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kranagok0 · 8 months ago

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Hilda, The horror in The woods

Are you ready for more of Hilda and her friends being the Jujutsu Kaisen?…

A shame, because I'm still doing Astrid's abilities and I just discovered that there was already someone else with that idea of Hilda and Jujutsu Kaisen before me, so I'm trying to improve some aspects of the characters. Leaving that aside, something occurred to me regarding an image I found on my Facebook.

The story is about Hilda, obviously, and her life in the cabin with her mother. The thing here is about living only with his mother, his aunt Astrid and his father (Who rarely visited, if not almost never). The lack of social interaction did not stop Hilda from learning to speak correctly, but it did stop her from communicating like any other normal child.

Such a wild and solitary life (in addition to her family, but they did not often go with her on her adventures) made little Hilda grow up with a somewhat… Unstable mentality.

You see, Hilda didn't understand what was normal for someone her age, neither did Johana (let's give credit to Aunt Astrid for erasing memories as if it were something that could be formatted as if it were nothing) and why Anders and Astrid didn't visit very often. Hilda began to develop somewhat strange and grotesque tastes.

It all started a few weeks of meeting her best friend Twig, that little Deer-fox and his way of acting were also a key factor in Hilda's growth.

Hilda had gotten lost (all because of a sudden storm that no one could have predicted) and was swept beyond the stone circle. She didn't know where she was, but she was still grateful to have her best friend Twig with her.

The days passed and Hilda was hungry. He had survived for a while on the provisions his mother had given him and also some berries he found along the way. Despite that, the girl was still hungry. It was then that he asked his friend Twig to eat something, she was hungry and wanted some too. Hilda let out a scream of horror when she saw what her friend was chewing.

Twig had wild instincts and too much energy for a small fawn (more or less I call it that because… What do you call a baby fox deer?) of his age, making him more prone to attack other small animals. to eat them. At first this scared Hilda, but as the days went by, and with the little plant-based food that was around, she began to adapt to her friend's behavior. He even started to want to try some of that meat that Twig also ate.

Being so curious about Twig's strange dynamic, Hilda tried to do the same as her little friend.

Hilda's curiosity turned into something a little more obsessive and bizarre, to the point of wanting to try what her friend was nibbling on day after day. Hilda had never tasted the meat of… Nothing. She literally only ate plant-based things and nothing else, or not as far as her little 6-year-old mind could understand. That's why when he tasted the meat of that little dying rabbit he never thought it would taste so horrible. It felt strange to chew the rabbit's leg and even more so with all that dirty fur from the chase.

Still, Hilda took another bite.

and then another

And one more

One more

And more

Further

Much more

At some point Twig stepped aside and let Hilda eat the rest of the rabbit for herself. After all, she was like his older sister. He was the alpha.

And when the alpha is hungry he must hunt.

At first they couldn't even catch a single fish out of the water, much less any hare or rabbit they encountered on their way home. Over time he continued to learn from his friend and the other animals, trying to imitate their movements and predict what they were going to do. The problem was that Hilda's body was not that of a wild animal, she could understand the movement of muscles and tendons inside her friend Twig's skin, the movement of fish, the jumps of rabbits, she could even predict when a feather would fall off a bird and how many flaps of its wings would it take… But I couldn't imitate those movements, because Hilda was human.

Fortunately everything has a solution. She just had to move like a human. Like a human hunter. Luckily he had his good friend Woodman to tell him everything he needed to know about human hunters.

Woodman was someone who didn't care what other people did. However, even he knew that what Hilda was doing was too scary and morbid to tell her what to do. He was not going to risk that one day she would use those methods against him, so he gave her some fairy tales where there were harmless hunters, like Snow White and the Dwarves, or Little Red Riding Hood, he even gave her one where there were like 7 little lambs and a mother goat (to be honest, Woodman only had those stories because he could take them and run with them. He really wasn't interested in reading all the content)

While Woodman thought the books would calm Hilda down a bit about the whole hunting, skinning, and eating of woodland animals, Hilda saw a pattern in each story: An axe.

'so human hunters use axes. Excellent'

Hilda, in some way that I still can't figure out, got an axe. It was heavy, but it served its purpose. Hilda already wanted to develop her hunting skills like a true human hunter.

His first prey: a red wolf.

Surprisingly, the attack was fast and accurate, the wolf could never have seen a girl coming with a large ax from the top of the trees… The wolf's back was destroyed as Hilda used the blunt part. It was his first time using an axe, not knowing how to handle it correctly caused him to hit with the wrong side. Still, it was enough to immobilize the wolf.

The wolf still tried to defend himself, despite having his spine shattered, his adrenaline did not go down a bit. The wolf, still with its front legs at its disposal, crawled up to bite Hilda.

It didn't take long for Hilda to counterattack and hit the wolf several times in its skull. The sounds reasoned throughout the grove and spots splashed back and forth with each impact of the ax on the wolf's head.

After a while Hilda had managed to make the wolf unrecognizable: Its skull was sunken, fragments of the bones protruded from that amorphous mass that was previously the skin and muscle of the beast, not to mention how the poor man's eyes were left animal.

Like any good hunter, Hilda takes a part of the wolf and feeds, chewing and swallowing like any wild animal would… Still, she uses cutlery as her mother had always told her (manners are something essential in life, a one of the few things that Johana remembered and that were not erased like memories. At least Astrid didn't format everything)

When Hilda was 11 years old she had extensive experience hunting all kinds of creatures: rabbits, moles, hares, foxes (it was a difficult subject for her and Twig, but in the end they didn't give it much thought and they ate it), turtles, fish of all kinds, insects, deer (oddly enough there was no problem with Twig at that point), and many more creatures. The only ones Hilda didn't eat were those who seemed to have some intellect, she liked to converse as much as she could with others. I felt this need to share this information whether the person in question wanted to or not.

Hilda achieved a lot at her young age. I even developed somewhat disturbing techniques that other children (and even adults) could never achieve.

Hilda has never hunted beings with any intelligence…. But, if the opportunity arises, perhaps she could consider it.

It should be noted that Hilda is mentally unstable due to the situations she has had to face alone every time she went on adventures with Twig. There were times when he almost died from bleeding, severe bruises and even poisoning. Hilda has survived all that and more at her young age, and with it she has developed a need to learn about everything that surrounds her. Stalking, watching, observing, hunting.

And that's it, because I don't have anything else. I just wanted to do this to get it out of my head.

Thinking of Hilda as something more than a good, kind and empathetic girl is something I wanted to investigate because it is impossible for someone to be like that if she only lives with her mother in the middle of a mess in the middle of nowhere. Some kind of mental illness had to have arisen at that point in his life, especially when he was always going on dangerous adventures where literally any dangerous animal could jump out of a bush and take his life.

I liked thinking that Hilda could defend herself if something like this happened. And then I found that image; a psychotic Hilda, full of blood and with mental stability quite out of place. Thinking about how his actions are reflected by his changing and unstable emotional state was something that inspired me to write all this, partly because I was also curious to know what you guys thought.

I would like to hear your comments, or in this case read them. Seriously, I would like to know if they also thought at some point that Hilda would have a seinen mode or if they enjoy a less bloody and violent version of the blue-haired girl more.

Well, we're running out of paragraphs, so I'll say goodbye. See you later

#hilda #hilda netflix #hilda (netflix)#hilda series #hilda the series #hilda fanfiction #hilda (hilda)#hilda the show #hilda au

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ghostinthelibrarywrites · 2 months ago

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tell them I was loved

A Dead Girls Detective AU for @palasakiweek based on the fic idea I talked about here. You can read it below or here on AO3.

Prompts: Dead Girl Detectives, Rescuing, Love Confessions

Words: 6K

Rating: M

Warnings: Canon-typical depictions of Hell and its horrors; David being the worst

Relationships: Crystal/Niko with background Edwin/Charles

Summary: Thirty-five years after escaping Hell and founding the Dead Girl Detectives with Niko, Crystal is dragged back down to Hell by David. She's not expecting Niko to come after her, but Niko has always liked to surprise her.

***

If there’s one thing that Crystal Palace can be certain of, it’s that Niko Sasaki doesn’t belong in Hell.

Even on that first night in the dark, damp attic of a dormitory at St. Hilda’s, when Niko was feverish, slipping in and out of delirium, and scared, she was everything Crystal hadn’t experienced in seventy-three long years: sweet and kind and wanting nothing from Crystal but companionship. The pink lights surrounding her turned out to be the dandelion sprites that would kill her, but sometimes, Crystal looks at her and almost thinks she can still see them.

She thought Niko was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen that night. She can’t believe it took her thirty-five years of working side-by-side to realize she was in love with her.

So it makes no sense that Niko is standing at the edge of Fraud’s mass of writhing snakes, her bright pink dress and white hair seeming to glow in the darkness as much as the lantern in her hand. And she’s smiling, like they aren’t surrounded by bloodthirsty snakes and screaming human souls, like she didn’t just walk through seven circles of Hell to get to Crystal.

And despite the pain, terror, and grief that’s gripped her since David dragged her back to Hell, Crystal finds herself smiling back. She staggers to her feet and stumbles forward, reaching out…

And a snake’s jaws close over her head.

***

Niko finds her huddled against the wall of the pit what might be a minute or an eternity later, after she’s turned into a giant snake then back into another human. This was always Crystal’s least favorite level of Hell, even worse than the pools of blood of Violence or the burning tombs of Heresy. She hates the moments where she’s a snake and all she can feel is the urge to find and bite someone, to pass on the pain and the bloodlust to someone else.

It reminds her of her time at St. Hilda’s too much.

Niko isn’t smiling anymore when she finds her. Instead, her eyes are wide and shocky. There’s a splatter of blood on her cheek. Crystal wants to wipe it off, but she can’t bear to touch her, not so soon after burying her fangs in another soul’s throat.

“Crystal?” Niko whispers, gripping her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

The inside of Crystal’s mouth tastes like blood. It’s the first thing she’s tasted in over thirty years. “What are you doing here?’

“I came to save you.”

“You don’t belong here.”

“Neither do you.” Niko places the lantern on the ground between them, just like Crystal put it next to her to keep her warm all those years ago.

Crystal’s throat feels tight and her eyes burn. “How did you find me?” Because David always liked to move her from level to level, snatching her away as soon as she became inured to one form of punishment or he just got bored. She could have been anywhere in Hell.

“I figured he would have put you in one of the levels that would hurt you the most. So Wrath or Fraud, where you have no choice but to hurt other people. And Fraud is a lot lower, so…” Niko shrugs, looking pleased with herself. “But all these snakes weren’t here when I got here. Where did they come from?”

“You have to truly see Hell before you can see all its horrors.” Crystal mimics the long-ago lesson she learned, just as a terrible thought strikes her. “The boys didn’t come with you, did they?”

She can’t see Charles letting Niko walk into Hell without him, especially not after watching Crystal get snatched away by her demonic ex-paramour, and Edwin seems to go wherever Charles goes these days. But they’re both human, both alive, and even with Charles’s psychic abilities and cricket bat, they wouldn’t stand a chance down here. The denizens of Hell would rip them apart with their bare hands.

“No, they wanted to come with me, so I locked them in a closet and told the Night Nurse to keep an eye on them.”

“You locked them in a closet ?”

Niko nods, a wicked little smile playing across her lips. “Maybe they’ll finally kiss?”

Despite the horror and fear, Crystal finds herself smiling. Because Niko is still Niko, even down here. “You need to go, Niko.”

Niko’s face falls. “Not without you.”

“You can escape.”

“So can you. You did it before.”

“I escaped from Avarice. There’s no getting out of here. I tried last time. You don’t belong down here, so they might let you go, but not if you’re trying to help a soul escape.”

“But you were alone last time.” Niko reaches into her pink Hello Kitty backpack and pulls out a Molotov cocktail. “And Charles sent me with supplies.”

Crystal’s eyes widen at the sight of Niko’s delicate hand wrapped around the burning bottle. It’s unexpectedly hot.

“On three,” Niko says.

“Niko—”

Niko talks over her. “One. Two.”

Crystal clambers up on legs that don’t feel like they’ve fully recovered from being transformed into a snake.

“Three.”

The Molotov cocktails arcs in the air, landing among the writhing snakes, and Crystal and Niko run.

***

They make it through the lakes of blood in Violence, the burning tombs of Heresy, and are almost clear of the violent mob in Wrath when David finds them. Crystal is yanking Niko out of the way of a large man whose hands are cracked and twisted from all the punches he’s thrown, his face contorted in a grimace of pain and rage, when she sees David standing next to a pair of woman who are trying to choke the life out of each other. He’s smiling, but it’s not bright and joyous like Niko’s smile.

“Did you really think you could get away from me again, Crystal?” he calls.

Crystal can barely hear him over the buzzing pressure in her head, the pressure that will only let up if she lashes out at something. Next to her, Niko is hunched over, her hands covering her ears ineffectually. “I did it before!”

“You got lucky.” David meanders towards her, taking his time, like he already knows how this will end and so there’s no need to hurry.

“She’s been outsmarting you for thirty-five years,” Niko says with fierceness Crystal rarely hears from sweet, smiley friend. “That’s not luck. She’s just stronger than you.”

David’s lip curls when he looks at Niko. “I’m so glad you’re here too, Niko. The Dead Girl Detectives. I’m going to watch both of you break over and over again and then I’m going to pop up to Port Townsend. Maybe I’ll possess your little friend with the cricket bat and make him snap his prissy boyfriend’s neck. What do you think of that, Crystal?”

Niko presses something into Crystal’s hand. She doesn’t have to look down to know what it is: a grenade. She’s going to have to talk to Charles about shoving all his weapons in the Hello Kitty backpack. Crystal keeps it close to her, hidden in the folds of her nightgown, and steps forward.

“You’re not going to touch me,” she tells him. “You’re not going to touch any of them. Never again, David. I’m stronger than I was when you first took me to Hell.”

“And yet, here you are again.” David shakes his head, wearing that infuriating smirk. “Poor Crystal. You think a pretty face and a sharp tongue is enough to protect you from me? All you are is a dead, decomposing bitch who thinks having friends is enough to—”

Crystal doesn’t let him finish, because she’s busy throwing the grenade in his smug fucking face.

The violence makes the pressure in her head diminish for a blissful moment as David stumbles back, screaming. He collides with the large man with the busted fists, who doesn’t even seem to notice that David is on fire before he begins whaling on him, massive hands raining down on him. Niko grabs Crystal’s hand and drags her away through the mob.

When they reach the bank vaults of Avarice, filled with people being crushed under the weight of the treasures they’re grasping for, it’s a relief. Upper Hell is still Hell, but she’s gotten Niko away from the most gruesome of the torments. Thesy struggle out of Avarice—even the air seems heavy here—through Gluttony and into Lust, and finally make it to Limbo. Crystal doesn’t look at any of the frozen faces. There’s nothing she can do for these people.

“I don’t understand.” Niko stops in front of a boy who looks about their age. Crystal can instantly see why she stopped; he looks a bit like Charles, though he’s not as tall and his ears are the wrong shape. The boy is whimpering softly, tears rolling down his motionless cheeks. “This is where souls go when they don’t belong in Heaven or Hell, right? So why are they suffering? What did they do to deserve it?”

“No one down here deserves this,” Crystal tells her tiredly. “They’re not being actively tortured here and that’s Hell’s version of mercy. There’s nothing we can do for them. Come on, we need to keep moving. A grenade won’t slow David down for long.”

Niko lets her drag her away, even though she throws one last, sad glance back at the crying boy.

Crystal almost weeps in relief when she reaches the staircase. It’s not safety; she can’t count the times David found her here during her first stint in Hell. But it means they’re close. Niko goes first, her hand still gripping Crystal’s, like she’s afraid she’ll turn around to find that Crystal has vanished into thin air like Eurydice. Crystal squeezes her fingers reassuringly as they begin to climb the stairs. She’s not going anywhere, not if she can help it.

She remembers the first time she climbed these stairs, wondering if there was truly a door at the top, or if this was just another torture and she would keep climbing forever. They seem to stretch on for an eternity above them, but the walk feels less endless when she has Niko’s hand in hers and Niko’s white hair glowing and pink dress glowing like a beacon in front of her. They lost the lantern at some point; Crystal thinks Niko may have used it as a bludgeon in Wrath. Maybe some other poor soul will pick it up and use it to guide themselves out of Hell. Crystal likes that idea.

They climb and they climb and they climb until Crystal manages to work out the muddle of thoughts and feelings she’s been drowning in ever since she saw Niko standing on the other side of Fraud’s snake pit. “Why did you come?”

Niko looks over her shoulder, frowning with confusion, like she doesn’t understand the question. “Because you’re my best friend.”

“You could have gotten stuck down here forever.”

“I know.” Niko shrugs. “But I would have been stuck with you, so it would have been okay.”

“Okay?” Crystal freezes mid-step, staring up at her in dismay. Suddenly, the exhaustion, fear, and anger all seem to bubble up at once. “You knew you could have spent an eternity trapped in Hell, but you thought it would be okay? Niko, you saw what happens down there. None of that is okay! How could you risk your eternal soul for—”

“For you.” There’s a stubborn set to Niko’s jaw that reminds Crystal of the Great Mummy Escape of ‘99. “I wasn’t just going to leave you down here.”

“You don’t belong—”

“Neither do you!” Niko’s voice rises with indignation, echoing off the stone walls. “Crystal, after all this time, do you really think you belong in Hell?”

Crystal swallows back the tightness in her throat. They were supposed to be talking about Niko, not her. “David possessed me for a reason. I was cruel and selfish and—”

“And you were sixteen.” Niko fully turns to face her, taking Crystal’s other hand in hers and squeezing both of them. “You’ve spent three decades saving people. You saved me.”

“I didn’t,” Crystal says, because there was no way she could have. She hadn’t even known what was wrong with Niko until the dandelion sprites burst their way out of her.

“I wasn’t scared when I was dying. I had a friend for the first time in what felt like forever.” Niko smiles shyly. “You couldn’t stop me from dying, but you saved me from being alone. And how many times have you saved me since then?”

Crystal has no good answer for that.

“Come on.” Gently, Niko tugs her forward. “We need to keep moving. I think we’re close. Oh, look, there’s Maxine. We are close!”

They skirt around Jenny’s dead stalker, who sits in a circle of torn up love letters, whispering frantically to herself. With every step, Crystal should be relieved, but instead, a panicky sense of running out of time starts closing over her. Once they get through the door and return to Port Townsend, they’re going to have to deal with the Night Nurse. And even if she doesn’t drag them off to the Lost and Found Department, there’s Esther Finch and the Cat King and so much other shit they need to deal with. Crystal feels like she’s standing on the precipice of something and if she waits too long to jump, there will be no second chances.

She stops again. “Niko.”

A step above her, Niko turns around with wide eyes, looking as exasperated as Crystal has ever seen her. “Crystal, we’re so close!”

“I know.” Crystal smiles up at Niko, the first person who ever loved her unconditionally, the girl who brought light to her existence after seventy-three years in Hell, her best friend, her partner. If anyone deserves to know how loved she is, it’s Niko. Maybe this will go nowhere. Maybe it will make things so awkward Crystal will have no choice but to flee to some far-flung corner of the world. But she has to try.

“Everything that’s happened in the past few weeks has made me think,” Crystal says. “I’ve realized some things about myself. Some things I never let myself think about before, because I died in 1916 and—”

“It’s okay.” Niko nods, expression solemn. “I know.”

Crystal blinks. “You do?”

“Jenny is super pretty and kind of scary. Not my type, but I can see why you’d like her.”

“ What ?” Crystal’s indignant shriek echoes off the walls around them. “You think I have a crush on Jenny? The butcher? She’s twice my age!”

“When you think about, she’s actually young enough to be your granddaughter. Maybe even your great-granddaughter.”

Crystal decides to ignore that. “And she can’t even see me!”

“I know.” Niko sighs. “It’s romantic, isn’t it? The impossibility of it. The yearning.”

“There is no yearning.” Crystal closes her eyes. “Listen, I am not secretly harboring a crush on Jenny. I—”

“It’s not Charles again, is it? Because he and Edwin are so cute together and I really think you two are better as friends.”

“It’s not Charles.”

Niko’s nose scrunches up in a way that would be adorable if Crystal weren’t currently fighting the urge to scream. “Oh, do you like the Cat King? I was wondering what you spent all that time talking about. I guess he’s cute, but he lives in a cannery.”

“No,” Crystal says firmly, because at this rate, Niko’s going to accuse her of having a thing for Esther Finch next and then she’ll have to let herself plummet into the abyss below. “It’s you.”

“ I don’t like the Cat King.”

“Nobody likes the fucking Cat King!”

“Then—”

Crystal cuts her off before her best friend says something unforgivable. “Niko, I love you.”

Niko blinks, confused, then smiles. “I love you too, Crystal, but we should probably wait until we’re back in Port Townsend before we talk about whoever you’re crushing on.”

“No.” As Niko tries to pull her up the stairs, Crystal holds her ground. “I’m in love with you.”

Niko just stares at her, lips slightly parted, like she’s trying to speak, but can’t find the words.

“It’s okay,” Crystal adds quickly. “I don’t expect you to say it back. But, Niko, you’re the best person I know. The best friend I’ve ever had. You talk about how I saved you that night in the attic, but the truth is, you saved me. I’d forgotten what it was like to have people be kind to me. I’d forgotten that there were people who could be kind and then you were there and you stayed.”

Niko hasn’t let go of her hand. Crystal can feel that her fingers are trembling. “Do you mean it?”

Crystal huffs out a laugh. “Of course I mean it. I think I’ve loved you this whole time. I just didn’t know it, because it’s not like I ever had a healthy relationship to compare it to. But I love you so much, Niko. And if you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine. I just thought you should know.”

Niko only stares at her, looking very young and very unsure, and Crystal has the horrible sense that she may have broken something irrevocably. What if she’s changed everything between them? What if Niko can’t move past this? What if she’s horrified to have someone like Crystal, someone irrevocably tainted by Hell, in love with her? Crystal knows that she’s prickly and selfish and a little mean. She just never considered those would be reasons for Niko not to love her.

“Niko,” she whispers. “I—”

Niko closes the distance between them and kisses her.

It’s far from the most graceful kiss. Surprise almost sends Crystal stumbling backwards and it’s only Niko’s hand in hers that stops her from knocking Maxine over like a bowling pin. She’s pretty sure her mouth still tastes like blood and Hell is permeated with a sulfuric stench that’s not exactly romantic, but she doesn’t care, because she’s kissing Niko Sasaki, and how could she care about anything else?

In Hell, she can feel Niko, not just the tingling energy she usually feels when she touches her, but warm skin and silky hair. Niko’s hands slide around her waist and Crystal can feel the warmth of her palms through the thin fabric of her nightgown. Crystal tangles one of her hands in that silky white hair and runs the other down the line of Niko’s back, wanting to drink in every detail, lest she forget it as soon as they emerge back into the real world. Niko lets out a little gasp when Crystal’s hand lands on her hip and Crystal wants nothing more than to hear that sound again.

Except, they’re still in Hell.

Crystal forces herself to pull away. Niko’s cheeks are flushed and her hair is disheveled and the urge to swoop in for another kiss is overwhelming, but Crystal only has to hear Maxine’s frantic whispering nearby to remind her where they are and what the consequences will be if they get caught. “We should—”

“ Crystal.” The sing-song voice floating up below turns the blood in Crystal’s veins to ice. “Did you think you could run from me?”

“Go.” Crystal doesn’t look back to see how close David is, just shoves Niko forward. Hand in hand, they stumble upwards, running as fast as their legs will carry them.

“I don’t think I’m going to send you back to one of the levels this time,” David calls. “I think I’m going to devise your very own torture, Crystal. It will be watching me kill your girlfriend over and over again. Maybe that will finally teach you what happens when you fuck with me.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Crystal says, speaking more to herself than to Niko. “He’s not touching you.”

“We’re almost there!” Niko says and when Crystal looks up, she sees a door high above them, a figure silhouetted in the doorway.

“Girls, do hurry!” the Night Nurse calls.

“Does it look like we’re not hurrying?” But Crystal forces herself to run faster, even though it makes her legs ache and her lungs burn like they haven’t in decades.

The Night Nurse’s only response is a trilling noise like a tea kettle. Behind them, David’s taunts are getting closer and more descriptive. Crystal blocks him out, trying to focus on the doorway above and Niko’s hand in hers. There are now two figures standing behind the Night Nurse. Charles and Edwin. She thinks she hears Charles calling her and Niko’s names, but she can barely hear over the blood rushing in her own ears and David’s mocking voice.

“If you escape, I’ll just find you and drag you back down again!” David shouts. “You belong in Hell, Crystal. Deep down, you know it. You’ll always come back to me, because who else will have you?”

No one liked Crystal when she was alive. She was mean and vindictive and took out her aching loneliness on the classmates who looked down on her from the moment she stepped foot in St. Hilda’s Finishing School. They would never accept her, so she took it on herself to make their lives hell. She was so awful that it took weeks before anyone even realized she was possessed by a demon. Her own parents never even looked for her after the school covered up her death; they just went on to have a replacement daughter and moved on with their lives. Crystal wasn’t even worth mourning.

Niko’s grip on Crystal’s hand tightens, like she knows where Crystal’s mind is straying. “Me. I’ll have her. She doesn’t belong with you in Hell. She belongs with me.”

David shouts something else, something that’s surely foul, but Crystal doesn’t pay him any attention, looking up at Niko instead. She’s a Dead Girl Detective. She’s Niko’s friend, partner, and maybe more. Her parents may never have found it in themselves to mourn her, but Niko will if Crystal is dragged back down into the depths of Hell, so Crystal can’t let that happen. She can’t let David get in her head now, not after she’s spent so long blocking him out.

Besides, who cares if she was mean to her classmates back in 1916? They were all racist, classist assholes and probably deserved worse than the petty mind games Crystal played with them.

The door is right there, only steps away, close enough that Crystal can see the impatience in the Night Nurse’s expression and the fear in Charles and Edwin’s.

A hand encircles Crystal’s ankle and pulls. She falls, her hand slipping out of Niko’s, and crashes into the hard stone staircase. Her palms sting where they scrape the stone and the taste of blood in her mouth is stronger, but Crystal pays her discomfort no mind. She lashes out with her free leg, connecting with something solid. David grunts, but doesn’t let go.

“That’s right, bitch,” he says and she twists around to see him grinning down at her, his face mottled with burns from the grenade. “I’m going to make you scream your lungs out, you—”

A cricket bat hits him square in the face with a satisfying crunch. Crystal looks up, ready to start yelling, because if Charles really just walked into Hell… But no, it’s Niko standing there with Charles’s bat, face set in determined lines. She swings the bat again, connecting with David’s side, and he staggers, releasing his hold on Crystal’s ankle. She brings her foot up between his legs and that’s all it takes to send him tipping over the side into the darkness below, shrieking all the way.

“Come on.” Niko drags Crystal to her feet and pulls her up one step, two steps, three steps.

They stagger into Charles’s brightly lit apartment and Crystal falls forward, directly into Charles’s arms. He scoops her up into a hug that lifts her off her feet. If she had ribs, they’d probably be getting crushed right now. She can’t feel his embrace, but just knowing he’s there, as solid and dependable as ever, is reassuring.

“Bloody fucking hell,” he says into her hair. “You two scared the shit out of me.”

“I cannot believe you locked us in a closet,” Edwin says peevishly and Crystal looks over to see him hugging Niko, attempting to look very cross about the whole thing.

“Apparently, you two were going to follow Niko to Hell if she didn’t.” Crystal steps back from Charles, arms crossed over her chest, and glares between the two of them. “How fucking stupid can you be?”

��Oi,” Charles says indignantly. “One of my best mates got taken to Hell by her evil ex and the other one was going to follow. What was I supposed to do?”

“Stay here where you’re fucking safe!” Crystal nearly shrieks.

Charles shrugs, like his safety is of no importance. Crystal may actually kill him.

“How did you get out of the closet?” Niko asks, cutting Crystal off.

“Ah.” Edwin turns pink and tugs at his bowtie.

“I had to let them out,” the Night Nurse says severely. Crystal completely forgot she was there. She stands in front of the wall that was a portal to Hell the moment before, watching them with narrowed eyes. “I could not allow such shocking behavior to occur on my watch.”

“Shocking?” Crystal asks at the same time Niko squeals and demands, “Edwin, are those hickeys ?”

Edwin goes scarlet, which does nothing to hide the bruises trailing down the side of his neck.

“Sorry, mate.” Charles doesn’t even look a little sorry. “Guess I got carried away, didn’t I?”

“I would say so,” Edwin says severely.

Niko grabs Edwin’s hand. “Tell me everything. ”

The Night Nurse clears her throat sharply and Crystal’s nonexistent heart seems to sink into her stomach. “As delightful as this is,” the Night Nurse says in a tone that indicates that nothing about this is delightful. “A deal is a deal. Girls, it’s time to go. We can sort out the matter of your afterlife assignments at the Lost and Found Department.”

“A deal?” Crystal turns to Niko, who avoids her eyes.

“It was the only way she’d open the door to Hell,” Niko says softly.

Crystal reaches out and grabs her hand. “We have to stay together. After everything, you just can’t fucking separate us.” She can’t keep the desperation out of her voice. She’s finally realized what Niko means to her and she still has so many things she needs to say. She needs more time.

The Night Nurse smiles sweetly. “No decision has been made about your afterlife assignment as of yet, Crystal. I assure you, you and Niko will both end up exactly where you belong.”

“And what if where we belong is together?” Niko asks.

The Night Nurse lets out a gusty sigh. “I was hoping for a little more gratitude when I opened a portal to Hell, you know. Do you know how much paperwork I’m going to have to fill out? Now, chop, chop. You may have thirty seconds to say goodbye to your friends. I am not unreasonable.”

“I have a question.” Edwin steps forward and only then does Crystal realize he’s holding the Night Nurse’s book.

The Night Nurse groans. “Oh for heaven’s sake, what now?”

The thing about Edwin Payne is that Crystal hasn’t quite been able to figure out why Charles and Niko both act like rainbows and butterflies shine out of his asshole. Besides being a bit of a dick, it’s not like he can walk through mirrors, read minds, or even swing a cricket bat. He’s smart, but so is Niko. He can interact with the living, but so can Charles, who is way better with people. There’s really no reason to keep him around, but every time she says that to Charles or Niko, they act like she’s kicked a puppy.

Except, as Crystal watches Edwin argue with the fervor of a barrister making his closing argument in a courtroom drama that an obscure passage in the depths of the Night Nurse’s book means that she can’t take them away without filing a form, all she can feel is a reluctant sort of fondness. He’s clearly having the time of his life, complete with lots of hand gestures and dramatic little twirls whenever he feels like he’s made a good point. Charles looks like he may swoon; Crystal will have to tease him mercilessly later.

“Is that correct?” Edwin finally asks in the tone of someone who knows perfectly well that he’s correct and is daring anyone to argue, back ramrod straight and hands clasped behind his back.

The Night Nurse is white-faced and tight-lipped. If looks could kill, she’d be dragging Edwin off to the Lost and Found Department too. “You do appear to be correct.”

“Excellent.” Edwin hands her back her book. “Then do come back with the appropriate forms. Though if this is the standard the Lost and Found Department holds itself to, I can see why the ghosts of so many children slip through the cracks.”

Crystal snorts.

The Night Nurse draws herself up in outrage, then points at Crystal and Niko. “Don’t go anywhere.” Then she’s gone in a blink.

“Holy shit.” Crystal sags against Niko’s side. “Holy shit. ”

“Mate, that was amazing.” Charles slings an arm around Edwin’s shoulders.

Edwin shrugs, looking immensely pleased. “It was only simple reading comprehension.”

“She’s not taking us,” Niko whispers into Crystal’s neck.

“No, she’s not.” Crystal smooths her hand over Niko’s hair. She can’t feel the silkiness anymore, but after thirty-five years, her own ghostly form recognizes the energy of Niko’s. It tingles under her touch. On impulse, she pulls Niko into another kiss. This one is slow and sweet, without the franticness they shared on the steps of Hell. She can feel herself smiling stupidly into the kiss, giddy with the knowledge that she can do this now.

“Bloody finally,” she hears Charles mutter and looks around to see him grinning at them while Edwin stares determinedly at the ceiling, as mortified as if Crystal just started ravishing Niko right in front of them.

“It’s about time.” Charles closes the distance between them to pull Crystal and Niko into a hug. “Didn’t think you two would ever figure it out.”

“You’re one to talk,” Crystal mutters into his jacket.

“Only took me a few weeks. Took you lot thirty-five years and a trip to Hell. Wait, which one of you should I give the shovel talk to? Someone’s got to get the shovel talk, yeah?”

Crystal shoves him away without any heat. “Go help Edwin pack.”

Edwin arches an eyebrow at that. “And where am I going?”

“We have to get back to London before the Night Nurse comes back for us. We can come back to deal with Esther later. Obviously, you’re coming.”

His mouth drops open in surprise. “Crystal, I have school.”

“And Esther knows where you go to school and where you live, which is why you’re coming with us. There are schools in London.”

“I can’t just—”

“Mate, she’s right.” Charles takes Edwin’s hand. “It’s not safe for you here. Anyway, it’ll be brills. You can be a proper part of the Dead Girl Detectives.”

Crystal did not agree to that, but that’s something they can discuss when they’re safely out of this shit town.

Edwin looks like he might argue some more, but one glance at Charles—who has gone all wide-eyed and hopeful like a puppy dog—seems to be all the convincing he needs. “I suppose a short holiday in London wouldn’t be remiss.”

“Yay!” Niko claps her hands together. “Oh, this is going to be so fun! Edwin, we have so many books in the office. You’re going to love it!”

“Charles can tell Edwin all about the office while they’re packing.” Crystal gives Charles a pointed look.

He grins knowingly and steers Edwin towards the door. “She’s right, mate. This is going to be aces.” He hesitates at the door, looking back at them. “Just pretend I’ve given both of you a really convincing shovel talk, yeah?”

Crystal makes a rude hand gesture while Niko giggles.

The boys slip the door out hand in hand and Niko leans against Crystal. “What are the chances they’re just going to make out instead of pack?”

“High.” But Crystal doesn’t want to talk about Edwin and Charles; she’d rather talk about her and Niko. She turns to Niko, taking her hands. “When we get back to London, we should go out.”

Niko smiles. “Where would we go?”

“I have no idea.” Crystal has no idea what people do for dates in 2024, especially when those people are ghosts. It’s not like she can wine and dine Niko.

“We don’t have to.” Niko looks down at their joined hands.

“But I want to. I know you’ve always wished you got to have a real romance.” Niko is the most hopeless romantic Crystal knows, always getting misty-eyed over her mangas. The fact that she died without ever even being kissed is all the proof Crystal needs that the world is inherently bullshit.

“But I have.” Niko laughs softly. “Crystal, I’ve been in love with you since 1989.”

“ What? ”

Niko looks almost shy. “I was scared and sick and cold and then you brought me a lantern and kept me company. You were beautiful and you were so nice to me. And then I died and you showed me the ropes of being a ghost and you were so patient with me.”

“I’d been out of Hell for five minutes.” Crystal shakes her head. “I had no idea what I was doing.”

“But I didn’t know that then. You seemed so strong and brave and smart. I think I was in love with you within an hour or two. I didn’t think you loved me like that, but it didn’t really matter, because I got to spend the last three decades with you and that’s all I ever wanted.”

Crystal bursts out laughing. “Sorry,” she says at Niko’s shocked expression, wrapping her arms around her and pulling her close. “Sorry. It’s just, we’re so fucking stupid.”

Niko begins to giggle, leaning her head against Crystal’s shoulder. “We figured it out.”

“After I went to Hell.”

“It was a really dramatic first kiss. Like something out of a movie.”

“There’s that.” Crystal presses a kiss to the shell of Niko’s ear. “At least we have forever to make up for missed time.”

Niko smiles at her, as bright and beaming as the lantern she brought with her to Hell. She’s right where she belongs, in Crystal’s arms, and Crystal feels like she might burst from happiness. “Forever.”

***

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving kudos and comments on AO3.

#dead boy detectives #dead girl detectives #palasaki #crystal palace #niko sasaki #background payneland #ghost's fic #ghost's writing #palasaki week 2024

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tokiro07 · 5 months ago

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Still thinking about past Zeldas getting their own games

Obviously not all of them have enough going on to really warrant their own games, though that shouldn't stop anyone from giving them something to do, but which ones lend themselves to getting new stories the best?

Ocarina of Time is a pretty easy one with a seven-year gap for her to train herself up as Sheik. Sheik is extremely popular and has a lot of demand for her own game, even getting optioned for one by Retro once, so it's both the easiest to pitch and seems like the most likely to happen

Wind Waker's Tetra is similar, being super popular and having a large gap in her history that could easily house any number of adventures. Tetra spent who knows how many years at sea, and could easily have fought all kinds of monsters or discovered all kinds of treasures. We could even get her and Link finding the land that will become New Hyrule, defeating some kind of evil before its founding, like Malladus perhaps

Skyward Sword also provides ample opportunity with Zelda going on her own adventure one step ahead of Link at pretty much all times, though literally "Skyward Sword's levels but playing as Zelda" doesn't sound like a very worthwhile story. If they can find a way to keep it fresh, I'm all for it, but it may be better to have her exploring the Surface after the people of Skyloft begin migrating down to it

Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom has a gap between games, while also having the events of the Imprisoning War, though neither seems much like something they're interested in continuing to explore since we got to see so much of it already. It might be easier to just continue exploring the Depths or the lands surrounding Hyrule to get a deeper understanding of the Zonai's culture and historical impact

Pretty much all of the other Zeldas weren't very active in their own stories and don't leave a lot to the imagination, so any stories involving them would definitively have to be post-game rather than mid- or pre-game. Of these, the most interesting candidates would likely be:

Twilight Princess's Zelda investigating the Twilight Realm and looking for a way to reunite Link and Midna to repay them for their help in saving Hyrule. This could give us an opportunity to see more of the Twilight Realm and understand its ecology and culture while also giving us more insight into Midna herself. Personally I'd rather have a Midna game than a Twilight Zelda game, but I have a harder time seeing that pitch going through

Link Between Worlds, same thing, but Hilda and Lorule; Zelda may go back to check on how reviving their Triforce worked out and may end up facing some new villain who's trying to steal it. Again, I'd like to play a Hilda (or Ravio) game, but I'll accept any excuse to spend more time in Lorule and expand on its history and it's version of the Triforce; does it symbolize different traits, does it have its own goddesses, what?

Adventure of Link's Zelda I is definitely not a well-remembered or beloved character, but I think that the story angle of a princess waking up after countless years to find her descendant has taken the throne provides an excellent opportunity for characterization. Perhaps she feels out of touch with her kingdom having been away for so long, or maybe she feels unneeded since there's already a reigning princess? A search to find herself and possibly a confrontation with the spirit of the wizard who cursed her would make for a great plot, especially if they can find a way to incorporate the other Zelda like having the player control both with different abilities to help differentiate them. Unlikely, but certainly the most novel and the one I personally want to see most

Spirit Tracks's Zelda returned to her body in the end, presumably removing her ability to control Phantoms, so it's harder to see how she'd get to go on further adventures. However, it was stated that Byrne would reincarnate sooner or later, so that would at least provide a story opportunity even if new mechanics would be necessary

Minish Cap, Four Swords, and Four Swords Adventures don't really give Zelda much reason to go on an adventure post-game, but again, neither did Link to the Past, and if I'm right Echoes of Wisdom is branching off of a hypothetical ending where Ganon took Link with him as he was defeated, so I'm sure any number of excuses could be given for them

Minish Cap's Zelda had the most personality, but FSA's story is a little easier to see continuing, since Vaati or Ganon could well be revived again afterwards. Still, they're both pretty weak as inspirations for new stories, even if more Vaati content would be wholeheartedly appreciated

It's not very surprising that the biggest name Zelda games have the clearest routes for expanding on their stories, but since the opportunities still exist in all of the others, I would hope that Nintendo would try to do more than just the most obvious options

Or they might just make up new Zeldas and eras entirely without any regard for the timeline or previously undeveloped story segments, that seems like something they'd do

#legend of zelda #the legend of zelda #loz #tloz #echoes of wisdom #long post

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tethrras · 6 days ago

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share something sunday

was tagged by the truly incomparable lovely wonderful @brightaxe to share something this sunday and i do have a few things to share actually. and i need to post them in the hopes someone will hold me accountable when i don't finish them over winter break. so here they are!

i tag @lavellane @rosebarsoap @faerun @lvllns and whomstever else would like to do this <3 <3 <3

posting two things bc i'd like to have them finished by the end of the year and i want people to CAREEE and YELL AT ME IN MY INBOX to finish them

Lavinia liked to read his books when they were together so she could ask him questions, although by this point she had re-read them all several times and run out of new questions to ask, so the room was silent save for the sound of her turning the pages and him grunting whenever one of the overused muscles in his back.

"Hey." Varric gave her shoulder a gentle shake. "I was wondering, once I'm done with all this Solas business, how'd you like to get married?"

Lavinia laughed and nestled further into his side. Varric was silent. Then he shook her shoulder again, fingers gripping her shoulder with a little more force. "If you're going to say no," he said softly, "at least give me enough elaboration to really bruise my ego."

The words were teasing, but sounded sincere enough to give her pause. Lavinia glanced back at him and pushed herself up on her elbow, waiting for a punchline that she would eventually realize wasn't coming.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "I didn't think you were serious." She hadn't. They'd discussed several times over the years that neither of them felt it was necessary to get married - with their lives so different and far apart, love was enough. Besides, she knew Varric would do anything to avoid filling out more paperwork, even if it was for something as important as this. "You want to get married?"

Varric shrugged. "I'm starting to get tired of referring to you as the Inquisitor," he answered. "Not that you haven't earned that title, of course. But it'll be a lot easier to say 'tell my wife I love her' on my deathbed than 'tell the Inquisitor I love her'. A lot more dramatic, too." He chuckled when Lavinia smacked his shoulder and moved his arm to her waist so he could draw her into his chest. "Sorry, sorry. No death talk when we're on vacation, I know."

Lavinia looked at him for a long moment. After all these years, she knew his face as well as, if not better, than she knew her own, and was surprised at how vulnerable he looked despite his attempts at lightheartedness - and not just vulnerable, but scared, like there was a part of him that believed she would say no.

The truth is that, despite their decision, she thought often about marrying Varric. Not much would change, of course, she knew that - she still worked for Divine Justinia in Orlais, and he was going to hunt down Solas even if it took the rest of his life - but she liked the idea of getting to call Varric her husband, to wear a matching ring, even to take his last name, if that was something both of them decided they wanted. But she never brought it up for fear of rejection, and wondered then how long he had waited to bring it up because he feared the same thing.

"If we get married, do I get to be Viscountess of Kirkwall?" Lavinia asked. She knew it would make him laugh and, sure enough, he chuckled and leaned his head back against the pillows, knowing her well enough, too, to know what her non-answer meant.

Still, as he closed his eyes he asked, “Comtesse isn’t enough for you?”

Lavinia returned to her book. “You know it isn’t.”

Now, she stares at the Tethras signet ring and shakes her head. She should've told him yes.

On a warm spring morning, Alistair wakes up without a wife.

He will not wake up without a wife tomorrow, because his and Hilda’s wedding is this evening. His wedding! This evening! She wakes up at dawn to oversee the wedding preparations, and, at her insistence, he lies in bed for another two or three hours, grinning at the ceiling until his cheeks hurt. He has been many things in his life - the bastard son of Maric Theirin, a mediocre Templar, a mediocre Warden. But tomorrow, he’s going to wake up a husband.

It’s a good thing he’s lying in bed already, because he’s starting to feel faint.

Another good thing about today is that it’s the first time in a long time that he’s woken up in good spirits. He isn’t used to that - not lately, anyway - and Hilda isn’t, either. The past three years have been difficult, with the Blight and then the thaw hunt and then everything happened afterwards. Half the country is still up in arms for what happened in Amaranthine, the other half of the country is fighting the first, and they still find assassins prowling the halls of the Keep every few months. But today, Alistair’s getting married. And that’s as good reason as any to be in a good mood.

He does get up eventually to throw on some clothes and head downstairs in case Hilda needs his help with something - he ought to be reminding her that marrying him is a good choice in case she starts to second-guess herself - but his plans go awry almost immediately, because when he reaches the door to the chapel, the men standing guard at the entrance block his path.

“Orders from the Warden-Commander, ser.” The voice is that of Warden Noriel, a new recruit from the Free Marches. He favours his left side but has a vicious swing - Alistair and Hilda both like him. “You’re not to be let into the chapel until the ceremony later today. Warden Alistair. Ser.”

“Is that so?” Alistair cranes his head to try and see through the crack in the door. “And offering you your own mabari wouldn’t be a good enough bribe, I suppose?”

“Warden-Commander Cousland offered me two.”

“She would do that.” Alistair smiles at Noriel and his voiceless companion and then nods. “As you were, gentlemen. Don’t let the man of the hour bother you.”

#i have more of a plan for the lavinia x varric fic so i'll probs write that first but i DOO wanna do the #hildalistair wedding one before i write the fic of them fucking dying in veilguard #<3 #anyway. TY FOR THE TAG MO UR A PRECIOSA #maia.txt

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saaltskies · 1 month ago

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i think bw is very similar whether hilbert or hilda is the protagonist but there are some differences in my head

for example...

i think hilda would be much more aggressive toward team plasma and kinda despised n at first

she went from what is with this weirdo to OH UR THE KING SCREW YOU

after the champion battle she stops hating him though

part of the reason why she disappeared after the events of bw is because she also feels guilty for how mean she was to him

protag hilbert was more friendly to n at first thinking his views were interesting even if he didnt agree

he also hated team plasma hilda just causes more arson

but ya hilbert was more chill with him and enjoyed talking to him at least until he was like oh btw im the king of team plasma and hilbert was like wHAT

while protag hilda becomes more aggressive and angry with n hilbert becomes more scared of him

hilbert is like ohhhhh shoot i promised my friends i wouldnt get too involved with team plasma but got too involved oh shoot oh shoot oh shoot nonononono

when n is like hey i chose you to be the other hero hildas like excuse me what ?????? while hilberts like shoot shoot shootshootshootshoot

on the whole dream thing they have different responses

see hilbert has a dream while hilda doesnt

n asked hilbert if he has a dream and hilbert never really had a dream his whole life but realized then that traveling the world and hopefully become champion kinda are dreams of his and thought about it for a bit and realized huh ig i do

he followed that for the rest of the game (until the horrors settled in)

then with hilda she doesnt have one

she tells everyone before that that her dream is to win the pokemon league but she actually doesnt care that much about it

its a goal shes working towards but not rly a dream

when asks shes about to say that as usual but then shes like. huh. i dont actually. and she finally admits she doesnt have one for the first time, but that she doesnt really mind, she'll figure it out

after chargestone cave hilbert becomes more anxious he puts way more into training he becomes more desperate because THERES AN EVIL CULT AFTER HIM

his dream changes its focus to taking down team plasma

he also starts to distance himself from his friends and sister more from stress which worries them a bit

hilda also ups her training but shes more upbeat and motivated while hilbert is more stressed

also neither of them are very good at being vulnerable so they dont talk much to their friends about how they're feeling lol

hilda starts to be more niceys to n after the conversation with ghetsis on the bridge because shes like oh wait this is awful while hilbert is like YOU

his bad feelings about ghetsis are confirmed and he more than ever wants to take down team plasma

they are both sickened by ghetsis

in the champion battle their feelings are similar

they both get stressed over the fact that they cant afford to lose and they both wanna also make n see the truth

and of course after the battle they are both PISSED at ghetsis

oh and they both equally want to beat ghetsis with a nail bat but i think hilda is more likely to actually have one and do it lol #girl

they both get freaked the heck out by ghetsis trying to murder them who wouldn't this is terrifying

after the battle hilda wants to apoligize to n for being so mean to him because shes kinda chill with him now and also now that hes no longer doing stuff she has no reason to hate him but he leaves before she can say it :(

while hilbert has all these deep lil things he wants to say to him and also wants to ask him if they can be friends but n disappears rip

some time after it finally registers in hilberts brain everything that happened and that one the pokemon league and he starts freaking out over it all and starts getting imposter syndrome over the whole champion thing and books it to go find n

bye bestie

while hilda is overrun with guilt because she didnt get to properly make up with n so she heads out too

i think hilda does a better job at keeping in contact than hilbert does

hilda doesnt do a great job either but at least everyone knows shes ok unlike a certain SOMEONE

oh and if they arent protags hilda spends all her time at the battle subway like hee hee battle

she also loses interest in the league trains are so much better

and hilbert is like hey imma go do some extra training for the league in the subway and by the time he comes back out his sister is traumatized

#and then after bw2 when they reunite with n they adopt him as their older brother yayyyyyy #anyways enjoy my silly bw protag thoughts #they take up so much brain space #pokemon #pokemon bw #hilbert #hilda #n harmonia

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setting-ink · 1 month ago

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Finding Home

My first (very late) contribution to @sketchbookweek 2024!

This fic combines prompts from Day 1 & Day 2, both because it took me two days to write, and because it managed to wind up fitting Day 1: Home and Day 2: Past/Future well enough for me to justify it.

Read on AO3

Home was Tofoten, first. The house with her Aunt, the peaceful hills, and the half-remembered trauma. Johanna can remember now, the years with her parents, and the pain of losing them. But Tofoten stopped feeling like home a long time ago now. Being sent off to Trolberg was a mixed blessing. It soured her relationship with Astrid, but it was the place she came into herself. Joining the Sparrow Scouts, finding her love for art in boarding school. Trolberg came to feel more like home than it did an escape.

It was also where she met Anders. Anders admittedly never quite felt like home, which felt cruel to think, but she also had a feeling he’d agree. What they had was nice, for a time, and neither would ever regret it, given what it had brought them, but it was better now, with the understanding that they wanted different things out of life. Hilda had been the greatest gift she could have asked for, but with her birth came the desire for change. She wanted to give her daughter the chance to grow up away from the hustle and bustle. Somewhere peaceful, like Tofoten had been for her. But also as far away from Tofoten as she could get. Her grandfather’s cabin had been perfect for that, away from it all, with the peace to work, and for Hilda to grow. Hilda grew, she thrived. She met Twig, and he saved her, and became a welcome addition to their little family.

And so for a time, that was home. The Cabin, and Hilda. She loved them both dearly, but her daughter would always be the most important part of it all. So long as they were together, that would be enough. She hadn’t quite expected that to be put to the test so abruptly as it was, but the actions of giants are hard to plan for. And that meant moving back to Trolberg. It would be good for Hilda, she knew. Her own time there had done her wonders, and she’d been sent there at around the same age. She missed it, if she was honest with herself. Sure, Hilda would take time to adjust, but it would all be for the best. Johanna hadn’t quite expected there to be quite so much for her to adjust to. Alfur was strange, to begin with, but soon became a welcome presence, as another voice of reason in Hilda’s life. Well, an attempted voice of reason at least. Tontu had been a more difficult shift, her own biases making for an awkward start, to say the least. But soon it was difficult to imagine home without them. It was nice, to have more people in her life. Not that she had been lonely before. She had Hilda, and that was enough.

Johanna very pointedly did not think about what she’d do when Hilda would be old enough to move out. To explore the world, as she almost certainly would want to do. She could barely picture home without Hilda there. But that was years off still, and she wasn’t quite as alone anymore.

Losing Hilda had destroyed her. Yes, they found each other again, and Johanna understood why Trylla had done it. A mother’s love was a powerful thing, and she would do anything for Hilda. But it put things into perspective for her. So when Astrid invited them to visit, she accepted. Astrid had been home once, and once there, she found she had missed her quite a bit more than she’d thought. So to almost lose Hilda again to the Fairy Mound, the thing that had haunted her for years? It hurt. So back to Trolberg it was.

Anders visiting again was interesting, to say the least. She would never begrudge him time with Hilda, but she was disappointed on her behalf when he vanished again. He had never been perfect, but she’d thought him good enough to say goodbye, at least. So learning he’d been taken to the Fairy Country, and that Hilda had gone in to save him? She wished she could say she was surprised, but she knew her daughter better than to expect anything less. Going in after her was all she could do.

Home had been her parents once. She could barely process how much she had missed them, once she remembered them again. And surely, Fairy Country could be home for them, couldn’t it? Her, her parents, and Hilda, together, and free to fly. To catch up, to be together, after so long. It could be home. It could. For her, at least. But Hilda? Hilda had a life outside of her family, she had friends, great friends, and a whole world to explore. She couldn’t leave that behind. And Johanna would never forgive herself if she made her. Saying goodbye to her parents hurt. Losing Astrid hurt. Getting her back was unexpected, but she knew now that she was going to cherish every moment she got to spend with the people she cared about.

It was somewhat mortifying to realize that outside of Astrid, the people she cared about had all entered her life through Hilda. It’s one thing for your daughter to claim that you have no friends, and another entirely to realize that she was correct. It had been so easy for Johanna to imagine leaving her entire life in Trolberg behind, because who would she miss, really? Alfur and Tontu, certainly, and Twig, yes, but who then? Stilted conversation with David and Frida’s parents, the occasional chat with Gerda? Maybe it was time for her to find her people, like Hilda had done so well.

Spending time with the Librarian had been accidental, at first. She had gone to the library intent on finding a book, and was met with a very interesting looking woman, who was nice enough to not react visibly when asked where she could find a self-help book. She had simply pointed her in the right direction, and left it at that. She only spoke up when Johanna brought her selections to the checkout desk, informing her, oh no, not that one. Trite, reductive, you’ll feel worse about yourself after reading it. The other one’s fine though. Johanna had blinked, laughed, and then thanked her, as the Librarian set the apparently offending tome aside to be reshelved later. And the other book was in fact more than fine, and she resolved to take its advice to heart, reaffirming the relationships she actively enjoyed, and seeking out things that brought her joy. This meant making chats with Gerda a weekly thing, because the other woman could be quite the conversationalist, and moreover, was wholly non-judgemental about how long it had been since Johanna had proper friends. It meant spending a day out with Hilda and Anders, because if he was going to be living in Trolberg now, they may as well get used to each other again. It meant letting Tontu and Alfur know how much she appreciated what they did for her, and giving Twig an extra scratch near his antlers now and then. It meant talking with Raven Leader about volunteering for Sparrow Scout events, because she missed the sense of community that organization had brought about. It meant calling Astrid a bit more often, just to say hello.

It also meant that when she went to return the better-than-fine self-help book, she asked the Librarian if she had any recommendations. It was her turn to blink now, but she recovered quickly, giving Johanna a once-over before directing her to a marvelous work of dramatic fiction from an author she’d never heard of before. When it came time to return that, she was surprised when the Librarian had barely seen her come in before she smiled, and pointed her towards another equally enthralling book.

Johanna was a little upset with herself that it took until her fourth visit to realize she didn’t know the Librarian’s name, and had in fact just been thinking of her as ‘the Librarian’ with a capital L. But Kaisa was nice about it, saying if she wanted everyone to know, she’d wear a nametag. It felt nice, for some reason, the knowledge that she had apparently earned the right to know, somehow. And from there, it had felt easy to go from book recommendations to other topics, what she thought of Trolberg, what she thought of Trolls. (Kaisa didn’t seem the type to still be biased against them, but it couldn’t hurt to check. Johanna was glad to learn she had nothing to worry about there.) What she did outside of work, things like that. It was a bit surprising to learn that Kaisa apparently tutored Frida occasionally, but privately she was glad to hear it. Frida had made it very clear by now that she would go through hell and back for Hilda, so if she seemed to like Kaisa, all the better. Johanna tried not to think about why she cared about what her daughter and her friends would think of Kaisa.

Learning that Kaisa had already met, and was in fact quite familiar with her daughter, had only been slightly surprising. Hilda seemed to know everyone nowadays, and she’d certainly spent enough time at the library for it to make sense. Frankly, Kaisa had seemed more surprised about it than she was, although she was unsure if that was because she had never mentioned a daughter, or because, admittedly, Hilda was a good deal more outgoing than Johanna had ever been. But knowing that Hilda liked Kaisa? And that Kaisa seemed to like Hilda as well? (Provided, of course, she wasn't causing trouble?) It was heartwarming. For no particular reason, of course.

Kaisa being a witch was a bit more of a shock, but again, all the pieces fit looking back, and so when the two of them met up for coffee, she found herself asking some of the questions she could never quite bring herself to ask Frida. Things like just what Hilda being a familiar entailed, if there was anything she could be doing to keep her daughter safe. Whether or not Hilda being part Fairy would have any impact. It was her turn to shock Kaisa now, apparently, because then she was the one with questions. How much is part, on which side of the family, could you tell me a bit about Fairy Country? It had been a bit embarrassing to have to tell her that she didn’t actually know all that much, but she did pass on Astrid’s number, in the hopes her Aunt could help Kaisa out a bit.

The phone call she received afterwards from Astrid, asking just who this witch was that Johanna was spending so much time with, telling so much to, was more than just a bit embarrassing. Because she was spending a good bit of time with her nowadays, more than just at the library, and perhaps it was time to be honest with herself about the why. Kaisa was interesting, and not just for the obvious reasons. She was witty, she was fun. Johanna felt comfortable with her, and she seemed to enjoy Johanna’s company. Johanna liked her. And perhaps that was too simple a sentiment, but it was true. She enjoyed the time she spent with Kaisa. And she wanted to keep enjoying it.

Because Kaisa was starting to feel like home.

#sketchbook #sketchbook ship #kaisanna #hilda the series #hilda netflix #kaisa hilda #johanna hilda #my fic #ough this took me longer than anticipated huh #it's technically day 3 now

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the-hilda-librarians-wife · 2 months ago

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Relationship: Kaisa/Johanna

Category: Teen and up audiences

Word count: 12.6k

Chapters: 2/3

Tags: Friends to Lovers; Fluff; Falling in Love; Family; Home. Character Study

(Note: the last chapter will be published as my entry for Sketchbook Week 2024 Day 1 - Home, on the 21st of October :) )

🐦Read it on ao3🦉

Preview:

The first time they met in person, they talked for way longer than two people in a public library should. Even though they kept their voices appropriately low, other patrons kept sending them annoyed stares which were part desire for silence, and part displeasure at the librarian being hogged and not paying attention when they needed aid.

So, for the sake of Kaisa’s job and both of their reputations in the community, they decided to meet up again somewhere else. Somewhere where they could chat about Hilda’s visits to the library and their jobs and families without having to hear the irritated sighs of people waiting for help finding a book.

Hardly their fault that the gigantic library only hired one single librarian, really.

The weekend following their meeting, they found themselves in a coffee shop near Kaisa’s workplace, neither of them sure whether this counted as a date, but certain that they wouldn’t be the one to ask for clarification.

It was already late in the afternoon, the sky’s colour leaning more towards the warm colours now.

Which was why Johanna was slightly worried when Kaisa walked over to their table with an unreasonably large cup of black coffee.

#my fic #fic: bodfcsft #sketchbook ship #sketchbook ship hilda #sketchbook ship fanfic #kaisa hilda #johanna hilda #i told you I'd make a proper post for it. Eventually

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grifff17 · 7 months ago

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Audiodrama Sunday 04/28/24

So much stuff this week! I think this is going to be my longest writeup yet!

@camlannpod what the fuck? Trying to avoid spoilers, but the ending of that episode was wild. The sound design for the last scene was so good. Also “You're good with an axe, right?” was brutal, I audibly said "oof". Only 1 more episode in the season, hopefully they get funding for a second one.

The first episode of @wanderersjournalpod came out this week. This was a promising start to a new show, I'm excited to see where it goes from here. The setting feels very mystical, I can't wait to learn more about the world.

@worldsbeyondpod was so tense. Suvi and Ame had the most awkward conversation in existence. This story has so much nuance, neither of them are clearly in the right, though I feel inclined to take Ame's side due to the "Geas + Alter Memory" double espionage scheme. Meanwhile Ursulon discovers that Orima of the Reaching Green is a short queen and gets a cool horse.

I'm now up to date with @lostterminal. Season 15 was great. I love Nia, and Daphne and Raffi were really interesting new characters. Also, the dragon was terrifying. This show doesn't usually have very much action, so the confrontation with it really stood out. The description of the automatic turret going "click, click" as it locked on to Maddie was so intimidating.

@worldgonewrongpod I loved this episode. The storytelling felt so natural and real, like someone telling me a story about a weird road trip they went on. I think I said this about the last episode too, but this was my favorite episode yet. It also sets up the backstory which was never really explained as to why Jamie and Malik are separated at all.

In @midstpodcast we finally had a nicer episode. No horrible fucked up Weep/Trust stuff happening, just Lark reunited with Zeila and Sherman. However, there's so much tension between these characters. I was surprised that Lark forgave Sherman for selling her out. Something to remember is that Lark and Sherman had been hooking up before everything went to shit, which was mentioned once and I think really changes their relationship.

New @keepitsteadypod! This is the first new episode of this show since I started doing these. This was a really cute episode. For how popular fake dating is as a trope in fandom spaces, you don't see a lot of it in audiodramas.

Fun episode of Mission Rejected this week. It was cool to see Bowden go from "vain actor" to "badass spy" when the stakes ramped up. We don't get to see him take charge very often, it was neat for him to be a competent leader. I wonder if the gang lying to Zelda(who definitely saw through it) and Chet(who probably didn't) is foreshadowing for more of a conflict with the new Secretary of Defense later in the season. Also I loved the squabbling gay couple running an illegal mining operation as the villains of the week.

@breakerwhiskey episode 200 wow. A letter from Harry! We learned that Harry has been listening to most of Whiskey's broadcasts, which recontextualizes a lot of the previous episodes. Also, the end was heartbreaking.

I started season 2 of @longcatmedia's Mockery Manor! I'm 2 episodes in and really like it so far. JJ and Bettie are employed in different parks, JJ is on the run from an organized crime ring, and Bettie became a monk? Also, it's clear that neither Hilda nor Jenkins stole the shipment, neither of them have motive. But I don't know who else would have motive either. Lots of mysteries this season.

Spout Lore had a great planning episode. I'm excited for the "saving Highspear" arc, the Highspear is so cool as a concept. A reverse Tower of Babel, that lets the whole world talk with each other. A literal monument to wizard hubris, which feels destined to fall. However I doubt it will, because, as the players mentioned, it would be really annoying from a storytelling perspective if everyone suddenly spoke different languages. This has actually made me realize I really want a story set shortly after some sort of "fall of the Tower of Babel", where communication is a struggle, but that's just because I think linguistics is cool. Anyways, the buffet talk had me rolling.

What a great week! However, it did not help my queue, which continues to grow instead of get smaller. I'll reach the end of it one day.

#camlann #camlannpod #wanderer's journal #worlds beyond number #twtwtwo #lost terminal #world gone wrong #midst podcast #keep it steady #mission rejected #breaker whiskey #mockery manor #spout lore #spout lore podcast

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xshimaeraxx · 25 days ago

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okay but Burn by David Kushner is so early cc!cupbros's relationship w devildice. 2nd verse is mugman to dice: "you can use it [your pain] as a weapon / but i won't ever let it pull me back under again / i let'chu fool me once, but now i'm dead and gone". mugsy's sympathic to dice's plights (him wanting to know dice's past, dice's pains - maybe in an attempt to relate more/get over his leftover fear of dice?), WANTS to know the man even though he killed and hurt him (mugs), but he's still standing strong in the fact that you hurt me, you KILLED me - i can't just unlearn three years of fear and hatred at the drop of a hat. he "won't ever let it pull [him] back under again"/fool him.

the 1st verse is cuphead to devil: "all you ever caused was pain / you can say you're sorry, the evidence is on my body / but i never complain / i wear it as a lesson, a curse and a blessing". cuphead DOES wear his scars as a lesson, because while he's a wild fuck and does chaotic shit, we've never seen him do anything to threaten his or mugsy's life after the fights in cc. hell, HE'S the one saying they (him & hilda) needa make a plan before bursting in to save cagney from the flower gang; HE'S the one who's suspicious of gabriel while mugman's the one who's being too trusting. he's cautious about the shit that matters to him, and that is BECAUSE of the fights, BECAUSE of the devil.

and he never, ever 'complains' about ("the evidence is on my body / but i never complain"), never actually SAYS "i learned my lesson, now praise me for it" - he doesn't expect brownie points or anything, he just does it BECAUSE he cares. and sure, cuphead's grateful he learned that lesson, but it still HURT. still scarred and pained and killed him even at the best of times, still does, to an extent, and he can't just ignore that. NEITHER OF THEM can ignore that.

anygays the main 4's dynamic is so much more complicated then just the plain old "awwww classic enemies to found family" trope, which i LOVE, don't get me wrong, but. ihhh. there's SO MUCH MORE & dear god but this song just PERFECTLY catches that, that mix of hatred/fear but still caring for the person(s) & aAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

#screaming incoherently into the void of tumblr #cuphead #cuphead au #casino cups #king dice #the devil cuphead #mugman #cuphead and mugman #main 4 #casino cups main 4 #casino cups meta #meta #ihhh looked at in a certain way they (cc main 4)'re just so complicated and messy and broken and AHHH #I LOVE THEM. I LOVE THEM SM U HAVE NO IDEA #these 4 r the ONLY characters i have ever written legit genuine fuckin' *character analysis* for #you have no idea how INSANE i am ab their dynamic & all the twists and turns and messy shit and just EVERYTHING and AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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fuwahua · 2 months ago

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Chase

Tktober Day 2 - Chase

Tags: Sylvain / Felix from FE3H , Seemingly unrequited love, crush, white clouds period, sylvain exploding (affectionate)

Sylvix per request ヽ(o＾▽＾o)ノ Back to the academy!!

“Felix says you’re avoiding him.”

“Me? Avoiding him? Well well, how the turn tables!”

Dimitri stares at him, brows knitted partly in concern for Sylvain’s mental state and partly because no doubt Felix was somewhere in the vicinity, probably prowling the garden in anticipation of Sylvain admitting that he was avoiding the other. Which he wouldn’t admit, by the way. Because he had nothing to admit! He wasn’t avoiding the other!!

…. Not for the most part, anyway.

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure you’re avoiding him either. Professor sat you both down to eat twice this week already,” Dimitri says, and Sylvain bites back a laugh at the petulant tone he takes on at the mention of Byleth. “You were clearly captivated by her but it’s certainly not out of place from you.”

“Hey, what’s wrong with dinner and a show? Besides, I see how you look at her. Can’t blame me for trying!”

Dimitri flushes. “I-I would never!”

“Listen, between you and me, I heard they’re getting a shipment of her favorite teas in. I could tell you which ones to pick out if you want.” Dimitri’s eyes widen, zoning into his every word, and Sylvain grins as he spins an at least partly true story of Byleth’s preferences.

Felix doesn’t come up for the rest of their conversation.

“Felix says you’re avoiding him.”

“Me? Why, I’d never!”

Ingrid scowls at him, lips jutting out the way she’d never grown out of since childhood. Sylvain chuckles, crossing his arms languidly behind his head. “How could I avoid him? We only take class together every single day.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Ingrid says. “I saw you both eating with Professor Byleth in the cafeteria last week. You were speaking with her the entire time, even though Felix was right besides you. Isn’t that a form of avoidance?”

“What? Did that happen?” Sylvain coughs, scratching his head. “He probably just wasn’t saying much. Can’t blame a guy for talking to someone who actually replies. And, hey, don’t you spend the entire mealtime scarfing down your food instead of conversing with your partner?”

“That’s—it’s not related!”

“I dunno,” he whistles. “That’s not what Dorothea said last time~”

“Dorothea? What did Dorothea say? Sylvain? Sylvain!”

“You’re on weed duty with Felix this week.”

“Wha—professor, really?”

Sylvain groans, cupping his face in his hands. It’s not unusual for Byleth to assign them odd and ends chores every week, sometimes keeping them the same no matter the weather (Ingrid practically lives in the stables with Marianne, through heat wave and snow. He really should drop by with snacks one day). But weed pulling? The thing Dimitri used to get assigned to before she caught him putting it in his mouth??

“I’m not fit for weed pulling, it doesn’t fit my,” he hesitates, mind whirring. “Skillset. I’d be a better help with the horses, you know. Why not swap me and Ingrid for once?”

Byleth gives him a slow blink. Her eyes look dead inside, but they kind of always looked like that. “Felix says you’re avoiding him.”

He groans a second time. Of course. “He told you that?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I heard it from Claude.” Claude? Entirely different house Claude? Byleth nods. “Who heard it from Hilda, who heard it from Marianne, who heard it from Ingrid, who heard it from Dedue, who heard it from Dimitri, who heard it from—”

“Felix,” Sylvain manages. He doesn’t groan a third time, though it is a near thing. “Felix told him.”

“Yes.” Byleth tips her head, staring at him. Or into his soul. Whichever. “If you already knew that, why haven’t you spoken to him yet?”

Sylvain doesn’t answer, eyes darting away. He knows that red will show on his cheeks regardless, yet dense as Felix is, Byleth is denser, and neither of them would even begin to comprehend what it could possibly mean when the childhood friend who flirts with you an entire lifetime suddenly starts stuttering through conversations like a fool half the time and avoiding you the rest. A mystery! Truly, an unsolvable, closed room case!!

“You could put a question in the advice box if you’d rather ask anonymously.”

“Professor, you write all our names on your answers. That’s not anonymous.”

“It’s more effective that way. Students work better when their advice is direct.” She smiles, raising a hand before she turns. “I’ll see you and Felix at the garden on Sunday.”

Her coat covers absolutely everything as she walks away. He stares at her figure regardless, cupping a hand over his mouth.

Fuck.

Felix is there at the crack of dawn, already hunched over the weeds and pulling them with the force of eighteen years of repressed rage. It’s almost impressive how efficiently he works through the grass as a noble: sure, he tears a little more grass than weed sometimes, but the green staining his gloves and the half-full buckle is proof of his hard work. The grass crunches beneath Sylvain’s feet as he enters.

Felix looks up and Sylvain bites down on the urge to flee.

“Good morning,” he says instead. Felix stares at him a moment longer, gaze lingering.

Beautiful. Wispy strands of hair stick to Felix’s cheek where sweat has begun to bead after a morning of hard work, cheeks pink with exertion and making clear the elegant edges of high cheekbones. He looks like a model, not a man hunched over a schoolyard, but fuck if those cat eyes drinking him in aren’t some of the prettiest he’s ever seen. Maybe the prettiest. At least top five. Top three?

“Good morning.” He doesn’t stare at Felix’s lips. He doesn’t. he doesn’t, he doesn’t. Maybe if he chants it enough times, the smudge of pink across those lips will fade from his memory.

It doesn’t.

Sylvain manages a smile, opening his mouth as Felix turns back to the garden, hands already returning to work. Well! That’s fine, then. Better than running his mouth and embarrassing himself even more than he’d already had for the week.

Weed pulling is, despite his complaints, not the worst chore to be assigned at Garreg Mach. It’s almost calming, a mindless chore of pulling and pulling, and he’s sure that on any other day, any other occasion, he’d be thankful for the still, calm quiet of an early Sunday. Hell, he’d probably still enjoy it today if Byleth was here! Or literally anyone else!

He pulls a little too hard on a weed and dirt goes flying, spraying his neatly pressed pants with it. Sylvain exhales and bites his lip rather than complaining the way he would if he were alone; Felix shifts besides him, eyes still down on the garden, but the angle is perfect, the shine of his hair is inviting, glossy, and Sylvain just wants to—

His hand stretches outwards just as Felix turns. And instead of navy strands of hair meeting his fingers, Sylvain finds his palm cupping Felix’s cheek instead.

His pink cheek. His warm cheek. Warm with exercise, warm with blood pumping through his body to keep him alive, warm with, maybe, the realization that they’re alone together at a time when no one else is awake.

Oh, goddess. He can’t do this.

“I-I need to go.”

Grass rustles as he jolts to his feet, unsteady, fight or flight screaming in his mind. Sylvain barely manages a backstep before Felix is up with him, bucket of collected weeds banging as it spills his morning’s hardship all over the floor. He gapes at him, eyes widening, as golden eyes fixate on him. Felix’s hands clench. Unclench. His pulse rises. Sylvain swallows.

He runs.

Felix runs right after him.

His scream is very dignified. “What are you doing? You have weeds to pick!”

“What are you doing!” Felix yells back. Their footsteps echo through the empty halls, louder than they have any right to be, and a painting of the goddess looks disapprovingly upon them when Sylvain nearly bangs his shoulder on a sharp turn. There’s a clang of metal behind him, closer than it has any right to be, and he shouts when a left turn sends him stumbling into the nearby wall. His head rings, dazed, before it’s slammed forward a second time when Felix’s body barrels right behind him and sending them sprawling on the floor.

Felix, on him. Sylvain sweats, already trying to turn back, but Felix’s hands grab his wrists and press down. “Wait—wait!”

“What’s with you?” Felix snarls. Sylvain gasps as his wrists are wrenched downwards, Felix’s weight on his back sending every alarm in his head screaming. He’s warm, goddess, fuck, he’s so warm. “Are you insane? Running through the Academy like a criminal?”

“M-maybe I like to be chased!” He sputters. His cheeks are burning. There’s nothing around him but the ground and Felix, and fuck, Felix is all he can think about.

“As if,” Felix says, scathing. “Tell that to the women who want you to leave them alone. Why is it that when they want to see you, you’re always gone?”

“That’s, you know, the thrill of the chase!” Sylvain gasps as Felix pins his hands down with his knees instead, flat palms encircling his waist; the whine that startles out of him is shameless. “Wahahaait, hold on, that ticklehehes!”

Felix blinks and then those fingers move now, spidering, and Sylvain shrieks. “Good.”

He says something between “No!” or “Felix, listen!” he thinks, maybe, but any and all coherent thoughts racing in his mind are drowned out by the urge to throw his head back in giggles as Felix’s hands dig roughly into the curve of his hips. He does exactly that, eyes squeezing shut yet unable to block out the electric currents running beneath his skin.

Sylvain’s fist hits the hard floor before he tries rolling out from under Felix’s grasp, squeaking and curling up when doing so just lets rough fingers slide between the uniform shirt. It feels impossible for his face to grow hotter but it does, burning, every sensation amplified by his yearning embarrassment. “Fehehehlix! Stahahahp!”

“Why should I?”

What does he say? What can he say? That the touch is already too much, that he might be going insane if this continues, that it doesn’t really matter if Felix’s hands are above the belt when his minds been flip-flopping about them in this exact position the past two weeks?

“I—cohohome on! I cahaHAHAN’T think likehehe this!”

Felix doesn’t offer him a verbal response, opting instead to pry his shirt higher and claw at the exposed skin. If the very thought of it is overwhelming, then the actual thing might well destroy the fragile thread of sanity still left in his head; Sylvain thrashes, attempting to rise to his elbows, to kick out his legs, but all his struggling does is have his shirt fall more open, a wide expanse of weakness open for the taking. Felix does, hands crawling upwards, rough, harsh, tracing every clenched muscle and earning choked out pleas and the very scrambled mess Sylvain’s brain is melting into.

“Plehehahahase!”

“Stop moving.” Felix hisses in his ear, which absolutely does not help.

“HAHAHAHOW?!”

There’s a snort, genuinely amused, and Sylvain’s certain he’s red from the tops of his ears down to his shoulders at the noise. “Figure it out yourself.”

Goddess, have mercy.

The echo of his begging in the hall is horribly embarrassing, but worse than that is the shrieky hiccupping bouts of laughter he takes on when Felix’s hands make their way beneath his arms. He hasn’t been tickled in years, not since they were kids, but he’d always, always had the height advantage back then against Felix; no one besides Glenn knew how badly it tickled there, and he honestly thought he might’ve been able to take that information with him to the grave if not for the way Felix focused on his armpits now, relentless, and Sylvain shakes with renewed desperation as tears begin to bead in his eyes.

“FEHEHEHELIX! I’M GONNAHAHAA DIEHEHEHEHE!”

“Huh. You’re actually really ticklish.”

No shit. Felix shifts on him and Sylvain swallows as he’s reminded yet again of their position, of Felix right on him, thighs clamped around his hips. It’s too easy for his mind to spin back, a swaying pendulum vying to either melt into the floor to escape the tickling or lay there if it meant Felix would continue to touch him.

Touching him. Right. It’s Felix’s hands on him. Felix’s hands that are digging in all over him.

He’s going to explode.

“Oh, good morning.”

“Wha—Professor!”

Sylvain wheezes as he’s shoved away, hastily taking the opportunity to curl up and hide his crimson face as Byleth and Felix’s voices wash over him. What time must it be, for Byleth to be coming down this route? No doubt half the student population woke up to his screeching laughter—at least his reputation was bad enough he could get away with it. Sylvain rubs at his face, teeth clicking in embarrassment at the ticklish tears that have begun to fall, only to flinch at a poke to his side. “H-hey!”

“Pay attention.” Felix’s usual scowl has slid neatly back in place as he jabs Sylvain’s side again. His eyes flicker up to Sylvain, widening for a moment at the no doubt mess of his red, wet cheeks, before darting away again.

He isn’t the only one to notice. “Sylvain, are you crying?”

He shakes his head at Byleth’s question. “I’m fine, professor. Just, uh, got my ass handed to me.”

She quirks a brow. “Pretty early for an ass beating.”

He laughs at that, startled; his amused gaze flickers to Felix before his laugh takes on a flustered element when Felix meets his gaze openly, golden eyes searching his. “I—er, yeah? Right, Felix?”

Felix coughs, gaze dropping first. “It was deserved.”

“Hm. Well, I’m glad you’ve talked it out. Or beat it out,” Byleth pauses. “But I’m just here to check on the chores.”

The chores? Oh, the chores.

“Did you finish cleaning the weeds?”

“Ahaha…. About that… it’s a long story…?”

“Seteth should be at the lawn right now,” she hums, tapping her chin before amusement sparkles in her eyes. Sylvain swallows. “Knowing him… I’ll see you both after class for detention today?”

Both. Him and Felix, probably alone, with professor. He turns to Felix, mouth agape, but the other turns away the moment their eyes meet. It’s enough, though, for Sylvain to see the pink of his ears, the twitching of his cheek, the way his hands cross over his chin.

The hands that were under his shirt just minutes ago.

Aw fuck.

“We’ll be there, professor.”

He really needs to learn how to melt into the floor.

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #felix fraldarius #sylvain jose gautier #sylvix #tickling #my fic #tickletober 2024 #sylvain going through the gay panic hard #byleth knows exactly whats up actually but its funnier to pretend like she doesnt know and watch them flop around #like sylvain i too am exploding but instead of it being over a cute guy tis bc of work </3 #hc that sylvain knows he is deathly ticklish but made sure no one. NO ONE knew his entire life and then hilda finds out one day and ITS OVE

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