, it always ended with his voice. 

“In order for billions to survive this coming crisis, Supergirl must die.”

That was the message the Monitor had brought. They had all stood frozen - Alex, Brainy, Jonn, Nia, and Lena, until Kara flew off into the sky, not willing (or able) to look or talk to any of them.  It was Brainy who approached Lena, concern painting his features. She had not moved for ten minutes.

“I don’t think I have a big enough box for this,” she whispered to him. Brainy just stood awkwardly beside her, his own boxes not sturdy enough to stop the flow of tears. It’d been two weeks since that day, and they still hadn’t spoken. Whether it was because of Lena’s own lies or because of Kara’s impending doom - it did not matter. All that mattered was that each day was another day closer to reaching Kara’s fate, and every morning when Lena woke it was like a new setting had been added to her panic meter. Inside, Lena felt like there was a doomsday clock ticking on her heart. For whether they were best friends or worst enemies, that was exactly what Lena would lose. 

Her sole focus became researching anti-matter. She’d never been a religious person, so as far as she was concerned, God and his prophecies could go fuck himself. Just because she wasn’t speaking with Kara didn’t mean she couldn’t help. Alex, while wearing a harsh scowl, gave her bits and pieces of information, but it made no difference. There was not enough time in the universe, apparently, for her to fix or even understand this problem. She stayed in the lab for three days, avoiding dreams and barely eating. When she practically collapsed on one of her test tubes, Lena knew it was time to go home. Without the strength to make it to her room, Lena collapsed on the couch with the sound of the television in the background to hopefully block her dreams. Her rest doesn’t last long. She wakes in a sweat, the Monitor’s words still echoing in her ears. However, it’s when she sees Supergirl on the television, battered and bruised from her latest battle, that all thought of sleep flies from her mind. First, she has to pinch herself, squeezing her eyes together to try and wake up once more. Kara has a single cut on her forehead from the battle, but Lena knows how the rest of the story will go. When the news story changes three minutes later, Lena cries with relief. However, her tears turn hot and angry quickly, and before she can change her mind Lena hits the S on her watch, right before throwing it against the wall. Somehow it still shocks her how fast Kara arrives, even after everything that transpired between them. With a whoosh and a thud, Kara barrels into the apartment, scanning the area for immediate danger before focusing on Lena. Behind the look of panic in Kara’s eyes, there is only exhaustion. It is the look of a woman whose mind and body have not stopped moving for days. Lena recognizes the image like it is an old friend. With one hand, Kara rubs the worry from her face, replacing it with exasperation. 

“Lena, no matter what happens, I will always be here to help you. But the next time you hit that watch there better be a real--” The still bleeding cut on Kara’s forehead snaps Lena into action. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

The words are unexpected, and Kara doesn’t have an immediate response for Lena. Instead, Kara’s face scrunches and she stares at Lena as if trying to see inside her mind. Considering the x-ray vision, Lena guesses that with the intensity of her gaze, that could be exactly what Kara is doing. Lena tries to remain as stoic as possible, pushing her anger to the forefront and allowing it to seep into each muscle to hide everything else she is feeling underneath. Seeming to give up on observing Lena, Kara sighs. “What do you want from me?” “For you to stop being a moron.”

“Which would include, what, exactly? For me to stop saving people? To run away from this Crisis?”

“To act like you don’t have a death wish!” “No! You don’t get to do that!” Kara bellows, edging closer with her finger pointing right between Lena’s chest. “You don’t get to worry about my fate when you’ve been killing me inside your head for months.”

One more thing Lena had to thank Leviathan for: knowing what happened inside her simulations and making sure to tell Kara. Lena’s heart winced, and as much as she wanted to unleash on Kara, to accuse her in return and make her hurt as badly as she was, Lena had no time to be distracted from the issue at hand. “Haven’t you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy, Kara?” Kara turned to leave, exiting out the balcony door. “I don’t have time for this.”

Lena followed after her. “Croesus, the King of Lydia, asked the Oracle of Delphi in Greece if he should go to war with Persia. The oracle tells him that if he goes to war, he will destroy a great kingdom. So he does. But Croesus loses, and has to admit that it was his own empire he destroyed.” With a hand on the balcony’s edge, Kara faces Lena. “What’s your point, Lena?” “Believing that you are going to die might be the only reason you eventually do.” She throws the words into the air like punches. “The Monitor must know this and you are playing into his hands.” 

There was no flicker in Kara’s eye that told Lena she was learning new information. In fact, the words seemed to bounce of Kara like they were bullets that had been shot at her a hundred times before. In front of Lena’s eyes, Kara transformed. The invulnerable hero deflated like a puppet whose strings had been dropped. “Whether that’s true or not,” Kara began softly. “If the Monitor knows what we must do to defeat this Crisis...then that’s what we must do.” Lena could feel an eruption rise inside of her. Of what, she couldn’t be certain. Anger, despair, sadness, desperation...she had been blocking her own emotions for a lifetime and could barely identify them anymore. That’s why Kara was different. For three years, she had made Lena feel every day, Lena being unable to build a wall strong enough to block out the girl of steel. Even after learning of Kara’s betrayal, Lena was helpless against the Kryptonian, and that absolutely terrified her. But not more than her dreams. And not more than the crestfallen look on Kara’s face. 

“You’ve given up.” Kara clenched her fists. “We have to save the universe, Lena, no matter the cost.”

“You are my universe, Kara!” Without meaning to, Lena marches up to Kara, their faces inches away from each other. So close together, Lena could identify the wet blanket covering Kara’s eyes, though it becomes obscured when her own vision turns blurry. She ignores the tears, though it’s harder to ignore Kara’s sharp intake of breath or the newfound proximity of their bodies. She presses on regardless. “Why do you think I did it all? I was told that my entire universe was a lie. The very foundations of my life were taken from me. The one thing that made me believe in people, in goodness, in myself...” Lena trailed off, giving up on keeping her composure. 

Kara’s lips began to quiver. “Why didn’t you just tell me that? Instead of pretending you were fine?” The words come out as a squeak, slipping between sobs. Lena scoffed, though it came out as more of a hiccup. “And have an honest conversation? How was I supposed to do that when we’ve never had one before?” Kara brings a hand up to Lena’s cheek, stroking away her tears with her thumb. Lena doesn’t have the energy to pull away, nor does she want to. The soft comfort in Kara’s eyes is like a gravitational pull, barely allowing Lena to blink. “I wish I had the time to apologize one thousand times over,” she begins, something laced in her tone that Lena does not have the capacity to hear. “If it took the rest of my life, I would spend every day trying to convince you how sorry I am. Call me an idealist, but, even if that life is cut much shorter than I thought it would be...I still hope I can.” 

Every piece of armor fell from Lena’s body in a single breath. She raises her hand and places it over Kara’s, leaning her cheek against Kara’s palm. Her eyes shut as she tries to stop more tears from escaping, having lost enough over the past few months. “Please, Kara. Please, fight this.”

Kara presses her forehead to Lena’s. “I promise, I will always fight for you.” Kara kisses Lena so softly that it could almost have been mistaken for the wind. Lena can’t help but react immediately, pressing back harder and searching for more. She needs more. Time is ticking in her ear, the air getting thinner around her, and her breath dissipating from her lungs. But none of it matters if she can keep Kara on that balcony with her - not even the entire universe vanishing. But too much has happened. The mixed taste of tears on their lips remind them of everything that has transpired in the past months, the conversations they haven’t had, and the boxes Lena hasn’t opened. Kara pulls back first, their eyes meeting and glimmering with all those unspoken words. Lena swipes her finger slowly over the cut on Kara’s forehead, but the intimate gesture combined with longing stares becomes too much to bear for either of them. Without a word, Kara steps away. She keeps her gaze locked with Lena’s as she walks backward, one, two, then three steps. Lena becomes aware of nothing else in the world but the space between them. Somehow, even after the last few months, Kara had never seemed further away. “How could you think I would want you to die?” Lena rasps. Kara begins to float, hovering underneath dimmed stars. “It’d be easier if you did. I wouldn’t have to say goodbye.” In an instant, she vanishes, and Lena is left alone with her despair and the words that were left in the air unspoken. 

I hope you enjoyed! I am so excited for Crisis - is it too much to ask for Kara to temporarily die and for Lena to be present? Maybe? Part 2

[radishtears]

lay me down (on a bed of roses)

If you found yourself facing your younger self, what would you do?

aka the kids (no, not those ones) have an interesting day.

... ... ...

wangxian, yunmeng bros, time-travel?, blood, violence

... ... ...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23305264

... ... ...

Jiang Cheng and his fellow students are milling about, relaxing after their lesson, when an ominous bell begins tolling. A brief hush falls, followed by curious murmurs. Jiang Cheng exchanges a glance with Nie Huaisang even as some Lan Sect disciples hurry over and begin corralling the crowd.

Ah. It’s a warning bell. An intruder. Someone has forcefully entered Cloud Recesses, breaking through the carefully cultivated barrier.

“How can that be?” Nie Huaisang clutches at Jiang Cheng, sounding equal parts impressed and terrified. Even the Lan disciple acting as their shepherd looks concerned.

They walk a few steps when Jiang Cheng suddenly freezes.

“Jiang-xiong?” Nie Huaisang tugs at him. “Hey—!”

Jiang Cheng only pauses long enough to toss out a succinct explanation before taking off towards the edge of the forest.

“Won’t be long,” he yells back to the Lan disciple he barrels over.

... 

“Wei Wuxian! Where did you go off and die this time?!”

Jiang Cheng lets out an irritated huff of breath. His shixiong really has the best timing. Just the best. Of all the days to go explore the mountain. Again.

If he trips on a branch and ruins his clothes, he’s going to steal all of Wei Wuxian’s and let that asshole go naked for a week, he vows.

...Wei Wuxian probably wouldn’t care, actually.

Tsk.

“Hey, where the f—?!”

The shink of a drawn sword steals his attention and Jiang Cheng is immediately high on alert. He barely has time to focus when the sound is followed by a loud crack. A tree?

Suddenly, Jiang Cheng is thrown onto his back, completely winded. He didn’t see what hit him. The flora around him creak back into place, swaying in the aftermath.

“What just...?”

He scrambles to his feet, uninjured but winded. A heavy, sickly feeling lingers in the air.

Vengeful energy?

...In Cloud Recesses?!

There’s no way...wait...unless...? Oh well it really is his lucky day, huh?!

As proud as he is, Jiang Cheng is no idiot. He’s not Wei Wuxian. That energy he just felt isn’t anything he can stand against on his own.

Heart pounding, holding his breath, Jiang Cheng backs away slowly.

“Stop...! W-who...?!”

The voice that reaches his ears is barely audible, faint and choked. But it’s enough to send a horrified chill down Jiang Cheng’s spine. As if he could mistake that voice anywhere.

His feet spring to action a beat before his mind registers it.

It doesn’t take a second before Jiang Cheng is bursting into a clearing, Sandu drawn and ready, heart in his throat. And there they are.

There’s a sword — Suibian — skewering him to the mess of a tree behind him and there are hands around his neck. His shixiong had chosen a light lilac uniform today, perfect for early summer weather. Perfectly contrasting the crimson spilling down his side.

He must be seeing things, he must be.

His heart stumbles but thankfully his body does not hesitate, years of training serving him well. A haze of red colours his vision, sharpens it, because this is simply unacceptable.

Dimly, Jiang Cheng wonders what happened. Was it just a coincidence? Was Wei Wuxian just at the wrong place, at the wrong time? Or did he run towards the danger? But Jiang Cheng knows, really, that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t do that. Not when it mattered.  

“Get off him!”

Surprisingly, the assailant — the intruder — listens, letting Wei Wuxian slide to the ground, limp and silent. The man turns and Jiang Cheng stares into bottomless scarlet eyes. Coldness creeps up his arms.

“You’ll regret saving him.”

Jiang Cheng’s head feels woozy and, pumped full of adrenaline, he can barely think straight. The maniac in front of him looks disconcertingly like Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng doesn’t understand what’s going on.

“Who are you? How dare you attack Yunmeng’s head disciple?!”

But it can’t be him. Wei Wuxian is right there bleeding out behind him. The torn and bloodied black robes flow and drape off a skeletal frame, so unlike the practical outfits his shixiong favours. It lets Suibian — and his good looks — shine even more, Wei Wuxian likes to say.

The corpse-like pallor and blood-red eyes of this stranger fill Jiang Cheng with a muted sense of horror. Beyond his face, there’s nothing similar at all, Jiang Cheng thinks.

The stranger only laughs. It’s a soft and broken sound.

“Leave now, Jiang Cheng. You can pretend you never saw anything. Pretend...he never existed.”

Rage boils under Jiang Cheng’s skin. He doesn’t have time for this, not when his idiot of a brother is lying, unmoving, on the ground. And yet this maniac is spewing some kind of nonsense.

“Bullshit! Who the fuck are you, even?! You think I, the future sect leader of the Jiang Sect, will stand by and let you attack one of my own people?”

For a split second, Jiang Cheng thinks the stranger might cry. It’s a bewildering thought. He’s never seen Wei Wuxian cry.  

“It’s better this way. Trust me, please. Just this once.”

Suibian’s blade flashes, still wet with blood. Sandu rises.

Jiang Cheng’s mouth opens in a silent scream. He’s too far. He’s too far.

A ripple of energy rips through the clearing. A clean strum of the guqin.

“Wei Ying!”

Jiang Cheng has never heard that voice infused with such panic. But it’s not enough. Lan Wangji buys them a fraction of time but Suibian is still descending, falling like an executioner’s final blow.

“No, please...”

The clearing explodes into blinding light.

As soon as Jiang Cheng’s eyes adjust a little, he cracks open a slit, just in time to see a tall silhouette pull the black-clad figure into his arms.

Even from afar, it looks intimate. Jiang Cheng wants to look away, but he doesn’t. He sees the silhouette lean down to whisper quiet words. They are pleading words yet they are filled with a steady and firm conviction. They are not for him but Jiang Cheng hears them anyway.

“Come home, Wei Ying. Come back to me. I am waiting for you.”

The world collapses into nothing.

“We are all waiting.”

... 

Wei Wuxian wakes slowly. It’s like floating up from deep, murky waters and finally breaking the surface to bask in the sunlight above.

The last tendril of the dream releases his mind from its grasp. He blinks open heavy eyelids.

“Wei Ying.”

A deep, familiar timbre rumbles next to his ear and he instinctively tries to shift closer.

“Lan Zhan~”

He burrows into a warm embrace.

“Mn. I’m here.” His husband shifts and pulls him into a sitting position, still comfortably arranged in his lap. “How do you feel?”

“Never better. What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

Wei Wuxian plays absently with a strand of Lan Wangji’s hair and doesn’t answer.

He remembers the conference. It’s why they’re here in Yunmeng, the first time in an official capacity. Hanguang-jun and his cultivation partner. Surreptitiously, he glances around the room. Indeed, they haven’t left. He recognizes Lotus Pier’s style of furnishings.

And then what?

Oh, yes. The beast. Its poisonous talons.

Some young upstarts had smuggled it in using a qiankun pouch of all things. They’d wanted to...what was it? Reverse an unnatural, undeserved rebirth and set the world to rights? Have their names etched into history through this noble deed?

Something like that.

Wei Wuxian scoffs.

But as uncoordinated as the effort had been, it almost succeeded. Wei Wuxian had been far too unguarded, far too comfortable in a place he used to call home. All it took was a turned back, a split second of divided attention, and the last thing he saw was Lan Wangji’s widening eyes before he fell into darkness.

The wound itself is barely a scratch. The bandages Wei Wuxian can feel around his arm are definitely overkill.

He presses a kiss onto his husband’s cheek. An apology.

“You must’ve been worried.”

Lips brush against his temple. Arms tighten around him.

“Mn. I was.”

They bask in each other’s presence for a good few minutes. Lan Wangji isn’t one to fidget, not at all, but sometimes he likes to run his fingers through Wei Wuxian’s hair, thread their fingers together, press gentle kisses down his neck...remind himself he’s really here. Wei Wuxian knows it all too well.

“Your dream?” Lan Wangji asks.

Wei Wuxian sighs. He doesn’t really want to think about it but he knows he should. And Lan Wangji makes him braver.

“It was just after Nightless Sky. Shijie had just...” He swallows. It’s never easier. It never will be. “And I...I don’t know why. Maybe I was just thinking about it, wishing, so hard that...well. It was a dream anyway.

“So suddenly I was back. Standing in front of Cloud Recesses. Those barriers didn’t stand a chance against the Yiling Patriarch. Heh.”

“Wei Ying...”

“I know! I know. It’s stupid but I...I guess I thought it was a good idea. At the time.”

He remembers the dream more vividly than he would like.

He remembers the screams, the blood, the emptiness. He remembers all of it falling away and then a glimmer of hope and desperation burning into his chest.

He had been given a chance. A chance to reset, a chance to erase the pain.

It had been such an easy choice. It made so much sense. Everything would have been better.

“Do you still think that?”

Wei Wuxian startles. The voice came from the door and sure enough, it’s the one person he doesn’t want to see right now.  

“...Ah, Jiang Cheng. You’re here.”

Lost in memories, Wei Wuxian didn’t notice him arriving. He frowns.

“Well?” Jiang Cheng presses, the picture of impatience.

“I...”

Lan Wangji’s chest is a solid warmth against his back. Wei Wuxian can’t help but slide his hand into his husband’s. He squeezes tight. Jiang Cheng scrunches up his nose in his typical disdain.

“No. No, I don’t.”

Wei Wuxian stares fixedly down at his and Lan Wangji’s joined hands. The silence drags on so long that he thinks Jiang Cheng might’ve left. But then...

“I’m...glad to hear that.”

The admission is quiet but the words are enough to stun Wei Wuxian into stillness. Jiang Cheng looks highly uncomfortable.

Wei Wuxian takes one look at his face and laughs.

... ... ...

 Extra:

“Wei Wuxian!”

The young Sect Leader Jin skids to a halt in front of the Yiling Patriarch and his husband.

“Hanguang-jun,” Jin Ling adds, making a hasty formal greeting. He pauses, taking a moment to look Wei Wuxian up and down. Wei Wuxian returns his scrutiny with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re awake.”

“...Indeed. Is there a problem?”

“Yes!” As if suddenly reminded, Jin Ling jolts in place and wastes no more time dragging Wei Wuxian away.

“Uncle is about to kill those rogue cultivators!”

“So what are you coming to me for?!”

“Ah, whatever! Just come already!”

... ... ...

Was that confusing? Is it a bit ooc for JC in the end? Maybe. But I couldn’t help it. No regrets.

Anyway, the idea was basically, WWX got scratched and poisoned and fell into that dreamscape, as his younger self, right after Nightless Sky. The way to save him was to enter the dream via an “antidote” and pull him out. Very cliche, I know.

Why did Jiang Cheng get there first? Well, he strongly insisted by stealing the only dose of antidote as soon as it was ready. Poor Hanguang-jun was quite livid.

But why did Jiang Cheng not appear as his adult self (and didn’t know he was in the dream)? It’s because Wei Wuxian’s consciousness didn’t recognize him strongly enough. Their connection wasn’t strong enough. Not then, not anymore.

But no worries, they’ll get to a good place again, eventually. I am adamant about this.

Also, did anyone catch the title reference??

... ... ...

Ko-fi | Drabble Commissions

[elderkale]

like a statue, like a wave

Andromaquynh Secret Santa gift for @andy-the-scythian​!

ft. sad coffin hours and excessive use of parentheses

AO3

Everything is subjective. The noise that rushes past her ears turns white and meshes with the rumble in her mind; hollow thuds like distant echoes in waterlogged ears.

There’s no time for thoughts when you’re drowning.

She thinks she screams. She thinks she doesn’t. She should be kicking, but maybe she can’t.

She heard, once—in a dream, perhaps—that the mind needs air to function. Maybe that’s why she feels like she’s lost hers.

She sees things, sometimes; blue skies through foggy gazes, black shores painted white with snow, steel that burns and cries and leaves her throbbing when she wakes.

She moves, or the water does, or maybe neither of them do and her rotting mind is just rocking in her skull.

She’d forgotten the word free centuries ago.

The water has been red for years. It’s an excellent spot for sharks.

The air escapes her before she can even manage to savour it and she’s drowning again.

.

It had not been, by any reasonable metric, the worst battle they’d ever fought in. Far from it, really. It had hardly even been a battle. She hadn’t even died.

Andromache had, though, and that was almost worse.

She’d been shot; she remembered that. Remembered tearing the arrow from her thigh with a scream she didn’t bother to stifle, and standing with a grimace. She’d grimaced as she stood, and bent her knee carefully against the itch of muscles knotting their way across their bones, felt the tingle of new, unmarred skin knitting itself together over fresh pink sinew.

She had, all of a sudden, realized just how very quiet it was.

(She’d marvelled at it, afterwards, in a way she hadn’t since the first time she’d pulled a blade from her throat, drawing her fingers again and again over unbroken skin until Andromache had taken her hand and pressed her lips to her palm, drawing her into her warmth.)

Still, too still, and cold to the touch.

She’d seen warriors, mortal, human ones, pull steel from their wounds only to collapse in seas of viscera and drown in floods of their own lives.

(Before, when it had been but an afterthought to her. Before, when there had always been the guarantee that they would come back.)

The blood beneath her fingers had been warm, still flowing sluggishly over skin that had felt like stone.

And she’d been so still—

(She’d confessed, once, in a whisper lost in the night to the desert winds, that there were times when she almost regretted their gift; times when she wished, somehow, that the healing were not quite so complete. Scars are promises—she is untethered.)

Andromache had spasmed beneath her and she’d jerked back, the arrow coming free in her hand. Andromache had surged up with a ragged gasp that had almost been a scream and she had let out a sob, collapsing into the heat of her embrace. Andromache had caught her, arms firm and strong around her, despite the glaze she had still been blinking from her eyes.

“Quỳnh,” she’d gasped, breath hot in her ear. “Quỳnh.”

.

Sound, she decides on good authority, doesn’t travel well underwater.

She speaks to the silence, screams for her blood, sobs for herself. What’s a little more salt in an ocean full of it?

Her words do not weave magic through the air, or deliver hell to damned doorsteps. She and Andromache were always joined in that; honesty over mystery, strength in hand with intensity. Her words are not a final blow; they are needles of rain and wayward winds, and grains of sand pressed into little cuts. They are blunt like rounded edges of broken glass and as smooth as the waves above her.

Poetry was for her to hear, not to weave, as music was for her hands, not her throat. Every strike of her knees against the cursed shell rips through the broken melody around her like a drum in a flood.

Her words don’t move anymore.

Her mouth opens, and her wail drags her back down into the darkness.

.

Andromache had been absolutely giddy with amusement. “Don’t pout, Kleanthe,” she’d chided, a grin tugging at the curve of her mouth.

Kleanthe. She’d been called Kleanthe, then.

“I’m not pouting,” she’d said with a scowl. Andromache had smiled blithely, rolling onto her side and propping her head up on her hand. “I’m not.”

“It’s just a model,” Andromache had said, “and the boy needs practice. It’ll be done in no time at all.”

Kleanthe had huffed and shifted her foot. Phidias had cleared his throat and tapped the end of his chin. She had rolled her eyes and craned her neck face turned towards the sun. “I never thought I’d tire of holding a bow,” she grumbled, “but it seems that today is the day. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for throwing rocks from now, Andromache.”

Andromache had hummed. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Kleanthe had snorted. “How you talked me into this, I still can’t understand.”

(Andromache had been the face of more goddesses than she could count; she saw a labrys when she closed her eyes, a tablet, a spear, a queen draped in fleece. She moved like a figure carved already of gold, every rise and fall of her chest a surge of fire in a forge. She had never managed to master the same gift of stillness her love had been blessed with.)

“Have you never wondered?” Andromache had asked softly, slipping, perhaps without even noticing, into the private tongue that only they shared; words that flowed like honey down a sweat-slick wrist in the summertime, carried on a voice that bobbed and rippled like a trickle of rain down a stone in drought. “To be immortalized, some way else?”

She’d curled her fingers tighter around the polished grip of her bow. “We will outlive this statue,” she’d said. “It will be dust before we ever grow old.”

“Maybe.” There had been a distance in her voice, the kind that promised bliss and tragedy in the same breath, that offered a smile the way mourners folded themselves onto their knees before shrines.

“What is it?”

(She remembered the smile in her heart’s voice, remembered the twitch of a slender lip beneath her palm, remembered swollen lips and lines of red that vanished before her very eyes.)

“You’re beautiful,” Andromache had said.

.

Yusuf had believed in truth. Nicolò had believed in destiny. Andromache had believed in the world, and its endless capacity to disappoint.

She believes the universe simply likes its jokes.

She dreams of her homecoming, sometimes; imagines dragging herself across a shore of sand hot enough to sear her skin, sees herself crumple into her family’s arms. Andromache would wash the grit and salt from her hair, she knows, and run her fingers through it until it was as soft as silk, softer than when she’d found her and when she’d lost her. She’d rub her cheeks with the heels of her thumbs and kiss the ragged scabs from her knuckles and her knees.

There are no cuts, no gashes, no ragged fields of skin. There’s nothing for her to fix.

Is she healing? She doesn’t know.

.

The first time Andromache touched her, her skin had flaked away on her hands.

She doesn’t remember what she’d said, doesn’t remember if she’d said anything at all. It was as if she’d always been beside her, a silhouette formed by communion through sights and stars and sensations walking alongside her shadow. She’d known her name the way Andromache had known it herself, known intimately the lines on her palms and her distrust of shellfish. She’d known her annoyance every time her hair was tangled by the wind, and the way she lost knives the way birds shed feathers but would never fail to polish her strange, rounded axe every knight, starting at the handle and working her way up to the blades. She’d known everything and nothing, and Andromache had known the same.

She remembered the first beat of her heart when Andromache’s shadow had passed her, remembered the way she’d nearly sobbed at the relief from the merciless beating of the sun.

Andromache had crouched, placing her labrys by her head; the blade had flashed in the midday sun, nearly blinding her for the third time that day. She had hesitated, or maybe she hadn’t—she couldn’t recall, or perhaps just hadn’t seen.

She remembered the first touch of fingers to her cheek, remembered feeling muscles flexing and twitching beneath new skin as it bloomed from burning red salt. She’d spoken like a carrion bird learning to sing, cradling her head in her lap like she was something precious, something wonderful.

“What did you say?” she’d asked almost two hundred years later.

“What?”

“The first time we met,” she’d said. “When you held me. What were you saying?”

Andromache had hummed, nose pressed into the side of Quỳnh’s neck. “I asked you if you could see me,” she’d said, “the way I could see you. I thought I was just dreaming; I’d seen you for so long—”

Quỳnh had taken her hands and brought them to her lips. She’d pressed a kiss, feather-light, to the tip of one finger, then the next, and Andromache had flushed. “Me too,” she’d murmured against her skin. “I thought I was dreaming, too.”

.

She sees Andréa scrubbing blood from torn blue silk on the banks of a silver river, and feels her fist break her nose from a thousand miles away. Andrew tosses a star-striped flag into a flame, and twitches beneath a cloud of poison in a furrow carved through the earth. Andy shoots her in the back of the head, and bleeds on a carpet in front of a wall of triumph.

Victory is a pyrrhic thing.

Everything blurs. She is Quỳnh, and Kleanthe, and Quintina, and Anya. She is Sebastien, and Booker, and Nile, and Quỳnh. She is Andromache, and Yusuf, and Nicolò, and she is Quỳnh.

There’s so much she doesn’t remember.

She wants to remember.

She opens her mouth, and her next breath comes out as a cough.

.

“Have you seen this, love?”

“Hm?” Quỳnh cracked one eye open to peer up at the tablet Andy was brandishing at her. “I’m afraid not,” she said, closing her eyes again. “You’ll have to read it to me, my heart; you know how those screens make my head hurt.”

Andy scoffed. “Please. I know Nile helped you download Candy Crush.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Why would I crush candy? And the ads are infuriating.” She nudged Andy’s hip with her cheek and idly stroked her fingers along the other side of her wife’s stomach. “What is it?”

“Someone broke into the Met,” Andy told her.

“Ah,” said Quỳnh, wrapping a hand around Andy’s wrist. “The Met. Of course. Which one is that?”

“Oh, you know,” said Andy, grinning openly as Quỳnh tugged at her to lie down. “Big one. Kind of ugly.” Quỳnh chuckled as she slid a leg over Andy’s and sat up, straddling her hips. “Joe took you last week.”

“Did he?” Quỳnh asked, pressing a kiss to Andy’s clavicle. Andy hummed, arching her neck. “I can’t recall. My memory must be going in my old age.”

“Huh.” Quỳnh smiled into Andy’s neck, nipping lightly at the skin over her pulse. “Thing is,” she said, voice faltering only slightly when Quỳnh’s lips brushed the sensitive spot beneath her ear, “the thief only took one thing.”

“Sounds sensible,” murmured Quỳnh, dragging her lips down Andy’s shoulder. “It must be difficult to carry many things through a window.”

Andy made a small, pleased noise in the back of her throat. “You don’t want to know what they took?”

“Hm.” Quỳnh leaned back on her heels, putting a finger to her chin. Andy growled, and she grinned. “A vending machine?”

“Funnily enough,” said Andy drily, lip curling as Quỳnh leaned down, hands lightly circling her wrists. “Those were emptied, too.”

“Have you ever had a Cheeto, Andromache?” asked Quỳnh, stroking the insides of Andy’s arms. Andy groaned, wriggling beneath her. “They’re remarkable.”

“We can buy snacks, Quỳnh.”

Quỳnh pouted. “Where’s the fun in that?”

(She hadn’t hidden it in the apartment—she’s not an idiot. She’d rented a storage unit.)

Andy snickered, then turned her head and bit playfully at Quỳnh’s hand. Quỳnh yelped, drawing it back on instinct, and Andy lunged, sending both of them tumbling across the bed. Quỳnh let her head hit the pillow with a laugh, and Andy collapsed on top of her, snickering uncontrollably.

“I thought you didn’t like it,” she said when she’d finally calmed down. Quỳnh hummed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

(There was a bruise on her shin from where she’d banged her leg on the door last week, and smaller, private ones littered down her chest. The cut on her cheek was still fresh enough to be tender, though it had already closed, and, beneath her fingers, Quỳnh could feel the raised edge of a scar she knew to be thin and white.)

She shrugged lightly, and Andy moved with her. “You did,” she said simply, brushing a strand of hair from Andy’s eyes. The black was beginning to recede, and she could see the tips of time-bronzed gold at her roots.

(They hadn’t stayed in Athens long enough to see the sculpture finished; it’s still just a model. The tip of the bow had broken off, as had all but the bridge of the nose. More scratches had Quỳnh found in the plaster than she had ever counted in her own skin at once, and there was a crack snaking its way down the spine like a viper through the sand.)

Andy smiled and pressed their lips together.

.

(And carved carefully into a weather-worn heel:

I was here.)

[chemicalmagecraft]

Foresight is 20/20 Chapter 13

I sighed, then took another bite of my dango. The page of my book flipped and my frown deepened. Poison-making looked hard... And more than that, it was complicated and boring. Sure it was practical, but nowhere near as fun as, say, the chakra threads I was using to "levitate" both my dango and my book (I didn't want to get dango on my book or book on my dango).

"'Sup, kid," a familiar voice said, and I extended another thread to catch the hand that reached for my dango. "Almost didn't recognize you there with that tan, but who else casually uses a jutsu like that?"

"Anko," I greeted faux-angrily. She was somehow almost always there whenever I went to get dango, and I eventually managed to talk to her. "I do believe that I told you not to touch my dango." The thread around her wrist went slack and dissipated, allowing her to withdraw her hand. She just shrugged, sat down across from me and started eating her dango.

"So is that a book about poison?" she asked me.

"I don't really understand it, but yeah it is."

"I happen to know a thing or two about poison, especially after..." Her expression soured. "Him."

I closed my book and licked my lips. "Speaking of him," I said. "I do believe I've figured something out." I raised my hand to one of my demon gem "earrings" and it floated to the back of her neck, where her curse mark was. "Ah, I was right. I should be able to partially nullify your seal."

Her eyes widened. "You can?"

"I mean, I don't think I'll be able to remove it without causing major damage to you, at least not without the original notes, but this..." I used the demon gem to extract the natural energy from the mark, then placed a seal on it to prevent it from drawing in more. "Feel better?"

She rubbed the curse mark. "Yeah, lots..."

I smiled slightly and my gem returned to my ear. "That's because I just removed its ability to accumulate natural energy, and drained it too. Basically halted most of its functions. Now that I've become more adept at using these things, I can use them to detect the natural energy around me. Orochimaru's mark certainly is interesting, shame the man himself was terrible."

Anko grinned at me. "You know, I actually have access to all his stuff, seeing how I was his apprentice and all. He didn't like the idea of anyone else touching his notes, so me giving it to someone is probably a good way to spite him. Plus I could teach you way more about poison than some dumb old book!"

My grin widened. I'd have sealed her mark either way, but finding a dialogue tree that got me Orochimaru's notes and explanations on it was a godsend. "Looks like I found myself a teacher, then. Oh, and by the way."

"What's up, kid?"

"That seal was probably screwing with your metabolism. You'll probably have to actually work off all those sweets now."

Anko winced. "Dammit..."

kukukuku~

I meditated under a tree again, paying some attention to Hinata playing with Naruto and Tenten as with before. This time, though, I was just doing the regular sage training and not my weird convoluted separate-recombine approach. I'd managed to use a single demon gem to make a really thin barrier that pivoted like the platforms on the spires the toads had that also made it look like I was just mildly floating. "What are you doing?" a voice asked. I couldn't see him with my eyes closed, but Chikage within my shadow shared her sight with me. And then I would've figured it out anyway from the sound of someone eating chips behind the original speaker.

"Why hello, Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Choji," I said, not even opening my eyes. "I am meditating on the energy that abounds in nature, and surrounds us all. With it, a true sage can do incredible feats."

"That can't be true," Shikamaru said. "Wouldn't we know more about such a troublesome power?"

I smirked, and a random falling leaf that got too close to me was shredded from a disturbance in the surrounding natural energy.

"Woah!" Choji exclaimed. "What was that?"

"Mendokuse..." Shikamaru muttered. "So why don't people use this more often?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I think it has something to do with how the only other user of the sage power that I know of with no relation to the snake or toad summon animals was Senju Hashirama, who at the same time one might argue had a slight relation to toads through his distant ancestor. And I have a theory that he actually had some sort of natural energy-related power even beyond normal sage powers, one tied to his bloodline."

"Mendokuse... How do you know this?"

"Magic. While I don't suggest you actually draw in natural energy without supervision from someone who would be able to expel the natural energy from your body, you seem like the type to be content to lie still from elongated periods of time, which you could use to try and sense the natural energy in the air, which is the basis of using sage power."

Shikamaru blinked. "So you're saying I could potentially get a lot more powerful just by sitting around?"

"You need to draw in natural energy for a bit before you can actually use it, but yeah. Also, you need a good amount of chakra before it's safe to do it, so don't expect to just take a nap and get superpowers."

"Well then why are you doing it?" Choji asked. "Even if you have more chakra than normal, you're a kid like us. Is it really that safe?"

"Tseseseseh~" I chuckled. "Nnnope, I'm just an idiot with a lot of chakra."

"You're the one kid Ino told us about, aren't you?" Shikamaru asked. "The weirdo."

"Yup."

"Mendokuse..."

I felt a wave of bad vibes through Chikage and heard some shouting. I bolted upright, forgetting that I was in the middle of absorbing natural energy. My leg gave out from under me, causing me to drop to one knee and suck in a breath. "Are you okay?" Choji asked me.

I rolled up the pant of the offending leg, revealing skin that was half crystallized and half scaled. And some of the scales were made from crystals, too. "Ah, that's not good," I muttered, then licked my lips. "This is why you don't mess around with natural energy without adult supervision, kids..."

"Mendokuse... Is there any way we can help you?"

"No, hang on. I got this. Let's see here..." I concentrated, using my experience manipulating natural energy with my various unconventional forms of sage jutsu to help me. The problem was that I had natural energy concentrated in my leg. I didn't have much in the other parts of my body, so I just redistributed the natural energy. My leg returned to normal as I felt the surge of power from a proper sage mode. Thanks to Chikage, I was able to see that the markings around my eyes changed to be the yin-yang symbol thingy, and moon symbols appeared on my cheeks.

"There, that's better," I said. "Really hope this stuff isn't carcinogenic... Let's go check out that shouting." Before either of them could object, I shot off. Even with my sage chakra not quite as potent as it could have been on account of my age and chakra capacity, I was still a lot faster than the two. I did go at a pace that they could easily catch up to, though, on account of the fact that I didn't want to burn through all of my sage mode. At what Chikage told me was the source of the negative emotions, I felt two familiar chakra signatures, very much in a panic. I came upon the scene. Thankfully, there were only a few people there, and they all appeared to be too afraid to do anything.

"Get back!" the guy holding the knife to Ino's throat shouted. He appeared to have taken her and Sakura hostage. Judging by the sack of loot on the ground by him, he'd robbed someone and was trying to get away. I could tell that neither he nor any of the onlookers had much shinobi training with the exception of one man who was probably a low chunin judging by his chakra, which was probably why there was such an impasse. "I'm not afraid to use this!"

"Really?" I asked. "This is the third young clan heiress that I've had to save. This is starting to be bad writing."

The man pointed the knife at me. "What are you gonna do, kid?"

I gave him a twisted smile. "This." I flashed through a series of practiced seals as fast as I could, drawing on the power of my demon gems, punctuated with a technically-superfluous slam surface seal. "True Demonic Illusion: Summoning of the Shadow Demon!" I shouted as an illusory seal made of some sort of dark energy formed underneath me. As I stood back up, a false, distorted Chikage rose from the ground behind me with chains made of an ethereal, shadowy material connecting it to the seal, forming from the dark energy. The illusion of Chikage looked older and larger (and larger, because we felt like it), and it had sharpened teeth, claws, and eyes of pure shadow. To add to the dark imagery, it was wearing Chikage's new outfit, which she'd made inspired by the gothic lolita style to go with her whole "demon of a thousand shadows" shtick, plus shackles on her wrists and ankles.

The shackles usually only had a few links of chain on them for the aesthetic and to act as foci for a variation of the Adamantine Chains jutsu we'd make, but for the illusion they were for the chains that were linking it to the seal. You know, the outfit actually looked rather good on our tanned skin. The illusory shadow demon beckoned to the man, the sound of jangling chains causing a feeling of unease in the bystanders.

To the would-be kidnapper, though, the illusion caused a pressure of unrelenting foreboding as the sun went dark and the land turned to shadows. "What the hell is that!?" He dropped his knife and hostages and tried to run.

"I think not," I said dully as my shadow, the true Chikage, reached his shadow, causing him to freeze up and my shadow to return to normal from Chikage entering his. "You've been possessed by my demon." In truth, the entire genjutsu was just smoke and mirrors, albeit elaborate ones. The illusory Chikage was both a medium to the hallucination suggestion and misdirection from Chikage's shadow movement. The reason that that worked, though, was because Chikage had the ability to possess people by entering their shadows, which was awesome. Without need for the genjutsu, I dropped it, letting the phantasmal copy fade from existence. I snapped my fingers, causing the man to stand up straight so he wasn't stuck in an awkward position, then walked up to Ino. "You okay?" I asked, holding a hand out to her.

She sniffed. "My neck hurts a bit and I scraped my knees, but I'm good now." She smiled and let me pull her up, and I placed two fingers on the thankfully small cut on her neck. Green-hued chakra sprang from my fingers and sealed her wound. I moved on to her knees, then walked over to Sakura.

"What about you, Sakura-chan?" She whimpered and showed me her hands, which were all scraped up. I smiled at her and placed my hands on hers, but before I could even use my basic healing jutsu something weird happened. The natural energy flowed out of my body and into her. Whatever she was doing, I could tell she didn't even know she was doing it. Once my sage mode was depleted I pulled her up and removed my hands from hers, revealing perfectly unscathed palms.

"Thank you, Kouki-kun," she said. Whatever the heck happened, she was now naturally passing natural energy through her body. If I had to bet, she'd automatically heal any injuries that happened to her. Not that I'd test it... Interesting.

"Thanks, Kouki," Ino said. I looked over to her and noticed she was smiling and blushing slightly. She probably didn't have an actual crush on me considering her age, but I knew how she would probably think about the dashing knight in shining armor who saved her...

"Mendokuse..." I internally sighed.

"Mendokuse..." Chikage telepathically agreed.

"Mendokusai desu ka?" Usagi asked.

"Mendokuse..." Chikage and I mentally chorused. At least if she kept that up I'd save Sasuke a bit of trouble and she wouldn't ruin her friendship with Sakura, but... ugh... I'd probably have to deal with that at some point...

"Where's the thief?" an Uchicop asked as he landed, then saw the guy standing there and whipped out a kunai. "You! Stop!"

"He's under my spell, he literally can't move without my say-so," I said. "Or at least I'm assuming the guy who took some hostages and had a sack of what appeared to be ill-gotten goods was also a thief."

"What do you mean, under your spell?" he asked. The thief's shadow morphed into Chikage's for a moment, just a flash.

"A genjutsu that I thought of after hearing of the Sharingan's genjutsu-casting abilities," I lied. "It uses a special ability of mine with an illusion as a visual medium to place a suggestion on a victim that allows me to control them. Unfortunately I can only do one person at a time so far and a powerful enough shinobi would probably be able to resist it, but hopefully it'll get a lot more useful when I'm older."

"Right," the cop said, then cuffed the crook. "Well, thanks for the help." If I had to guess, he was one of the more good-natured Uchiha. I doubted he'd have anything to do with the rebellion. "I'm sure you'll be a good ninja when you're older. For now, though, maybe you should stay out of trouble, kid."

"No promises." He snorted and escorted the guy away, taking the sack with him.

"What was that?" Shikamaru asked me. "And don't say genjutsu, because I know the difference between an illusion and shadow-manipulating jutsu."

"Definitely not your clan's jutsu, don't worry," I muttered so only he'd hear. I leaned over just a bit so that the tip of my shadow touched a nearby shadow, letting Chikage come back to me. "I was telling the truth when I said it was a special power of mine."

"It have anything to do with that weird meditation thing you did earlier?"

I smirked a bit and licked my lips. "Let's go with that, though there's also a bit more to it that's, as far as I know, unique to me. You'll never be able to use it, if that's what you're asking."

"Mendokuse..."

kukukuku~

I sighed, lying down on my bed. "What are we going to do about Ino?" I asked Chikage.

She shrugged, floating around as always. Not that I could blame her. "We... let her down gently?"

"Yeah, but how? Relationships are hard..."

"Gonna have to get back to you on that one..." We both sensed someone coming to the clan compound.

"Hey, is that..."

"Lemme check." She shadow-travelled there and back, only gone for less than a second. "Yup, Aburame Shibi. And it looks like those bugs we spared earlier were kikaichu, 'cause he's bringing a couple mutant ones in a bug cage." I nodded, then we became whole again. I silently walked to the front door, where the clan leader already was.

"...apologize for the intrusion, but earlier a member of our clan's kikaichu were drawn to an unusual source of chakra located within your compound," he explained to my father. "She managed to regain control of them, but not before some had died and others had... changed." He brought out the mutated bugs, which had rune-like markings much like the first-stage curse marks. They were acting pretty crazy. "They may not be able to escape this cage, but they are still far livelier than the normal variety and much harder to control. I am not accusing you or any of your clan of anything, but I would very much like to know what caused this, as it might prove useful to our clan."

"Well, the thing about that is..." Dad said.

"Would you trust him, father?" I asked, announcing my presence.

He nodded. "Go ahead, Kouki."

"Right, let's go somewhere more private," I suggested.

"So," I said once we went to a suitable room, "what the kikaichu felt was... let's just say a jutsu of mine." I brought out the half-sized demon gem that fed on the Aburame's bugs. "This is called a demon gem. Despite all appearances, it's a living thing that generates special chakra that, among other things, can be used to make more demon gems by compressing and cannibalizing living animal tissue. Unfortunately that's the only way to make it, though, and since I don't want to mass-murder people or large animals, that pretty much means I have to use its animal-attracting properties to occasionally draw in and cannibalize insects. I was doing that earlier, which is why you're here." On a hunch, I reached out to the demon kikaichu, influencing them through my power within them. They instantly calmed, becoming absolutely still. "Could you release them?"

"I see..." He opened the small cage. I commanded the bugs, causing them to fly out of the cage as one. They entered a formation on my command and began orbiting my body.

"Don't worry," I said, noticing a small shift in his emotional state. "I have no interest in usurping the kikaichu jutsu and even if I did I can only control these mutated ones through my power that they absorbed, if that's what you're worried about."

"I understand. It is interesting, though, that you're able to control them so easily."

"I doubt I could control anything more complex than them with so much ease. Not without a lot more of the special chakra, anyway." A thought occurred to me. "Actually, I thought of another thing I'd like to try, though this one might possibly have the potential to be arguably a usurpation of your clan secrets, so I'll only try it with your permission."

Dad sighed. "Why am I not surprised... I apologize for my son, Shibi. He... can be rather focused on power, even if he tries not to overstep boundaries."

"I am fine," Shibi said. "Why? Because he asked for my permission, and clearly wishes not to overstep his bounds. Tell me, Kouki-kun, what is it you wish to try?"

"I don't have much data to go by, but I think I might be able to gain special chakra-related powers by granting my special chakra to a subject and then absorbing it once it's fused with their chakra," I explained. I'd noticed, after the whole demon sage seal debacle, that I'd gained extra, Uzumaki-like vitality. After a talk with Ai, I found out that I could still manifest the adamantine chains that I used against her, despite that chakra having been fully processed by my body, much like how absorbing enough of Shukaku's chakra combined it with Kurama's chakra in me.

It made sense, all things considered, that a combination of my red chakra, which was easy to transfer from body to body, and natural energy, which had mutagenic properties, would allow my body to adapt to others' chakra intead of just adapting other chakra to me. In fact, I could also make my chakra signature almost identical to Ai's, which was probably useful somehow. Though that part I tested and found out that all I need for that is to have my red chakra exposed to someone else's chakra signature, like my red chakra was somehow easily imprinted with other people's chakra signatures.

"I'd like to see if I could gain the kikaichu's ability to drain and absorb regular chakra by, well, killing some of them by draining them dry," I requested. "With your permission, of course."

Shibi nodded slightly. "An interesting power. Could you grant that ability to another?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, I didn't exactly come with a manual, but if you want me to see if I could grant some of your people kikaichu powers then I'd certainly be willing to find out. Plus, the possibilities..." I grinned. "Tseseseseseh~" I hiss-chuckled, then licked my lips. "It's certainly something I'd be willing to do for you. Is that a yes?"

"I would prefer if you left a few for us to study, but take as many as you need."

"Alright, then. Let's see if half works, shall we?" Half of the beetles returned to the cage, while the other half landed on my hand. They didn't bite me, but I had them start draining me to get a feel for how their power worked. "Assimilation Jutsu." Safisfied by what I felt, I reversed the flow of the chakra, capitalizing on the connection the chakra-draining gave us to more easily suck the chakra out of their bodies. Despite the enhanced lifespan and vitality granted from their mutation, they stilled and fell from my body as all the chakra left them. "Do you want the corpses or can I try to resuscitate them to add to one of my gems?" I asked.

"Do as you please. We can always drain more, if we need to. Did it work?"

I commanded the demon gem to go at the recently-deceased beetles, then looked inward. "It feels like it's working, but my body has to 'digest' the chakra before I can use it. And it might be partially physical, in which case I might not have the power. I'll get back to you on it. Now." The demon gem, slightly bigger now that it was done absorbing the bugs, floated over to Shibi. "Don't worry, it's harmless unless it's specifically made to attack someone."

He took the gem. "Why are you giving this to me?"

"As Father said, I'm... more than a little obsessed with power, I admit. It doesn't have to be my power, though. I'm also interested by my allies' power, even my enemies' power. And giving my allies power?" I grinned slightly. "Well, I'm sure you can tell how I feel about that. I'm not even worried about if you turn against me for some reason. We've already established that those things are less than useless against me. Not to mention, I'm getting something else out of this too."

"How so?" Shibi asked.

"Kikaichu, like most insects, have a low lifespan, and can reproduce at a rapid rate because of that. It wouldn't be too much to ask, then, to sacrifice any of your kikaichu at the end of their lifespan when they start to become less useful to you to that gem to produce more demon gems for me, would it?"

"We feed our dead kikaichu to the living, but we can feed some to it, if that is the price for having it to study."

"Good. Make a snake seal and pulse some chakra at the thing to send it into 'eat' mode for a couple of minutes, which'll make it eat any insect-sized organism that touches it. Hopefully. Just in case, don't touch it while it's in eat mode."

"Suddenly I feel as though I should not be holding this," Shibi said, then placed the gem in a little baggie that was probably for dead bugs. Fair.

"Probably a good idea, once it's fully out of my influence. This close to me, though, I don't have to concentrate on it to have some measure of control over it. It should stay more or less inert, though, in a state where it'll produce chakra enough to fill its stores and not resist kikaichu draining. Tell me if it doesn't work quite right, though, and I'll try to make adjustments."

Shibi got up. "Thank you for this, Kouki-kun. I will do my best to make you not regret giving it to me."

I gave him smile. "Goodbye. Make sure to only let people you trust near that thing, or even aware of its existence for that matter. Good luck!" Shibi faltered a bit, then continued on. "This is going to be fun," I said.

[ask-de-writer]

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 62 of 83 : World of Sea

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 62 of 83

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

copyright 2020

written 2007

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users   of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may   reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information   remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in   my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical   compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story?  Read from the beginning.  PART 1 is here

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Mord knocked on the cabin door.  The guard opened it at once.

The degree to which he was still trusted by the crew was shown by their choice of guard.  It was Bron, the cabin-boy.

“Yes, Sir?”

“Bron, would you please ask Alor, Acting Captain Kotance, a representative of the Master’s Council and  Cron to come here?”

Bron was aware that such a group meant something important.  He went at once to Alor’s cabin just down the passage.  He spoke with her through the door, staying in the hallway so that he could watch the Captain’s cabin door.  Mord only waited, as expected.

Alor went to get the witnesses that Mord had asked for, and Bron came back to his guard post by the door.  The group assembled quickly, coming one at a time to the Captain’s cabin.

Last to arrive was Alor, who came in the company of Master Juris.

The others waited in nervous silence until Alor began the meeting.  As Purser, she was the ship’s legal officer for most things and all official documents except the log were her province.  

She began, “Mord, we have assembled as you have requested.  What do you contemplate doing that needs witness from all sections of the crew?”

Mord drew a deep breath and knit his brows before replying,  “I have to do the hardest duty of my life.  I have looked at all of the charges in the documents that you have provided me and reflected on how best to deal with them.  They are all true.  I cannot in conscious good faith waste the time of the Longin or the Council trying to fight this.”

Concerned, Master Juris asked, “Will you mount no defense?  These are serious charges.  You could lose much, perhaps even your life.”

“I can only say in my defense that I plead mitigating circumstance.  I believe that I went onto dry land when Kurin was so viciously poisoned.  I have regarded her as a daughter and responded to her poisoning with a parent’s rage instead of a Captain’s thought and consideration.”

Kotance thoughtfully ran a hand through his red hair before speaking, “As Acting Captain, I must inquire into your state of mind.  You say that you ran hard aground.  What do you think has put you safely afloat now?  In short, are you refusing to fight as a way to get yourself punished for the killings?  Do you have safe water under your keel?”

“I believe that I do, Captain.  I do not want to be punished but I must take the responsibility for what I have done.  I did not even realize that I had done anything seriously wrong until after I saw the charges in writing and had the time to reflect on them.  I believe that I am now past that lapse of sanity.  I will accept the decision of the Council.  Until then, I will serve the Longin in whatever capacity I am allowed.”

Chapter 23: Questions

Kurin braced herself.  She had interviewed many of the Grandalor’s company.  What she had found had bothered her a great deal because it showed a dark side to the fleet that she loved.  Many of the crew had done bad things and had deserved their punishments.  Nearly as many more had been the victims of crimes by high officers on their ships or were inconvenient to keep for one or another reason.  They had been disposed of.

The Oath of Adoption, where they repudiated their old ship names and took Grandalor in their places was a thing that had been planned without Barad or Tanlin’s knowledge.  Originally, only about half the ship’s crew had planned to participate.

When it became obvious that the Captain who had helped them in their need was himself in trouble, they had pulled together behind him unanimously.  He had not let them down and they would stand with him. The Oath had been a way to show both him and the Council how they felt.  Their loyalty was ferocious.

A lifetime of habit made the very idea of accepting what Barad might tell her as questionable at best.  Tanlin had put it succinctly.  “Oi understand t’at i’ Barad told ye t’at t’e sky wa’ blue t’at ye wad probably look up t’ check.  Twad be best t’ interview ‘im last o’ t’e crew but before Morgu an’ Silor.  T’en ye’ll ‘ave somet’in’ t’ use for judgin’ w’at ‘e tells ye.”

Kurin had taken that advice.  She drew a deep breath and knocked on the Captain’s cabin door.  Tanlin opened it at once.  Barad was seated at a small table in the middle of the cabin.

“Do ye wont m’ t’ stay or go?” asked the Captain.

“I would appreciate it if you stayed but all of my other interviews have been solo.  I had better do this alone,” Kurin answered.

“T’at’s good,” said Tanlin, stepping through the door.  “T’is way shows nae favoritism.”

As the door slid shut behind her Barad smiled wanly and waved her an invitation to sit across from him.  “I won’t bite.  It cost us dear to get you here to help us.  I can’t see how you can save me. I am grateful that you will try to get my wife and crew off.”

Kurin replied thoughtfully, “I may not ever like you, Barad, but you deserve the best justice that can be.  I have learned things that I wish that I had never heard or read.  I can check almost everything from the fleet archives when we Gather for the trial.  I am sure that what I have learned will be backed up.”

The usually self-assured Kurin looked at Barad in dismay and said, “It has me confused.  I love my fleet.  They have done some terrible things.  My own ship is involved.  Are they good people or bad?  What about you?”  The dismay was real enough but the questions were calculated to obtain a candid reaction from Barad.

Barad’s reply shook her to the keel.  He considered thoughtfully before answering.  “They’re people, Kurin, with both good and bad.  Some few in influential places have abused their positions but most try to steer an honest course.

“Me?” he shrugged.  “I’ve been worse than most but not as bad as painted by some.  I’ve tried to pick up their mistakes and keep the innocent or merely foolish from swimming to your foster father.”

“You mean like Lenai or Darkistry?”

“Good examples.  One of each.  Darkistry was raped and framed.  Lenai simply got pregnant before she could get legally married.  The birth slot that she would have to have taken belonged to a friend who was married and had waited three Gatherings for the Lottery to give her a chance at a child.

Lenai had a good heart.  At the small Fall gathering, she went to look for a ship that would take her.  While she was looking, her ‘friends’ put her goods on the raft, after pilfering the best of them, and left a note barring her from returning to the Darok.  I took her and never regretted it.  She was the best sail-lofter and rigging surveyor in the fleet so far as I am concerned.

“Little Arnat alone would have been worth taking her in.  My wife was long dead, so I gave her my birth slot.”  He smiled softly.

Kurin could not help asking, “Why did you take in Silor the way that you did?”

“For five Gatherings, he was my eyes and ears aboard the Longin, though he would never tell Ship’s Business until the fiasco this last Gathering.  When his delusions about you led him to be cast off your ship, I could not help him openly because he was to be a key person in the plot to poison you.

“We picked him up in secret.  After he had done his part, I would have given him some education in Arrakan writing and figuring and sold him as an indenture to their fleet, where he would have probably become a good officer in time.”

The blunt revelation left Kurin feeling ill, needing to hide.  She pulled herself together and asked, “Who all knew of the plan to kill me?”

“At first, only myself, Mister Morgu, and one other that Mister Morgu picked.  I later learned that he was Merk, Master Selked’s apprentice, who was needed to make the poisoned kit.”

“What do you mean, ‘at first’?”

“I was troubled by something about the plot but couldn’t put a finger on it.  It nagged at me.  I know that doesn’t sound like much but very little that I’ve ever done bothers me.  I pay attention when something does.

“Shortly after picking up Silor, I took both Tanlin and Master Selked into my confidence.  They showed me the fatal errors in my reasoning.  

“Tanlin reminded me that by Arrakan custom and Law I would be forsworn if I went ahead.  You and Captain Mord were both at our wedding feast. That meant that our enmity was forever over, or I would lose her as wife.  Though it broke both of our hearts, she would have left me. How do I tell you that she is more important to me than even my ship?”

The question was rhetorical but Kurin interrupted to answer anyway.  She said quietly, “You don’t have to.  You stepped down as Captain to save her.  That’s proof enough for me.”

Barad gave her a surprised look.  I knew the she’d be intelligent.  I had not really expected wisdom.  

He went on,  “Master Selked pointed out that though I had always treated my old grudge as if it were the Longin that I hated, it was really only Mord that I had any complaint of, and that over twenty Gatherings gone.  In fact, the very thing that I held against him was the one time that I had completely bested him.  Hardly a reason for hate.

“One thing that I pride myself on is that I can change course immediately when I believe I am wrong.  We had that one Ord spine unaccounted, and it worried me because none of us knew where it was.  I logged and announced Standing General Orders that any use of Ord was mutiny.  I further ordered that if any part of the Ord were to be found still aboard, it should be destroyed.”

Kurin paused to consider what to ask next, thoroughly disturbed by all that she was hearing.  “That explains the timing of those orders.  I found them in the log and they’ve been mentioned in my other interviews.  

“You have also filled in the one hole in what Tanlin told me.  She tried to protect you.  She told me the truth but left you out of the plot to poison me.  Now that you have told me the rest of the truth, I like her even better and trust you more as well.

“Several people have mentioned Purser Morgu’s activities during the Gathering.  What can you tell me?”

TO BE CONTINUED

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[scarletgardensrpg]

UNDEAD ♦ THIRTY-SEVEN ♦ ASCENDANCY

CECILE BUCHANAN is the Resurrector of the Ascendancy and second-in-command to De Dominee. Killed and resurrected by Nikolaas in the Red Room, Cecile is the first recorded Undead to walk the Earth. The circumstances of her death and revival are peculiar and scientifically unreplicable thus far—the product of extensive experimentation prior to her exposure to the 197th iteration of PM-GRNT, her body reacted to the chemical abnormally by simultaneously killing, then reviving her as a semi-conscious rotbeest following consumption of Nikolaas' blood. This genetic anonmaly, wherein she never developed a true rotbeest state, enables her to survive without PM-GRNT 197. She and her brother, Evander, are responsible for the initial Scarlet Death.

BIOGRAPHY

tw: gore, implied animal cruelty

At fifteen, she was already vicious. The dog's fucking dead, what am I supposed to do about it? Revive it? She was still in her Sunday clothes: Valentino kitten heels and a jumpsuit the color of wet ink. Six rubies and a rosario dangled from her ears. By the quiet, seething look in Julian's eyes, she knew it was taking everything in his power not to rip them out. They stood opposite of one another in the foyer, six unbreachable feet between sister and brother. Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan were God knows where. Evander was drinking on the beach. And the Dobermann was dead. Don't be a baby, Jules, Cecile said, and turned to go, pleasure heavy in her gut. You have others. She'd do anything to hurt Julian, if it meant that pretty expression would bloom on his face: wrath, spreading like blood in water.

- ❀ -

It came down to three things: she was a bastard, she was a girl, and she was second-born. Senator Buchanan made his preferences clear, and that preference burned through every designer dress, every blank check, every Maserati and summer house in the Hamptons. What good was it to look good, live well, when every nice thing felt like an IOU to Julian? Why pander to her older half-brother when he already looked at her with cold, patronizing eyes, as if she were a particularly troublesome dog to keep on a tight leash? Maybe Evander could live like that, hanging onto his every word and lolling after him mindlessly—but Cecile could not swallow the indignity of it. Her girlhood was one turbulence after another: the burn of her cheek where her stepmother struck it, the noxious silence of every family dinner, the freezing bath tile against her knees when she would bite down on her knuckle to keep from screaming. She would grow into a cruel, mean girl. A bitch. She would prowl boarding school halls at midnight with predatory calm, one hand gripping a bucket of gasoline; the other a lighter and match. You're making it worse for yourself, Evander said, after the third expulsion. Is getting kicked out for arson your grand strategy for earning Papa's approval? But by then, she was just angry. She was just trying to kick hard before going under. Fuck Papa's approval, Cecile said, and rolled herself another joint.

Eventually, Papa ran out of ideas. He met with doctors, businessmen, then a scientist and lawyer, both young. Harvard brats, Cecile learned, one ear pressed to the mahogany door of her father's study, who were working on something that was sure to intrigue you, sir, and certainly Julian. Because, of course, Julian had a place in this room of important silhouettes; he'd soon become one himself. Cecile's twenty-first birthday present was a swig of vodka and a biochemical test subject consent form. Evander had looked so terrible, signing his own set of paperwork while Julian simply watched them from the other side of the desk, Papa's hand on his shoulder. See? Cecile leaned over in her seat to poke Evander in the cheek with a single manicured nail. We're the same in this family's eyes. Disposable vermin. Terrible, harsh silence. She was looking at Julian, and found all of it unspeakably funny. Twenty-one years of Cecile's best efforts at nightmarish behavior—and here he was, winning in a landslide. Even she couldn't have dreamed up something so cruel. She was drunk on rage. She was dizzy with fury. And yet, when she addressed him, her voice was soft as a lily. You know, Jules, I really should've killed the other two dogs.

Later, they would call her helpless. A young, naive woman, dragged kicking and screaming into the Red Room, terrified for her life. As if Cecile has not spent every waking moment raising hell and terrorizing others. They would forgive all her sins, it seemed, so as to make room for the greater one: for what was a wealthy Senator's troubled, bastard daughter to two people in pursuit of divinity? One was inappropriate; another was utterly sacrilegious. Cecile supposed it was the easier narrative to tell; Eve, tricked by the devil to bite the fruit, could still claim some morsel of innocence at the trial of God. But, of course, the truth was, Cecile had never once been interested in innocence. She would always go after what she wanted with teeth and nails. She would always worship herself before all others. Nothing frightened her anymore. Whatever elixir they were perfecting for Julian, she would taste it first. Chemicals, poisons, pain—all of it was but a symptom of eventual power. And, ah, in her did power rise. Whatever she had become under Nikolaas' guileful hand, it was heady and powerful and utterly inimitable. Half-beast and half-woman, waist-deep in death: was Cecile not single-handedly responsible for ending a world? Did she not raise rotbeest after rotbeest, and let the ones she adored most feast upon her own flesh until they were returned to consciousness? Later, they would call her helpless—and perhaps, in comparison, the spiteful little girl of her past was helpless. But not anymore. Divinity lived within her now. She had swallowed God whole.

CONNECTIONS

NIKOLAAS – LOVE DESTROYED, TOO. Is she in love? Not with him. With his jungle garden of a mind? Maybe. Maybe it's psychological delusion, wired into her for survival's sake in the Red Room. Maybe it's a product of dying and living again by his hand, of having known what his blood tasted like in her mouth. Maybe it is simply true, unadulterated friendship, forged on strange foundations. I'm your one and only? She teases him, and licks the rim of her champagne flute. He is, whether aware of it or not, afraid of her. Or, more accurately: afraid of what he is capable of creating. After all, she has him to thank for a number of things—her untempered darkness, her gift for passing that same darkness to whomever she pleases with a single bite, her freedom from a past life that would have chained her to Julian. But, in spite of the wondrous creature he has forged from blood and science, Nikolaas refuses to spawn another like her; perhaps because he can't stomach the flesh it requires, or perhaps because he sees what she is capable of. Cecile doesn't mind—she's rather possessive of him, and dislikes the idea of sharing. She has followed him to Amsterdam, as she is sure she would follow him anywhere—to hell, to the ends of the earth, to heaven with a torch. They've made something beautiful since then: an ascending legion of the restless Undead, fed on a new drug that will carry them to dizzying heights. Cecile plans to rule someday with Nikolaas by her side. I'm your one and only, she says again, and this time, it's not a question.  

BLUE, DIMITRI, & JACQUES – BLOOD HOUNDS. They carry within each of them a vicious appetite for disaster—her appetite, dark and divine enough to swallow a city whole. They are perfectly cruel, unrivaled in beauty, unmatched in prowess—and of the hundreds of Undead who call her Mother, Blue, Dimitri, and Jacques remain her undisputed favorites, all raised on her blood. They are the three she looks upon with cold pride and infinite expectation; the standard by which all her other creations are measured. Do they share Blue's labyrinthine mind, her measured capacity for torment? Can they wear violence with grace and allure, as Dimitri does? Does Jacques' bizarre madness gleam in their eyes? The collective name Cecile gives them is fitting: for they are her dogs, her beasts, her children. She commands: Kill for me. Die for me. Live for me. And like good pets, they always oblige. She does not need their love, and shows them very little of her own—but still she demands their loyalty, their fear-tinged worship, and a promise to accompany her to the ends of the world. As their Resurrector, this is an eternal debt they owe to her. 

JULIAN & EVANDER – BLOOD IS BLOOD. The funny thing is, Cecile loves them. She loves them as all families are condemned to love one another, from birth to death to beyond that, too. One simply cannot discard of convenants made in blood—as much as she wishes she could. Julian, princely and immaculate, has always inspired murderous pursuits within Cecile: some ugly roiling mix of jealousy and resentment for her older half-brother that has seized her since girlhood. He has never taken her seriously. Instead, he insists on taking care of her, on filing away her teeth so she will stop biting his hand; not understanding Cecile can never be the sort of girl to accept condescension for benevolence. Now, stronger and standing on a level playing field with him at last, she finds herself continuing to provoke him, even word from her mouth a harsh lashing she hopes will make him flinch. If she is yearning unconsciously for the nod of respect she never once received while alive, Cecile will never say it out loud.

As for the youngest Buchanan, Cecile regards her little half-brother with less hostility—but contempt nonetheless. Brilliant, handsome Evander, who could aspire to great heights, if he didn't have such an inferiority complex when it came to Julian. She had hoped to make him into someone worthier when she killed him—but if he'd rather sulk uselessly in the cementary, fine. The fact that her brothers get along with one another just fine, even now, is a source of confused frustration for Cecile—and if she must be honest, once an injury to her feelings as well. They have always seemed to get along better with one another than with her—and being the bastard daughter, Cecile used to find it hard not to feel bothered. Of course, many years have passed since then. In death, Cecile is calm and calculative, unfazed and secure in her own power. She harbors some resentment against Julian for his complicity in selling her and Evander to the Red Room—but the satisfaction in having come on top regardless outweighs it. The matter of her killing Evander is also...well. Her baby brother was not appreciative of that gesture, possibly. All in all, she wouldn't say she's on good terms with either one of her siblings—but alas, blood is blood. For all their complicated histories and intertwined grievances, Cecile suspects they will always be apart of each other, for better or—more likely—for worse.  

OPEN ♦ FC: OLIVIA MUNN

[sesshatetsuko]

Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction : See you in life Beyond -Chapter 3-

Summary : For as long as he remembers, life had never been easy for him. So when carefully-buried memories are brutally awakened, the worst can happen… *A long canon post-Jinchuu story, including most of RK’s main characters, depicting how Kenshin tries to survive his inner demons, and how he and Kaoru finally became a family…*

Link for Chapter 1 : https://sesshatetsuko.tumblr.com/post/178514684317/rurouni-kenshin-fanfiction-see-you-in-life

Link for Chapter 2 : https://sesshatetsuko.tumblr.com/search/fanfiction%20chapter%202

Chapter 3: First glimmers of evil

It was one of spring's first sunny week in the new capital, after a fourth season which had proved to be labored that year. This morning, only the last sighs of winter's chills were still being felt, and the dew perched on budding leaves was sliding to the ground with the help of a slight wind.

Every inhabitant of the Kamiya dojo -including its brawler and its wanderer- was busy with its favorite task : Kenshin was doing the laundry, Kaoru was chasing her disciple through the yard, Yahiko was being chased by his assistant master, and Sanosuke aka the brawler was chewing obsolete remains of a fish carcass while waiting anxiously for mealtime.

"Phew ..."

The former Sekihotai let out a sigh, dusting his jacket with a lascivious gesture. His belly was clearly yelling famine.

"Hey Jou-chan, when ya're finished with the shoutin' match, could ya tell me if there's somethin' to eat 'round here?"

Sanosuke Sagara had the nasty habit of giving nicknames to most people who were hanging around him, as if calling someone by his first name suddenly risked causing him in an oh-so-fatal form of spontaneous combustion. So Kaoru was Jou-chan, Megumi was Kitsune, Saito had inherited of the wolf and Yahiko-CHAN was self-sufficient.

"Why you..."

Kaoru suddenly stopped her race to point a finger at the streetfigther.

"How dare you even speak of that?! Don't you know you can bring food and cook it by yourself like a grown man, instead of always complaining!? "

Her eyes spoke of hell's chasms and sulfurous vengeance. Sanosuke took a preventive step back, and Yahiko, glad that the attention was momentarily diverted from him, took this opportunity to move to a safe place – which happened to be in that case right behind Kenshin's back. He knew from experience that the situation could quickly deteriorate ...

"Maa maa do not argue," said the wanderer, pulling his hands out of the soapy water. "This one will take care of it as soon as he finishes the laundry, that he will."

Strangely enough, Himura was revealing in repetitive daily chores, as if to compensate for the chaos that had been his life so far. Except for a few intimate friends, most people who knew him back in the days of Bakumatsu did not understand that a former cold-blooded assassin, in this case a patriotic leader occupying a key position in the revolution, could be satisfied with such a routine.

A simple, normal family life... he has probably never known that before, thought Kaoru whose gaze softened at the sight of the samurai humbly hunched over the basin, sleeves rolled up, a patient smile on his face. The soapy bubbles were going up to his elbows and formed a frothy beard under the cheek where he had previously wiped his hand.

"I'm glad to know ya're the one making miso today, Kenshin," Sanosuke continued. "Haven't recovered yet from last time Jou-chan cooked and my guts literally tried to get out of my tummy!"

"What the hell..."

The young kendoka's eyes flashed instantly. Kenshin could have sworn he saw drool running down her chin.

"... I feed you for FREE and that's all you have to s-"

"Is tha' a reason for trying to poison me ?!" the accused rebuked, pointing at her too (yes, Sanosuke sometimes had suicidal tendencies).

"It's true that you aren't spoiled by nature busu ; as thin as a plate and unable to bake anything edible... "Yahiko rectified, feeling compelled to place a comment to calm the situation, always bravely sheltered behind the wanderer.

"A little respect for your master! RHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA "

Thus Kenshin -or rather his face- received a boken, two stools, five bowls, and three daikons. His defence resulted in :

"Orororororooooo ..."

"Kenshin, I'm so sorry!"

Kaoru realized too late that the red-collapsed form on the floor was innocent, and rushed to his side.

"Yare yare," said Kenshin, rubbing his head, "This one is fine, Kaoru-dono."

The samurai could have easily dodged each of her projectiles, even catching them flying and sending them back in one movement. The stool by the way, properly launched, could have made a nice whiplash injury ... But Kenshin was uncomfortable with showing his talents of former assassin, acquired in a context as painful as macabre, nor to use his incredible capacities in a harmless environment that did not require it. Note also that Kaoru was a proud master of kendo who did not deserve in the eyes of the wanderer to be humiliated or discouraged by such behavior. Above all, the mere idea that his beloved might one day be afraid of him or feel physically threatened, and therefore begin to act cautiously around him, was enough to make him feel nauseous.

As he got up, he did not fail to accidentally brush Kaoru's hand, whose face immediately went through six distinct shades of scarlet. The two lovers got up as quickly as possible, spending the next few minutes trying not to look clumsy.

A classic day, in other words.

A little too much maybe...

"...Excuse me?"

All heads turned towards the entrance gate of the dojo where a young man was standing, his black hair strictly brushed, dressed in a navy uniform trimmed with white at the ends of the sleeves. It was cut short at the level of legs, revealing sober satin shoes on which were mirroring perfectly the metal sheath of his saber.

"Can I help you?"

The mistress of the dojo approached the newcomer, who did politely salute in return.

"Agent Kyosuke, I wish to see Himura-san," he informed, "I have a letter from Officer Fujita to give him."

"If you look for him, this one is here," The wanderer instinctively took place between Kaoru and the stranger before greeting him quickly, taking the paper directly from his hands.

"So what does it say?  "asked Yahiko, who had instantly hurried to join the three adults.

"It's a letter from Saito..." Himura mumbled as he was decrypting the katakana lines. He did not answer more, focused on reading the document.

"Huh, that's all...? Don't keep the information for you!"

While the unique pupil of Kamiya Kasshin was starting the well-known dance of 'plz-tell-me-I-need-to-know' and Sanosuke was discreetly asking the postman if he did not have some money to lend him before realizing at the same time that he was instead a policeman, Kaoru was watching closely the samurai whose dorsal muscles had momentarily tensed.

"Can I see it...?" She said, gently slipping her head over his shoulder.

He crushed the paper in his hands.

"...What's the matter?"

The expression on Kenshin's face froze, then a cautious smile crawled across it.

"Saito asks this one for help on a mission."

"Well?"

"This one does not really know what it is for now. We'll see that later, that we will," he said, crouching again in front of the wet basin." Agent Kyosuke, please convey to Officer Fujita that he can count on this one's help. "

"Understood, Mr Himura. He will be delighted to hear that. "

With that, the policeman withdrew and the wanderer resumed its work, showing obvious attention on the cleaning of a hakama, returning exactly where he had stopped it before being interrupted by all this fuss. His mind, however, never really returned to the task at hand.

Seijuro Hiko completed his furoshiki in no time.

A spare outfit, his purse, equipment to sharpen his katana if necessary and of course his faithful jar of saké hanging on his belt. Nothing else was needed to cruise the roads. Of pragmatic nature, the master never cared about such insignificant material details.

Honestly, he was far from pleased to go on another trip. The mere thought of confronting this stinking, swarming and uneducated mass that the people outside his forest were was enough to give the hermit heartburn. Unlike his disciple who had wandered most of his life, Seijuro was rarely leaving his mountain. As for that terrible intuition that he'd had about him... Hiko still did not understand what that meant, but after spending several days running around in his hut trying to solve the impossible equation, he had reluctantly resolved to leave. In almost forty years his instinct had never deceived him.

In haste, the thirteenth master of Hiten Mitsurugi began his journey to Tokyo ...

In the middle of the night Kaoru was awakened by moans-like noises. Enjoying busy days, it was rare for Kamiya Kasshin's master to be a light sleeper.

What the...?

It was almost three o'clock in the morning and the neighborhood's streets were theoretically empty at this hour. As she focused on her hearing, she had the feeling that they were coming from the place where the samurai slept. Had he shouted so loudly as to pull her out of her sleep? Or was her audition playing tricks on her?

Whatever... I cannot take the risk of something happening to Kenshin.

Rather than thinking about this subject blindly, she decided to endure the coldness of the night, and stood up. The young kendoka feverishly put on her yukata before lighting a candle of wax, then discretely opened the next room's door...

Curled up on the edge of the futon, makura ejected on the floor, Kenshin was twisting around furiously in his bed. The cover was unstructured to the point of discovering his torso, riddled with scars. Although unconscious, the wanderer was aimlessly opening and closing his lips, as if talking to the wooden ground. And, to her surprise, he did not seem to be aware of her presence at all this time. She kept her ears open.

"Tomoe..."

His face was fully contracted.

... He's speaking in his sleep?

"Tomoe"

His arms were moving in all directions. He turned his head again, his features marred by the expression of intense pain. The kendo teacher was watching him with a mix of astonishment and horror.

"K-Ka ... o ... ru ..."

Grabbing his skull in his hands, he almost tore a bunch of red hair with his grip. The young woman felt her heart tighten.

Is he dreaming of our deaths...?

Her decision was made... She entered the room, knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. He was cold but covered in sweat.

"Kenshin. I'm here, "she whispered," I'm fine ... "

The wanderer did not react, his eyelids still vigorously closed.

"I'm here," she continued, shaking him slightly.

"No..."

He was biting his lips so hard that a discrete trickle of blood escaped from them.

"Nooooooo ..."

He doesn't hear me ...

All the while struggling he continued to moan, contracting his muscles at a strenuous pace. Despite the repeated words and gestures of the young woman, nothing was enough to wake him up. Kaoru continued for a few minutes before giving up.

It's no use. He's gone too far ...

She didn't want to shake him too badly either. The wanderer needed rest. Reluctantly, she closed the shoji of the room and silently went back to her own bed. Falling anew into the arms of Morpheus was hard enough that night, for the young woman was saddened to see the former Ishin Shishi still fighting the endless demons of his past. He would never tell her about those in the morning, but she suspected his nightmares to be much more frequent than what they actually could see...

The samurai, for his part, continued to struggle violently against his invisible enemies. After a few minutes, he finally seized the guard of his sword, which contact was frozen.

"NO!"

Kenshin awoke abruptly. His whole body was shaking. Tears were running down his cheeks and his heart was beating wildly. Only the silence and the cold twilight of the night surrounded him, but his mind was still engulfed in the long-winded abyss of his memory. He took several minutes to realize that he was just in his room. And that all this was only a vision.

He waited until his body stopped shaking. Let the tears stop flowing. He dropped his blanket, took his katana and stood up.

Enough sleep for this night.

Kenshin entered the police officer's desk directly without being announced, causing a panic attack to the receptionist he had greeted nonetheless. The tyrannical Goro Fujita was particularly meticulous about procedures, and that included the one about never disturbing him without warning.

Mibu's wolf and former patriot were staring at each other.

"Saito."

"Himura."

"I received your letter."

"Well, that'll save me a boring speech."

"Tell this one the facts."

When they were both alone, their relationship was fundamentally different. Patience and politeness were out of place between former adversaries who had exchanged more saber blows than greetings.

"You're even more irritable than usual Battosai ..."

The former Shinsengumi silently noted the rings under the indigo eyes of the redhead. He grabbed a large blue binder resting on his desk, from which ink-filled leaves were partly coming out. And began to peel them...

"The facts, Saito," repeated the wanderer.

"You are therefore aware that the police of Tokyo, Kyoto and even Osaka are investigating a large-scale case of disappearance ..."

He took out a document, where colorless portraits were drawn.

"Children, precisely."

Himura winced.

"Hm. And what do you expect from me, exactly?"

"Nothing."

Saito took a breath from his cigarette. The wanderer was nervously touching the handle of his weapon.

"Nothing so far, I just want you to keep wide-open eyes around you."

"This one is already doing so."

"...And to report any suspicious behavior to me," the officer finished.

Himura nodded. The officer put the bundle down carefully. Even sorting out the news sent by Kyoto forces had asked him a considerable amount of time.

"When I'll have a need for you to intervene, I'll call you back," Saito concluded, turning his back to the window. "For now, I don't have any more information."

The wanderer did not need to be asked twice.

"Understood, this one does not like this kind of case either."

[a-memory-of]

It was well into the morning bells by the time the fits finally quieted. Kazha'a Anhsari was still pale, feverish, and delirious, but the bouts of intense pain seemed to be over. He had not said much since he was first laid on the bed, he didn't really have the strength. But he seemed aware of Laurens’ presence, either way. Whether by choice or instinct, he had curled against the other's leg in silent appreciation for the effects of the spell.

As he slowly eased more into awareness, Kazha'a let out a low groan, shifting on the bed slightly. All his muscles ached from the repeated fits. Blearily, he turned his head, trying to take in where he was. He tried words, but his mouth and throat felt incredibly dry.

Laurens Lalier had truly fallen asleep at some point during the quieter times. He sat beside Kazha'a, his back bowed and his chin touching his chest, his hands loose in his lap. When Kazha'a moved, however, he came awake all at once.

"Nngh?" Laurens blinked against the light that filtered in through the windows, one hand moving to gently stroke Kazha'a's hair upon seeing him awake with eyes open. He smoothed the two-tone strands back from Kazha'a's forehead in order to touch his hand to skin and feel his temperature. "How are you feeling?"

Kazha'a felt the hand at his head, but did not fight the touch. He was aware enough to notice the other had been asleep. And the sun creating patterns on his face showed it was indeed morning. The Keeper honestly did not remember much of the night. For all he knew, several nights had passed. His body ached that badly.

Considering the question a moment, Kazha'a closed his eyes again. Yes, his body still was pained and he felt weak and ill, but... he felt. So he finally settled on an answer, "...Alive."

"Alive is a good start," Laurens said. Relief washed through him at the single word; it meant that Kazha'a was feeling well enough to say anything at all. Coupled with the fact that he was no longer burning up like a small sun under Laurens' palm, it was enough for Laurens to hesitantly think the worst of this phase might be over.

There was dark blood on the blankets, rumpled as they were from thrashing and kicks. Laurens noticed, but it was far less important than the Keeper's well-being. "I'll get you some water. Even if you find you can't keep it down, it's the safest thing to attempt." With great care Laurens extricated himself from the tangle of blankets and limbs and rose from the bed in order to fetch the water he'd promised.

Giving a grateful nod, but saying nothing more, Kazha'a shifted as much as he was able so that Laurens could leave the bed. His mouth was still dry, and he could taste foul blood, smell it. His eyes drew down the blankets, seeing spots of the dark substance over them. His brow furrowed.

Left alone as he was, even for such a small amount of time, Kazha'a was driven to those dark and lonely thoughts he often had. Of dependence, of debt, of burdens, and of weakness. He owed Laurens far too much, and he was not sure how to give proper payment for all of it.

Laurens had forgotten about his meal. He gave a wry half-smile at the abandoned pan and retrieved a mug and a small pitcher instead. A mug would be easier to hold than a glass, and a pitcher could be kept at the bedside for additional drinks as necessary. He brought both back into the bedroom and poured water of about half the mug's capacity before very carefully offering it to Kazha'a.

"Are you all right to drink? I can help you sit up if you like. After all that, I'm surprised you're awake right now." Laurens had not way of knowing the things Kazha'a worried about. His focus was honed in on taking care of the Miqo'te who was his charge; he had made a promise and he would honor it. Debts were not a thing that even crossed his mind.

Kazha'a eyed the mug warily, swallowing thickly. In his usual stubbornness, the Keeper shifted again and tried to sit up himself. But his body rebelled, his arms shook and he could not find the strength for even that. That small motion shot pain through his form, and for a moment he lay there and expected another fit to come.

Thankfully, it did not. His gaze looked away. He still had his pride, despite everything. And he was not sure how to ask for help.

With @ffxivaltstars

Laurens winced as he saw Kazha'a struggle. He set the mug down on the bedside table and climbed up onto the bed once more. It was clear that he would need to be careful handling Kazha'a; the poison was nothing to trifle with, and the seizures that had wracked his body through the night had not been gentle. Laurens did the best he could to put as little pressure on Kazha'a as he could, sliding his arms under the smaller form and moving him up into the pillows at the head of the bed.

There wasn't much that Laurens could do to keep him propped there, as gentle as he was trying to be. The most expedient was to simply have Kazha'a lean against Laurens himself after he'd finished reaching over for the mug. "I'm sorry if I hurt you," he said, holding the mug for Kazha'a to take if he felt he could - and ready to help support it in his hands if necessary. "I will always do my best to not."

The Keeper grit his teeth, but it wasn't out of pain this time. There was still something in him that rebelled against such delicate, close gestures. And of being so vulnerable and reliant with someone else. His body, however, did not protest as much so long at was not him using his muscles.

As he was made to lean against Laurens, he felt... heavy. It was a strange passing feeling that almost made him want to cry again, but he tried not to pay attention to it. He tried not to focus on the way the solid warmth at his back gave him relief.

His hand rose up, touching the mug, "It's... fine." His voice was low and strained. "It's not you." Laurens would have to do most the work when it came to the mug. Kazha'a only guided it with slow movements to his mouth, sipping. He waited, his stomach turned like it might rebel, but he swallowed it down.

The angle for it was unique, certainly, but Laurens had some experience in caring for those who had little capability for caring for themselves. It was just a matter of taking that experience and using it as needed in this particular situation. He held the mug steady so Kazha'a could drink, but was careful not to tip it too far and slop it down his chest. "If there's anything you need, you only have to say it." It was a relief to know that his actions hadn't caused more pain.

Laurens stayed steady, unwavering from his task until given some sign. "I don't know if that spell from before was any help to you. I don't rightly know if anything I've done has been helpful, really. But I hope you aren't regretting letting me be here for this. Even if all I can do is watch over you, I'm glad to do that small thing. I owe you at least as much."

A few slow sips more, and Kazha'a finally relented, pushing the mug away despite not finishing it. He did not want to risk not keeping it down. He went quiet again, thinking on what was said. His brow furrowed again, and when he spoke, his voice did not sound as strained as it had before, "I'll... try. Asking for things is... difficult."

Perhaps the poison had eaten away at more of Kazha'a's walls than originally thought. The words seemed incredibly open, honest, and yet almost unsure. Kazha'a did not often admit his weaknesses, or seem willing to talk about them at all. And yet, "I don't... regret it. But I am the one who owes you. I didn't..." he paused, glancing away. "...want to be alone."

Laurens allowed the mug to be moved and carefully set it aside while still trying not to jostle Kazha'a. He kept an arm around the Keeper to stabilize him as best he could. "I understand. I can't read your mind, but I'll try to draw on experience to anticipate things rather than forcing you to ask." He sighed softly, feeling the small aches and cricks from sleeping as awkwardly as he had.

"You don't owe me. You're allowing me to help you, humoring a silly old man who pushed his way into something where he shouldn't have been sticking his big nose." Laurens smiled slightly and leaned his head back against the headboard. "I didn't want to let you be alone for this. I didn't want you to suffer alone. I didn't-" the smile faltered and vanished. "I didn't want you to possibly die alone trying to do this."

Kazha'a had purposefully kept his eyes away, quietly listening. As his hand dropped back from the mug to lay on his lap, he started running his thumb along the side of his index finger. But as Laurens continued to speak, he slowly frowned, glancing up as best he could with such an angle.

The Keeper drew in a long breath, ears lowering back. His eyes dropped away again, and the movement of his fingers slowed. "I used to... be fine with it. Accepted it. I did everything else alone... why wouldn't I... die that way too." For a brief moment, his thoughts wandered to that night in blindness, walking into the end.

He could feel his strength starting to waver. The night had been long and hard. His eyes felt heavy. "But I'm tired..." he admitted, not speaking of the feeling coming over him in that moment, but of something else entirely.

"Nobody should have to die alone unless it's through their actual desire." For the briefest moment, Laurens' arm tensed and tightened the barest fraction around Kazha'a's middle, but he relaxed and the moment passed as if it had never been. At the admission of being tired, Laurens nodded slightly. "I can imagine you must be. Try to get some rest. I have a spell that will help you sleep if you think you might need it. I can use one for any lingering pain, as well."

It was again with great care that Laurens tried to move Kazha'a, this time helping him to lie down properly on the bed. He stole the lighter extra blanket from the foot of the bed and drew it over Kazha'a and, rather than leaving him immediately, stayed where he was and pushed the Miqo'te's unruly forelock back out of his face again. "Even if you wake and I'm not right here, I promise I won't be far."

Feeling the arms around him tighten, Kazha'a furrowed his brow, briefly glancing up at Laurens. But whatever the reason had been passed too quickly for him to comment. The motion, however, reminded him of how close he had allowed the other. He was all but laying against him, and yet, Kazha'a had no desire to move. It wasn't his lack of strength that kept him still, but he did not know what else it was.

Perhaps it was that tiredness that he spoke of. His body was tired, yes, but so was his soul. As he was laid back against the pillows, he drew in a deep breath. Whatever all these strange thoughts were, would have to wait. The Keeper looked up to Laurens as his fingers trailed through his bangs. Quietly, he nodded, managing an equally quiet, "...thank you," before letting his eyes close.

[halinski]

When I started writing this drabble or whatever it is, I had this whole rant going on in my head that I wanted to post here because I don't know how I feel about tumblr or fandom, I'm still hurt when certain things pop up, still so frustrated, still doubt if I belong here, still dunno if I can do it, but idk some of you have told me you care about me and although everything in me screams that you can't because what's there to care about me anyway, it's nice to know, and I might be back for you guys. I'm still struggling though. But sterek, I will never leave sterek and that's why I started writing this. Also because I used to relate to Derek before but now I feel like I've been betrayed and robbed of my safe space by someone I used to care a lot about (it's probably partially my fault but I refuse to put all the blame on myself, I'm fighting for my mental health - though now my physical health is giving me hell as well) and losing my pack, my everything, my one love, all in the same year (I'm still waiting for her to come back, nothing is right without her, it's not like I just lost a limb, it feels like my whole chest has been ripped out) and I relate to Derek a lot more now. So this is kinda self-indulgent, the beginning of this came from not being able to express my feelings in any way, not even writing so I just forced myself to write anything at all. And it's an idea I got based on real life. See, no matter how much I hate everything about myself (you guys have no idea) there is one thing that when reminded of, I can always be proud of - my heritage. A month ago I got a tattoo so I can wear it proudly and a few days later, I tattooed it on my sister via hand poke (a thing I'm getting into - just tattooed myself last night hah) and that's what made me think of Laura and Derek, hence feels. But of course, I had to make it sterek. And so there you have it, I don't know what I'm doing but see I was thinking maybe if I make this place more personal, if I reclaim my space here, and own it, maybe I can be back on here and that's what this here intro is about. Might be doing that more often. Just putting all my brain scramble out here and those who care to deal with it, welcome, those who don't, well there are a bunch of other sterek blogs out there, I'm just trying to find myself and I don't expect anyone to suffer through that. I struggle so much with so many things, even writing, but I don't go down without a fight, it's in my blood to survive and hope. So here I am. All the thanks to @hailderek for encouraging me (sorry if I made you read all that). Thanks to everyone who stuck with me and the blog, sorry if I did anything wrong. And now for anyone who made it through this, here's a little hurt/comfort centered around Derek Hale ❤

"A cup for hope," Stiles said, his finger running across Derek's skin. He was laid out as a grounding weight across his back and legs, ever so slowly, ever so softly tracing the ink of his tattoo. Derek could feel every twisting curve, as if he was being branded all over again but with gentleness, with something so soft that it felt like it filled some of the cracks in his back and strengthened him. Like serenity was being pressed into his chest, planting a warmth between his ribs. "A cup for love." A warmth that could grow to take down the walls he'd built, with creeping vines that never ceased to find their way, and build something up from the center, build up on his heart like a fortress - strong and grand, while vast and filled with life and light within. "And a cup for memory."

Stiles' hand came to a stop only once his palm was stretched out across the full size of the triskele as if to keep the spell inside, Derek's heart beating heavy, and painfully, once, twice, and a third time, and finally, it grew three sizes. Derek knew what he was been given; knew that he was physically whole only through Stiles' help; knew that he'd been laid out for Stiles to see all his pieces and that the boy had wrapped his arms around them all and had had his back ever since Derek had seen the understanding in his eyes. Stiles was like the vines, inconspicuous, but ever there. He had crept in, built him up and held him together with the promise of hope, soothed him with the gentle touch of love, and left enough memories to prove his steady loyalty. It felt like pack before Derek could even allow himself to admit it. The way Derek’s breaths started to rasp reminded him of the distinct sound of lead across an old newspaper, scratching, scratching heavily, over and over, loud enough to compete with all the big city sounds, as rhythmic as maybe the buzz of the fridge, or the honking of cars. There was Laura, staring at the large papers spread out in front of her, but with her gaze focused on a mere corner of the margin. He'd walked in from a nap, it was all the sleep he got those days, making him heavy lidded and muddy brained despite the werewolf regeneration. There were too many nightmares, too many thoughts that wracked his brain if he allowed it to run at full capacity. But there Laura was, repeatedly following the same lines over and over again, hypnotized almost by the flowing form. Both of them were changed persons now and it had torn at Derek's chest until he'd learned to numb it down to indifference, the only way to survive the pain. Laura still never showed open weakness at all, though he'd heard her fall apart in the darkness of her room before, night after night. She knew how to be strong though, knew how to carry on, but she hadn't lost herself and he knew that then, when he stepped up to her side to see the family crest sketched up on the newspaper and she said, unmoving, "I want a tattoo." It was quickly organized, for Laura knew how to get things done. She always had. Derek suspected she would have gotten a tattoo even if none of the life changing events had happened, and he thought, she'd still be getting a tattoo, but this was still his fault. It was his doing that she felt she had to burn her family into her skin, as if the scent of the ashes wasn't still wafting with every move they made, as if Peter's unhealing face wasn't enough. Laura never made a sound through all of it, staring boldly at the process, as if daring the world to try to take anything from her again, daring it to try and make decisions for her. If the nightmares got worse that week, who was to say it had a particular reason. If Laura had to hold him down again as he sobbed with claws extended, slightly bloody from his thrashing, with his fangs digging into his lips, trying to prevent each shaky breath, no one was the wiser where it came from. At least Laura wasn't. Derek had never told her, even when she'd begged him not to blame himself because she thought there was nothing he could have done. He couldn't get it past his lips, couldn't face the look in her eyes, all he could do was shake. Until the night, when he'd ended up in her arms again, and he looked at her with pale blue eyes, rimmed with red, and asked her for the same tattoo. She didn't question any of his decisions, not even the one to have her execute the procedure. He let her wield fire, and she let him burn, as if she knew. He'd shaken beneath her just like this back then. His bones had rattled, mind aflame with thoughts of burning whole, because what was left of him anyway, and why shouldn't he feel what they had felt, when he'd sealed their fates, like Kate had sealed the house with ash. Forgoing hope or love, Derek had carried the triskele like a sentence on his back. It weighed heavily, and rightfully so, he'd thought, it was all he deserved. It weighed heavily enough that even with Stiles now kneeling at his side, he didn't have the strength to move, didn't dare to fill his lungs with air. He wouldn't deserve it, such greatness in a body of despair. Laura had been merciful in part, as to let him feel the pain, even while running a finger over the burns, to make sure he'd been marked just right. She'd let him take it, let him feel it, let him balance it with the poison in his heart and keep it for himself, while easing it, sharing it with him. Stiles on the other hand, Stiles' hands were telling him to let go of the pain, and let it bleed out. They met it with an undying light that made the dark dissipate, and assured him he'd be caught, like it had all been endured long enough, like he was finally allowed to heal and stand on his own. The thing about healing was, it was scratchy. It was an itch out of reach and it made Derek want to tear the tattoo off his back, because he didn't deserve it, did he? If he contorted himself enough he could. He could rid himself of the last thing marking him as a Hale. He could wrench himself from the comfort of Stiles' arms and rid himself of any last semblance of himself. But it was that itch, that discomfort that let him know, he really was healing. It would take a lot more energy to rip the wound open again rather than to give in. Everything was soft around him, the mid morning light falling into the room in a haze, the smooth pale blue sheets beneath him and the gentle murmur at his side. He was the one piece that didn’t fit, he thought, panicking, tensing with the need to flee. He had never been good at fighting anyway, never had enough to fight for. Yet, he wasn’t alone now. A second scent was mixed with his all across the bed, so intertwined it was almost like one and that- Derek couldn't sense anything wrong with that. He could stay, let his edges bleed out to let himself become part of the scene, part of home.

Stiles was a murmur at his ear that he could maybe understand if only his heart stopped beating so loudly and he wasn't gasping for breath - so he held it.

“Breathe in. Breathe out,” Stiles said softly, and it was the opposite of what Derek was doing now but he listened, lifting himself onto his elbows slightly to give his chest room. He followed Stiles’ counts, until he felt the tension slowly slipping and giving way to weariness, dragging his limbs back into the mattress.

“I'm here, sourwolf,” Stiles continued, prompting Derek to turn his head toward him, regardless of the mess he probably looked like. He closed his eyes and leaned in, feeling Stiles’ fingers in his hair only a moment later.

“Can-” Derek had to clear his throat to find his voice again. “Can you…” but he still couldn't get the words out. Instead he lifted an arm helplessly, hoping Stiles would get the message. Which he did. Lowering himself down, Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek and pulled him tight against him. One hand came to wrap around the back of Derek’s neck, guiding him into his own neck. Derek gratefully burrowed in, breathing Stiles’ sent in and relaxing into his hold.

“What were you… You said something earlier,” Derek managed to get out. Even talking was enough of a struggle, and now Stiles’ skin muffled his words. The male still managed to understand him though, telling by the hum that he let out.

“ 'A cup for hope!' she said,

In springtime ere the bloom was old:

The crimson wine was poor and cold

By her mouth's richer red.

'A cup for love!' how low,

How soft the words; and all the while

Her blush was rippling with a smile

Like summer after snow.

'A cup for memory!'

Cold cup that one must drain alone:

While autumn winds are up and moan

Across the barren sea.

Hope, memory, love:

Hope for fair morn, and love for day,

And memory for the evening grey

And solitary dove,” Stiles recited, voice flowing smoothly over the words like it was nothing, like it didn’t bring silent tears back to Derek’s eyes. It was like Stiles saw him as that solitary dove, rather than a demon. “It’s ‘Three Seasons’ by Christina Rossetti… It’s the, the number three that made me think of it. And my… my mother. She- that is when she knew that it was… over for her she left a different poem by her and I looked into more of them.”

Stiles’ hands continuously ran up and down Derek’s back, up into his nape and hair, soothing him via contact, while Derek’s fingers wrapped in the material of Stiles’ shirt. Derek counted his heartbeats over and over again, letting their steady presence keep his thoughts focused on his spark and away from wandering into the dark corners of his mind.

“It’s called ‘Remember’. The poem that she left us. Do you want me to recite it?”

Derek was silent for a while, contemplating but unsure of what decision to make.

“I think you’ll like it. Do you trust me?”

To that question Derek found himself nodding right away. They wouldn’t be in this position if not.

“Remember me,” he starts,  “when I am gone away,

        Gone far away into the silent land;

        When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

        You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

        Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

        And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

        For if the darkness and corruption leave

        A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

        Than that you should remember and be sad.”

Derek swallowed hard. The emotions were rising again but this time they weren’t so overwhelming. This time he was being held fast, safe. This time his edges were softened enough for him to merge with Stiles it seemed, to share his pain and accept the healing touch - nothing like the pain drain of a werewolf and yet all the same.

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.92

“The Stories We Tell”

A/N: This section runs concurrent to Michael Burnham finding and talking with Georgiou. To each their own.

Terribly sorry for the long delay. While I might share GRRM's affection for feast scenes, I certainly don't intend to make a habit of following his writing pace. I rewrote this chapter, oh, six, eight, twelve times, and there were about nine hundred details I needed to make sure were woven in, but in a way that still felt believably natural (to me at least; you can judge for yourself whether it all works or not).

One more note: I acknowledge this chapter runs a little long. (A little!?) I'm saying this only because I want to make clear when this is referenced in chapter 94, it's not explanation after the fact—rather, this has always been a part of that ridiculous plan I've mentioned a few times now. Anyway, here goes nothing...

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 91 - Find Me and Follow Me 93 - Smoke and Mirrors >>

For a long moment, Lorca did not respond. The request was an enormous one, especially in the middle of everything that was going on. It might also be impossible—it assumed that O'Malley was capable of understanding. Lorca scraped the surface of the table with his fingernail hard enough it left a mark. He was going to replace this accursed table first thing. "Awfully tall order. Maybe a little too tall for you."

Another time, another place, O'Malley might have rolled his eyes or even almost laughed, but between Larsson's death, Allan's death, and the truth of the Buran, he had no capacity for it. He clasped his hands, leaned forward, and said without the faintest shred of amusement, "Short of a Klingon attack, you have my full and undivided attention."

"It's not Klingons you need to worry about here," said Lorca. It sounded a lot like the setup for another joke. Facing the abyss, Lorca would go down laughing.

O'Malley remained humorless. "I don't know how much time we have, so stop stalling and start talking. We may not get another chance."

"Didn't you notice? I'm on the verge of victory here. We're winning. Soon as Georgiou's dead, we'll have all the time in two universes." His smile made it seem like maybe Burnham was right and he did intend to conquer both, but if he ever attacked the Federation, he would lose Burnham. He had no intention of losing her again. Once was more than enough. "So let's table this chat. You can come watch me kill Georgiou."

"I didn't come here to watch you kill anyone. I know you think you're going to win everything, but nobody wins forever. You only win until the moment you don't."

Lorca's eyes narrowed. That sounded a lot like O'Malley was betting against him. "So, what, you came here for a story?"

"According to Lalana, they're the best gifts you can give," countered O'Malley, brightening for the faintest sliver of a moment before settling back into something verging on despondency. Lalana had gifted them all with a story about Lorca and the Buran but at the end of the day, that was all it had been. A story. "That's not why I came. Not entirely. John Allan laid bare all his cards. Why would he do that? The only reason I can see is that he didn't think you'd tell anyone. The only way to be sure someone doesn't tell..."

"Is to kill 'em," concluded Lorca. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Allan's tooth. "You really think the man I pulled this out of had any clue as to my destiny? He couldn't even see his own death."

O'Malley had not been present at the moment of Allan's disappearance, but he had heard about the sudden clamp of jaw as if Allan had activated a poison pill and was aware of Lalana's impromptu dental work on Allan's corpse. He held out his hand. "May I?"

Lorca closed his fingers around the tooth. "You may not."

"Why not? He used it. It's spent, isn't it?"

Lorca's face darkened. What were the chances this temporal failsafe could be used twice? In fact, what were the chances he was holding the device itself and not just an emergency trigger? Allan's body and handheld device disintegrated when he died. The idea that there was any sort of active technology left in his tooth suddenly seemed laughable.

Petrellovitz was going to be very unhappy. Sighing, Lorca dropped his fist down heavily onto the table and opened it. O'Malley took the tooth from Lorca's palm and said to it, "I'm sorry, John. You didn't deserve to die."

"He had to die," said Lorca.

"Did he?"

Lorca studied O'Malley's face carefully, reading the twitches of regret in O'Malley's expression, and asked, "You gonna cry again?"

"Would that be the worst thing?"

"It's a weakness," warned Lorca.

O'Malley's face hardened into a look of somber determination. "No, it's not," he said, offering the tooth back.

"It is in this universe," replied Lorca, plucking the tooth from O'Malley's fingers and slipping it back into his pocket. "Maybe in some future I did die, but seems fate has changed in my favor." He smirked for good measure. Instead of Allan watching him die, he had watched the light drain out of Allan's eyes. A direct and parallel reversal of fortune. Destiny in action.

"Or fate is trying to give you the chance to stop before it's too late."

There seemed to be a threat in there somewhere. Lorca leaned an arm on the table, a dark challenge in his eyes. "You come here to stop me?"

"Is that what you want me to do?" asked O'Malley desperately. "Do you want me to stop you, Gabriel?"

"As if you could."

O'Malley sat there, taking in this smugness and defiance, thinking that Lorca was the cockiest bastard he had ever met and it was right, that ancient saying: pride goeth before a fall. He might, armed with what he now knew, be able to stop Lorca, but to do so would mean somehow lessening the marvelous mess of secrets, contradictions, and hubris that made Lorca who he was, and that was not something O'Malley had any interest in doing. "Please, Gabriel. Allan's gone, Larsson's gone, I can't have it all be for nothing. I need this. I'm begging you."

"I don't owe you anything," said Lorca firmly.

"You owe it to yourself," said O'Malley.

"You want a confession," suggested Lorca. "Tell you I'm sorry and make it all right."

"No," said O'Malley. "I'm only interested in the truth."

"Tit for tat," said Lorca, amused. That little three-word motto of O'Malley's was more than mere affectation: it was the principle by which O'Malley lived his life. Whether accounting for hours Larsson spent on break or asking a life story in exchange for giving one, O'Malley was all about fair trades. I'll show you mine, you show me yours. Lorca glanced at the door to the throne room. Landry would alert him to any developments. "Three questions."

Three questions was all O'Malley needed. "What's the worst thing you've ever done? What's the best thing? What action or inaction do you most regret? Take your pick."

As O'Malley had done what seemed like (and in a very real sense was) lifetimes ago, Lorca chose the middle question.

"It was a banquet," began Lorca, "for a couple dozen promising captains and commanders to meet their new emperor. But like everything Georgiou does, it was also a test."

He could remember it vividly. The details came alive in his mind as he spoke.

The appetizer was sea snails. As Lorca chewed at the faintly rubbery texture, he tried to decide what it tasted like. There was something of an octopus or squid comparison to be made here, but the texture was a bit smoother and entirely more flavorful. Savory, maybe a touch of saltiness. Not like the sea urchin salad from the course before. That had tasted a bit too much like lettuce dressed in stagnant seawater. He put another slice of the snail in his mouth, clumsy with the supplied chopsticks, and then a third.

The emperor sat at the head of the table, resplendent in gold and white, armor glittering in the lights of the banquet hall. Her voice rang out over the room as she addressed the assembled officers. "Come, now, you have trouble sampling the bounty of the sea from our planet? What then will you make of the next course."

The fact was, most of the people around Lorca were having extreme difficulty eating any of it. Some were staring in dread at untouched plates. Others were managing, but not well. Very few, like Lorca, were taking to this task with any gusto. Georgiou scanned their faces, delighted at the grimaces of discomfort.

Lorca was seated halfway down the table. It was not a position of prestige. He needed to make his mark if he was going to get a seat further up towards the emperor where the important commanders were. He reached for his glass of wine and said in a voice that carried quite easily to the emperor's ears, "This is delicious."

"Gabriel Lorca, is it?"

There was a half-smile on his face at the sound of his own name. He inclined his head and raised the wine glass in Georgiou's direction. "I'd love to get the recipe." He took a quick swig of wine and went for the last piece of snail on his plate, abandoning his chopsticks and grabbing it with his fingers. Even if it made no real sense, he decided the word to describe the taste was warm.

Georgiou's smile was entirely calculating. "I'll see to it you do," she promised, and to be sure he was not bluffing, added, "Perhaps you would like more?"

"Sure," said Lorca, and plucked a piece of sea snail from his neighbor's plate. The woman sitting next to him could not decide if she was upset to have her own shortcomings highlighted in front of the emperor or relieved to have less on her plate. She decided on the latter and let him steal another piece without complaint before pulling her plate possessively closer lest the emperor think she needed the assistance.

"It really is good," Lorca assured her in a voice that did not carry.

"Just like escargot," the woman said to herself, picking up a piece.

"Blanchard, that's French, yeah?"

"My grandfather was French Canadian," Blanchard answered, which was an easy way of indicating her French roots were in name only and escargot was more of a talking point from her cultural heritage than a part of her own personal experience.

"Lorca is Spanish," said Lorca. "Though that's hardly the most interesting thing about my family." He recounted the history of his family's fortune cookie factory operation as a distraction, which seemed to help Blanchard clear her plate of the remaining snail. She was starting to look greenish.

As the next course arrived, gormagander dressed in some sort of sauce, Lorca noticed something else come into the room behind the last waiter. Its movements were furtive and feral as it darted beneath the far end of the table.

The plates of food lowered in near-perfect unison onto the table. Lorca used the occasion as an excuse to knock one of his chopsticks to the floor. The chopstick was a loss, but it gave him reason to lean sideways just enough to see under the table. A girl maybe eight years old was crawling along the floor. Lorca timed her progress and stretched his legs out under the table to block her path as he waited for a fresh pair of chopsticks and watched the other diners pick at their food.

He chanced another look under the table. The girl was glaring at him. He was obviously doing this intentionally. With a look of wild fury, she wrapped her arms around his leg and bit down on his calf. He felt the pinch of her teeth and the warm wetness of saliva spread through the fabric of his pants.

"Yeah, I agree," he said in response to something Blanchard had said, his eye twitching. The girl squirmed on Lorca's leg and bit at his kneecap. Keeping his attention seemingly focused on the plate of gormagander in front of him, Lorca reached into his pocket and pulled out a fortune cookie. He held it out under the table.

It worked. An unseen hand took the cookie and the mouth disengaged from his leg and found a new target. He heard a tiny spitting sound as the child bit into the paper and realized part of the cookie was not edible. He wondered what fortune it was.

An attendant approached the emperor and whispered something. Lorca saw the emperor's lips move in a firm and angry response: Find her. The attendant hastily withdrew.

Lorca considered ratting the girl out to the emperor. He had no idea what the emperor intended to do with the girl or who she was. There were so many mysteries where Georgiou was concerned. Merely being summoned to this table was both risk and honor. Until today, Lorca would not have guessed the emperor was a woman, so closely did she guard the details of her existence from the empire at large to cultivate an air of mystery that implied hidden dangers. Effective, but disconcerting when you removed the mystery and connected the dots between the emperor's often tactically incongruous actions and her identity.

The replacement chopsticks arrived and Lorca finally managed to sample one of the pieces of gormagander. The flavor was entirely enjoyable. Even if this was colloquially known as space whale, it tasted more like a flakily-delicate steak than seafood. There was palpable relief around him at this fact. It was somehow easier to eat something completely unknown in this instance than to bite down on an animal from their own planet not normally consumed in their own cultures.

As Lorca ate, he carefully dropped a few pieces of food into his non-dominant hand and offered them to the girl under the table. The enticement convinced her to disengage from his leg and crouch next to his chair. She pressed against his knee and took the scraps, initially with her fingers, but she seemed to dislike the sauce from the gormagander getting on her fingers and the next time an offering came down, she ate it directly off his hand. Lorca stifled a chuckle and wiped his fingers on his napkin.

The meal continued like this, Lorca secreting bits of food down to the child under the table for his own amusement, the officers around him struggling at Georgiou's banquet of horrors. The next course was whole Andorian redbat. Easy enough if you pretended it was some kind of bird. Then live worms considered a delicacy by a troublesome border species that had been clashing recently with the Terran fleet. Lorca found them squishy and mildly spicy, with rubbery skins and mushy innards. Most everyone else at the table seemed content to poke and stare at their plates.

Georgiou addressed the diners. "Come now, surely you are not intimidated? I am not intimidated by my enemies or their food. I will conquer them in all ways." She lifted a mass of wriggling worms on her chopsticks, tilted her head back, and dropped the wriggling worms into her mouth, slurping them down.

The other diners attempted to copy Georgiou's example. It was too much for Blanchard. She covered her mouth and stumbled away from the table, fighting the urge to retch.

Lorca kept his seat. The child pressed against his leg, not wanting to be spotted and have her little game of hide and seek ended. Two of Georgiou's guards came and hauled Blanchard to her feet.

At first Blanchard seemed to think this might be some form of assistance as she apologized for her sensitive stomach, sweating with embarrassment, but the guards' grips were too firm as they drew her towards the head of the table.

Georgiou stood, drawing a small, golden blade from her belt and running her finger along the flat of it. "I need the officers who serve me to be made of steel," she said. "Steel does not bend under worms. It slices them." With a sudden thrust, she sliced the blade across Blanchard's neck. Arterial spray splashed across Georgiou's armor and onto the table. The guards hauled Blanchard's lifeless body away.

People could not eat the worms fast enough after that.

The girl under the table tugged at Lorca's pants leg insistently. She wanted some of what he was eating. With no way to make clear that this was probably not a meal she wanted, Lorca acquiesced, dropping a worm down her way.

The little girl picked the worm up and pinched it in her fingers, watching the ends writhe in the air. She decided it was more a plaything than food and proceeded to pull it in half from both ends. Worm guts squirted through her fingers. She smeared her fingers on Lorca's pants. This was a little too much, really. Lorca's brow furrowed.

The emperor noticed Lorca's distraction and addressed him again. "Full already, commander?" she asked.

He quickly affected an air of amiable benevolence. "Just wonderin'. This empty seat here, seems a shame to waste the food. If you'd permit me, I'd like to add a guest to the table."

"What guest would that be?"

Lorca patted Blanchard's vacant seat. The girl stared up at him from the floor, obstinate. Lorca frowned down at her and, with all eyes on him, pushed his chair back slightly, reached under the table, and scooped the girl up so quickly that by the time she thought to struggle and squirm away she was already sitting in the chair beside him.

"Michael, you should be in bed," said Georgiou, her tone calmly familiar—yet for all the familiarity, there was a bite in there still. The emperor never failed to show her teeth.

Michael glanced at all the adult faces and answered in a way that felt dutifully subservient and entirely routine, "Yes, mother."

Three things struck Lorca. First, the voice was so small compared to the ferocity displayed under the table. Second, it was extremely unlikely Georgiou was Michael's biological mother owing to the difference in skin tone and likeness. Third, fate had just dropped an unprecedented opportunity into his lap to impress their new emperor and perhaps curry some favor that might translate into power and prestige down the line.

"Suppose she was just hungry," suggested Lorca. "Everyone sleeps better on a full stomach."

"Was that it? Were you hungry?" asked Georgiou. "Then eat."

Every time the emperor spoke, Michael seemed to shrink slightly. Lorca picked up his chopsticks, managed to grab a few worms, and brought them to his mouth. One of the worms wriggled free onto the table. He picked the straggler up with his fingers and added it to the rest, chewing and waiting for Michael to make some sort of move.

Michael reached for Blanchard's abandoned chopsticks and, with skill that far surpassed Lorca's, scooped up a full sampling of worms and slurped them into her mouth. She went for a second mouthful before the first was even fully chewed.

Lorca started laughing. He looked around at the other faces at the table, every one of them staring at him like he was mad. "Look at that! She's put all of you to shame."

"Michael Burnham?" asked O'Malley, reeling slightly.

"One and the same," confirmed Lorca.

O'Malley shook his head. "Unbelievable," he said, thinking there was another point of question here. He found himself suddenly wondering if Lorca's failure to save the Penfield had less to do with tactics and more to do with the fact in the universe Lorca came from, Blanchard was already dead—a coincidence that might be misconstrued as fate.

Lorca smirked, enjoying both the vacant look of surprise on O'Malley's face and the memory of meeting Michael the first time. "She was used to it, you see, all the weird food Georgiou liked to eat. Philippa called it 'the bounty of the universe.' You had to eat it if you were gonna conquer it."

As interesting as the anecdote was, Lorca was not being entirely clear in his answer. "So the best thing you ever did was..."

"I'm gettin' to that. After dinner..."

The vaguely gasoline aroma of the durian fruit served for dessert lingered in the air. Eating it had been a trial even for Lorca—his nostrils seemed to indicate the fruit in front of him was poison and his taste buds agreed—but he muddled through as well as anyone save Michael and the emperor herself. What Lorca and the other diners found unusual, Michael took in stride. It seemed these sorts of culinary tests were de rigueur in Georgiou's household.

As brave as Michael was with the menu, she was not a talkative companion. Lorca's attempts to initiate conversation resulted in him talking at her more than anything. Her responses came largely in the form of exaggerated nods or head shakes. He persistently kept at it, offering a lighthearted stream of mild encouragements and jokes designed to disarm and eventually she began to swing her legs under the table, proof positive his efforts were paying off in some way.

The whole time he was cognizant of Georgiou's eyes upon him, watching, calculating, judging. Now that the plates were clearing, he intended to make sure the ultimate judgment tipped in his favor. "You're up awfully late. Your mom still gonna read you a bedtime story?" Wide, curious eyes. "She does read you bedtime stories?" Michael shook her head. Lorca squinted at her in engaging mock horror. "No wonder you were runnin' around so late. You gotta have a bedtime story. Can't sleep without one. My mom told me a story every night."

The way his face twisted and danced with these statements enthralled her. She looked up at him with eager excitement at the prospect, and perhaps something else: hope.

At the head of the table, Georgiou rose from her seat. Her eyes were fixed on them and her intent clear. She beckoned to an attendant waiting off to the side. He had to spin this into success fast or the chance might disappear forever.

He leaned in close, his voice dropping into a low tone only Michael could hear. "I can tell you a story if you want. I know all the best ones. You'd like that, yeah? All you gotta do is grab my hand and don't let go. No matter what happens, don't let go. Got it?"

With those big brown eyes staring up at him, she nodded once, the biggest nod she could.

"Don't let go," he said one last time, then lifted his head to address the oncoming emperor. "Emperor! May I say what a remarkable conversationalist your daughter is."

Georgiou did not seem amused by the joke. "Come, Michael," she said.

Lorca twisted and scooted his chair aside to make room for Michael to depart, leaning his forearm on the edge of table so his hand was dangling in front of her. She looked up at him, fear in her eyes, and saw the promise still written on his face. In his eyes he was saying it a fourth time, because it was that important: don't let go.

Michael's fingers closed around his, squeezing tightly. Lorca feigned surprise. "All right, time for you to git. It's way past your bedtime." Her grip tightened. The officers around them dropped their conversations into low tones, torn between the urge to rubberneck and the desire to not seem like they were infringing upon the emperor's private life.

"Michael," said Georgiou in warning, head turning in faint threat.

Lorca shook his hand as if trying to shake Michael off, but she held fast. He smiled slightly. Attagirl. "You gonna let go?" Taken at face value, the question seemed an honest request, but Michael recognized it as both challenge and coded instruction, even if these concepts were somewhat beyond her years. Her gaze was level with determination.

"My daughter seems quite taken with you," noted Georgiou, idly stroking the hilt of the blade at her hip.

"Ah, you know how kids get when they find a new toy they like," said Lorca with a shrug. He saw a flicker of confusion on Georgiou's face. She did not know. "They just gotta have it or they pitch a fit. Not that Michael here's gonna end this fine meal with a tantrum." As he spoke, he shifted his attention back towards Michael, almost admonishing her. "It'd be entirely unbecoming, especially for a daughter of the emperor who's clearly inherited her mother's bravery and iron will—if that's not too forward an observation on my part, emperor."

Georgiou sniffed in a manner that indicated approval. As obvious as the flattery was, it was not entirely unwelcome.

There was also a hesitation in Georgiou because, upon further consideration, Michael was capable of throwing the most unfortunate tantrums. That was absolutely not how the emperor wished to be remembered by her guests. "If she were to tantrum, there would be consequences," Georgiou stated with yet another of those reptilian smiles that seemed to come so easily to her.

The reemergence of Georgiou's smile sent a small chill down Lorca's spine. This was treading on the edge of real danger. Time to go all in and see what fate had in store for his gambit. "I could escort her out if you like. Avoid a scene?" The last bit he delivered with a sympathetic wince and in a confidential whisper.

"Perhaps that would be best," mused Georgiou.

"Anything to be of service, emperor."

Out in the hallway, the attendant attempted to detach Michael from Lorca's arm. Lorca deferred the action with calm certitude and insisted upon a continuation of the escort all the way to Michael's room, applying a heavy measure of stubborn Southern charm and command bluster until the servant acquiesced. Michael, for her part, followed him with the docility of a lamb, even if her hand was more like a crab's pincer.

Michael's room was as marvelous a room as a child could wish but Lorca's first thought was that there was something sterile about it. An abundance of toys in pristine condition, an overly saccharine pink canopy bed encrusted with gilded crenellations, a fancy riding horse wrapped in what looked to be genuine horse leather and hair. It all combined to create a manufactured luxury indicating someone was trying much too hard. Children, Lorca had heard, could sense inauthenticity.

"You can let go," announced Lorca, and Michael complied. The attendant hovered, waiting for Lorca to exit. He lingered instead. "She have nightclothes or something?"

There was a whole pre-bed regimen. Pajamas, tooth brushing, a cup of warm milk. Seemed like it had come out of an instruction manual on how to rear children. No, he decided, it was more like it was based on an idealized version of parenthood from an old movie. Almost entirely artificial. He watched with arms crossed, silently bemoaning the discolored stain of dried worm guts on his pants courtesy of that little monster.

The attendant finally herded Michael towards the bed. Lorca swooped in and swept Michael up once more, depositing her on top of the bedspread. "Fetch me a padd, will you?" said Lorca. The attendant shifted uneasily. This had already gone much further than she had thought it would and she was beginning to think she had made a mistake. Only after Lorca offered stringent reassurance all would be well did the attendant comply. (Even if this reassurance was entirely a lie, it was what the attendant needed to hear. Perhaps Georgiou would be merciful. He hoped so. Anyone in the emperor's household who could be convinced to do as Lorca asked was a potential asset.)

For Michael, Lorca had an entirely different set of instructions. "Listen up. You gotta close your eyes and keep 'em closed. Open your eyes even a tiny crack and the story stops. Got it?"

Michael nodded eagerly as she crawled beneath the covers. The attendant returned with the padd. It was easy enough to locate the title he was looking for and even the exact translation he wanted. Lorca waited expectantly until Michael's eyes squeezed shut. Then he began.

"Chapter one, A Floating Reef. In the year 1866 the whole maritime population of Europe and America was excited by an inexplicable phenomenon..."

The words came easily and with an engaging cadence reflecting a thorough knowledge of the material. He even easily interjected notes of explanation for words that might confuse Michael, like cetacean, phlegmatic, and schooner, without interrupting the general flow of the story. When the dialogue began, he threw in voices for good measure. The captain of the Abraham Lincoln, for example, became a Scotsman. This delighted Michael so much she opened her eyes for a peek and Lorca stared at her in expectant warning until her eyes were shut again.

The first few chapters were not very long. Georgiou appeared during the fourth. Luckily, the demand for eyes to remain closed had succeeded in its aim of lulling Michael into a state of near-slumber, and as Lorca concluded the fourth chapter, it seemed possible at last to depart from the bedside without risking another bout of wakefulness on the part of his primary audience.

There was no immediate indicator as to whether or not his decision to undertake this rather unconventional course of action had been a good or a bad one. Stepping into the hall with Georgiou, Lorca found her entirely inscrutable and suspected the emperor herself had yet to make up her mind.

"You did not return to my table," was her opening accusation. She stood with feet apart and her hands on her hips, her chin jutting up at him with barely-restrained contempt for his actions.

"Apologies, your highness."

"I did not bring you here to serve my daughter," was the next.

"No," said Lorca in agreement, and someone lesser would have left it at that or begged forgiveness for seizing such an indulgence, but not him. "You brought me here because you need a commander who won't just sit at your table and swallow what he's fed. You need someone who'll take initiative and anticipate your needs. More than that, someone who's gonna put your needs first. Everyone who stayed and sat at that table probably only wanted something for themselves, not the good of the Empire. Sycophants all. You don't need sycophants. You need tactical commanders who can apply lateral thinking and adjust to whatever fate throws their way."

"You presume to tell me what I need?"

"In the hopes that I can prove myself the commander you're looking for? Yes, because if I'm right, then I am."

Georgiou's eyes narrowed and the corner of her mouth pulled upwards. "You are very bold, Gabriel Lorca." He was not nearly as amusing as he thought he was, but he was that.

"Fortune favors the bold."

Georgiou tapped her fingers against her belt. She drew her dagger with such speed, he might not have been able to dodge the strike if her intention had been to kill him. The blade pressed against his cheek and drew a single drop of blood at its tip. She traced downward with minimal pressure, the drop turning into a thin line no bigger than a strand of hair.

She resheathed her dagger and reached up, running a finger along the line of blood. It turned into a streak of sanguine finger paint. "We shall see if you are sufficient to the task of serving me." She brought the tip of her finger to her mouth and flicked her tongue against it. This time, her smile was intended for him completely.

He repeated his earlier sentiment with casual confidence. "However I can be of service, emperor."

"The best thing I ever did," concluded Lorca, "was read Michael a story. Because of that, Philippa made me her right-hand man, and that position that made everything I've done today possible. The salvation of the Empire. All because of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

In another universe, Amanda Grayson had given Burnham an entirely different story, Alice in Wonderland. Lorca gave a small snort of amusement. Those two disparate stories, and the people who told them, had given rise to a pair of Michael Burnhams who were like night and day.

"I found out later how Pippa got herself a daughter. She didn't have any blood relatives. Killed 'em all so they wouldn't pose a threat. Her vanity, however, insisted upon the creation of an enduring legacy, and she always had a thing for Michael's mother. Unfortunately, Michael's mother didn't have a thing for her. First chance Pippa got, she offed the Burnhams and took Michael for herself. Instant heir and indemnity: adopted means no birthright, position entirely dependent on Georgiou's goodwill." Goodwill that, when Michael made a choice for herself, had been imperiled and driven Michael to move up the timetable of her inheritance.

As O'Malley parsed this wealth of information, Lorca considered it himself. As anyone who had ever been a target of Georgiou's "affections" well knew, the mere suggestion she possessed any goodwill was entirely laughable.

There was more to the memory of that evening, more that had happened, but it fell well outside the purview of O'Malley's inquiry.

Of course, once you were remembering something, it was hard to stop, and though Lorca did not speak it, the memory continued playing out in his head.

When he finally made it back to the suite hours later, bedraggled, with a shuffling gait and gaunt look in his eyes, Benford was waiting for him outside. They had come up in the service together, enlisted at the same time, and were presently serving under the same command. There was a semi-formal pact between them. While Benford was a perfectly decent officer, he did not excel the way Lorca did and held a lower rank. So long as Lorca kept pulling Benford along right behind, he could count on Benford to always have his back.

(Already Benford had saved Lorca once from an assassination attempt by a jealous rival. It seemed proof of Lorca's little conceit that loyalty was potentially better found in the absence of fear than in its presence.)

Last night had been one of those rare exceptions to their protective arrangement. Benford did not merit an invitation to dine at the emperor's table and had come onboard purely in the role of personal guard, the likes of which were not allowed at the banquet. All night long, Benford had waited for news as to what had become of Gabriel Lorca, wondering what would happen if, like Blanchard, Lorca never returned from dinner at all. "Where the hell have you been? I was starting to think you were dead!"

"Guess not," said Lorca. In any other tone of voice, it would have sounded like a joke. Instead, it was a resignation.

Benford had a dozen questions. "What the hell happened? Where were you? I heard you left with some kid. What about the plan? What about..."

"Jack, stop," said Lorca after moment. "Can I just...?" He raised a hand weakly towards the door. He wanted a shower but would settle for collapsing into bed at this point.

Benford crossed his arms. Lorca looked terrible, but he had caused Benford an entire night of worry that was not easily forgotten or forgiven. "Not until you tell me our status."

Lorca swallowed against the knot in his throat. "We're in."

"In? As in, in?" The worry on Benford's face melted away. A kernel of enthusiasm appeared.

"Yep."

"So that's what you were up to all night? You horndog!" laughed Benford, clapping Lorca on the back. Benford was too swept up in imagining their bright futures to notice the way Lorca winced at the contact. Aside from that one opening stroke, Georgiou had declared Lorca's face "too pretty to mar, not when it should be on display at my side." Lucky for her, the human body was nothing if not a canvas of skin, most of it hidden beneath uniforms and armor where no one else would see.

Lorca tried not to take Benford's happiness as the additional slap in the face it felt like. "That's what I was doing. Securing the emperor's favor. And I did. Give it some time, but I guarantee you, we are gonna get our own commands. Our own way."

"You mean your way," said Benford, intending it as a compliment, a broad grin plastered on his face.

"Yeah," said Lorca rather lamely, leaving Benford in the hall.

As the door closed, Lorca reached around and tried to touch the spot near the middle of his back that had borne the brunt of Georgiou's test of strength and loyalty. He was too stiff to manage it. He grimaced at the sensation of fabric on raw skin as he removed his shirt and twisted around for a look in the mirror.

The welt was red and ugly, a sharp triangle that completely betrayed its origin: a handheld agonizer. Georgiou had done a perfect job of putting it in a spot he could not easily reach. Unless he sought someone else's help, the wound was going to scar. Lorca closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. This room had no windows and thus no stars.

It did have one comfort. A handful of fortune cookies sat on the table beside the door, dropped there when Lorca had arrived the day before. He hesitated a moment before taking one.

"Be tactful, but overlook not your own opportunities," it read.

It felt like a reassurance. He sighed faintly at the bit of paper, glad fate still seemed to be on his side, because he wanted to believe this was an auspicious event—he needed to believe it—and so that was the story he was telling himself. A story about how he, Gabriel Lorca, had played the emperor into fulfilling his desires, not the other way around.

This had not broken him. He was stronger than it and he was going to spin a miracle out of all the blood and bruises and agony. Something real and tangible: a legacy equal to the stars.

Let Georgiou have the frivolous vanity that was an heir. Thrones were not inherited in the Terran Empire. They were seized by those who had the strength to take them.

There was a grimace of distaste on Lorca's face. He had fallen into another small silence that O'Malley could only wonder at. There were still layers of secrets at play, but they were now at the level where the secrets were ones Lorca wanted to keep from himself.

For a moment, O'Malley thought Lorca was entirely lost in memory and needed to be pulled out, but Lorca drew himself free of the moment and resumed without prompting.

"Anyway, Georgiou pulled me into her inner circle and made me chief strategist. I don't have to tell you how much I excelled at that." The mere act of boasting restored Lorca to some level of confidence and pride because in both universes he had deftly proven himself equal to any tactical situation. Forward-thinking, anticipatory, adaptive. "I made myself indispensable. Georgiou's never been good at tactics. Always falls for traps. Same as in your universe."

O'Malley suppressed a shudder. There was a cruelty in speaking ill of a captain as highly-decorated and respected as Starfleet's Captain Georgiou, but Lorca was almost gleeful at the opportunity. His hatred of Georgiou ran deep and colored his impressions of both versions of her.

"She even fell for a little trap of mine. See, she loved Michael, in her own way, and all I had to do was put a whisper in her head that Michael ought to have a father figure. It's important to a girl's development. Who better than the man with the bedtime stories? I even suggested we call it an adoption. After that, Philippa couldn't kill me. Not without upsetting Michael. And Michael, well, she wasn't a sweet child, but she had her moments, and she loved those stories."

O'Malley suddenly jerked upright like an alert rabbit, eyes wide. Lorca shot him a look demanding explanation. "Nothing, please continue," said O'Malley, waving a hand dismissively and looking away sheepishly.

"What," said Lorca sharply.

Reluctantly, O'Malley answered, "It's just, that song I don't hate. Sweet Child of Mine by... Actually, I don't know who it's by."

Lorca stared, frowned, and tried to decide exactly how much of O'Malley's head he should bite off. "It's Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses," corrected Lorca scathingly, emphasis on the "O" because, really.

"Do you have it in this world, too? Maybe this place really isn't all bad," said O'Malley hopefully.

"Your brother's right, you are an idiot."

"Then I guess I'm your idiot," said O'Malley dryly, which made Lorca smirk.

"You really are hopelessly infatuated with me, aren't you. What's your wife gonna think?"

The flush of red on O'Malley's freckles was not a denial. He quickly focused back to the subject at hand. "So you're a chief strategist who reads bedtime stories."

"Not just stories," clarified Lorca. "History, too. Marathon, the Eugenics Wars, the Annihilation of Xindus. The Twelve Caesars." The succession of Roman emperors had offered Michael the germ of an idea and also served as a template for her to aspire to. Heirs could be a threat just as much as a legacy. Often they were both. "Small wonder she preferred me to Pippa. I gave her universes and dreams. Pippa only ever cared about appearances. No substance, flashy to a fault. Gauche."

Lorca's distaste for Georgiou's ostentatiousness was written all over his face. He saw Georgiou as fundamentally flawed in this regard. True, some people might call him a showman given his ability to drum up a dramatic moment for effect, but he abhorred any comparison between himself and Georgiou. His machinations were anything but empty pageantry. Whether brutally direct or verging on subtle through the employ of quiet manipulations, his sweeping moments were always predicated on something substantive.

The distaste softened into a fonder recollection. "I wish you could've met Michael. She was..." Lorca sighed almost happily. "Impossible. I took that little girl and I shaped her into a woman like no other. In every way. And I was justly rewarded for my efforts. My god, she was beautiful. And she was all mine."

The reaction this time was less the alarm of a rabbit and more a slow, horrified dawning. "Tell me you didn't," said O'Malley, face draining of color.

"Like you wouldn't. Pretty young thing throwing herself at you?" replied Lorca, unphased to the point of amused satisfaction.

O'Malley exploded with disbelief. "You once suggested I should adopt. What the actual hell is wrong with you!"

This was not the reaction Lorca had expected. He realized he had left a detail out. "She was grown," he offered, as if that excused it.

O'Malley threw his hands up, mouth open in shock, because while that did slightly lessen the apparent awfulness, it did not address the totality of O'Malley's upset. The indignity on his face suggested that, while the thought might cross his mind because he was only human, he absolutely, absolutely would not, and certainly not in this specific circumstance. "She was your—your—"

"Back up. I didn't 'adopt' Michael 'cause I wanted to. I needed to. Let me explain a few things about the Terran Empire. The women here are aggressive. The men are aggressive. Everyone here is aggressive. They'd put your Aeree to shame, Mac. 'Cause people don't just drink blood in this universe. They bathe in it.

"You wanna know why Georgiou likes holding meetings in person? So when she hears something she don't like, she can kill the messenger. I needed to give her a reason to think twice before coming for my head. That's why I needed Michael. I never wanted kids. I just wanted to keep my head attached to my shoulders."

The logic (and the firmly authoritarian tone in which it was delivered) seemed to alleviate some of O'Malley's concerns, but not all. Lorca continued, "Besides, wasn't like I forced her. Michael always knew what she wanted. She and Burnham have that in common. Once they get something in their heads, they gotta see it through." It was the core trait that made it feel like Burnham could eventually be his Michael returned to him, or, at the very least, serve as a living memorial to the aspirations he and Michael had shared and see their work through to completion.

Lorca smiled in reminiscence again as he recalled exactly how Michael had made her intentions clear and how immensely satisfying it had been. The flattery of a younger woman's affections was enduring and undeniable. "Honestly, if she'd been so inclined, she would've climbed into Pippa's bed instead. Which, as I'm sure you've surmised, was her intent from the get-go: rule with a pretty young thing at her side, the spitting image of her dead lover." He snorted. "I wish I'd been there when Pippa realized I beat her to the punch. Can you imagine her face?" He started laughing. "That was the best part. Deconstructing the emperor's pretend 'family.' I took the one thing that mattered to Georgiou and made it mine. And together, Michael and I came up with the most beautiful plan..."

They found her on a supply run to a research colony that had gone suddenly dark. "I killed them all," was her only explanation for the eighteen bodies she left behind, but the truth was she had done far more than that. She had also mutilated the bodies beyond recognition and destroyed every shred of the colony's research, none of which had ever been published. About the only thing left in the colony's computer was the personnel roster.

When word reached Emperor Georgiou of a teenage girl found alone in the bloody aftermath of an eighteen-person massacre, it piqued her interest. Young girls like that were exactly the sort whose destiny Georgiou enjoyed shaping. She summoned the girl to the palace. Michael and Lorca were there when the girl arrived. Georgiou thought meeting this girl might serve as some sort of inspirational lesson for her adopted daughter.

The girl's name was Emellia Petrellovitz. She was fifteen, two and a half years older than Michael, but where Michael was quickly sprouting into a gracefully lithe, swanlike athleticism, Petrellovitz seemed to have topped out her height and nervously shaken off any curves that might have provided her with anything akin to a burgeoning female form. As a result, the two girls were almost the same size, and the scant difference in their height would doubtless be resolved within a year or two in Michael's favor.

Georgiou took one look at the twitching, scarred thing standing in front of them with those wildly mismatched eyes seeming to stare right through them all and decided there was nothing pretty about Petrellovitz. This was no diamond. It was uncompressed coal. Georgiou's lip curled into a small sneer of distaste.

Whether you were good at what you did was almost immaterial where the emperor was concerned. It was more important that you were beautiful while you did it. So Lorca, so Michael, and so everyone the emperor called part of her inner circle or appointed into positions of power. There were so very many young, pretty female captains who had benefitted from Georgiou's preferences. This ugly, twitching thing would not be one of them.

(Honestly, Lorca minded this predilection of Georgiou's only a little. It did make for a very nice view, and any less-attractive but highly-competent officers passed over by Georgiou stood a decent chance of making their way to Lorca's command. It was something of a win-win for him personally.)

Michael looked at Petrellovitz and saw something else entirely: a map of scars that told a story. She loved stories. Her eyes lit up and she ran forward and grabbed the other girl's hand. "Did you really kill eighteen people?"

There was a shudder from Petrellovitz at the physical contact and she jerked her arm back as if Michael's hand were an agonizer, of which there was no doubt the older girl had firsthand experience. "Careful, Michael," warned Lorca. This wasn't a child, it was a wild animal.

Michael only laughed. "Come see my room and tell me everything. Do you like chocolate strawberries? They're the best."

There was a flicker in those mismatched eyes. "Strawberries?" The word was slow, hesitant, spoken with an awareness of the concept of strawberries, but without any experience of them. A girl who had heard of strawberries but never tasted one. Michael dragged Petrellovitz away with the enthusiasm of someone who had found a wonderful new toy to play with.

"She'll get tired of her after a few weeks," offered Lorca, entirely unconvincingly.

"She did not get tired of you," noted Georgiou in a tone that was both grim and amused.

Michael did not get tired of Petrellovitz. For all her many faults and foibles, Petrellovitz was extremely smart and Michael liked that, even if she did not always understand the more technical aspects of Petrellovitz's scientific interests, like the relationship of space and time.

Several times Georgiou attempted to discourage the friendship, but Michael was cognizant of her own ability to manipulate Georgiou by this point and got her way in the end with one condition: that Georgiou never set eyes on Petrellovitz's unfortunate face ever again. From that point forward, Petrellovitz lived in the shadows surrounding Michael, lurking at the periphery, a ghost in the palace walls.

A ghost, it turned out, in the machine, too, because there was nothing Petrellovitz loved doing quite so much as delving into the palace systems during those long hours when Michael was otherwise occupied. Many of the things she dug up she shared with Michael.

Things like secret experiments being conducted at the emperor's behest into biological weapons. Weapons that could make a human pop like a balloon or wither away like an autumn leaf on a tree.

Things like the Defiant files, a set of classified documents pertaining to the incursion of a ship from another universe that enthralled both girls with the possibilities this multiverse presented.

Things like the truth about Michael's parents and how they died at Georgiou's hands for the sole crime of a woman's failure to return Georgiou's affections.

Lorca marveled at the depths of Petrellovitz's brilliance and simultaneous ineptitude as he talked Michael down from her bloodlust in the wake of this revelation. "You gonna sacrifice yourself 'cause Pippa killed your momma? Think, Michael. You're better than that. Throwing your life away isn’t getting revenge. And this"—he gestured at the wealth of imperial palatial abundance around them—"this is how you get revenge. You earn this."

She found another way to get revenge on Georgiou in that moment. That was the beginning of the real end where they both were concerned.

He subsequently decided it might be a good idea to put some distance between Michael and Petrellovitz. As potent an asset as Petrellovitz was, Michael was a hotheaded nineteen-year-old and Petrellovitz was an unpredictable trigger.

Lucky for them all, there was a shiny new ship just coming off the assembly line called the Buran and it had Lorca's name written all over it. (Benford had taken a small cruiser called the Agamemnon years back and was posted on routine patrols, a banal if satisfying existence. Lorca had held out for something grander for himself.)

Georgiou was more than happy to see Petrellovitz gone from the palace, but the distance did not diminish the girls' friendship. The Buran's communications logs proved that. Georgiou confessed her dismay at the continuing correspondence.

"Why don't you give Michael a command? That'll keep her distracted," suggested Lorca.

Sentimentally, Georgiou granted Michael her own old ship, the Shenzhou. She intended it as a heartfelt gesture which was marred only slightly by the knowledge it was Michael's mother's refusal to join the Shenzhou crew in favor of starting a family that had ultimately spelled her demise.

"Use that," was Lorca's mild encouragement when Michael privately expressed her rage at this turn of events. The fortune inside the cookie he handed her read, "New resources will soon become available to you."

"See?" he said. "It's fate."

"Destiny," confirmed Michael, a glimmer in her eyes as she studied the little bit of paper. This ship, with its tragic role in her past, became the launching point from which she lived up to Lorca's expectation that she earn her revenge. As captain of the Shenzhou, she proved her mettle against the enemies of the Empire and built up a reputation for fearlessness and inventiveness that made Georgiou unwittingly proud. To her, Michael's successes were the result of her parenting and mentorship. Michael and Lorca were more than happy for Georgiou to believe this.

The truth about Michael's parents, her hatred for Georgiou, the Defiant files, her relationship with Lorca—these were Captain Michael Burnham's secrets, and these secrets culminated in Michael's grand plan. Though Lorca dismissed the Defiant files as mere folly, Michael and Petrellovitz never forgot them, and when Petrellovitz realized Stamets' mycelial research could bridge the barrier between the worlds, Michael put the pieces together in a way that was charmingly inventive. It felt like everything was finally falling into place. Lorca's own desire to overthrow Georgiou had found the perfect vessel in Michael.

Except Petrellovitz stole a large quantity of spores right out from under Stamets' nose, infuriating him, so when Lorca and Michael joined Petrellovitz at a research laboratory on Priors World—where the abundance of ion storms in the area made theoretically possible the most miraculous thing—it did not go as planned.

"I mean, you say the math checks out," said Lorca to Petrellovitz, sounding entirely doubtful as to the value of this assertion.

"It does," Petrellovitz confirmed, wondering where the objection lay.

Lorca shrugged and frowned. "Which is great, but theories don't depose emperors."

Petrellovitz scowled. "Math is everything," she began, prepared to launch a rousing defense of the importance of math and how theories had, in fact, deposed emperors, but Michael stopped her.

"We're here to make theory into reality," she clarified.

"So, what, you gonna beam something there and back again?"

"Someone," said Michael, and smirked. "Me."

The ensuing argument was not one Lorca won because Michael, being so impossible, always got her way in the end, and she and Petrellovitz seemed to have anticipated Lorca's every objection. How would she get back? "The mycelial network extends through both universes," said Petrellovitz, "so this mobile transporter unit will be sent with Michael inside it, and when she has set it up on the other end, we'll have a way to beam back and forth."

Where would she end up? How to ensure she did not beam into space, solid matter, or a star?

"The mycelial network threads into spaces where transport is possible. We can tell the shape of the destination by the shape of the network, and we know from the Defiant files that the topography of the other universe mirrors our own. I have already mapped their version of Priors World as the destination. It's simply a matter of changing one dimensional coordinate."

How to know this system even worked?

"I have tested it with local transport within this facility and sent objects and life forms through to the other side, though without a facility on the other side, I am unable to retrieve them. But there is no reason to think they have failed to materialize on the other end the same as they did within this universe."

That did not exactly inspire confidence.

"That's why we're sending me inside this transporter," said Michael, putting a hand on the free-standing, bullet-shaped unit that would serve as the means of the return journey. It was big enough for a person to stand inside, but small enough to sit inside the main mycelial chamber.

"Send someone else," said Lorca. "Someone expendable." (In the back of his mind, he was thinking they ought to send Petra as the guinea pig.)

"You're not here to give orders, Gabriel," said Michael impertinently. "You're here to witness as I become the first person to journey to that universe and back again."

He had to smile at that because Michael and Petrellovitz were very convincing together. He was more than a little proud of them both, in awe of the fact they were about to do the seemingly impossible and fulfill some grand destiny that would cement their collective place in history.

"A ship would be better," said Petrellovitz, "but this will do for now."

A ship outfitted with this technology would have a tactical advantage like no other. "All right," said Lorca.

There was something magical in the swirl of blue particles in the larger transport chamber. Michael looked so cocky, so confident as she disappeared in front of them, ready to begin this adventure into another world with a step so bold and brave it was unmistakably her.

"And now we wait," said Petrellovitz.

"How long?"

"A few minutes. It will take time to connect, configure, and calibrate the remote transport unit."

They waited. And waited. "This is taking too long," said Lorca, and he could see from Petrellovitz's expression she was thinking the same.

"I'll beam you over."

"Oh, no, you're next," Lorca informed her. His communicator beeped and he flipped it open.

It was the Buran. Levy was on the other end of the line. "Captain, the Charon—!"

A message filtered over the communicator, secondhand from the Buran's bridge.

"Gabriel Lorca," came the voice, cold and chilling to the bone. "You deceitful traitor. Did you really think you could plot against me? With my own daughter?"

"And steal my spores!" came a second voice, smaller and almost comically squeaky in comparison to Georgiou.

"Beam me up," said Lorca quickly.

He could hear the fierce determination in Levy's voice. "Sir, there's an ion storm. I can't get a transporter lock." She was calm under pressure. She'd make a good captain someday.

"Get in the chamber, I'll beam you over," said Petrellovitz. At the end of the day, she was a chief science officer on the Buran, those were her crewmates up there, and she had mentioned using the transporter successfully within the confines of their own universe, so he had no reason to doubt her and no time to consider any other course of action.

The swirl of blue particles was magical and disorienting and he momentarily lost the sensation of gravity as he was transported in a cloud of swirling lights that made him squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness.

He realized, as he opened his eyes and the last flickers of mycelium spores gave way to darkness, that Petrellovitz had not changed the target coordinates to the Buran. Very probably she had never intended to.

He was lying on his side on an uneven, rocky surface. When he inhaled, ashy dust from the ground filtered into his lungs and made him cough. The air was cool, dry, and smelled vaguely sulfuric. He sat up, feeling the subterranean chill of the ground beneath his fingers. "Michael?" His voice echoed.

Priors World was known for its abundance of large, naturally-occurring volcanic chambers. They were ideal places for storing and researching the sorts of hazardous materials that required isolation from the outside world or, as in Petrellovitz's case, for any sort of research that required secrecy. (Secrecy was very important when the research you were engaged in was stolen.)  From the smell in the air and the echo, this was one such chamber not in active use.

Lorca rolled to his feet as his eyes adjusted. There was a blue glow emanating from behind him. He drew his phaser and instinctively performed a tactical sweep as he turned, the red light of the phaser offering a gently contrasting highlight to the blue. The mobile transporter unit was lying at an angle, its entry hatch pinned against an outcropping of magma rock, a cascade of blue mycelium spores spilling out across the ground. "Michael!"

No answer. Lorca picked a pathway over to the unit using his phaser sight, the little red dot dancing across the ground. Except for the spilled spores, the transporter itself looked intact. Michael had probably just hit her head and fallen unconscious inside upon landing or been unable to get the chamber open and passed out after screaming angrily for too long. Lorca gave the transporter a push and it rolled off the outcrop of rock onto the ground with the hatch facing upward.

He smiled at the thought she was going to be so mad at herself for needing him to come help rescue her. He enjoyed these rare moments when she needed rescuing. The dot of his phaser sight refracted across the surface of the transparent aluminum window and illuminated the chamber inside.

"She was..."

Lorca's eyes were fixed upon the center of the table, right at the spot where Georgiou had left the head of that sex slave for him to find, but those green eyes were not the vision in his mind right now. It was Michael, her body misshapen and flayed out into a spiral like it had unraveled from within, guts and bones and everything sticking out wrong. His hands were clasped in his lap and his foot was tapping in an idle repetition that shook up through to his shoulder.

He swallowed, wincing as he did. "Twisted," he managed in a raspy almost-whisper.

O'Malley studied Lorca carefully. "I'm sorry."

"For what," Lorca said darkly, his leg stilling. "You didn't do it. It was Hawking radiation." The same fate as had befallen the Glenn.

That was the worst part somehow. Michael had, in the end, done it to herself. Neither he nor Petrellovitz, had she been so inclined, had ever had any chance of talking Michael out of this adventure because Michael wanted to be the grand explorer of an unknown realm just like Captain Nemo in the depths of the sea.

"I'm sorry it happened, and... I'm sorry that I ever suggested you didn't have anyone you loved. You were right. I didn't know you."

Lorca's lip twitched and his jaw tightened. His eyes shifted towards O'Malley, filled with accusation. "And you think you know me now?"

Actually, thought O'Malley, he had known Lorca the moment they met, but he kept this fact to himself and maintained a look of calm, level patience. It was an expression anyone who had ever been subject to one of O'Malley "interrogations" would recognize. O'Malley could remove all judgment of another person when he wanted to and it was entirely sincere when he did.

His provocation unanswered, Lorca glanced away and resumed. "I got out of there eventually. First I had to scrape Michael out of the transporter." The word was as visceral to speak as it was to hear. Lorca shuddered. "Something about that Hawking radiation fucks up biological material more than mechanics, so the transporter was operational, but it wouldn't go to the coordinates they programmed into it. Still don't know why, but I think Georgiou'd gotten hold of Petra by then, so the lab she was working out of was probably gone. The spores were dying, too. I managed to set the coordinates to the surface. Safest thing I could think of. Better than dying in some hole, anyway."

I could've died regardless—beamed into the void of space or something—but I didn't. Fate had other plans. Fresh air and sunshine and I found out then and there how bright sunshine could be in your universe. It burned. Searing pain.

First thing I needed was information. At the first sign of civilization, I spun a little yarn about being stranded after a domestic squabble gone wrong, got myself in front of a computer terminal, and damn if people weren't bending over backwards to help me out. Almost made it too easy.

Initially my only thought was getting back. I looked for Petra. Couldn't find her, 'cause she's Mischka in your universe. Then Stamets. Then Michael. Then me. Captain of the Buran. Some things never change, I guess.

My best shot at getting home was Stamets, but I couldn't get to him and his research without exposing my identity. I needed resources, authorization, access to a ship, rank in your Starfleet, none of which I could easily get with the other me running around.

I don't need to tell you how awful and terrible I found your universe. It was like every single thing that could be wrong was. It was amazing, though, how easy people were to trick and how gullible. I got off Priors World and found a little station where people didn't ask too many questions and the Federation was less a government and more an abstract suggestion. Good base of operations if you want to remain anonymous. I soon had half that station eating out the palm of my hand, and I was gonna replace Maras—the local crime lord—but then the war broke out and right, smack dab in the middle of it all was Burnham. And, it turned out, your sister.

Fate was showing me the way.

I knew Klingon ships 'cause I'd been working with the rebels here. It's amazing how similar our universes can be. Got aboard a cruiser, took the crew by surprise, figured out where the other me was patrolling, and then it was just a matter of setting the right bait.

You know something really strange? He and I had the same damn access codes. All I had to do was get in comm range of the Buran and it was over. I knew every little thing he was gonna do before he did it. Four days I led that man on a wild goose chase while I read his personal logs. Fifth day, I blew him up. Set the Buran's systems to overload and forced the ship to self-destruct and it looked like he did it himself. Set the Klingon ship to self-destruct, too, and the whole thing looked like a battle gone bad.

(Lorca paused a moment in thought. Destroying the USS Buran had been necessary and finding out that the ISS Buran had suffered a similar fate seemed only to confirm the rightness of his actions, but now that he knew the people from the other universe a little better, he had some misgivings. If only things had been different. If only he had somehow switched places with the other Lorca directly, maybe the loss of the USS Buran could have been avoided.)

So that's how I took his place. Grabbed a defunct data core from the Klingon ship and pretended I was trying to bring back cloaking secrets worth the destruction of my own vessel. I had Starfleet eating out the palm of my hand. Cornwell especially. After reading all your Lorca's personal logs, she was an easy mark. The only one who could've stopped me was Lalana. And she didn't. Knew I was lying the whole time and helped me every step of the way. God, she is... She's something else. Crazy, but useful.

I think... Well, it doesn't matter now. Important thing is, I got them to give me Discovery. You should've heard the speech I gave. I learned enough about your Federation to know exactly what to say. Science, unity, diversity, collaboration. It was like selling water in a drought. They gave me Mischka, they gave me Stamets, and I had everything I needed.

Except... I knew she wasn't my Michael, but... I kept waiting for Starfleet to acknowledge the truth of what Commander Burnham had done at the Binaries, accept the fact she'd been right and release her, and they didn't. I couldn't bear to see my girl in a cage. I went and got her out.

She was really something else. Minute I set eyes on her, I just... It's true, what Lalana says. When the person you love most is gone, it's worth everything just to be able to see their face. I wouldn't trade that for the world.

Thing is, Stamets wasn't quite so far along in his research as Petra, so Discovery wasn't ready or capable of getting me where I needed to go. I figured, while I was in charge, may as well make the best of it, help out with your little war. Your Federation's a bunch of babies when it comes to fighting and killing. I admit, your Lorca was good, but I'm better, and we almost had them. We really did.

I wish I could've done that for you. Won your little war. Instead, here we are.

"So, Mac, tell me. Was it everything you imagined? Did you get what you wanted?"

O'Malley's head tilted. "Did you?"

"I will once Georgiou's dead," said Lorca. "Speaking of, I think I gotta go put the unholy fear of god into my people, 'cause this is taking way too long. I suppose now you've got what you came for, you're gonna try and scurry back to Discovery?"

The look on O'Malley's face was familiar because it was the exact same way Lorca's followers in this universe looked at him: with fervent admiration. "You can't get rid of me that easily," said O'Malley.

Lorca smiled. He picked up the little paper fortune from the table. Seek to identify in yourself what you love in others. If O'Malley could sit there, listen to all of that, and still find it in him to follow Lorca, maybe in time, the rest of Discovery's crew would, too.

Part 93

[starryoak]

“Hi, I’m ‘Dr.’ Fern, N.D., D.C., Ac.D, D.O*, all completely, totally legitimate medical qualifications across all zones and definitely not fake diploma’s! I’m here to give you what other Doctors won’t give you! Quasi-zonal, semi-medically sound, mildly tested to the bare minimum required by the Zonal Medicouncil, medical help the right way; with Holistic Medicine!”

Fanart for the webcomic Awful Hospital, an amazing comic by Sir Bogathan Leech, otherwise known as @bogleech/Jonathan Wojcik. It’s insane, disturbing, features quite a lot of nausea inducing visuals, but lots of humor and story, as well as some heartwarming and tearjerking moments. It’s extremely good, just…. if you don’t have the stomach for it, you may not like it. But it is very good.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR ALL OF AWFUL HOSPITAL, PRETTY MUCH. NOT SPECIFICS, JUST LOTS OF ASSUMPTIONS THAT THE READER IS COMPLETELY CAUGHT UP WITH THE COMIC.

Anyway, this is a drawing of Fern, the protagonist of Awful Hospital.... A Fern, at least. I worked hard to make this look like something that would fit in canon, meaning I went way out of my style, but it works, I hope?... My lines are thicker, but I'm hoping to improve.

Essentially, the beginning of this was when I got to thinking; what if FERN was a Doctor at The Hospital? I know it wouldn't ever happen..at least  I think... But I still wondered; what would she look like? What would she do? What core concept of medicine would it make sense for her to fulfill? All the concepts seemed to be covered. But then I got to thinking even more, and since most (if not all) the Doctors at The Hospital are puns on something, I thought of something. The Doctor is missing a quack homeopath!...

Ok, so yes, homeopathy isn't medicine, but it IS something that (unfortunately) is accredited in some countries, as well as other bullshit ‘medicinal’ treatments, and has many supporters and practitioners and diploma mills... So perhaps the core concept of homeopathy could eventually grow so big that the concept manifests in the hospital?... God, like they NEED any more quackery in that place. But Fern’s name would be a pun, so... I did it. I’m unfortunately bad at Bogleech style zonal lingo, so you’ll have to deal with boring, normal quackery rather than the bizzaro quackery that The Hospital purveys in.

Meet ‘Doctor’ Fern!

‘Doctor’ Fern is possibly the least qualified ‘medical’ professional in The Hospital! Yes, even less qualified than Phage... At least he's guaranteed to eat bacteria. ‘Doctor’ Fern is a practitioner of only the most diluted medicinal concepts, the most scientifically unsound, most expensive snake oil treatments. Her patients recover only through spontaneous remission, although she does have a low fatality rate; her treatments are often at their best, completely ineffective. She dilutes all of her concepts to homeopathic standards, so not even one nano-particle of even an inkling exists when she administers it. At worst, her treatments are poisonous and lead to worsened or even better, NEW symptoms. But she claims she's the only REAL Doctor in the whole Hospital. Nobody else treats the cause, only the SYMPTOMS of the disease. She treats the cause, not the symptom! Her low mortality rate can only be attributed to the absolute ineffectiveness at any real medicine, so she can't unintentionally administer too much homeopathic remedies and cause them to overdose, but her ward is full of patients who have been waiting so many layers to recover that it’s starting to cause a huge ruckus. But she’s certain that SOME kind of treatment will work, but as long as it’s mainstream medicine, they’ll never get better!. ‘Doctor’ Fern’s treatments are chaotic, ever changing, never standardized wrecks, basic misunderstandings of the fundamental nature of medicine and disease itself; somehow even in The Hospital, the conceptual nature of homeopathy and other ‘holistic’ medicine carries over... in other words, even though The Hospital has nonsensical, ever changing functions and cures, the fact that most of ‘Doctor’ Fern’s treatments are bullshit gets carried through, as bullshit is intrinsically woven into the very nature of her medicinal practices. Even the things she performs that qualify as medicine in some cases are usually misapplied, snapping necks when all the patient needed was a quick realignment of their core concepts with their spinal arrangement, acupuncture used for things other than relief of mild pain, trepanation for non-approved purposes, she’s a wonder at failure to medicine.

A no-nonsense nonsense provider, ‘Doctor’ Fern’s personality is similar to her canon counterpart, but warped by The Hospital, obviously assimilated into The Hospital’s jargon completely, ‘Doctor’ Fern is completely understanding of most lingo that all the Hospital Staff know... and deliberately chooses to misapply them. She’s caring, but has even less of an idea of what she’s doing than Phage does, even if The Hospital was at full running capacity, she would be utterly incompetent. As it is, she’s currently CRIMINALLY incompetent. Despite her inability to cure her patients, most of them (generally the ones with less of an idea of medicine) consider her their favorite doctor, which is likely why she’s still alive. Those who go through spontaneous remission end up thanking the good ‘Doctor’ for their recovery, and admittedly, even with her terrible abilities, she genuinely cares for each and every patient she can. 

Her design is complex and very symbolic, which I’m actually quite proud of, even if it is a bit ‘busy’, I worked hard on it! Since each Doctor (Besides our fair Doctor Ichabod Malachi Man) seems based on the very basic or very first treatments of their respective specialties, I looked up the very first herbal medicines, which was apparently using the plant Gingko Bilobo. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but I used the leaves of the tree for ‘Doctor’ Fern’s hair. (also, you always must write Doctor as ‘Doctor’ when referring to her, as her doctorates are all fake or non accredited) She has a Gingko Berry for an earring as well, one that’s a bit old and bruised. She has normal doctors scrubs, but her shirt is emblazoned with an alternative medicinal parody of the Caduceus. I gave her ears for the explicit purpose of demonstrating yet another ‘medical’ treatment; ear stapling. Apparently, according to some, surgical staples in ones ears will help one lose weight. Her teeth are borrowed from Page 711, when she imagined strangling Dr. Phage. This is strictly because it made her creepier to the eye, as it felt... right, to give her a more unsettling visage than our friendly neighborhood Fern. Her gloves are not, in fact, medical gloves or in any way sanitation related or even sanitary, but Reflexology reference mitts. the belief that pressure points on the hands line up to everywhere else on the body (and of course, everyone has a different idea of what connects to where, so ‘Doctor’ Fern changes her mind on what it does every five minutes.) Even though acupuncture can be an effective treatment for some causes, I stuck two needles in her head both for flair and due to the misapplication of acupuncture as a cure rather than relief for pain. She also has a trepanation hole in her head that constantly oozes out something conceptually similar to blood, but likely not actually blood. I don’t know what it is or if I want to KNOW what it is. Her necklace is a piece of ionized jewelry, which does.. some bullshit or something about Qi, Look, I don’t make up this stuff, someone else does. Her feet are covered in Kinoki Foot Pads instead of any proper footwear. Kinoki Foot Pads are pads that turn a dirty black overnight when you wear them, supposedly because they drain out ‘toxins’ from your feet, but really because they’re made with green tea and such that react with sweat and air, but whatever, ‘toxins’.

Anyway, that’s what I think Fern might look like as a ‘Doctor’. Or, at least, passing for a Doctor.

*(N.D is short for a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine, D.C is short for Doctor of Chiropractic, Ac. D is short for Acupuncture Doctor, and O.D is short for Doctor of Osteopathy)