#and he does the same in return with her strength capabilities ??

[sonic-love-island-official]

shoulda known amy was The One when shadow immediately committed to growing out his chest hair for her a day in

[4-the-l0ve-0f-art]

“The Captain’s beloved…wait, what?!”

Capitano x Gender Neutral Reader one shot

Work count: 2.2k

Genre: Fluff, Comedy, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship

Rating: General Audiences

Trigger Warnings: none

Summary: The fatui discover that their Captain does, in fact, have a life outside of work and gossip between the ranks ensues. (Cue silly fatui shenanigans)

Ao3 Link

Capitano, the Fatui’s first lord and harbinger, contrary to popular belief, was respected and admired by his platoons rather than feared. There was a widespread misunderstanding both in and outside the organization that the Captain was a harsh and dangerous leader due to his mysterious nature. However, the people who worked under him knew better as they had grown to admire him the more they interacted with him.

He held himself with pride and treated his soldiers the same way he wanted to be treated: with respect and dignity. And in return, they learned the depths of this man’s strategic genius and strength. His strength was unmatched in combat and led his people well with good decision making and training. They could only hope to be as good as him in his various fields of expertise.

He was strict, and quick to discipline unruly fatuus, yes, but that did not stop others under his command from admiring him. And to emphasize this even more, it was clear that his fellow harbingers and even the Tsarista respected him, whether their goals and morals aligned with his or not. However, this made the people around him curious about aspects related to him outside of his work and title. He was a revered public figure and people were naturally curious about his personal life.

This is where you came in. You, his one and only beloved, the only person who held his whole heart in your hands. Not many people knew of this, but the Captain was a gentle man at his core, and you had somehow managed to uncover all of his being and see him fully as himself, without his title, without his strength. You knew this man inside and out, just as he had come to know you. It was a mutual love, one which even he did not know he was capable of feeling, and that made him all the more enamored with you.

This, however, people did not know. So you can imagine the surprise on their faces when you, an ordinary civilian, came to the Zapalyarny Palace and asked for directions to the Captain’s office. The clerk at the desk looked at you blankly, as if she were staring at an anomaly. This prompted you to try and explain yourself.

“..I’m here to drop off his lunch. So, if you don’t mind..?” You asked.

No response. The blank stare continued.

You already knew that you looked out of place in this grand palace with no Fatui uniform or mask on. But you were determined to make sure your beloved got his lunch, which you had specifically decided to make for him that day as a special treat for how hard he had been working while preparing for a business trip to Natlan.

“Excuse me..?” You said a little louder this time. That seemed to snap her back to reality.

“You cannot enter this place, only authorized personnel are allowed inside. If you’d like to meet our lord, please book your appointment accordingly.” She replied on autopilot, as if she’d rehearsed the same sentence multiple times.

“I’m sorry, I know you have your duties, but I’m here just to drop off his lunch. You can check with him yourself if you’d like..”

“He’s busy at the moment, please leave your package here and we will deliver it to him.” She replied. It seemed like you were being studied like a suspicious person who was attempting to sneak in.

Fair enough.. you thought. I was hoping I would get to spend a few minutes with him and see how he was holding up at work but that can wait till he’s home. And she’s not wrong, I did drop by without notice, so it makes sense for them to be suspicious.

Fatui soldiers passing by had also been glancing at the ongoing conversation at the front desk, eyeing the lunch box wrapped in patterned cloth in your hands with raised eyebrows. You decided to leave the food there, getting one last word in before leaving.

“If you could, please make sure it reaches him soon. It’s his favorite meal and I would prefer it didn’t go cold before he ate it.”

And then everyone watched as your ordinary self left, unaware of the number of eyes on you.

…

A pyroslinger skirmisher stationed near the entrance asked dumbfoundedly, “Did..did they just say that was the Captain’s favorite meal? Our lord harbinger?”

A cryogunner skirmisher who had also watched the whole thing go down as he clocked in asked another question right after, in the same state of confusion as the previous fatuus. “..Has anyone seen them around before? They don’t look like someone who would be seen standing next to Lord Capitano.”

And as the just as confused clerk left the scene towards his office with your goods in hand, excited chatter filled the halls.

Chaos would be the right word for it. You had left chaos in your wake with a simple visit to his workplace.

…

That night, as you and Capitano settled in to relax in your shared home after a long day of work, you asked him how his lunch was.

“It was delicious, my love.” He replied, gently caressing your face with his hands while looking down at you through his mask. “It felt like a treat to have your home cooked meal at work. You didn’t have to, but thank you. It made my day.”

You smiled and took his hands in yours as you nuzzled into his touch. “I’m glad you liked it. I was going to give it to you myself but I couldn’t enter the place.”

“You should visit more often. I’ll let the security personnel know to let you enter so you can come and go as you like.” He paused, clearing his throat. “..Seeing you in the middle of a long day would bring me relief.”

You felt slightly flushed at his straightforward choice of words. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you being so..open with me. But I like it, of course. I would like that as long as I’m not disturbing you at work.”

Capitano chuckled. It was like the angels decided to bless you today, really. “I will always make time for you, my love. Just as you do for me.”

You beamed. “Okay, okay, let’s get some sleep now, Mr. Loverman. We still have work tomorrow in case you’re forgetting.”

A kiss on the forehead and the rustling of sheets was all you heard before you were whisked away to dreamland.

…

Unbeknownst to you and Capitano, however, word about you spread like wildfire across the next few days between the excited fatui soldiers. Some from even the different departments under the other harbingers might’ve heard. The person who looked like a civilian, dropping lunch packed in pretty cloth for their Lord did not go unnoticed.

This was the only time someone unrelated to work had been seen asking for their Captain and questions about your relation to him were on the tip of everyone’s tongue during break times.

Two fatuus gossiped as they watched the Captain spar in training with his fellow soldiers, admiration evident in their eyes.

“Someone dropped off lunch for him? I thought he would be too busy having meals with high rankers from across Teyvat.”

And after a short pause the other replied, “Dude, hold on, does he even eat? I thought he was superhuman or something.”

“I know you’re dumb, but I didn’t know you were that dumb, my guy.”

“Hey! Just saying… anyway, are we even sure the people weren’t hallucinating when they saw the person drop lunch off for him?”

“I heard it was his favorite meal, freshly cooked, apparently. Who knows, man? Maybe it was a fan or something. Our lord does have a pretty big following, y’know.” The fatuus stated proudly.

Their lively chatter continued until they were called back into training.

…

A few days later, as soon as you found the time, you decided to visit Capitano at work with yet another home cooked meal. You wanted to make most of your time with him before he traveled to Natlan and having meals together would be a good way to wind down a little.

You entered the palace yet again, determined to meet him this time. It should be fine, right? He did say he would inform them..

And as you had hoped so, he did, in fact, inform them. As soon as the same clerk from before saw you, it seemed like her eyes were bulging out of her sockets. All you had to do was reach the desk and she confirmed your name and led you to the training grounds, where he was currently working. It seemed like some sort of training session was in the works, with all kinds of combat taking place between the soldiers in the distance.

Before you could ask her if you were even allowed to enter this place, she bowed and hurried back in the direction of the front desk. The strange behavior didn’t go unnoticed by you but now you had to find your way to Capitano across the opposite side of the field. Since you were here at last, why not just see things through?

The middle of the field was the most densely occupied with various people fighting in different groups, while what you recognised as skirmishers were practicing their aim at dummy targets on the right side. The soldiers were hard at work even in the harsh everlasting winter of Snezhnaya. The left side of the field, however, seemed less crowded compared to the rest as people seemed to be setting up their gear or resting. Your Captain, opposite to you across the field, was busy conversing with a group of soldiers who seemed to be listening to him attentively.

You decided your best option was to take the left side. It would be easier to walk through the calm atmosphere over there.

As you made your way through the crowd, people started to notice you. They were pretty intimidating with their weapons and muscled bodies at display so you decided to be extra careful to not bump into anyone and quickly made your way across, and as you got closer, Capitano’s voice became clear.

“The heat in Natlan will be unbearable. You will be stationed in the wild all day, so make sure you have the appropriate supplies to get you through the day. It is of the utmost importance that...what, what is it? Why are you all staring at me like that?”

The group’s attention shifted from him to you, as you stood behind him and tapped his shoulder.

“Capitano, do you have a moment..?” You asked as he turned around, his armor clinking from the movement.

“Oh, my love!” He exclaimed in a soft voice. “What brings you here? Hold on, let's get you back inside. You’ll catch a cold here.”

The group (and everyone nearby) watched in complete awe as his demeanor from before completely switched from authoritative to somewhat… joyfull? Was Lord Capitano being affectionate?

“I brought you lunch, but I can leave it in your office if you’re busy right now.” You said hurriedly, not wanting to keep him busy.

“No, that won’t do, my love.” He took the package from you and placed his hand on your back. “Eat with me inside.”

He then turned back to the group, who jolted straight up at his sudden change. “Finish the supply preparations once you’re done training. All of you are dismissed.”

“Y-yes, my lord!” They replied in unison and bowed. And yet again, they watched in awe as he guided you back inside the palace, ever so gently, one hand on your back and the other carrying a box wrapped up in a floral patterned cloth. A stark contrast to his all black and blue outfit.

…

As soon as both of you were out of sight, chaos erupted yet again, more loudly this time, with multiple voices talking over the other.

“”My love?” Did he just call them “my love?” Did I hear that right?!”

“What was that? What did we just witness?”

“That was so romantic, holy shit! Was that the same person we take orders from everyday? What the hell?!”

“DID THE LORD HARBINGER JUST… GET VISITED BY THEIR SPOUSE?”

“I thought that ring on his finger was for fashion…”

And that is how they found out that their beloved Captain, who seemed to have no soul outside of his work, was a married man with a loving spouse.

This proceeded to be the hottest gossip in the Fatui for the rest of the month, until they discover more about you from another future visit.

…

BONUS:

Sitting in the privacy of his office, you enjoyed your meal together.

“..You seem to work with very strange people, Capitano.” You said to him.

“Do I? How so?” He asked before you fed him a bite.

“Hm.. actually, nevermind. It would be even stranger if they weren’t strange, considering they work with you.” You chuckled.

You enjoyed your time together and went back home, leaving your beloved in confusion from your conversation, and the sight of you fondly feeding him for him to think about for the rest of the day.

[waffle-spam]

Being the Big Spoon (Lyney)

I saw a magic siblings edit and had a sudden urge to write :P

Scenario: Holding them to sleep when they're usually the ones holding you

Contents: Fluff, I think this counts as hurt/comfort, established relationship, me trying to pick apart the characters brain and how they think, no gender specified

Definitely using this scenario with Xiao too lol.

In usual wafflespam fashion this was written on my phone as I was falling asleep so idk hopefully it makes sense / is in character?

Lyney was supposed to be the protector.

With his siblings, with being the next Father of the House of the Hearth, with everyone.

It was late and Lynette and Freminet were out on a mission, which always had him feeling anxious. The siblings were a package deal. They always did missions together. They worked best together, always covered each other's weaknesses with their strengths, always bright back results. Of course he knew they were perfectly strong and capable without him, but they haven't been separated like this -- him safe at home while his family was out there where he couldn't do anything if something were to go wrong -- since Lynette got her vision first and started going on the more dangerous missions without him. An integral, inseparable part of himself was out there, exposed to danger without him being able to preserve it.

But he couldn't think about that now. He had to get some rest because he had his own mission early the next day.

Normally when things were this bad his siblings would rest beside him, their presence a grounding force for him.

But right now he didn't have them. He had you.

He wrapped his arms around you, resting his head on top of yours, as if trying to physically shield you from the world.

If he couldn't be out there protecting his siblings, at least he could protect you like this. The thought seemed to appease his worries to some degree.

He was caught off guard when he felt you adjust yourself as the two of you slept, now being held close under the crook of your neck instead of him feeling you curled up against his chest.

"You're shivering," you whisper to him, and he realizes only now that you've pointed it out.

"How observant..." He hummed, flashing what he hoped looked like a cheeky smile, his composure and stage confidence quickly returning as Lyney called upon it with practiced ease. "Nothing ever gets past you, does it?"

You seemed to frown at that.

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine..." You say, long accustomed to his tendency to hide his problems away. If he wasn't ready, he wasn't ready. "But I want to try something."

Gentle hands rested on his upper arms now, the repeated circular movements of your thumbs against him coaxing the loud thoughts in his head to fade to a dull static. Still there, ever-present prickling at the back of his mind, but more manageable now.

He was enveloped in warmth, the very same warmth he was always trying to preserve for others. The very same warmth he didn't dare set aside for himself if it meant someone he cared about would go cold.

His siblings often tried to talk to him, to get him to open up, but some things he just couldn't share.

For the first time in a long while, he was the one receiving comfort instead of giving it. Maybe it was because he was too tired to take on the caretaker role right now. Maybe it was the sudden flood of calm that made him not want to get out of your arms.

Slowly, tentatively, he let himself relax against you. He let himself get lost in your heartbeat, your gentle breathing, your soft whispers that he was barely awake to register.

You can feel how he physically melts against you, his warm breaths against your shoulder evening out as he finally fell asleep.

---

I really didn't know how to end this I'm sorry 🫠

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

Also don't think anyone has said this (thats a joke) but like, art styles aside:

The animation, expressions, movement, everything of ATSV is IMPECCABLE.

Like insanely, ridiculously, almost mind bogglingly good.

[This is a MEDIUM length post]

The main strength is the Emotion -

In terms of animation, the range of emotions Miguel is capable of expressing is like... crazy good. Gwen's emotions ARE UNSPEAKABLY IMPRESSIVE.

LIKE...ANIMATING HER FUCKING BREATHING???? AND BLINKS!! AS AN EMOTIONAL CUE. HELLO???!!

And the movie hinges on this - almost every scene has an emotional cue that HAS to hit. Whether is Jess's looks of hesitation or Peter B.'s looks of horror.

And this may seem like the most ridiculous comparison ever made but like...

The Bee Movie and Across the Spider-Verse came out FIFTEEN YEARS APART.

THE BEE MOVIE...THIS MONSTRASITY that has plagued humankind - was made less than two decades from THIS:

The fact that we progressed that far as a society (pun intended) in that short of a time will never not baffle me.

I genuinely cannot name any other animated movie that:

Has multiple styles throughout the duration

Can seamlessly change styles without the viewer immediately noticing (like Gwen returning to her universe)

Show two or more animation styles on screen at the same time (and no, Roger Rabbit and Space Jam don't count - that's half live action lol)

Just off the top of my head - ATSV shows up to three styles in one scene: I'm mainly thinking of the scene that shows Hobie (customized - style 1), Peter B. (standard - style 2), and Miguel (a light stylized - style 3).

It can be brought to four if you want to count Miles/Gwen, though their style isn't visible.

I can think of a couple scenes that genuinely blew me away in terms of animation -

One being Rio's 'What-EVER?!' because of the little stance correction and head bob she does, because it's such a natural thing to do. And it adds so much to an already perfect line.

It's something someone would genuinely do IRL without even noticing.

Another I LOVE is Pavitr and Hobie roughhousing.

Like, I can't yell about these five seconds of animation more.

It's SO fluid it looks like Motion-Capture and I left the theatre googling is any Mo-Cap was used in the movie (and from what I can tell - no, it's all original animation).

The way Pavitr falls to the side and bumps them - This not only being a natural reaction to Hobie and his weight, but it also LOOKS natural. So much so you can see it affect Hobie's model too. The movement has kinetic energy on both models -

Which is AMAZING CONSIDERING THEY'RE ANIMATED ON LIKE FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES.

In this shot alone, there's the guitar, vest, AND Hobie, all of which have their own animation rules. Plus the outline on his guitar AND him. And then there PAVI too, who's running at a higher frame rate, touching and interacting with Hobie.

So much so that Hobie's model nearly wraps himself around Pavi. Pavi's hair is moving, Hobie's guitar is moving, there's movement in the background - and it looks GREAT.

PLUS THE CAMERA IS MOVING AND GOSTLING. IT'S NOT A STATIC SHOT. The models and camera are moving AS IF THEY'RE REAL when they're not.

That's - My..I CAN EVEN COMPUTE THAT.

But by far, I think the range of expression used on Miguel is like... Chef's kiss.

(of course I was gonna trick you into reading another post about Miguel. Uh-huh that's what's about to happen)

Like... are you kidding me?

NAH DEADASS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????

The whole later half of the movie hinges on Miguel looking buckwild crazy insane and they NAIL that. And like-

Oh my god what the actual fuck

?????????????????????????? I........ I have nothing to add. After that picture......Nah... LMAOOO

(left: actual photo of Moche watching this happen)

But Anyway chile, This movie is like.. genuinely a modern marvel.

If Marvel gave Tim Gunn 4 billion dollars and five years, whatever live-action rendition he would have made would not even compare to ATSV on any conceivable level - that's how good it is so jot that down.

And like...don't even get me started on Hobie..his design..his representation...girl I will start crying in this Arby's do not play with me

I just felt that needed to be said.

you get what I'm saying yall know what I mean iight coo

Here's a picture of Hobie to cleanse your palette.

Bye.

[2-dsimp]

What if... Harumu's darling was faceblind and had low-social tolerance, basically recognizing people by voice and habits?

Her husband IS a plain, boring, square in comparison to the homewrecker, and she adores him for it because he does it intentionally for her comfort. She finds him a comforting rock and bastion of consistency. She holds 0 attraction for Harumu because he's loud, very in your face, a Diva, and never wears the same outfit twice in the darling's presence. She gets very stressed about it, having gotten into trouble her last job when she failed to recognize her Boss when came in out of his usual outfit once.

Darling can't understand Homewrecker's overtures, she's too busy trying to figure out where they lost their boss and praying to god that no one noticed because the last time they failed to recognize him off the bat (he changed into a sexier outfit because she looks at his clothes more and he thought he could seduce her with a hot body) Harumu threw The World's Biggest Diva Fit.

This scenario is intriguing! But To be frank, if darling had face blindness and a low social tolerance.

Their application wouldn’t even have made it through the preliminaries against their competitors. Harumu is the face of an international beauty brand after all. So qualifications to handle all the attention. Which comes with being his caretaker will have to be met without exception.

To even catch Harumu’s attention you’d have to be exceptional in your own right. Since he believes that they deserve only the best of the best. So it’s not like he’d settle for just any manager. It’s why the beauty influencer initially was against having one in the first place. Since Harumu knows how high maintenance he is and is very critical about every single need being taken cared of.

The Shapeshifter isn’t loud and in your face. They’re a diva but a classy one at that.

Harumu never had the need to raise his tone (except for a few times throughout his spoiled life). Especially when he’s so used to people rushing to his beck and call. With just a simple expression of displeasure and a wave of their manicured fingers which means ‘come hither’.

Though on another note Harumu doesn’t wear anything twice unless they really love the design.

But if for whatever reason darling didn’t show any reaction to his outfit.

At first the yandere shapeshifter! Would be smug thinking that his beauty had finally stolen the breath from their lungs. And would even go as far as to prepare and call for the paramedics. just in case you fainted from the sheer exposure to his flawless features.

But slowly after getting out of his delusional headspace. And sees that you just didn’t have any opinion whatsoever. The yandere shapeshifter! would literally freak out from the notion that his handsome/pretty features didn’t have an affect.

Harumu would be so in shock that he’d feel faint and have a mental freak out. Questioning if he’s having a nightmare or if he’s just hallucinating. While also being heavily concerned about if you were even human to begin with. And was just an android in disguise. (Maybe you lied on your resume how else are you so capable in managing him?).

After having to call the medical staff for your model who fainted from pure distress. You’d later have Harumu wearing a tight lipped smile in their female form. (So that they don’t accidentally break your phone with their male counterparts strength) grabbing your phone to manually type in yet another requirement into your packed schedule.

The task was “practice every morning, noon, and night on giving words of affirmation to me, Darling~♥︎" Into your daily regime. Making it the top priority for you to fulfill as his manager.

After making countless desperate rationalizations. Harumu finally returned to her usual confident self and would simply chalk it up to you just being shy (for her own sanity) Becoming determined to get you outta that meek shell of yours so you can work on (adoring her like you’re supposed to)

[davey-in-a-minivan]

Isabel Lovelace My Absolute Beloved

Lovelace is one of my favorite examples of one of my favorite kinds of characters, which is: woman who the world is trying so hard to kill and emerges beat up and spitting out teeth and still going.

(Relatedly, Eva Olivia Moreno is one of the few White Vault characters I really loved and it's on the strength of the joy I felt when i realized that not only had Eva NOT died when a rockslide separated her from the team, but instead dragged herself three days over the mountains, alone, covered in mud and blood and bruises, WITH ALL THE TEAM'S DATA DRIVES, to let the world know what was going on and demand rescue for the others. LOVE HER. Alessandra "Cockroach" Strong of the Penumbra Podcast ALSO falls into this category and I would've loved to see more of her)

Interestingly, I think Lovelace plays a similar role in-universe for Eiffel and Minkowski, in that they first encounter her as a 'character' in old audio logs whose survival they are rooting for at a remove -- when Eiffel and Minkowski listen to her logs but it's unclear whether she made it off the station, Eiffel shushes Minkowski's skepticism and says "let me have my badass space commando chick!!" In the absence of conclusive evidence he clings to the idea that she survived, for what i suspect are two reasons: (1) it means it's possible to survive and gives him and Minkowski a sliver of hope, and (2) it's not fair for her to die after trying so hard to save herself and her crew, and if she survived he can believe that there's some fairness in the universe.

After Kepler shoots Lovelace, Minkowski tells an imagined Lovelace how badly she wanted to get Lovelace home because she wanted to believe that she could go home, which feels like an echo of Eiffel's earlier sentiment--obviously by now Minkowski knows and cares about Lovelace as a person, but she's also a symbol of the ultimate survivor, who will do whatever it takes to get home. If Lovelace, who fought harder and longer, with more skill and fewer limits than Minkowski finds herself capable of, and still didn't survive, what chance is there for Minkowski and her crew?

WHICH MAKES IT SO FUCKING SATISFYING WHEN LOVELACE LIVES AGAIN.

I need you all to know--Lovelace was "dead" for, what, an episode??--in that time my then-roommate and I put up a SHRINE to her memory. She was too cool and tragic and extreme and funny and hot to die!!!

I'm very glad the universe and Gabriel Urbina agreed.

It's not only satisfying because I'm obsessed with her and wanted her back (which I admit freely). It's a riveting development in the story of the unkillable Captain Lovelace where we finally see that she CAN'T be killed because she's already dead. Functionally she's a ghost in the story, haunting the Hephaestus until she finishes her unfinished business, and there's a delightful sheen of destiny to her arc where I was like oh fuck they've already done their worst to her and she's still going. She's going to win this. I don't know what it'll cost her, this could still be a tragedy, but she's GOING to succeed.

What does this mean for the rest of the original crew looking to her as a symbol? Eiffel, Minkowski and Hera do survive, like Lovelace. It is possible. But it costs them a lot. Weeks after Lovelace dies, resurrects, and has the day-ruining revelation that she's actually the alien clone of the dead woman she thought she was haha, she talks about the discomforting effort she makes to be the real Lovelace, not the person that Goddard turned her into. I think once they return to Earth the rest of the crew will struggle in similar ways. Minkowski need to believe that Lovelace could come home, and she did. But none of them could be the same as they were before.

Now, obviously the extremes Lovelace had to go to in pursuit of survival and justice were difficult and upsetting for her. But they were also hot!! SO let's wrap this up with some of the most iconic Lovelace moments according to me:

1. The "run and hide" monologue Eiffel and Minkowski find - HOT. sorry i know this comes on the heels of her describing the harrowing tragedy of her crew members' deaths but like

that's hot!!! go girl, kill em all!!!

2. THE DEAD MAN'S SWITCH. she said im going big AND going home, through the power of insane resourcefulness and this nuclear bomb i made

3. "variations on a theme" is suuuch a good minisode

4. disabling the airlock during the clone jacobi situation without telling anyone

5. NAPALM

6a. broadly, the hostage situation during the coup, where she goads kepler into focusing on her instead of eiffel

6b. SPECIFICALLY the part of the hostage situation where she gets the show's one "fuck"

7. alien possession lovelace!!!! i know it wasn't quite her melting kepler's hand off but god it's a fun scene

8. time loop lovelace. i love a good time loop and the contrast between her yelling and goading and shooting things in the last argument but also being, like, pretty chill and pragmatic about it--this is just her method of causing enough trouble to break the loop--is fun

9. hera's and her intersecting journeys re: what it means to be a person

10. distracting cutter so minkowski can stab him with the harpoon!!!!!!

in conclusion: WHAT A CHARACTER

[elegantjellyfishwerewolf]

Trollhunters! Nomura Au

Final

The third part(2/2)<

This AU was made me and @enniyart

While part of the team, consisting of Nomura, Angor, Blinky, Draal, Aaarrgh, Toby and Jim, went in search of Merlin. Another part of the team with Steve and Eli stayed to look after the exhausted Claire in the Lake house (due to recent events, the house was empty for a very long time).

The journey to the tomb is uneventful. The only interesting moment happens when Merlin wakes up and Nomura says that she is now a trollhunter. This statement makes the Wizard surprised, for a second he looks at Jim, but quickly assumes the usual cynical expression on his face and together with the others goes to Arcadia where an unpleasant surprise awaits them.... The fact is that while the trollhunter and the others were looking for Merlin's tomb, the Creepslayerz, who were left to look after Claire, witnessed her obsession with Morgana (due to the fact that there was more concentration of dark magic in Claire, Morgana's possession occurred earlier than in the original). Steve was already ready to say goodbye to life, but fortunately Eli watched all seasons of "Supernatural", so the first thing he does is throw a jar of salt into the obsessed Claire and lock her in the basement to wait for the rest of the team.

After the rest of the team returns, Morgana is tied up in the same way as the original and they think about how to return Claire to her body. They decide to send a couple of team members to the world of shadows to pull Claire's soul out of illusions. Jim and Toby are called to go to the world of shadows, Angor remains to keep the portal open, and the rest remain to watch the queen of the Eldrich.

While Jim and Toby search for Claire, Morgana tries to manipulate the remaining members of the team. But Merlin begins to do what he does best, infuriate others, and Morgan is already being led to his manipulations and jokes.

Just like in the original, Jim and Toby find Claire's soul and together they expel the witch from her body.

At this time, Gunmar, with the help of Avalon's staff and Strickler, frees Morgana. Gunmar decides that he no longer needs changelings, but Strickler stops him saying that of all those present, only he is aware of what is happening in the world (and with the help of his connections has a great influence in the human world), he also says that he should not underestimate the superiority of people in technical terms. Strickler proposes a plan according to which his changelings penetrate into all important spheres of humanity, and when Gunmar decides to begin conquering the upper lands, humanity will already be destroyed from within and will not be able to provide proper resistance to the Gumgum army. Morgana, who has just been released, agrees with Strickler's plan and Gunmar and Morgana go into the shadows for a while to regain strength after a long imprisonment.

After all she's been through, Claire decides that her parents deserve the right to know what's really going on. At first, Ophelia and Javier do not believe their daughter, but when her teacher from the "exchange school" appears, all doubts disappear instantly.

Thanks to the help of a member of the Nunez council, the team is better able to hide trolls from the trollmarket.

A team of hunters is discussing a plan to defeat Gunmar and Morgana. Merlin tells about the stones of the three shadows capable of summoning the eclipse sword. The trollhunter already has the eye of Gunmar, and therefore the whole team goes for the rest of the stones. It turns out to be quite simple to get the stones of death and birth. Only in the process of extracting the second Draal accidentally turns into a human (he and Nomura even manage to go on a date to a human restaurant. The date itself happened surprisingly well, until Draal started eating curtains). After learning about this, Merlin and Angor finally figure out how to defeat Morgana once and for all. They decide to prepare a potion that, like with Draal, will turn Morgana into a human and when she will become mortal, they will finally be able to kill her.

Angor also decides that they need all the

powers they have and therefore helps Claire create her own shadow staff.

Blinky and Aaarrrgh, as well as in the original, gather allies among the trolls to fight back against Gunmar.

Gunmar also wasted no time and while the trollhunter was looking for the stones of the three shadows, he attacked troll settlements and replenished his army, simultaneously absorbing their hearts of stone, becoming even bigger and stronger because of this.

After that, Morgana begins eternal night (she also breaks Merlin's staff), but when they come to the surface, gumgums do not find a single person.

The fact is that council member Nunez is seeking consent to conduct a training evacuation of the entire city, so all residents of Arcadia are safe.

Morgana, seeing this, immediately begins to ask Strickler what is going on, and then it turns out that Walter has long betrayed her and sided with Gunmar. Morgana is about to kill the changeling, but she is attacked by an Angor that appeared from the portal and takes them to another battle location.

Gunmar at the same time starts a fight against Nomura in the eclipse armor and Draal.

Merlin goes to the ruined market to get a staff, and the rest of the team, together with the Order of Janus, fight against the Gumgum army.

The trollhunters' plan is that Angor should get close to Morgana and poison her with a poison that turns into a human (Angor himself understood that he was unlikely to be able to get out of the battle alive). Claire, when the witch finally turns into a mortal, will deal a fatal blow to the exhausted Morgan, thereby canceling eternal night. At this time, Nomura and Draal will try to restrain Gunmar in an open area, so that when the sky dissipated and the sun appeared, Gunmar fell under his direct rays and turned into stone (the fact is that he became so huge that Merlin was not sure whether the eclipse blade would be enough to kill Gunmar). The task of the rest of the team is to restrain Gunmar's army so that she could not come to his or Morgana's aid.The task of the rest of the team is to restrain Gunmar's army so that she could not come to his or Morgana's aid.

Angor and Morgana begin their battle during which the staff of the shadow breaks and Morgana kills Angor, but he manages to cut her with a poisoned blade. Morgana notices that her wounds do not recover, but remain and begin to bleed. In a panic, she tries to escape to regain her strength and stop the effect of the poison, but Claire, with a new staff of shadow, blocks her path. A long fight ensues between them during which Claire loses her right eye and is again in a dying state, but still she manages to kill the witch.

Gunmar finds himself right under the withering rays of the sun. He tries to find shelter (his skin has almost turned to stone and has become very fragile), but at that moment Nomura and Draal decapitate him. Gunnar dies, but also due to a strong surge of magic, the stone in the amulet splits, and Draal also loses his right arm.

The remaining gumgums, which did not have time to eliminate, are destroyed by themselves due to the death of Gunmar, as in the original.

Eternal Night ends (Merlin, due to the fact that Morgana broke the staff of Avalon, does not regain her powers).

Residents of Arcadia are returning to the city (a little oh.evayut when they see the consequences of the battle against Morgana and Gunmar). And when the team of hunters relaxes, the changelings take over the city and Strickler declares that his plan remains unchanged. Changelings will also destroy humanity from the inside, and then using human weapons they will strike at all the deposits of stone hearts, so the world will belong only to changelings (the world did not want to accept them, and they are not going to accept this world).

Claire goes to the hospital. Draal also becomes incapacitated due to the loss of his arm. Steve, Eli and Toby say that they will fight with the others, but Nomura does not want the children to participate in the massacre, so takes them to the pantry and locks them for a while until it's all over. Jim looks at all this from the side, and then follows Nomura (she did not look for him because time was running out, and she thought that he would have enough brains not to follow her (not enough)).

Nomura (already without the amulet, armed with khopesh), Merlin (still with 10% of his magic), Blinky, Aaarrrgh and the remaining surviving trolls go to storm the Order of Janus.

At this time, it is not Enrique who goes to the dark lands for familiars (let's accept the fact that the Darklands were not destroyed during eternal night).

While the rest of the trolls are fighting the changelings, Nomura infiltrates the headquarters of the Order of Janus (Jim slips behind her unnoticed) where Strickler is now. A fight ensues between Nomura and Strickler during which Strickler prepares to deliver a fatal blow to the hunter....

*BANG*

Jim picks up a crossbow lying on the floor and shoots his history teacher.

The surviving changelings escape from Arcadia. It is NotEnrique who successfully gets out of the Darklands with the familiars in the cradle stone.

Afterword: after the finale, Jimmy and Claire start dating (they fell in love with each other at joint sessions with a psychologist).

Claire continues to practice shadow magic (after the battle, she picks up a piece root of the Angor Rot body and now it grows in her pot).

Nomura, Draal, Blinky and Merlin, along with the rest of the trolls from the market, leave for New Jersey. Aaarrrgh stays with Toby and the others to protect Arcadia.

[scarletttries]

What One Piece Characters Are Like With A Reader With Walking Sticks...

Request: "So... I was thinking, how about headcanons of the straw hats with a S/O who has a disability with their feet and use walk sticks to move around freely but they can use their walk sticks as their weapons too! I would truly appreciate it if you could add Buggy the Clown and Dracule Mihawk in the headcanons too, thank you."

Pairings: Luffy x Reader, Zoro x Reader, Nami x Reader, Sanji x Reader, Usopp x Reader, Buggy x Reader, Dracule x Reader

Luffy:

- Luffy sees every characteristic about a person as an unending strength and advantage and your disability would be no different. Luffy wouldn't even have to see you fight before he begged you to join his crew, being able to see just how special you are in a way unkind people tend to overlook.

- The first time he sees you use your sticks as a weapon, that might be when Luffy really falls in love, cheering and screaming at the top of his lungs as you take down the enemies pursuing the pair of you and pulling you straight in for a kiss the minute you two are alone.

- Luffy treats you with the saming loving exuberance he does his whole crew, but somehow dialled up by a thousand since you have his whole heart. His beaming smile follows you everywhere you go, and he always feels safe and at home with you by his side.

Zoro:

- When Zoro first accepted the bounty for your capture, he had to admit he thought the price might be a little too generous. He followed you for the better part of a day, sure from the kindness you radiate that he could almost just ask you to come with him and you'd do it with a smile. And then he saw the way you easily fought off two other hunters who had come to take you in, watching the whole encounter with a smirk on his face as he realised no price would be enough for your capture.

- Instead, Zoro introduced himself to you that evening, coming clean about why he had come to find you, and hoping you would take mercy on him and let him buy you a drink anyway. Luckily he had been right about your kindness and you hooked the nearest bar stool with your crutch and dragged it close enough for the pair of you to sit knee to knee for the rest of the night.

- After a night of swapping stories and weapon handling tips, Zoro is infatuated, knowing he's found an equal partner and fellow free spirit he could explore the world with free of worries. You two are famed for taking on the most difficult bounties, never backing down from a fight, and rarely keeping your hands off each other.

Nami:

- Nami has spent so much of her life being wildly underestimated that she recognises a dark horse when she sees one. She's trying to pull a grift in a bar inside a military base, but can't get a word in edgeways with every cadet tripping over themselves to help you; fetching you drinks, offering out their arm every time you want to change seat, trying to one up each others brave stories as you applaud their efforts. Only Nami sees your true capabilities as you take keys from their pockets as they settle beside you, or make an obvious mental note of their name to use later. As the night descends into star speckled darkness she follows you back to your boat, determined to find out your plan and not paying enough attention as she rounds a corner and trips straight over your outstretched walking stick.

- Laid out on her back as you smile down proudly at her, she can feel her stomach do a flip. She never wanted a partner in crime before tonight, but when you extend out your hand she can feel herself drawn to you and the possibilities the two of you could get into together.

- She happily accepts the hand you offer and in return gives you her unwavering loyalty, the two of you becoming the unexpected family you had both always been seeking.

Sanji:

- Bless poor pathetic Sanji, he truly does not know how to handle himself around you. His heart is so immediately head over heels that he wants to treat you like the undeniably precious gem that you are, even when you can look after yourself far better than he's ever looked after himself.

- Deep down he knows you can handle yourself, and that he never has to worry, but dear god does he love you so much that he's going to worry anyway. He's going to offer you a piggyback whenever you have to walk more than a few steps. He's going to sprint ahead of you and pull out a chair even though he's more likely to fall over than you are. And you better believe he's going to constantly fear that you're not eating enough and he needs to feed you right now.

- Sanji is truly captivated by everything you do, and when he sees you fight, that man just drops to his knees in worship of your strength and skill. Honestly Sanji would fall to his knees and beg for your affections and company any time you asked, so completely devoted to you and your happiness, even if he's not always showing it in the most helpful way.

Usopp:

- Usopp can hardly believe how cool you are when he sees you fighting off fellow pirates with your walking sticks. Before the battle is even over he's narrating your incredible skills and the badass way you defend yourself when your enemies underestimate you. By the time all your foes are on the ground he is bounding over to you with a beaming smile on his face and his hand stretched out to shake yours.

- Usopp has always struggled to be brave, but somehow being around you finally brings out the best in him. He finds himself more willing to lead the pack, to step up and be his own captain, wanting more than anything to make you feel proud of him.

- Usopp will never not think you're too cool for him, but he's so grateful and excited the first time you kiss him that he practically sprints off to tell Luffy the good news, leaving you stood blushing as he shouts with joy that he feels like the luckiest guy in the world.

Buggy:

- Buggy knows how much strength it takes for someone to turn a disability into a personal advantage so you know he really truly appreciates you for exactly who you are. He likes to keep you very close, not for some outdated feeling of protection, but because he genuinely values your insights on all the decisions he faces as a captain.

- Buggy isn't afraid to put his hands on you, lifting you onto his pirate throne or pulling you suddenly into his private captain's quarters to steal a moment of your time. He's impatient when it comes to spending time with you, a hollow feeling creeping up inside of him whenever you have to be seperated.

- If you're ever feeling tired or worn out, Buggy will happily leave an arm wrapped around your waist to guide you with his intense strength, grateful for his strange gift if it means he can support you wherever you are.

Dracule:

- It's not often anyone manages to land a hit on the world's greatest swordsman, but that's exactly what you do when he inadvertently sneaks up behind you in a winding village street. Instincts taking over you catch him off guard and sweep his leg with your stick, sending him tumbling to the ground with an absolutely awestruck look on his face. Naturally you apologise as you realise he wasn't actually sneaking up on you, but by then the damage is done and Dracule is head over heels physically and emotionally.

- He insists on apologising himself but only so he can offer to make it up to you by buying you dinner tonight, immediately overwhelmed with feelings for you and desperate not to be parted from you so soon.

- He's so easy to talk to, a life spent roaming alone rarely letting Mihawk connect with anyone like this, and when the night draws to a close he's sure he'd die happy if he never spent one more night away from you.

[vivacissimx]

some course correction on visenya targaryen

Current Visenya discourses are flawed because they presuppose forms of patriarchy that didn't exist yet & project it backwards (a trick Fire & Blood actually uses itself, in fact makes it cartoonishly obvious, because that's a mechanism of creating history. Ex. 'Baelon was the natural successor to Aemon and everybody definitely agreed' only for the issue to continue being debated for years to come). So the language of 'usurpation' is used for Visenya when the story that ultimately weaves into the usurpation of a female claimant is only beginning.

The Visenya who crowned Aegon beneath their brand new family heraldic banner, who publicly took on worship of the Seven despite privately continuing to observe Valyrian rites & rituals, is part of a trio who are participating in Westerosi cultural practices so as to legitimize themselves in the eyes of their subject. We are not coming as foreigners who will threaten your ways, it purposely says. These are compromises willingly made but they do not indicate that the Conquerors viewed themselves as within the paradigm of Westeros entirely. Does that even need to be said? They were quite literally a polygamous incestuous union! Their banner is a three-headed dragon, three parts to a whole, not one single dragon to rule them all (and one dragon is what we later see Aegon II use as his banner when he usurps Rhaenyra— indicating that unlike Aegon the Conqueror, he views himself as the one king, & there are no equal partners to him least of all in the form of pesky sisters).

The Visenya who equally participated in military campaigns, lawmaking, judgement, progresses, & holding of Dragonstone/King's Landing did not view herself as being usurped. Neither did this same Visenya show interest in having children until she absolutely had to (with Rhaenys dead and one single sickly heir remaining). The equipoise of the post-Conquest pre-Rhaenys' death years seems to be that Aegon & Visenya were not too fussed about having a child together because thankfully Rhaenys existed between them, Rhaenys who was much more interested/interesting wrt the matter which kept the two elder siblings in peace. As it goes, Rhaenys' death coincides with the fracturing of the Aegon & Visenya relationship. Nonetheless after Rhaenys dies Visenya takes several steps to protect their fledgling dynasty such as military invasion of Dorne for vengeance and to discourage further rebellion, establishing the Kingsguard to protect Aegon who she viewed as perhaps less capable than her, and, yes, getting pregnant herself. When Visenya did have a child, everything she did with Maegor can be viewed in the sense that she was reproducing herself for the next generation. Like Visenya, Maegor's education was a martial one. Like Visenya, he should wield Dark Sister. Like Visenya, he should be part of the heir-apparent-structure by marrying Rhaena (later the Black Bride). Like Visenya, he must show strength when the family is weak, and be in service to their House (by making peace with the Faith by marrying Ceryse Hightower, by putting down rebellion when Aenys couldn't, by returning from exile when Aenys died). Like Visenya, he was allowed to enter a polygamous union (indeed Visenya presided over that ceremony).

[And there are points to be made regarding the Visenya archetype, how Maegor explicitly rejected it in pursuit of his father's legacy, but that's a different round-up.]

Whether Visenya initially foresaw a trio for Maegor, that he'd be a first husband for Rhaena but that perhaps Rhaena could also marry a son of Aenys, brings up a really interesting question as to the nature of plural marriage (whether polyandry was also legitimated by acceptance of Targcest, which had not yet been codified as monogamous by Jaehaerys who notably did not marry both of his sisters— and this question is subtly brought up again mockingly with Saera, more seriously with Rhaenyra). But that's not the point of this post! The point of this post is to say that the nature of the Conqueror trios roles & responsibilities was much more fluid than the language of 'usurpation' allows for. Did Visenya's positioning set the stage for what would ultimately snowball into Rhaenyra's usurpation, a process which relied on Visenya, and Rhaena, and Alysanne, and Rhaenys TQWNW, and so on's circumstances to unfold the way it did? Of course. It's a lineage. But it's an error to say 'things were always that way.' Nothing is ever so flat as that. The point is more that 'one thing led to another.'

[tohwitchesduels]

SEMI-FINALS OF WITCHES DUELS - Battle 41: Viney vs Willow Park

Disclaimer: This is not a popularity contest or which character you prefer, in this tournament, you decide who is stronger/better/smarter/etc. opponent.

information for both opponents under the cut to those who don't know what they can do in their battle:

Viney:

Viney specializes in both Beast-Keeping magic and Healing Magic. She doesn't show spells of other kinds. For the purposes of this tournament, I allow Viney to have a powerset established by MoringMark's comics due to him fleshing out her capabilities in the "A Hint of Blue" comic storyline and his comics being beloved by the fan base.

Viney is Willow's friend and she herself holds a lot of respect for her as the team captain and a powerful witch. That doesn't mean Viney plans on going easy on Willow and she still attempts to fight even if the odds are against her. And just because she returned to the tournament after a HUGE break, doesn't mean she's rusty.

Viney is an absolutely fierce and intimidating competitor who will stop at nothing to win. She can get even more ruthless and petty when facing her friends claiming them to be traitors. Her magic is also quite impressive if not prodigious. The girl is absolutely skilled and at times quite chaotic. Viney's in it to win. She can be however a bit hasty in her approach. Viney has plenty of physical strength to back up her punch.

Viney does possess a Palisman and is quite a proficient flyer. With her fighting spirit, she is capable to rush at her opponents furiously and knock them out with her physical strength. However, at the same time, she gets tunnel vision due to this and her attack can still be blocked knocking her out in the process.

Quick Heal - Viney is capable of very quickly healing wounds of hers or others (only available during Battle Royale when it comes to other people, no way she's healing her opponents unless it's after the battle but that's debatable due to her personality). According to Viney, the only scars she has are emotional making her quite a proficient healer who can leave the battle without a single scratch on her.

Healing Shield - Viney is capable of creating a shield-shaped hand to block any attacks coming her way. From simple bullets to even raging streams.

Medical Knowledge - Viney has enough experience to come up with remedies on the fly while also understanding both the strong and weak spots of the body of any witch/demon, meaning Viney knows where it hurts the most and you bet she will use that knowledge to her advantage.

Griffin Companion - Viney can summon Puddles to aid her in battles. Puddles can at times be wilder even than Viney herself, but Viney is still his master and he listens to her commands. Puddles is both strong and smart, a large griffin that can give Viney's opponent just as much of a hard time and is even more fierce than Viney, dealing huge damage. Also much like other griffins he probably possesses spider breath, which Viney can use to attack her opponents with an army of crawling spiders. Viney can ride him naturally.

Muscle Growth - power-up which came from MoringMark's comic. Viney can enhance her muscle to enhance her own strength to a superhuman level when attacking her opponents. (I will not post screenshots of Mark's comics but I will leave parts of the comics where he demonstrated this ability so you can support HIS art).

Equipment attack - power-up which came from MoringMark's comic. Thanks to her medical knowledge, Viney can throw medical equipment at her opponents using this or get her hands on a weapon of said equipment.

The comics of Moringmark in question

Link to more of Viney's capabilities here

Willow Park:

Willow is Viney's friend, but she respects Viney's fierce spirit and putting Boscha in the ground in the second round so Willow is more than happy to honor Viney's efforts by giving her the fight of her life.

Willow Park is a prodigy in plant magic. Only a few can match her talent and raw power when it comes to her command over plant life. She's also very knowledgeable when it comes to Botanics and is very promising when it comes to them (she knows how to tame various plants and what are they capable of). However, her capabilities only extend to plant magic and not other types of magic.

Willow Park is also very strong, athletic, and sporty. She's the Captain of Flyer Derby Emeral Entrails and managed to defeat the captain of Grudgby team Boscha while playing Grudgby for the first time. It is known that Willow works out and shows a lot of physical strength. The girl knows how to pack a punch.

Willow possesses a palisman and is quite capable when it comes to staff wielding. Also as captain of flyer derby, she's a very proficient and quite skilled flyer. Being capable of flying traditionally and switching midair to surfing. She is also capable of using her staff to enhance her already very potent magic.

Willow's magic is enhanced by her emotional state. If she's confident in herself she's most in control, however, if she's bottling up her feelings or feeling insecure, her magic can turn against her. Her magic also gets stronger once she uses anger and determination to power it.

Water Magic - Willow showed in Something Ventured, Someone Framed that she's capable of summoning water, however, she only uses it to water her plants meaning that during her battle she could only use it to enhance her plants.

Healing Plants - as demonstrated in her debut, Willow can use her magic to directly heal plants. This could be quite useful in case her plants are damaged.

Bush disguise - Willow can briefly camouflage herself using bushes as demonstrated in Hooty's Moving Hassle. Willow during the battle would grow bushes all across the battlefield to hide in them to recover or do sneak attacks without leaving herself wide open.

Plant Pillow - Willow is capable of creating plants to break her fall, so in case she gets hit in midair, she can quickly recover and receive no fall damage whatsoever.

Plant Teleport - Willow can use her plants to transport herself across the battlefield. Can be quite effective for escaping.

Grass Trap - in the same vein of teleporting herself, Willow can also use her magic to transport others. During the combat she would utilise said abilities to make grass devour her opponents. Willow can choose whether or not she can spit out her opponents by either putting them in a different location or keeping them underground. However, the opponent can break away if they know how (using plant magic too as demonstrated by Hunter in HM when Belos also devoured him but he managed to escape).

Plant Tie - Willow can discreetly grow vines over her opponents' feet to keep them still or make them trip the moment they try to move as demonstrated with Boscha in WILW. She can also grow those even around herself if she loses composure.

Tree Block - Willow can create a singular tree to use to block attacks from her opponents. She demonstrated it in WILW against Boscha. Willow can use this ability to even block objects thrown with great force or fireballs.

Vine Whips - Willow is capable of creating two large and strong vine whips that could be used to catch or harm her opponents. Demonstrated this in LR and ASIAS, fusing both her physical strength with the strength of her plant magic. She can also create a singular one as well.

Vine Dome - Willow can grow a dome of vines to use as a shield from protection as demonstrated in ASIAS against Darius. The dome can still be cut with enough force.

Vine Grab - a stronger version of Plant Tie, in which Willow is capable of creating bigger and multiple vines to catch her opponents even from greater distances (like midair for example).

Plant Monster - Willow is capable of creating a Flower-like monster to use as a beast to fight for her. She demonstrated it on the First Day.

Vine Octopus - Willow is capable of surrounding herself with multiple crazy and moving vines that can grab her opponents, block attacks, or directly attack. She demonstrated it in her debut episode.

Giant Plant Monster - Willow is capable of creating a gigantic Plant-like monster to attack multiple opponents (but not only). It's a stronger version of Plant Monster. She demonstrated it in Hooty's Moving Hassle.

Vine block - utilising multiple vines at once, Willow can create a shield that can block her opponents as demonstrated in her debut.

Tree Arm - With the help of Green Thumb Gauntlet, Willow is capable of creating a giant tree arm that she can use to attack her opponents.

Tree Golem - With the help of Green Thumb Gauntlet, Willow is capable of creating a tree-like golem that can be used to aid Willow in her battles. The Golem has enough strength to break through barriers even created by Belos and the arms of the Golem can extend to very long distances while not losing any strength.

Vine Attack - Willow can create a singular vine from the ground that can be used to attack her opponents.

Jungle Attack - Willow can grow multiple vines from the ground to use to attack her opponents. As of WaD, it's potent enough to grow an entire forest of such vines.

Plant Surf - As demonstrated in FTF, Willow can use her plant magic for transportation. She can also use it to create a bigger platform to stand for herself as seen when battling Kikimora.

Tree Movement - Willow is capable of moving the trees with her magic as demonstrated in FTF

Ultimate Vine Octopus - as demonstrated in COTH against Kikimora, Willow can create an even enhanced version of Vine Octopus in which she gains the high ground and uses even bigger and stronger vines to attack her opponents.

Multiple Vine Whips - Willow is capable of creating from her hands multiple little vine whips that can be used to hold down her enemies as demonstrated in KT against Belos.

Endless Vine Trap - Willow is capable of releasing a great amount of vines that can grow across large spaces as demonstrated in both her debut and FTF. The trap also has quite offensive capabilities.

Intangibility - as proven in Understanding Willow, when Willow was a child she knew a spell that could make any physical construct disappear for a short second before reappearing. Nowadays she can still use it for the purposes of this tournament to quickly dispel any physical defenses of her opponents.

Jungle Trap - demonstrated in LR against a coven scout (who gave her props for that), Willow can quickly trap her opponents in multiple vines immobilising them.

Link to more of Willow's capabilities here

Return to Masterpost

[whatswrongwithblue]

The Fire in the Sin

Chapter 2 - Reflections

Word count: 2,600. Read on AO3. Series Masterlist. <- Previous Chapter

Chapter summary: The story of Mina's (Alastor's wife) life and death. Trigger Warnings: Canon typical violence, canon typical language, suicidal ideation, religious trauma if you squint, forced marriage, mention of abortion, mentions of dubcon, terminal illness, drug use, domestic violence, murder.

Series Summary:

In the 1950's, Alastor met the woman he would eventually marry but unfortunately his Radio Demon persona went for her soul rather than her hand. He has to learn what it means to love, and cherish, without possessing and he does. Their relationship is beautiful, strong, unbreakable . . . but he carries a dark secret through their marriage for decades until eventually he has to face the consequences of that secret and leave her, without warning, for seven years. He returns, finding her at the Hazbin Hotel, and has to convince her to forgive him, while being literally bound to secrecy, unable to tell her any of things he now is desperate to explain to her.

(This is a duel timeline fic, timestamps will be a the top of every chapter.)

Chapter 2 - Reflections

October 4th, 1917

California coastline, near Sonoma

Mina Gallagher looked out at the Pacific Ocean and wished she was dead.

Fantasized about it, more like.

Growing up in Ireland had given her a enduring love of the ocean. She was in awe of its power; how it could go from calm as a child’s rocking crib to an omnipotent force capable of ripping sea cliffs apart in a matter of hours. Her small, weak body craved that kind of strength, and she would slip her shoes off to stand in the shallow, icy waves, praying to it as devotedly as her parents prayed in mass every Sunday.

As a teenager, she would run away to the shoreline any chance she could and let the ocean be the only witness to her desperate tears. She had thought about swimming out into it then, letting a rip tide carry her away to freedom . . . and certain death. Same thing, really. But she hadn’t the courage then.

When she was married off at 16, she stood through the whole long torturous ceremony, daydreaming not of a groom as most girls did, but of stowing away on a ship and fleeing to America.

A year later, with her husband in pieces in his coffin and her dead baby not yet dispelled from her womb, she got that wish granted. Only she had been no stow away; she had been a proper passenger, with her fare paid for by her new manager.

Her voice, and her body, were his for the time being. They often snuck out on deck late at night and he would fuck her from behind, thinking she enjoyed the thrill of potentially being caught as much as he did, but in reality, it was so she could watch the waves ahead of them and ignore the man grunting from behind her.

Men were such pigs, but they were easy to manipulate. He had thought he was using her, but it was the other way around.

It took her a couple more years to be free of him but eventually she was able to dispose of him. Not as violently satisfying as she had dealt with her husband but with a poison that she was able to frame his assistant for.

There were many downsides to being a woman born around the turn of the 20th century but getting away with murder was one of the rare benefits. No men were comfortable admitting that a quaint little five foot nothing girl was capable of causing them harm, let alone hacking them to bits or slipping arsenic into their drink, so she was never the prime suspect in either of those cases.

The Irish Siren was the nickname the Americans had given her and they loved her scandalous life story and the lyrics that were inspired by it in a way that her conservative Catholic homeland could never.

If she had lived to see the roaring twenties, she really could have come into her own.

Mina coughed into her napkin and it came back bloody.

She had been able to make a living touring the nation, completely reliant on her “God given” talent to sing until the age of 24. Not long after that birthday, the coughing started. By the year’s end, it was clear her singing career was over. She was the Irish Siren no more.

The Atlantic ocean had always felt like home to her, so she had stayed on the east coast for as long as she could. Back home in Ireland, the Atlantic was mercurial and always in motion but here in America, she saw its other face. This Atlantic was calmer, steadier, and more reliable. The fair weather, high humidity, and low elevation of the Carolinas were supposed to be good for those suffering from consumption and she was able to continue making a decent living as a poet. She couldn’t sing anymore but she could still write, though she kept her favorite, darkest pieces to herself.

Eventually the itch to travel one last time consumed her thoughts, a stronger acting force than the disease consuming her body, and she saved up enough money to cross the country by train and buy a house on the west coast. She had always meant to see the Great American West and now that her time was growing short, it was now or never.

The Pacific Ocean was so much more than she expected. Here on the coast it was often overcast and rainy, and tricked her mind into being nostalgic for her lost childhood home. She had loved Ireland’s landscapes, enough to almost make her forget how much she had hated her life there.

It was so big, this new ocean. She purchased a globe so that even in the evenings when it grew too dark to see the water, she could still admire the sheer dominating size of the thing. There could be so many secrets hidden beneath its depths. Lost civilizations or ancient Eldritch style monsters long forgotten by the modern world.

If she had worshipped the Atlantic Ocean, she had well and truly fallen in love with the Pacific.

Mina stared out her window, watching the rain, and accepted she would have to wait for another day.

Her plan was to row out on the next sunny, calm morning, get out as far away from the shore as the tide and her sickly body could take her, swallow the rest of the laudanum, slit her wrists, and jump in the water. Let the ocean and its creatures, depths, and secrets have her body. It was better than a casket and a last devotional ceremony to a God she had turned her back on long ago.

She coughed again, and the wracking overcame her frail form, forcing her to sit down and double over. Afterwards, she breathed in as deep as she could, but it was painful and hardly satisfying to her oxygen starved body.

That perfect day had to be very soon or she wasn’t going to live to see it.

From what seemed like a distance, she heard a knocking, and realized it had been going on for a while but she was so lost in her laudanum she hadn’t noticed.

It was probably just her one and only neighbor, a bizarre middle-aged man with more money than wits, and a rather strange collection of exotic animals that tended to get loose. He came over more often than her physician, asking if she had seen any of his escaped creatures. The conversation always turned into a proper visit, and she didn’t have the energy or the patience for his strangeness today. So she ignored the knocking and continued in her reverie. Maybe the would-be visitor would assume she had finally died and would leave her in peace.

She laughed out loud at that thought and triggered another coughing fit.

The world turned glossy again and several minutes to several hours could have gone by as she watched the ocean waves in her drug induced stupor until a voice from behind her lifted her from the fog.

“Hello, Mina.”

She turned in her seat to face the man in her doorway, unsure of who he was at first. After a heartbeat, her mind registered the face.

“Johnathan,” she said, acknowledging him as if she had any idea of why he was standing in her living room like he had every right to be there.

She thought she had done away with him for good. In no uncertain terms she had made it clear to him that unless she wanted to continue being dissatisfied in the bedroom, there was no point in him staying in California for her. She was too sickly to perform any kind of proper wifely duties for him, too barren to give him any more heirs and frankly he had enough of them already, and she was clearly dying soon anyway. The only reason he had to continue to propose to her was for her money, and she had told him frankly she wasn’t stupid enough to leave her fortune to a man such as himself. That had gotten her slapped and though she hadn’t been physically well enough to fight back, she had born the shiner proudly in the mirror for a couple weeks. At least she had been left in peace because he had stormed out of her house after that argument and not returned. She had hoped either the war or the pandemic would kill him, or that she would be dead herself before he had the opportunity to bother her again.

“More prospecting business dragged you back to town, eh love? Come to try and marry a corpse while you’re at it?”

“You were always such a cold-hearted bitch,” he said, and she noticed he was slurring his words even more than she was. “I’m surprised there’s enough heat in you to keep that cunt warmed up.”

She had her faculties about her enough to know to stand up and begin putting distance and furniture between him and her. He had never spoken to her that way before, not even when he had hit her.

Johnathan was always a short-tempered little shit with those he deemed beneath him but he had been well mannered with her up until his last visit. She was lonely and often drunk or drugged since her diagnosis and had allowed herself to be entertained by him now and then.  But she was realizing too late that she had become arrogant and careless around men in the last couple years of her life and forgotten how dangerous an animal they could be when they didn’t get their way.

And Johnathan looked like he regretted not giving her more than a hard slap all those months ago.

Mina ran, as fast and hard as her tired muscles could carry her, and made it all the way into her rarely used kitchen before he was able to catch up. Not that she had any plan or real means of escape.

But she did have knives.

She was able to grab one out of a drawer but then he was on her, slamming her face into the edge of the counter and she dropped to the floor.

Somehow she managed to roll onto her back and face him, all without dropping the knife. But he saw it and was able to grab her arm before she could drive her weapon into him.

Her arms were as weak as everything else in her body but her grip was still strong enough so that he couldn’t pry her fingers off from the around the hilt, at least not while also trying to hold her legs down as she desperately tried to kick at him.

Johnathan gave up his attempt at removing the knife from her hand and instead turned her wrist so that the deadly point was now facing her stomach.

“Stupid bitch,” he hissed out when she got a good hard kick into his shin. “I don’t want to kill you, stop fighting!”

Oh, he just wants to beat and rape me, how considerate, she thought.

Her face was bleeding badly from where it had made contact with the countertop and she tasted her own blood. Johnathan had strength, size, and health on his side of this battle but she had something he likely hadn’t considered.

She had already come to terms with her death. And she was really, truly, quite insane.

Mina stopped trying to hold him away from her and let the knife plunge into her abdomen. It hurt, but there was little wind to knock out of her lungs anymore and she had so many painkillers in her blood at this point, so she hardly felt more than a deep pressure.

Johnathan’s face was brought suddenly closer to her as he wasn’t expecting the sudden stop in resistance against him so she closed the gap between them by sitting up just a couple inches and bit hard into his cheek.

She clenched her jaw down as tightly as she could and felt the flesh tear and a new taste of blood spurted across her tongue.

He screamed and she laughed.

Mina let go as he pulled away suddenly, clasping a hand over his face and still screaming. She wasted no time in yanking the knife from her own stomach and swinging it up and then down again, burying the blade to the hilt in his neck.

It made a squelching noise as it sank in and Johnathan’s screams were replaced with a wheezing expulsion of air.

She brought the knife out and then right back into his chest.

He fell backward and she stabbed again.

And again.

She didn’t stop until the fatigue in her arms made her stop.

Mina struggled to her feet, using the kitchen counter to pull herself up, and looked down at the body of the man she had just slaughtered with her bare hands. He had not been her first victim. Not even her second. And her only solid thought was it was too bad she couldn’t have done that more often, to more men.

She was so out of breath and getting really, really tired now.

Looking down at herself, she realized most of the blood pouring down her dress was her own and remembered she had been stabbed.

Right. Today would be the day after all.

She stumbled through her house and out the back door.

The rain hadn’t stopped but it was alright because she really couldn’t feel the cold.

Just make it to the water. That’s all I want, to feel it one more time.

But it was so far away.

Her house sat a good 200 yards from shore and she was barely off her back porch before vertigo caused her to stumble to the side. It took almost all her remaining energy reserves to get back up and when she did, her vision was so blurry and her head was spinning to the point that she nearly vomited.

She looked down at the hand that was pressed to her bleeding abdomen, trying to will herself to walk the rest of the way down to the water. It was no good. She was surely going to pass out any second now. If she hadn’t been so out of her mind from lack of blood and opium, she likely would have cried.

When she looked back up, she saw the strangest thing.

A panther was crouched, maybe just ten feet from her, still as a statue and looking right at her. Its coat was shiny and mostly black, but light enough in some places that a dark golden-brown pattern of wide spots could be made out along its sides.

Maybe the knocking had been her strange neighbor after all, at least at first. Come to tell her he was missing a member of his collection and to not venture too far out from her house today.

The panther’s irises were green, with gold around the edges, and her poet’s mind declared it the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

But it doesn’t have a panther’s face, she thought, that’s the face of death.

It leapt for her then and she simply sat down. When it landed, she had a moment to feel its weight push her back into the sand beneath her.

She kept her eyes open as its teeth found her neck but she was already too far gone to feel any more pain.

Next Chapter ->

[toggle1-mrfipp]

Something I really find interesting about the Horsemen is that whatever their power is, there’s something about themselves that works in opposition to their strengths.

As stated by Pochita, the Control Devil wanted to form equal relationships with other people, to be genuinely loved and to have a family, but that words in opposite of their powers, where they can have complete control over anyone they think as lesser than them. Makima desperately wanted that, the one movie that got a reaction of her, made her cry, was a scene of two men hugging, and when she brought it the other hybrids to fight the Chainsaw Devil, Katana Man, Reze and Quanxi were all fawning over, she wanted to create her “perfect world” all for this. But she wasn’t capable of extending this sentiment to other people, she only ever saw them as tools, lesser beings and dogs to be commanded by their master. Denji was the one person who was willing to show her complete and unconditional love, but she had no problem destroying all his happiness just so she could get to Pochita, and in the end her never even bothering to see him is what led to her defeat.

That’s why I am eager to see Nayuta return. Pochita told Denji to give her lots of hugs, and he does, he wants to give her a normal life, and to see her through college. Nayuta is in a position that Makima never was, the Control Devil’s dream is right there for her, it’s being handed to her without any of the baggage of her previous incarnation, and I really want to see if and how she’s able to give the same love that Denji is giving her. Being unable to feel love and affection for other people make Makima one of the dangerous enemies Denji ever fought because anyone and everyone only existed to further their goals, but a Control Devil capable of feeling genuine love for other people? I imagine that they would be one of the weakest devils you could encounter, but would be one of the happiest ones out there.

Then there is War. They have the power to turn anything they perceive as “theirs” into a weapon, but the strength of that weapon is shaped by the “guilt” they would feel by transforming it. War wants to kill Chainsaw Man, and wants as many and powerful weapons as they can get, but they clearly have no problems doing so, they don’t care what they turn into a weapon, meaning that the actual strength of those weapons is limited. That’s why the possessed a human, because they can feel things like guilt, and anything that they turn into a weapon can be more powerful than anything War can produce. Yoru created a number of pencil spears to fight Yuko, but none of them worked, Asa creates a sword from the uniform her mother gave her, fails to hit Yuko at all, and still turns her into diced bits. That’s how powerful the guilt can translate into.

But here’s something interesting; Yoru shares Asa’s brain and body, she knows what Asa is thinking at any moment, she can feel the things Asa does, not only on a physical level, but an emotional level. Asa is beginning to like Denji, meaning Yoru feels secondhand emotions for him. Yoru is the one who tries to turn Denji into a weapon, but that little bit of affection she feels for him means she has guilt over this. Meaning that the longer that Yoru resides within Asa’s body, the more she can potentially grow as a person, come to care about things, and feel guilt over her actions, which will increase the power of the weapons she makes, but hinder her ability to create them in the first place.

I am really curious to see what the deal with the Famine Devil is. She says she wants to “help” her little sister, but Yoru was clearly very alarmed to her presence. Whatever powers Fami possesses, I imagine that like with Makima and Yoru, that there is something about her that hinders them, the same applying to Death whenever they show up.

[resquices-of-godhood]

VIII STRENGTH

The Strength card represents courage, the fortitude of your heart, and your ability to withstand anything life hands you. If this card arises in your Tarot reading, you are reminded that you're strong enough to handle whatever you are facing and will come out of it with even more power than you had before.

Niles is selected by the cult to be the next vessel. With the help of the disciples, who perform the ritual of ascension, he meets with The One Who Waits and his retainers to receive the crown.

Niles starts as a thin red bison, but he builds in size considerably throughout his stay as vessel, becoming quite buff by the time he relinquishes the crown. He has streaks of black fur growing from his back and towards his front.

Despite looking rather thin, Niles was chosen to be the next vessel by the cult, seeing that he was the one that overcame the most hardships in his life, starting with the fact that he was born sickly. If anyone could help the cult in times of difficulty, that would be him.

Upon meeting with The One Who Waits and his retainers, it took a bit of convincing to be accepted as a vessel, with the god of death staving off the effects of the land of the dead, as he didn't look capable of dealing with the forces of the Bishops. A quick spar against the twins proved that under that scrawny figure lied a diamond in the rough.

Having been deemed acceptable, he is returned as a vessel to the cult, whereupon he sees a new candidate to vesselhood ready to undergo the same process. A quick discussion later to clear the misunderstanding, he sets out to start getting the cult ready for the hard times ahead, preparing the followers to be better combatants.

During the first decade, Niles trained his body, both in the cult grounds and during crusades, to gain strength and become a better protector of the cult, each death he went through just a stumble towards his goal. By the end of that first decade, he actually has to sacrifice himself after each crusade to not be traced back to the cult grounds.

Between crusades, he goes to seek conseil from Violet and Benson on how to protect the cult, and during his outings, he occasionally meet with both Baines and Forneus, both of whom help him with some tips or a useful item for sale. He does not get to meet with Nadine, however. No one knows what happened to her, though the fact that The One Who Waits himself has not said anything about her crossing the land of the dead, it's safe to say that she is alive for the moment.

Still, things are difficult. He has found a few spies throughout the years that managed to infiltrate the cult and had to dispatch them, and recruiting from outside villages has slowed to a crawl, meaning that he could only rely on new followers that were born in the cult to increase the numbers. Still, much like Nadine before him, he too had to relinquish the crown for the safety of the cult, and ask that they choose someone that can keep things running smoothly in isolation as he does his best to deal with the heretics in the lands of the Old Faith. And thus, after 68 years, he departs from the cult, and from there on out, his fate in unknown.

For the next year, there has been no vessels.

Niles' favored weapon are gauntlets, covering his fists for devastating strikes on his enemies. His fleece took the form of a bishop's mantle (as in, the piece of chain mail used by bishops in our world, not the mantles the Bishops of the Old Faith used), which he used over his robes.

[orochiposting]

Naomi Senju | In Boruto

amazing commission / settei by @ its.sunjyo on instagram <333 + shorter bio since this is specifically boruto and most of her info is on her part 1 & 2 settei / bio

Name: Naomi Senju 直美 千手 Age: 52 / 54 (Boruto) Date of Birth: July 13th | 07/13 Zodiac: Cancer Status: Alive Current Affiliation: Konohagakure Parents: Tsunade Senju and Jiraiya: The Toad Sage Height: 5’4 or 162.5 cm Weight: 120 lbs or 54 kg Rank: Jonin / Medical Nin MBTI: INTP Gender & Pronouns: Ciswoman & She/Her Sexuality: Bisexual Romantic Interest(s): Orochimaru(husband), Su (oc belonging to @ lemony_su on Instagram), Zanaku (oc belonging to @ cursedjinchuriki on Instagram)

Random Facts✶⋆.˚

She was a Child Prodigy 

Daughter of Lady Tsunade and Jiraiya 

Current Wife to Orochimaru

Referred to as the Mouse of the Leaf

Wood Style User

Her summoning animal(s) are rats, which come in both large sizes (like the toads of Mount Myoboku) and small. Her main summon is 'The Rat King, Tesso,' a large albino rat the size of a Hippopotamus.

Attained one of Orochimaru’s curse marks around the same time as her teammate Anko. (one of the early forms, before Jugo)

Capable of Water and Earth Release. Eventually learning how to perform Wood Style Release due to a mixture of reasons such as; Her Senju heritage, her natural chakra nature being water and her being capable of earth release, her chakra control and ability to mix the natures at will, and the Hashirama cells from Orochimaru’s initial curse mark form. 

Her Curse Mark form's design is inspired by a mouse.

Assigned to keep an eye on Orochimaru, alongside Yamato. 

In her free time whenever she isn't surveilling Orochimaru, Naomi works at and with children from the ninja academy as a tutor. 

While surveying Orochimaru, she began to see his growth - especially with Mitsuki.

She is Mitsuki's personal tutor when he goes to the academy and continues to help train him later on. She views him as a son.

She continues to use the sword of Kusanagi, which she attained in Shippuden. It once belonged to Orochimaru, but when he was killed by Itachi - it was dropped and later found by Pakkun when tracking Sasuke's scent. The ninja hound returned it to Kakashi, who gave it to Naomi.

Uses her Hundreds Healing Mark in the same way as her mother to keep her appearance youthful despite aging.

Does not forget what Orochimaru has done, to both her and the shinobi world, but she does forgive him - slowly.

Runs a free splinter clinic for Su in Konohagakure.

Stats★

Ninjutsu - 5 Taijutsu - 3 Genjutsu - 3.5 Intelligence - 5 Strength - 5 Speed - 4 Stamina - 3.5 Hand Seals - 5 Total - 34 

Personality Traits ♡⸝⸝

Positive – Persuasive, Analytical, Convincing, Intuitive, Efficient, Caring, Honest, Observational, Passionate, Intelligent, Ambitious, Tactical, Creative, Studious, Witty, Merciful, Understanding, Hardworking, Innovative, Resourceful, Resilient

Negative – Emotional, Bipolar, Stubborn, Obsessive, Indecisive, Somewhat Disorganized, Addictive, Temperamental, Snarky, Restless, Sarcastic, Perverted

Life Motto – “If you’re not obsessed with your life, change it.”

Clan Info⟡

Clan Name: Senju Specialty: The Senju clan is known as "the clan with a thousand skills" (千の手を持つ一族, "sen no te o motsu ichizoku") because they can master ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, and other techniques to give themselves a variety of skills for fighting. The Senju clan's name, "Senju" (千手), directly means "a thousand skills" or "a thousand hands." Kekkei Genkai: Wood Release + Hair Manipulation Ninja InformationHome Village: The Hidden Leaf / Konohagakure  Current Village: The Hidden Leaf / Konohagakure Academy Graduation Age / Genin Age: 6 Chūnin Promotion Age: 10 Rank: Jonin Previous Teammates: Anko Mitarashi & Tokuma Hyuga Previous Sensei(s): Orochimaru Nindo: “What is meant to be will always find a way.” referring to how she truly believes if something is meant to be, it’ll happen no matter what. Natural Chakra Nature: Water (although capable of Earth, Wind, and Wood.)

check out my instagram @ mousynaomi or @ ang3licsatin for more info on Naomi and access to the google drive with two bio docs for her !!

[kazamajun]

Scorpio Rising

Pairing: Jun Kazama x Kazuya Mishima

Content warning: Sexual content (18+ only), monster/devilfucking (kind of), cunnilingus

Synopsis: An AU wherein Kazuya goes straight to Yakushima from Italy, arriving there before everyone else, and reunites with his wife in his brand new form. Character study and NSFW. Canon compliant up until T8 main story chapter 8. Includes references to personal headcanons and theories regarding T2 events.

Word count: 6k

Ao3 version: Link

Kazuya Mishima does not believe in destiny.

He had always scorned the concept of fate, the idea that the course of his life could be up to the whims of some intangible force and not something built with his own hands. His to determine.

Thus when all the pieces of his plan fell into place with ease, he derived satisfaction from the knowledge that it was entirely due his own meticulousness.

Jin Kazama had unleashed Azazel by generating strife, and emulating those the same circumstances had been a simple enough thing to enact. The endgame of course, weakening the seal enough to tear Azazel from the flimsy prison of that woman's arm. Upon being freed, the beast had been cocky, unwarrantedly so due to the ease with which it was vanquished - now for a second time - and absorbed by Kazuya. Once taking on the resulting new form he had swiftly adjusted to the devil's power, surely a sign that it was always meant to be in his hands.

Those who stood against Kazuya now in The Colosseum were no match for him, and they knew it. Their defiance was, at most, merely an inconvenience to him. Even that ambitious exorcist. Immobilizing the devil temporarily was brave, but insufficient, as was that giant glowing arrow of his. Despite all those flashy aesthetics no meaningful pain is inflicted, Kazuya has taken and withstood much worse and from stronger individuals in the past. Though, there is a breaking of skin at his shoulder which triggers something internally, as if Azazel sensed some weakness or an escape route to seep out of Kazuya's body. Unbidden, roiling purple smoke seeps from the wound like sand from a cracked hourglass. Kazuya barely has time to register it before his muscles violently convulse with the force of the consumed demon rebelling inside him. Wrenching from within, it feels like Azazel is trying to turn him inside out. A unique agony.

Loath as he is to leave an enemy alive, Kazuya is forced to evaluate the merits of a tactical retreat. None of those before him are truly a threat and fighting any further would simply soak up time that could be applied to a better purpose, and forcing Azazel into stillness is of a greater priority. The rest will be dealt with later. Steeling his willpower and testing the full capacity of his new wingspan, Kazuya leaves. His goal here has been accomplished to its fullest extent, and this knowledge soothes any potential dent to his ego caused by abandoning the fight. Mentally he is already compartmentalizing the pain and turning over the next court of action to take. For a fleeting moment he considers returning to G Corporation to recover and get a SITREP, but the notion is dismissed just as quickly. Nina is no friend of his, not like her sister, but she is a professional who can be trusted as far as she finds the compensation to be adequate. His forces are in capable hands until her contract ends. Finding a way to quell Azazel and cement his new power is foremost in his mind. The original devil is putting up a far stronger fight against being assimilated than his own devil had, which was to be expected, and he has come far enough now that averting unnecessary risks is tantamount. There had to be a way to subdue it until it fully became a part of him. With this decided, there was only one natural conclusion to draw.

The Kazama shrine.

Kazuya is no stranger to this lineage's powers. He had met Jun Kazama during the second tournament and been fascinated by her strength and uniqueness. Eventually he consented to her temporarily suppressing his devil, a decision that - unforeseen by both of them - had cost him the edge he needed to defeat his father. Back then, youthful hubris had him believe he could kill Heihachi with nothing but his fists and long-kindled rage, but Kazuya has learned a lot since. Power is power, no matter the source, and every possible advantage had been needed to ensure that he put that old man down for good. Training, strategy, and the strength in the Hachijo blood passed down from his mother, Kazumi. When he had finally defeated Heihachi, it almost felt like she had been with him. Kazuya is not a spiritual man, but some small piece of him likes to think that vengeance has brought peace to Kazumi’s soul.

Jun had mentioned her family's ancestral shrine once, that it was the centre of sacred land that in itself was a nexus for power. At the time Kazuya had thought little of the information but it could serve him now. If he were to claim that for himself and use it to suppress Azazel's will as his body adapts to the absorption, he would achieve complete mastery of the devil's full potential with minimal risk.

—

The flight to Yakushima is long and truthfully, Kazuya has no idea what he is looking for but feels he will know it when he sees it. His senses have been expanded beyond anything he had ever possessed before and once the island comes into view there is a noticeable change in energy flow, even the trees themselves hold a measure of unique energy now discernable through the new awareness granted to him, and he is certain this was the right decision. Flying overhead the canopies he focuses on what he can sense, glaring down through the boughs until something catches his attention. A trace of that unmistakable thrum of the Kazama lineage. Jun often kept her aura suppressed as a form of training and so as not to intimidate wildlife or any spiritually sensitive humans, but on occasion she had let that guard drop around him and even all these years later he'd never forgotten the sensation of her presence. What he was searching for had to be here.

He swoops down through the trees carelessly, following that feeling like a beacon. It leads him to a passage whose exterior is adorned with shimenawa and the inside is an oddly serene place; Yakushima in its entirety feels remote and alien to one like himself who prefers the comfort and convenience human civilization has to offer, but this area seems particularly untouched even in comparison to its surroundings. Almost as if it were frozen in time. He feels power coursing beneath his feet and in the walls and vines. Nature has either reclaimed or perhaps coexisted alongside what remained of this area for a long time now, but it is unnaturally quiet. It is fascinating, even Hon-Maru had no such energy coalescence and it makes him all the more determined to find the source.

A white bird flutters into view and flies down a nearby hole in the ground and, with little else but instinct to guide him, Kazuya pursues this strange sign of life emerging from the silence. The bird appears to share his destination - the shrine's altar comes into view, but what is more surprising than this spontaneous guidance is the figure laying there; bioluminescent surroundings, stray motes of mysterious light and a stray shaft of sunshine simultaneously shrouding and highlighting the motionless form with a mysterious radiance.

He had figured this place empty and forgotten, and watches with unconcealed surprise as the bird makes contact and merges with the one upon the altar, who then gasps like someone previously drowning taking their first breath of air after breaching the surface.

This could not be real.

The form of Jun Kazama slowly stirs after some heaving breaths, sitting up from her previously supine position on the plant-laden slab. With innate grace she turns to slide her legs to hang off the altar's edge while she remains seated, visibly taking a moment to recover from her prior unconsciousness.

"Impossible." Kazuya remarks aloud, though more to himself than anyone else. To think she could have been here this whole time... it is difficult to process. Absurd. And yet, it is a consistent reality manifested in front of him, observed by every single one of his multiple eyes as he drinks in the vision. He feels strangely unmoored by this tableau he bears witness to until Jun raises her chin and looks at him. Meeting that familiar gaze causes an odd twisting in his chest, this time one utterly unrelated to his current predicament with Azazel, and which only intensifies once she speaks.

"Kazuya," Jun breathes, both at the surprise of seeing him at her awakening, and shock at the form he is in. "What have you done to yourself?" She has seen his devil form before, and it was never like this. The tail, eye embedded in his chest, along with various ridges and hard crystalline facets that emulate armour are all new, forming a more imposing silhouette; and while his features and voice are recognizable enough they too have been altered, taking on a more inhuman edge. His aura is different too. Still, she knows it is him, the same way she has always known him.

It does not surprise him that Jun's instinct is to challenge and question. It would not be her if she didn't. She wields her sincerity like a form of strength and it's something Kazuya welcomes, for it is assurance that this is real. And the difference in how he appears now makes it a fair query. He feels indomitable now, and with such strength comes boundless freedom and possibility. "I have become who I was always meant to be." A statement he delivers with confidence and pride, backed with the full weight of belief. The power of devils was his birthright, his to claim alongside anything else that is within his ability to grasp. That is the natural order of the world, and to be left with nothing is for the weak.

Jun's gaze narrows slightly and for a moment appears unfocused, as if she were seeing right through him. Something she had seemingly been adept at doing since they had first met. But, being laid bare in front of one you trust is not shameful. Thus Kazuya does not shy away from her scrutiny, and Jun is able to discern that he is not alone, not truly. There is something inside him roiling and raging to be freed. Not his innate devil who he had a tug-of-wills with all those years ago. This, this is something distinctly new and vastly more powerful. Directness is part of her nature, so Jun further presses with gentle concern. "And that… passenger of yours?"

It is entirely unsurprising to him that she was able to sense Azazel, given the abilities displayed back when their lives were first interwoven. Abilities that Kazuya knows she would have continued to refine in the years beyond, as he has with his own. Discovering that she lives has invoked a mix of emotions that Kazuya forces himself to shove down, to be pragmatic and prioritize. It is clear now that the power he sensed earlier was not merely a trace remnant of the Kazama lineage's spiritual energy but Jun herself - though this does not alter his goals and may in fact serve them all the better than attempting to suppress Azazel alone. "It is a matter I have faith you can assist with, as you tried similar once before." Kazuya approaches where she is seated and takes one of her gloved hands between his own with great care, consciously ensuring his talons are not at risk of grazing her. It had been over 20 years since their last contact, and the touch is surprising with how natural it feels. As if his fingers curled around hers was simply how they were meant to be. A strange feeling. He raises her hand to press it palm-first against his chest. "It is the progenitor of devils, Azazel. If you can purge its consciousness, only I shall remain."

The Kazama clan have not been exorcists in generations, not in the commonly understood sense of the word. They preserved harmony and sought only to defend, rather than engaging directly in the hunting of anything supernatural. Still, there had been oral histories passed down about the origins of devils and their singular root, an entity creating servants for itself to carry out its wishes. An irony that one such supposed 'servant' would surpass that creature itself. Though, if anyone were to be capable of such, Jun reckons, of course it would be Kazuya.

The feel of his hand and chest are so different from that of the calloused fingers and firm skin inhabiting her memories. And while his torso retains the same basic musculature and distinctive scar beneath, the demonic shell prevents Jun from being able to feel his heartbeat - something unsurprising and yet a slight disappointment. In the past it had often been a comforting pulse. Perhaps this form felt the need for his heart to be more heavily guarded.

And despite it all, he is still so familiar. It is a little jarring that so much could change and yet stay the same, something that transcends the purely physical; Kazuya himself is like a lightning strike - unpredictable, fleeting, yet forever altering what it touches. Growing to love him changed her, an affection and truth that has endured all these years. And so, he has asked for her aid with unquestioning trust, and she will provide. It is as simple and as complicated as that. Jun looks from where he planted her hand, where she is now touching contemplatively with splayed fingers, back up to his eyes again, and gives an affirming nod. She is confident in her ability to fulfil his request, empowered here in this sacred place.

"It will hurt." Kazuya does not fear pain, she knows this, but imparts the warning nonetheless. A small grunt of acknowledgement as Kazuya braces himself is all Jun waits for before calling upon every piece of purifying power she can muster, maintaining a razor-sharp focus to sear and eliminate Azazel's consciousness from existence without harming Kazuya more than necessary.

How long it takes is something neither of them could define, other than to say a duration that pushes them both close to their limits. Even with her unparalleled concentration it still feels like a sun being forced between his ribs, blossoming light burning with a ferocity akin to holy fire immolating every nerve ending for dilating moments that stretch out intolerably… until finally, it stops. Jun's hand falls away, and Kazuya sags forward unintentionally in the aftermath of the spiritual cauterization, from both the agony and catharsis. Their faces hover dangerously close and linger, both of them breathing slightly harder from the exertion and endurance, respectively. For a moment they share one breath. Jun looks into his crimson eyes, first the main pair then the third one in the centre of his brow, as if searching for something.

Kazuya leans back, seemingly oblivious to the scrutiny, rolling his neck and turning his focus inward as his eyes close. Where there once had been Azazel's rebelling and twisting sentience waging internal war against captivity… he now feels only silence. Upon this confirmation he reopens them, satisfied.

Jun gently touches his shoulder, her fingers skirting the edge of what she notes to be a freshly-healed wound there. She knows her task is done and his expression verifies it. "So, what now?" The world has moved on for seven years without her, and while she knows their shared affections have entwined them in a manner that is not subject to time's whims, the man before her is a mystery in ways beyond his physical form. The Kazuya she'd known was from decades prior, and people change under the irrevocable march of years.

"I was told you had died." Kazuya utters once his breathing evens out. The words carry a current of disdain. A ridiculous notion, that she could have been slain by the same creature that had taken out other - in his eyes, inferior - martial artists. But, she had vanished without a trace and the boy genuinely believed her dead. Knowing Jun as he does, Kazuya was aware she would not voluntarily have left Jin alone; nor sent him to Kazuya's own monster of a father had there been any alternative. Thus, he had accepted the news for truth and with no small measure of grief, albeit channeled into violence before being buried deep and smoothed over with a topsoil of simmering rage. Heihachi and his men had awakened the cursed thing, set off that whole chain of events and robbed Kazuya of a loved one for the third time. Or so he’d thought. Now that the more immediate danger was over and there actually was time to process it all, to reconcile the fact that something he'd believed for so long was actually untrue, has Kazuya more shaken and in need of answers than he cares to outwardly admit. His wings flare slightly with agitation.

"I almost did." Jun replies with an open honesty. Recalling the sensation of being close to death was far from pleasant, but divulging the memory is a necessity, she knows. "Calling upon the power in this place I defeated the ogre that attacked us, but it had fatally wounded me in turn. The voice of my ancestors guided me here to rest, and I was kept from death until I could heal." The mystical protection is not something Jun herself fully comprehends. She had trusted in where the sound of her family's lullaby led her, and it is how she survived. Perhaps it did not need to be more deeply understood than that. Her hand raises from Kazuya's shoulder to lay along his cheek. Even armoured as it is with demonic cartilage, his bone structure is still familiar and the feel of him soothes something in her. And it seems to be reciprocated, as it is impossible to miss the way he ever so slightly tilts his head and leans in to the touch, his disconcertment slowly ebbing.

For Kazuya it is a strange thing to be cared about so openly. To have one so dedicated to you yet who asks for nothing in return. Even all these years later, Jun's first act had been for his welfare, and done without question. It causes an ache, tugging at that carefully compartmentalized sense of loss where all these years without her had resided. One of his hands comes to rest over the top of her one gracing his cheek, lingering there briefly before he gently lifts her hand away and just below the hem of her glove he presses a small kiss to her bare wrist in wordless response and acknowledgement of her selflessness.

"Kazuya…" Jun has seen visions of the atrocities committed in their time apart, and she is not blind to the flaws in the man she has chosen to love. Life has been cruel to him, and this made him cruel to the world. A defensive coldness and closed-off nature cultivated for survival. But she has also seen his honesty. How he honours his word. His capacity for loyalty. The way that cold nature could melt under the warmth of understanding and patience. How he challenged her and was her match, in the way only a true counterpart can be. All these things and more are what earned her love all those years ago, and are why she chooses to have faith in him now. "I only left Tokyo when I knew you weren't coming back. 'til then, I waited, and only returned home once I knew I was alone. But I never left you. Not even after we were parted." Physical separation, be it distance or death, was incidental and involuntary. In both the spiritual and emotional sense he had always been in her heart, was the last person she thought of before succumbing to the lull of otherworldly sleep in this place.

Kazuya would not say he suspected or hoped for as much, someone as captivating as Jun could easily have moved on if she wished. It is heartening to hear, and her sentiments echo his own. It was either Jun, or no one. She is singular, her uniqueness and strength equalled only by her capacity for compassion. While he had never quite grasped why he should be the recipient of it, it was a gift cherished and not to be squandered. "I would have you at my side again - if you will have me." The words are stilted; the ability to express tender emotions had never come easily as he had been raised to see sentiment as weakness; cold rage being the only thing that allowances were made for. But here he is doing his best to be sincere, even if it comes off as formal.

There is nothing she wants more in this world. But still, one last thing remained. “I… felt you die, Kazuya. When your heart stopped, I knew.”Her admission is like a vulnerability, revealing an old wound. Something unspoken, but nonetheless carried all this time. In that moment two decades ago she had felt the true fragility of their planned future, the speculated idealism of how things would be once he was finally free of the threat of his father. It had shattered and slipped through her fingers back then. Which leaves a hanging question in this current moment. “When you were brought back, why did you never seek me out?”

The answers to this are myriad, and ultimately; meaningless. It had been a mistake on his part, one fueled by selfishness and fear. Kazuya is silent for a long moment, giving the question the consideration it deserves and his tone is low when he finally speaks. “The version of me you loved, was a man you thought could be redeemed.” He is not saying this to hurt her, nor does he believe she carries any illusions to be shattered. Kazuya can tell she knows his sins, and has seen right through him yet her eyes still hold that same unconditional affection. Such deserves nothing less than full candor. “Dying and being dragged back taught me one thing — if I was to finally kill Heihachi, I had to dedicate myself to it in a way that left no room for anything else in my life. Or so I once believed. And I justified it with the notion that when that was done, I would find you and see if you could still care for the man I had become.” The words sound foolish to him now, far too idealistically simple. He had gone in the complete opposite direction to his overconfident prior self, but still been equally naïve in both cases. “Then I got the news you had been killed. The rest, I presume you know. This path I have walked has left me beyond redemption. It is not something I desire. But you—”

Jun unintentionally silences him by interlacing her fingers though his and gripping his hand firmly. The gesture was meant to be reassuring, though perhaps it is that very assurance that serves to derail him. “I never wanted you to change for me, Kazuya. Who you are is for you to decide; not me, and not your past. All I wish for is for us to have a future.” Another squeeze, and therein lies her answer to him. “Consider yourself warned that I will not accept being parted from you again.” Sincerity is in her words, her touch, as both of her hands rise to cradle his face. Thumbs sweep softly across his cheekbones, conveying her wholehearted embracing through firm statement of fact coupled with gentle caress. Touching this new form of his is novel, all glittering edges, subcutaneous glow, and textures varying from smooth crystalline and firm carapace to rough edges and then to more conventionally human-like skin. She had embraced his original devil all those years ago, and while the change with that transformation was far less drastic, appreciating this new one was no hardship. He is spectacular, and what matters the most is knowing the man she adores is in there. That he is fully in control. "I have been without you for long enough." As if to punctuate the point, Jun removes her gloves, both a symbolic and literal removal of barriers; the need to touch without obstruction.

Kazuya welcomes the contact, allowing her to explore the new facets of him with her hands, content with the gentle affection and the soft awe in her stunning eyes. He settles for merely resting his hands upon her waist, content to slowly re-acquaint himself with the feel of her in his arms. The touches are a chaste enough exploration though tenderness soon awakens a longing that turns to desire. And how foreign it is for Kazuya to feel a desire unconnected to the urge for power or ownership. For this is a giving freely of the self, not a subjugation. The yearning that sings in his veins is echoed in her own and, leaning in to each other, their lips meet in a motion as inevitable and natural as the tides being drawn by the moon. The rest of the world seems to fade away as they give in to what feels like a personal gravity centred on them both alone. His arms snake around her waist to grip more tightly while her own entwine around his neck, anchoring him between her legs and pulled flush against her, with barely space to breathe between them. Much like the rest of him, Kazuya's lips have a slightly different feel in this form and the kisses are at first gently exploratory too, as if reacquainting oneself with something long thought lost. The familiar and the new combining with a heart-aching seamlessness.

When they pause to catch their breath, he raises a clawed hand to thread through her hair. It is much longer than it ever was before, and suits her. Though she would be stunningly beautiful regardless. Jun impulsively gives the corner of his mouth a languid kiss in response. “Unfortunate that I cannot return the gesture.” Her fingertips tapping the side of his head punctuate the point; for in this form his hair has been replaced with crystal ridges. Beautiful to look at, but more troublesome to grasp than his usual slicked-back style she had taken great pleasure in ruining the perfection of in the past. Kazuya smirks and kisses her again. Her moments of playful irreverence were endearing and have been sorely missed… along with everything else. The feel of her is intoxicating, compelling in how it fills a void he’d been able to convince himself until now was not present. Whereas for Jun, she had acknowledged his absence, held onto it as tightly as they hold each other now, refusing to let go of or deny what they'd meant to each other and unwilling to seek or settle for any pale echo of their connection. There was nothing to be gained from lying to oneself, in her view. It is perhaps this emotional honesty and spurning of denial that leads Jun to take control of the kiss, leaning up into him and assertively parting her lips, inviting in his tongue which she seeks out with her own. It is a delicate and slow dance, balancing passion with caution due to those fangs of his. The need for such precise care despite their growing desire only further heightens the mutual arousal, and when they break apart the second time both are trembling, breathing hard, drowning in emotions and sensations not felt for decades.

Jun barely has time to breathe his name before his mouth is on her neck, kissing and sucking, teeth grazing the delicate skin ever so carefully. The tilt of her head to expose more of herself to him and her soft gasps of pleasure are all the invitation he needs to work his way down to her shoulder until obstructed by her collar. A situation somewhat remedied by how swiftly she undoes her top two buttons, offering up her throat and more to her beloved with a carefree abandon. It is all too easy to get lost in the moment, in the taste of her skin, the fluttering pulse that betrays her racing heart, and the siren song of her gentle sighs. Provoking such reactions from her even still after all this time stokes his desire, this affirmation of want. It draws a noise from him of longing and frustration that he half-smothers against her collarbone. This seemingly insatiable appetite for her would be the death of him.

Kazuya is not the only one reeling from the reigniting of a flame long thought guttered out from absence. Cravings that were once deadened to a dull ache surface in full force. And, never the type to be overly passive, Jun unfastens the next two buttons, the fabric of her top hanging open and only held together by the belt around her waist. The mixture of her need to be touched and the exposure of her skin to the cool air makes her shiver and pull Kazuya closer, arms winding around his waist until her fingers meet at the ridges of his spine and trace downward 'til it flattens out into the base of his tail.

He shudders visibly at the touch.

"Kazuya…?"

Rather than respond with words, he attacks her neck with a renewed fervor, lightly palming one of her breasts and she arches her back to press even more firmly into his hand. They have both needed this, are capable of feeling little other than the intense mutual need to wrap around each other and be one. His kisses move lower, igniting a heated trail down her chest until he pauses, groans her name, and his claws move to caress her thighs, tracing up and down with a careful slowness. The control is admirable and he always had been careful with her, even moreso than she was with him; having often left her mark in the throes of passion.

Anchored between her legs like this and lowered almost to his knees, it is obvious to Jun what he desires even without it being stated aloud. His mouth was once well-practiced in pleasuring her, yet he does not say anything directly, as if it would be requesting a boon he does not deserve.

And gods did her body respond to his need. Heat floods her cheeks, throat, and pools lower to intensify the slowly growing ache that had begun to form in her since their lips touched. "Please," she invites, shifting a little in an attempt to figure the logistics of how to remove her shoes and clothing while Kazuya remains between her legs, though it seemingly needn't have been a concern as he soon realizes what she is attempting to do and thoughtfully helps her slip off the socks and shoes. Leggings and underwear are the next to go, moving in place to push them down while seated and likewise he assists again in sliding them down her legs. The stone is still cold against her bare skin despite how long she has been here, though the shiver running through her has little to do with the temperature.

His hands find her again, and this time his palms gliding along the bared skin from hips to her knees draws a shaky exhale from Jun's lips. Kazuya takes his time, appreciating the feel of her, indulging himself by relishing the moment. It has been far too long. Gently he parts her legs further, still moving slowly. It feels like the world is holding its breath in this place, and he does not wish to hurry. In fact he does not even begin to lower himself to his knees until Jun makes a small noise and telltale anticipatory tremble.

He had memorized her body once. Unlike his own, hers has not been scarred and ravaged by hardships but there are still subtle changes that marked the passage of time. A beautiful thing, he would never wish for her to be stagnant. Kazuya presses a kiss to her leg just above the side of her knee, gentle at first though getting firmer as he lazily works his way up her inner thigh. After getting close he deigns to give a gentle teasing bite then switches over and repeats the motion to her other leg. It draws a soft groan from her - while appreciative of his tenderness it is still a mild frustration to draw out what they both want. Jun utters his name quietly but he continues his willful meandering of soft kisses and light graze of fang with an indulgent stubbornness until it draws forth a “Kazuya, please.”

Satisfied at the vocalized desire, Kazuya shifts his attentions and gives a languid stroke of his tongue that just barely parts her folds. With an equally unhurried pace he works his way up to her clit, giving that delicate area the same slow stroke but then following it up with a kiss. Her body spasms and Jun cries out, grasping one of his horns with a hand to steady herself.

Three querying red eyes look up at her to gauge if he should stop, and Jun shakes her head. "I'm just a bit sensitive. It's been a long time." Reassured, Kazuya returns to the task. Her grip on his horn remains and Kazuya finds that he enjoys the pressure, and likewise it was ceding a measure of control to her; permitting her leverage to control his movement. The trust involved in such a thing heightens the intimacy and serves to make him crave her more. The taste and scent of her, every soft sound she makes.

Impulsively he shifts his wings to allow for her knees to be thrown over his shoulders, tilting her thighs up and farther apart. This draws a small gasp from her and she grips the horn even tighter while also placing her other hand behind her to brace herself. Kazuya barely waits for her recovery and buries his face between her legs again, returning to his leisurely ministrations.

Jun has never been an overly vocal lover but he can read the mannerisms of her body language like a well-studied book. The delicate flush on her neck, the way her legs tremble, every small shift in breathing. Non-verbal responses are his guide and he pays rapt attention. The wetness of her arousal is an indicator he savours in particular and after judging it sufficient he works his tongue inside her with the same gentle patience.

She gasps and lightly shivers, having gone untouched for so long the stimulation is extra intense. The feel of his tongue is incredible, stroking her walls and dimly she realizes the sensations are much stronger and go far deeper than his tongue was ever able to reach before. A side benefit of this new demonic form perhaps? It curls and writhes inside her, intensifying the heat and pleasure. All these years without him had left her wanting, a yearning for both the physical and emotional fulfillment that only he can give and now she takes it all, wordlessly asking for more.

Kazuya lets out a deep appreciative sound somewhere between a moan and a growl as he savours her taste. The vibration shoots straight to her clit and has her seeing stars, almost hitting her peak. "Kazuya…" The uttering of his name spurs him on, and he begins to fuck her more insistently with his tongue. His grip on her thighs tightens when he senses her drawing close to the edge, and when she reaches that crescendo with a gentle tremble and moan he slows down but does not stop entirely, gently continuing through her climax.

After cresting that high she feels like in her twenties again, love-drunk and half dazed from the rush of crossing multiple precipices and taboos. They hold each other in the tender aftermath until Jun lets go of the embrace first, finally coming back to herself enough to feel the discomfort of bare flesh on stone that was never intended for such activities. She dresses herself slowly, as if wanting to linger in the moment and not fully ready to let go of it.

[shadovan]

Drabbling of events (with @never-surrender & @apalestar)

He wished he could say he remembered the Feywild. There was some subconscious part of his memory that knew precisely which direction to venture toward, but if Tareque were ever put in a position where he had to recall the finer details, it would be a fruitless effort. Too much of his mind had been lost to the void over the years, the warping and twisting of his soul each time he regenerated from being felled or giving whim to constructs of a darker nature.

The twilight-like skies were all he had to gauge his location, the only recollection of finding his way through the mostly foreign plane. There was some ways to travel and he begrudgingly doubted he would be returning to the meeting point with Astarion within the timeline he had been given.

Aurelia is going to be furious, he realized, having not taken into account the passing of time varying between there and Faerun until that moment. It wasn't that he had been oblivious to the knowledge, but more that he'd never had reason to account for it until events of recent.

While many of his actions could be viewed as impulsive, Tareque had not run into this blindly. His unseen personal artillery of scrolls and potions was perhaps more a threat than his spinal blade, and he had no hesitation to cut down and Nilshai in his path.

The sky had blackened nearly a dozen haunting times before he finally found her, and the woman screamed a bloodcurdling yell when she spotted him, laden with the phosphorous blood of the sorcerers he'd obliterated.

"A bit overdramatic," he muttered, using the sharp of his sword to cut the bonds around her wrists.

"Tareque...?" The woman stared at him with a combination of fear and confusion in her eyes, because what mother would not recognize her own son, even beneath the ichor and rot that his own convictions had twisted him into. "What have you done?" The hushed whisper barely touched his ears, but it was enough to make his chest clench.

"What does it look like," muttered out, not at a question, but a curt response.

Her aging body clearly was not at a disadvantage when it came to aiding their escape from the settlement, but he still lifted her to carry her over the poisonous lichen that jutted from the rocks in clouds of orange sickly fog.

When they had finally cleared the most dense region of the forest, Tareque's destination became the lingering cities of glass spires, intent on returning the matron to the civilization she knew.

"No," she had decided. "The people are leaving," Callia, his mother, explained to him. "They flee to Faerun. A retreat, some say, but is it truly so if it assures survival? I want to join them."

Tareque stared to her with utter surprise. She wanted to accompany him to Faerun? The prospect of having the only family member that remained to him on the same plane was a possibility that had never crossed his mind. Yet, after abandoning the Feywild behind him, how could he ever deny her that if it was in his realm of capability?

So it was that the search for a portal began. The magic of Sildeyuir was unstable at best, so interplane openings were practically random. And when they did encounter one, it was less than optimal.

"The strength is weak," Callia said quietly. "We could not both traverse through."

Of course... Tareque simple let out a slow breath in a quiet acceptance. "Go on. I will make my own way. I will find you when I return." He handed her his sword and his bag, because those were not items that could regenerate with the lich. She looked to him with a lack of understanding, but merely nodded. What other option did she have? With that, she stepped through the portal.

Just as she had said, the weave flickered in her wake, the portal warping and snapping in a distinctive sound before it vanished entirely. Tareque waited, just in case it might reappear or leave some scar of magic in it's wake, but there was nothing but silence.

Good...

Now, that left him in quite a position. Tareque knew exactly what he was doing, however. He drew the dragger from his belt and turned his head back in the direction they had just fled from. It would mean his death, but that was precisely the intent. A regeneration was a one-way ticket back to his tower, and he would slaughter as many of the realm's invaders as he could in the process. Sure, he could have simply slit his own throat, but this was a far more dramatic way to end one of his countless lives. For her. And for Sildeyuir.

He was oblivious to how much time passed between then and when the fight of his body finally gave up, his mind spinning into that blackened state of death before the phylactery grasped his soul and began the process of regenerating his form.

The dirty stone of the crypt was cold beneath his skin.

That was the first conscious thought.

He could hear the echoing drip inside the well.

It had worked.

When his body allowed him, Tareque scrambled to his feet. He all but tripped up the stairs as he ran, rushing into the main foyer of the tower, entirely nude and -- Face first into Aurelia--!

"My love!" He planted a heavy kiss on her lips before pulling away with speed. "I will be right back!" Grabbing for whatever cloak was nearest to the door, he fled outdoors.

Was that a lamb-? No, he would worry about that when he returned.

It took fleeting amounts of magic to locate Callia amidst Faerun's borders, but when he did, he collected the woman and teleported them both back to the front of the tower.

"Is.... Is it pink?" The woman asked, incredulously.

The lich blinked and peered upward. His vision was incapable of sorting out the hue. "Is it?"

And... those were definitely animals. Oh dear. How long had he been away?