#and neither of them do in their thrash rebel skin

[blood-official]

Oh my god, Ragnor has runes carved into the neck of his guitar

It doesn't spell anything so I guess they're probably meant for magic

The first one is Teiwaz, which denotes a warrior and means victory

Second looks like Algiz except it's missing the middle prong of the "fork," but it means protection

Third is Jera, which symbolizes earth and cycles

You can't see it in this screenshot but under his hand is Ehwaz, which represents the horse and the twin gods (proof for my headcanon that he and Runa are twins :P)

After that is Gebo, which invites interaction from the gods

Then Raido which represents the wheel and rhythm (important for a musician lol)

Then Thurisaz, which is the symbol of Thor and another protection rune

And the last one is Fehu, which is the symbol of either Frey or Freya and is the rune for wealth

[capricornus-rex]

Hey Hon! I know you’re cramped with requests and the “Old Friend, New Family” story so feel free to do this one whenever you’re ready! No rush! ☺️💖 Cal not knowing the reader has arachnophobia so when they go to Kashyyyk and are attacked by a huge, albino Wyyyschokk, she freaks out? To the point where she’s completely out of her wits, panic mode on FULL, and just scared to death? I have arachnophobia so when I had to play Kashyyyk, it was the worst experience of my life ;////3////;

Honestly, those spiders always give me the creeps and make me shudder ;;A;; Also, so very sorry for not publishing so soon! :( But good thing I just brought home my newly-fixed laptop today!! <3 I hope I can make it up to you and everyone with the fics. I’ll try my best to really keep publishing. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on quitting. Why would I? ;3 I’m having a blast with everyone here!!!

“In the Face of Fear” | Cal Kestis x Reader

Summary: Kashyyyk has its own charms and surprises, but what if one of those said surprises rear its ugly, unpleasant head right in front of you in the form of a spider that’s the size of a boulder?

Tags: Arachnophobia, Wyyyschokk, Matriarch Wyyyschokk, Kashyyyk, Arachnophobic! Reader

Also in AO3

Next: Part 2 | Masterlist

1 of ?

You and Cal finish off the last wave of Stormtroopers.

The partisan informants were right about the Imps getting into the forest to find Tarfful’s home village—which also doubles as a hideout for the Wookiees and a handful of partisans now led by Mari Kosan after Saw had left them.

“Good thing they haven’t come close to the hideout itself,” Cal commented.

“No,” you scoffed a chuckle. “They have a lot to go through besides us.”

Beneath your snarky, roguish facade, you clench your fist as you fight off the chill travelling down your spine when you catch the cluster of hatched Wyyyschokk eggs glued to a tree trunk. Cal spotted your grimace, you’re not taking your eyes off of those empty, shattered shells.

 “You sure can’t stop looking at them,”

“I want to, but… Oh, I don’t know,” you shrugged.

“Come on, let’s get away from them. Those hatchlings could be close,”

“Heeeey!!” you whined, he laughed in response. You playfully tackled him from behind as he walked ahead of you.

It was a tedious trek to the hideout village—but that’s its advantage—both Jedi had to cross paths with a few more creatures before getting to any of the watchtowers or huts. You’re just secretly thankful that you haven’t run into any Wyyyschokks yet—most especially the albino, which happens to be the rarest of its kind.

You tread the forest with more caution than care, your eyes pan from tree-to-tree—searching for signs of eggs and webs—and Cal was quiet about noticing your anxiety. He knew you hated it when your phobia is being pointed out in some way, though he figured you’d like to talk about it just to vent it out.

For someone who isn’t familiar with the terrain of Kashyyyk, it can either be mesmerizing or downright frightening. It goes both ways for you. It becomes the latter when you and Cal stumbled upon a wrong turn due to the labyrinthine layout of the forest. Cal realizes his mistake and attempts to solve it.

“Hey, Cal, are you sure you saw a marker in a tree hollow?”

“I think so,” he replied, with the doubt evident in his voice. “Okay, I really think we took a wrong turn.”

BD-1 politely cut in and flashed the holomap, both Jedi navigated with their eyes, occasionally pointing at patches of land and tracking their would-be path.

“I think we cut across this upper level of the forest, there should be—”

You could’ve sworn you heard something shuffle behind your backs. Your abrupt turning unintentionally cut off Cal in the middle of his explaining.

“[Y/N], you okay?”

“Did you hear that?”

A pause. He listened in on the silence.

A simple rustle of the flora simply heightened your senses—mostly propelled by fear—and then the thing that neither of you noticed before has caught your attention.

“[Y/N], honestly, are you alright?”

You didn’t answer, you kept scanning the area and knew completely well that something isn’t sitting right with you.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you sighed, and stepped forward. “I’m just jumpy, that’s all—”

“[Y/N], BACK AWAY!!!”

Too late! By the time Cal had noticed that you were walking into a literal trap and tried to get you out of it, he was pushed back when the most enormous and most brightly-colored Wyyyschokk both of you have ever seen pounced on you. It had been patiently waiting for either of you to step on its web trap on the ground—and you went right into it. The creature entrapped you with its legs as thick as tree roots, you wriggle helplessly as you couldn’t take your eyes off of its multitude of bulbous, full black eyes, and its mandibles foaming with bile—hungry for flesh—twitch and flick above your bosom.

You let out what ought to be the loudest scream your chords could ever produce; once out of breath, you inhale and exhale rapidly. Your throat goes sore from the shouting that it stings whenever air would enter your windpipe.

The words are dislodged in your throat—you wanted to scream for help but cannot—your voice renders itself absent in your mouth, and only the silence brought upon by the sheer horror of this monster’s overall appearance, and in an uncomfortable closeness with you too.

Cal ran up to it, leapt, and drove his saber into its plump, jiggling hind abdomen. It screeched—a shrill, piercing wail that left a high-pitch noise in the ears—and turned to the offensive against Cal. That was your signal to get up, but the terror had paralyzed you; instead, the entire scuffle with that gigantic Wyyyschokk happened right before your eyes—just like with the eggshells, you cannot look away no matter how much you want to, the longer you look the more materialized your fear becomes. The redhead succeeded in a series of parries to disorient the creature.

“[Y/N], get to the high ground!”

His warning fell on deaf ears. You’re still stuck in staring at the spider, with your back against the wall.

“Bee-beeee, triiiillll!!!”

“I know, BD, I know!”

The little droid warned Cal that you were still frozen stuck in harm’s way, and he needed to think fast to get both of you out of this mess. He cleanly blocked the Wyyyschokk’s incoming wave of attacks, searing its fangs and hairy legs with his lightsaber upon parrying—and while the creature was distracted by its wounds, Cal fished out a flashbomb. He turned his heel to you before the area would be engulfed in bright light in a matter of a split second. He snatched you by the arm, pulled you up, and that woke you from that frozen trance of fear.

“We gotta move!”

The Wyyyschokk thrashed and erratically scampered left and right in search of its prey, you and Cal were making your escape through a pinch in the wall; the enemy tried to catch up but you had already squeezed through the end, its pointed legs jerked as it fitted through the crack, desperately trying to claw either of you just for a scrap of meat.

Life was still flashing before your eyes even after the Wyyyschokk gave up its pursuit. Your heart pounded louder than the Wookiees’ war drums, so much so that your breath cannot keep up with the pulse anymore, and your limbs have returned to its jelly-like state after you crawled your way out of the wall.

He noticed the rapid, sharp breaths that you take. There was also a wetness glossing over the surface of your eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

You couldn’t speak, still shell-shocked by the assault, and slowly shook your head as a response. The tears persist.

“Come on,”

A single touch—gentle and slight—was enough to make you jolt. You were ceaselessly apologetic. For what, exactly? Cal patiently waited for you to calm yourself and eventually helped you. When he thought you were ready, he held out his hand for you.

Slow and steady—Cal took the lead again, and he made sure you were okay along the way. Eventually, you did reach the hideout, but the trauma still hasn’t left your system and you have no idea how to get it out. A partisan was out there to greet you, but the first thing he acknowledges is the horror in your blank stare.

“Is [Y/N] alright?”

“Not really, we just stumbled upon the biggest Wyyyschokk we’ve ever seen,”

“Wait, does this Wyyyschokk happen to have brighter colors than the rest?”

Both Jedi exchanged glances, trying to recall the appearance of the monstrosity, and then the two of you looked at the rebel again; though, it was Cal who did most of the conversing.

“Come to think of it, yeah, it was a bit more vibrant than the others,”

“Oh, well,” the partisan scratched the back of his head, evidently reluctant to break it to you. “I think you guys just met the Matriarch Wyyyschokk.”

Your spine reduced to jelly again, goosebumps pelt your skin as a chill coated your shoulders, your eyes widened so much that they’d almost pop out of your sockets!

“I’m sorry,” you blinked several times, almost comically. “Run that by me again, soldier?”

“The Matriarch Wyyyschokk. Their mother. The mama spider.”

“I know what ‘matriarch’ means! But good gods, those things have a mother?!”

“Well, how do you expect to be so many of them wandering around without one?” the partisan shrugged.

“That’s just spectacular,” you say half-heartedly.

“Just steer clear of its den,”

“Thanks, we’ll remember that!” you whined.

Your hysterics still haven’t died down by the time both of you and Cal waltz through the network of bridges to start a little tour of the village.

[thejollyroger-writer]

THE WASTELAND - Chapter Two: THE HOSPITAL, Part 2

Some triggers: this story is rated TEEN, mostly for violence. It takes place during wartime, and some of the characters go through some violence and torture. If you need more information about this, please just message me!

SUMMARY:  In a world that has been saturated in war for as long as anyone can remember, Emma Swan has rebuilt her life as far away from the chaos as possible, opening her own maternity hospital after spending too many years in makeshift battlefield aid stations. But one night, a bloodied and battered soldier finds her hospital trying to get away from an enemy with a penchant for torture and a personal vendetta against him. With the help of Emma’s childhood friend Prince David and a motley collection of humans and magic-wielders, the quest to save Killian Jones’ life from the poison used by the enemy takes them to places even beyond the known world.

Header by the lovely @spartanguard​​ -- special thanks to @cssns​ for making this monster happen! 

Prologue on AO3 // Prologue on Tumblr

Chapter One // (ART by @spartanguard​)

Chapter Two on AO3 // ART by @spartanguard​

CHAPTER TWO: THE HOSPITAL, PART TWO

“My god, Emma, he looks terrible.” If Emma’s eyes weren’t focused so intensely on Killian’s face, on his wounds, she would have seen the flash of recognition that passed across David’s face, paired with a small smile towards the man in the makeshift bed, when she let him into the safe room. 

But she doesn’t. 

“He still has the fever?” he asks after a moment. Neither of them move their gaze off of the wounded man, David’s eyes wide as Emma begins to change some of his bandages, revealing some of the worst of the wounds. 

Some of the worst, but not yet the worst one, which she has covered carefully with gauze and rags to try to keep debris out of it, since she has not yet discovered a way to close it. 

“I think that’s what’s causing the nightmares, and I feel like if I can bring that down, he’ll stop re-opening his wounds when he thrashes around and may actually start to heal.” 

“Is that what’s stopping him from healing?” Emma knows the question he is trying to ask without asking it. It’s something she’s been trying not to think about, an idea that she’s been holding in since the first time she saw the wound on his chest.

“He’s already much better than he was when he got here a week ago, you should have seen him then. I haven’t seen anything that bad since we—” The words stop dead in her throat, memories of a time when she was still on the battlefield flashing in her mind before she can wish the nightmares away. 

But she doesn’t have to say anything more; David already knows exactly what she is talking about, the thought that's been camping in back of her mind but has not yet come to the forefront. Because if that’s the case…

If that’s the case, there’s no way to heal him. All she would be able to do is watch his condition worsen before her eyes until he —  

“The magic-inflicted wounds aren’t helping much, either. They’re bad, David. Definitely the worst I’ve ever seen.” Worse than before , she thinks, knowing that David is experiencing the same memories she is. “He told me that they’re from an interrogation, people trying to get information from him, but I think he’s too afraid to tell me anything more, and I don’t blame him. He keeps calling out three names: Liam, Milah, and David. It’s a stretch, I know, but I was hoping you may know something, maybe you recognize him.” 

This time, Emma turns to the Prince as the flash of a smile passes across his face, the memories there no longer from bloody battlefield hospitals, but from somewhere with perhaps a little more hope. “I do, actually, I know him personally, and—” 

Before David gets the chance to say more, Killian groans on the makeshift bed, his eyes flying open. For a moment, they are only filled with terror, most likely from another nightmare. But then he begins to focus on the room around him, first on Emma for the moment it takes to remember where he is before moving to David.

A wide smile spreads across his face — one David mirrors.

"Your highness," Killian says, holding his hand out towards David.

Taking it in one of his own, they share a laugh. "Please, Jones, I've told you a million times, it's David."

Emma is beyond confused, to say the least. "How do you two—?" she starts, but Killian is already asking a question of his own, his attention turned to her.

"So, wait, you know the Prince?"

She can't help herself, and she slings her arm over David's shoulder. "David and l have quite a history, we go way back."

"You and I have that in common, it seems, love."

"I hate to break it to you, Jones, but Emma outdates you by quite a lot."

Emma punches his arm. "Are you calling me old?"

He just scoffs. "I would never."

After the room goes silent for a moment, David turns to Killian, all the laughter drained from his face. “Alright, Jones, now that you know we’re all on the same side here, can you tell us what happened?” 

Killian nods, but doesn’t speak right away. A pained look crosses his face even though he has not moved, and Emma knows this can’t be easy for him. She’s never been inside the war zones that she’s only heard about, but she’s seen her fair share of the aftermath of them in hospitals and on transports — and the fact that Killian’s wounds are by far the worst she’s ever witnessed can only mean that what he went through is far beyond what anyone should have to endure. 

Killian is sitting at the table, a well-worn map spread out in front of him. They have been laying low for a few months now, taking advantage of the silence that the Prince promised the last time they saw him. There was a plan somewhere in his imagination, they could all tell, but it wasn’t time for them to learn it yet, either for their own protection or because he did not yet feel confident enough in it. 

Either way, the six of them were thankful for the opportunity to have a few weeks to recuperate before they’re needed again. 

It’s far from anywhere Killian ever pictured his life taking him, working with an elite group of soldiers hand-picked by the Prince of the Gale, going on secret missions and working closely with the man who was once his enemy — before Killian lost everything and was saved by the Prince himself, pulled from the water moments before he was ready to give up. 

It’s far from anything he pictured, but there's nowhere else he would rather be. 

All he has ever wanted to be is an honorable man, someone his brother would be proud of, and the day he learned that it meant rebelling against Gold and Nephilysis — the day he lost his brother, the only friend he ever had — was the day everything changed. But these men, the men that he has been working with for almost four years now, are some of the most honorable men he has ever known, and he is proud to count himself among their ranks, only hoping that they feel the same way about him.

The house is almost silent, four of them out hunting and gathering supplies, leaving just Killian and Phillip, with Phillip puttering around the kitchen. Every once in a while, the sound of a pot or pan, or Phillip muttering to himself, makes its way to Killian in the living room. 

But other than that, silence. 

And then, suddenly, it is no longer silent, the door slamming open followed by the obvious bang of gunfire taking out Phillip as someone comes around to where he is sitting. In the time it takes Killian to turn towards the ruckus, it is over, the tendrils of dark magic coming from the fingers of the man — only referred to as such because Killian’s dealt with him before, a monster in the body of a young boy — wrapping around his limbs, chilling him to the bone. It’s a feeling that he’s tried to forget over the last ten years, once that’s haunted his nightmares along with the screams from that fateful day. 

“Well, well, well, look who I’ve found,” he says, his voice as clear and emotionless as he remembers. 

(As he’s tried to forget every night for the last ten years.)

“If it isn’t our friend the wanna-be pirate captain.” 

With those words, Killian immediately knows what he’s up against, knows exactly who is still standing in the kitchen. 

Pan squeezes his hand, the tendrils of black magic wrapping tighter around his body.

And then everything goes black. 

  When he wakes, it’s raining. He’s laying in the mud, feels it seeping into every crevice of his clothing, already caking against his skin. He’s been there for a while. When he goes to move, he realizes that he has been chained to the side of the building, his chains shimmering with what he knows is dark magic. He’s also fairly sure he’s been drugged, with the world moving slowly and groggily around him. 

Slowly, the memory of what happened to him comes back: sitting at the table with the map, Phillip in the kitchen, the intruders. He never even got the chance to see if Phillip was alive — though, given who the intruders were, he highly doubts it. He wonders if they also found the rest of the men who were staying in the cottage out in the woods, if they killed each of them as quickly as they killed Phillip; or perhaps some of them are here with him, caught off guard and abducted just as he was and are chained to other parts of the building, or other buildings. 

He hopes not. He hopes, deep down, that if they were not lucky enough to be left alone, that they were lucky enough to find their ends quickly and not waiting for what can only become an excruciating end at the hands of the enemy. 

Especially this enemy in particular. 

It’s impossible, he knows it, but there’s something inside of him that wants to believe escape is possible. He’s been through his fair share of hardships, has fought and snuck his way out of camps before, but never under the nose of powerful dark magic. The cold rain begins to restore his focus, the grogginess of whatever he was drugged with wearing off, and he closes his eyes to focus on a few slow, deep breaths. Before long, he feels more like himself again, and begins to test his luck: seeing just how tightly the chains are wound around his arms, trying to turn and see how the chains are attached to the building. 

“You’re not getting out of this one that easily, Jones,” a voice says, moving through the rain. “You see, I’ve been told that you have something I need.” He knows the voice is familiar, the memory buried somewhere deep inside him, but between his exhaustion and the haze of Pan's magic, it doesn’t come back to him until the figure appears through the sheets of rain and leans against the building beside him, the tail end of a still-lit cigarette held between his teeth. 

Killian says nothing. Baelfire, he has learned, is the most spiteful being he's ever met — not completely surprising, given his father is Gold the Elder, both the most powerful and most corrupt leader the world has ever seen; and he has ended up powerless, a scientific anomaly in a completely magical line. So, while the questions come to him all at once, barraging his mind — are any of the other men alive? What did you do to Phillip? Why are you working with Pan? — he says none of them. 

"My father has given me a mission, sending some of the most powerful members of his army under my command, and we only need one thing. One thing that I've been told you could be the key to finding. Imagine my surprise when I heard your name again, through the lips of one of my informants, after all these years: the man I thought I killed when I sent him falling through the air and into the icy waters of the Northern Mountains. So, Killian Jones, the pirate who apparently can't be killed, this is the first and only time I'm going to ask you nicely: where is Prince David?" 

Anything else, and Killian probably would have answered immediately, having already escaped the grasp of Baelfire once before, and having seen first hand the damage Pan can do without even lifting a finger. But this is a question that he really does not have the answer to, and he feels his heart sink, the last bit of hope he held out diminished.

"I haven't seen the Prince for almost a year. I swear to you, that is the truth." 

Baelfire smiles, and it cuts through Killian's chest like a blade of ice. He says nothing, though, and Pan appears through the sheets of rain, a matching smile spread across his face. 

"My apologies, Captain, but I'm afraid that's not the right answer." 

  Ariel bursts through the doors to the safe room, fear obvious on her expressive face, and Killian's recounting of the story stops. "Emma, we need you upstairs. Now." 

But David jumps from his seat first, hand on the pistol he keeps at his side. "What's the problem, Miss Fisher?" 

"There's an enemy patrol here."

“What do you mean enemy patrol , Ariel?” Emma asks very slowly.

“Two of Gold’s men are here, and I’m pretty sure they’re looking for the runaway.” 

Ariel and Emma both turn towards Killian, but David is already moving towards the stairs. 

“Ruby is talking to them right now, but I don’t know how well she can hold them off. They seemed pretty set on searching the whole building, and one of them is a tracker, so I don’t—” 

“David, I think you should stay here,” Emma calls out to him, stopping him on the other side of the door to the safe room, and stopping Ariel’s words before she can spiral into a rambling mess. 

He whips around. “What?”

“This is a maternity hospital. We’re not on one side of the war or the other, and coming up to a patrol from Gold with the Prince of the Gale by my side isn’t really the best way to show that.” 

After a moment, David nods, backtracking the few steps into the safe room, and Emma passes him to the other side of the doorway. “Fine, okay.” 

“And I’m going to close the door behind me.” 

David nods again. 

“I’ll be right back,” she says, herding Ariel out of the room, as well, before closing the door on the two men. 

When Emma pushes through the doors into the main room, Ruby is standing in the open doorway, her body completely shielding the two patrolmen from entering the hospital. 

“If you have nothing to hide, why are you keeping us from entering?” one of them asks, his voice higher than she expected, almost like that of a child, and the words come out slowly and drawn out. 

“This is a hospital. A maternity hospital, full of women staying here because your war took their husbands away without as much of a second thought about how it would affect them. All you will find here, sir, is a dozen women who curse your existence in the first place.” 

“We’ve heard word of some of King George’s men coming here, bringing supplies.” 

Emma speaks up, rushing down the aisle before Ruby can argue with them any longer. “We get supplies from anyone who is willing to offer them.” 

The two guards look past Ruby, who is still blocking the doorway. “Who are you?” the other man asks. 

“My name is Emma Swan. This is my hospital.” 

“Alright, Emma Swan,” the first one says, and Ruby moves to the side to turn to face her, allowing Emma to see him for the first time. His face looks just as young as his voice sounds, save a thick, ragged scar running down his cheek. “If you have nothing to hide, where were you?” 

Emma and Ruby share a glance, but it’s not necessary; Emma already knows where Ruby told the men she was, if she told them anything. “It’s a slow day here, so I was in the basement making a list of supplies that we need.” 

“I don’t think you understand just how dire this situation is, Miss Swan. My tracker here followed the scent of a man who went missing from our camp to this hospital.”

Emma knows that there is no sense in trying to deny the fact that he was here if the tracker followed his scent, so she thinks quickly to come up with something. “I did bring a man in here a few days back who I found bleeding out not far from here. I tried to heal him, but his wounds were too severe and he didn’t make it.” 

“What did you do with him?” 

“I took him to the local battlefield hospital for them to bury him. We deal with life here, and not death.” 

“If you’re lying to us, if you’re hiding him from us, that makes you an enemy of Nephilysis, an enemy of Prince Baelfire.”

“Just as we’re on no one’s side, we are also no one’s enemy. Why would I hide someone here?” 

“Deception.” 

“I have no reason to deceive you.” 

“Then you won’t mind if we take a look around.” 

Shaking her head, Emma puts her hand on Ruby’s shoulder, pulling her further away from the door. “All I ask is that you leave the women in the beds alone.” 

The silent tracker leads the way down the aisle, stopping momentarily at the beds that currently have women in them. Every eye in the room follows the two Nephilim soldiers down the aisle, but the tracker raises no alarms. Emma has given him a reason for Killian’s blood to be here, and she can only hope that Ruby covered his scent beyond the office well enough to deceive the enemy tracker. 

Her breath is heavy in her chest, watching the tracker work his way around her office. The cabinets, her desk, the cot that he spent the first night on — everywhere that makes sense for the tracker to find Killian’s scent. And then he steps out of the office again, turning the opposite direction from the main room, towards the stairs to the basement. 

Takes a few steps in that direction. 

Stands up a little straighter. 

“Did the man go down this hallway?” the tracker asks, his voice much deeper than Emma expected it to be. 

Emma has to think quickly on her feet, needs to think faster than the weight that she is quickly feeling in her chest. She nods. “We took him down to one of the cots in the basement because of the care that he needed, plus to keep a better watch on him since we didn’t know if he was hostile or not.” 

The tracker nods. “And we can go down there?” 

Emma tries to keep her fear off her face. “Yeah, sure.” 

She uses the biometric lock to open the door, leading the two soldiers down the steps with Ruby bringing up the rear. But she moves to the side when they reach the bottom to stand beside her friend. Ruby looks just as nervous as she is, her hands kept behind her back only to be that much closer to the pistol concealed there. 

The tracker moves slowly through the large room, serpentining around the rows of shelves, stopping every once in a while in front of the items they use the most, where she assumes he picks up the most scents and movements. 

But Emma knows none of them are Killian's. 

He reaches the far end of the room, moving along the wall that contains the secret door to the safe room, though his focus still seems to be on the shelves. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest as he moves closer to the spot in the wall that contains her biometric lock, every inch of her body on edge. In this moment, for the first time in a while, she wishes she was carrying the pistol David gifted her when she opened the hospital, wishes she had something other than the small dagger sitting at her hip to protect herself should the need arise — though she wishes even harder that the need never arise in the first place. 

She can tell something is amiss almost immediately, the tracker's eyebrows landing low on his forehead. 

"Is there another room down here?" 

All she does is shake her head, knowing that if she were to speak, her voice would probably falter. 

He doesn't believe her. He does an about-face, placing his hands against the wall, right around the spot where the door is. Bangs on the wall with his fist. Moves down a little further before banging on it again. And then turns around again, though this time to his companion and not to Emma. 

"There's something here." 

They both turn to Emma, who is doing all she can to hide the shaking of her hands. 

"There's nothing there," Ruby says. Loudly. Defensively. 

"If this man says there's another room there, then I believe him. Open the door." 

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

Before Emma really realizes what is happening, the door bursts open on its own, slamming outward to knock the tracker off his feet. 

There's a deafening gunshot, so close to Emma that she can feel the reverberation of the shot through every inch of her body. 

And another. 

She can't move, suddenly paralyzed from shock or fear or — 

No — 

And then — 

Silence.

Slowly, she lets out her breath, her heart pounding in her chest. She thought she got away from all this, from the gunfire and the fighting and the death , only to have it follow her back to her very hospital. 

Someone is talking behind her, Ruby, she thinks, though it sounds like she is talking through water, and Emma is most definitely drowning.

The body of the tracker lays before her on the ground, a single gunshot in his chest slowly bleeding out onto the concrete floor. 

(That's never going to come clean , she thinks, trying to focus on anything except what just happened to her.

Anything except death.) 

"We have to leave. Now." This time, the voice is David's, a little bit clearer. But the message is as clear as day as Ruby wraps her arm around Emma's waist, leading her through the basement. "Jones, do you think you can walk?" 

"No," Emma tries to argue, turning away from Ruby's grip on her. "No, he can't move, not in the state he's in." 

"He has to, Emma. We can't stay here." 

"He needs constant care, morphine and blood and — and —" 

"Magic," David finishes, trying to prop Killian against his side while carrying a pile of supplies in his hand. "He needs Regina." 

"I can't lose this one," Emma says, trying to wipe the memories of what happened the last time from her mind. She's back in that battalion hospital, back in the dirt and the dust trying to figure out how the hell she is supposed to cure something like that , staring down at — 

"Emma, babe, you gotta stay with me here," Ruby says, her voice far away again, and Emma tries to shake herself back to reality. 

Back to Killian. 

Back to action. 

She snaps back, just like that, her mind moving a mile a minute as she focuses on helping get Killian out of the basement and ready to move. "Alright, let me — let me help you, David. Rubes, can you get these supplies? I'm also — shit , I'm going to need to come back down here for more once we get him loaded into the truck." 

"That's good, because I have to call Mary Margaret before we leave and tell her to meet us at Regina's and not here." 

"Oh, she's going to love that," Emma jokes, and David smiles, helping her hoist Killian's good arm over her shoulder, keeping both the wound from his amputation and the one seeping black magic close to his own body. "Now, Killian, this isn't going to be easy, but once we're back in the truck I'll do what I can to ease your pain so that you're able to sleep for most of the ride back to the Gale, okay?" 

It's a side of her that he hasn't seen in the few days he's spent under her care, the side that she thought she left out in the Wasteland when she decided to turn in her uniform and turn to bringing life into the world instead of being surrounded by death. 

(A life that, in the most mundane moments of her current reality, she sometimes allows herself to admit that she misses: the adrenaline, the ability to give hope to a wounded soldier, and sometimes even the danger of it all. What she doesn't miss, though, is exactly what has haunted her, and what has turned up on her own doorstep now: death, destruction, the type of hatred that is responsible for the kinds of wounds Killian now has to go the rest of his life with.) 

She's right, though. Once he's loaded into the back seat of David's truck, sprawled across the bench seat as much as he can manage, whatever she injects into his arm, paired with the small amount of magic she works as it takes effect, eases his pain enough that everything goes dark, his pain subsided for the time being, and he has drifted into a light sleep before they even make it on the road. 

TAGS: @shireness-says​ @cssns @kmomof4 @thisonesatellite  @teamhook @darkcolinodonorgasm​ @cocohook38​ @ultraluckycatnd @facesiousbutton82 @hollyethecurious​ @stahlop​ @tiguanasummertree  @angellifedeath​ @pepperpottss​ @mariakov81​ @scientificapricot​ @kday426​ @xarandomdreamx​ @ohmightydevviepuu​ @xhookswenchx​ @nikkiemms​ @carpedzem​ @superchocovian​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @snowbellewells​ @courtorderedcake​ @captain-emmajones​ @killian-whump​ @officerrogers​ – want to be added or removed? let me know!

[percywinchester27]

About a boy (Part-7)

Word count: 3.4K

Warning: Suspense, feels, physical abuse, child-trafficking and bullying

Characters: Dean, Cas, Gabriel, Benny, Michael, OCs and… Sam?

Summary: Dean Winchester has a secret. A secret that could really land him in trouble. He never expected to connect with anyone when he walked into the ‘Blue Stone Orphanage for Boys,’ but even then, the walls he has put up are slowly coming down. Now, a series of strange events are threatening to expose him. When everything starts falling apart around him, will he still be able to save the one person that matters the most?

A/N: I know I am repeating, but I truly live for the reblogs <3

All my love to @thing-you-do-with-that-thing​​​​ and @deanssweetheart23​​​​ for beta reading this story <3

About a boy masterlist

“Don’t do this!” Cas said for what felt like the hundredth time in an anguished voice.

For the hundredth time, Dean ignored, shrugging on a jacket and wincing all the same.

“What do you have to prove by going in?” Cas asked, a hint of anger clear in his voice now.

Dean turned and smiled at his friend, hiding the wince at the pain in his shoulders. His body was screaming with it, muscles rebelling against any movement. Dean suspected the thrashing of the night before might have ended up in at least one cracked bone in his rib cage. At least.

“I have nothing to prove,” he said, “But I ain’t sticking around here alone all day.”

He could technically take the day off, roll around in bed all day, but Dean didn’t know how last night was going to affect everyone. After all the smoke, there had been chaos and screaming, and after an hour of bated breath wait, blaring fire trucks. It was all too much; the light, the sounds… especially for the little kids. Dean felt bad about it. After all, the whole thing had been staged for him, so he could get away from Michael’s goons. The thought both made his stomach lurch, and his heart light.

Will. 

That kid had done something. And whatever it was, it had saved Dean and Cas. The warmth he felt in his heart was settling in when Cas huffed.

“You’re a stubborn piece of work,” Cas said, but extended his hand nevertheless. “Come, let me help you with the stairs.”

Dean grinned. He knew he was forgiven, at least for now. 

Cas was patient, letting Dean take his time with them. Dean, meanwhile observed Cas. The right side of his face was swollen and busted, and he had a black eye. Despite having arrived at the scene quite late, Cas looked pretty bad, too.

“You didn’t have to come looking for me yesterday,” Dean said quietly.

Cas gave him a disbelieving look. “How can you even say that?”

“They’re like your family. Michael’s like your older brother, isn’t he?”

“That doesn’t make him immune to being a jerk,” Cas said as a matter of fact. He looked at Dean intently. “And isn’t that what friends do? Help each other.”

Just like that Dean’s argument went out of the window. Cas smiled knowingly.

Dean swallowed through a thick throat, silently letting Cas help him through the rest of the way to school.

It was sad how easy it was to recognise the kids from the orphanage in the campus. They made up a good percentage of the population, and today, they were all tired and sleepy and restless. Staying up till 4 in the morning would do that to anybody, and these were just kids. It had been the early hours of morning when the SWOT team, after assessing the condition, had let the kids in after declaring that the building had, in fact, never been set on fire. While climbing up the stairs then, Dean had noticed a very harassed Andy answering questions from the fire officers. Dean would be lying if he said that it hadn’t given him satisfaction to see Andy in a tight spot like that. It’s what he deserved for locking up kids like that. Words like ‘escape plan’ and ‘enquiry’ had been thrown around. Dean had grinned to himself.

The day was slower than usual, and that was saying something. Cas had already fallen asleep twice. Once in Literature and once in their history class. Dean didn’t blame him. Learning about war indemnity in America for the 40th time was enough to put anyone to sleep even on their best day, let alone after a sleepless night full of thrashing. So, it was with sluggish feet that they made their way towards the canteen in the break.

Dean passed Gary in the hall, and with immense satisfaction noted the band aids across his nose and cheek. A muscle twitched in Gary’s jaw as he took in Dean’s smug expression.

“Cut it!” Cas said under his breath and Dean looked away. 

They fell into a line in front of the counter and instinctively Dean glanced around the room, as he had done everyday since he’d walked into this school. For a kid about 11 years of age, someone who looked like him…. For Sam. Instead, his gaze landed at the far end of the canteen, where one hunched over person cut a solitary figure. Benny.

Dean could never make out how he really looked. Whether he was thin or buffed up, what color his eyes were, or even the exact color of his skin. He always seemed so elusive, that it was hard to grasp a clear image. The multiple layers of clothes and the low slung cap made him into a mysterious wannabe Sherlock Holmes. The sort who’d sell drugs under the bleachers and never get caught.

Dean caught hold of Cas’s sleeve and tugged, “What’s the deal with this Benny dude?”

Cas looked straight ahead, purposely avoiding Dean’s eye. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s something up with him. Don’t try to deny it,” Dean warned, before Cas could open his mouth. “I know you know something.”

Cas sighed. Under all the bruises, he looked tired. Not just in the obvious way, like he hadn’t slept much the night before… which he hadn’t. But like he had been fighting against something for a long time and that it was finally getting to him. Dean felt a spike of empathy. It can’t be easy questioning all your loyalties, seeing your family in a bad light. Cas was fighting a battle with himself, Dean realised. He wanted to put his arms around his friend.

Presently, Cas simply sighed once more. “It’s hard, Dean.”

With a jolt Dean realised that Cas wasn’t talking about himself but about Benny.

“It’s not been easy for him,” Cas said. “He was friendly enough once. In fact, he had a really close friend, Diego, who was transferred. Those two were attached at the hip. Kinda like-”

“- like you and me?” Dean smirked.

Cas smiled, one tired tug of his lips, but it touched his eyes. “Since Diego, he’s not been the same.” He frowned.

Dean mirrored his friend’s expression, wondering whether Cas was thinking the same thing. Transferred.

They finished the rest of their lunch in silence, though neither was any good at it. Cas was peeling his badgel absentmindedly and Dean could barely open his mouth, much less chew thanks to the swollen lips and bruised jaw. 

“You think we might be able to bail on Spanish and sneak back?” Dean asked as they dragged their feet across the cafeteria after dumping the almost full trays.

“And then what? Go back to Andy’s scrutinising gaze? Especially after last night?” Cas asked. 

Dean was about to reply that at least lying face down in a bed might mean he wasn’t dragging his aching body all over the place, when a crashing sound made him stop in his tracks. 

They were walking along an open corridor between the cafeteria and the main building, which ran along the side of a patch of ground fenced on the other side. Along the chain linked fence were a few long benches, which Dean assumed was for when the crowd in the cafeteria spilled over. The crash had been made by flingin one of the tables across the patch on the fence. The long wooden table lay lopsided along the fence, with one leg splintered and next to it, a huge boy was standing with a wide stance. He was dressed in an overly large striped T-shirt and shorts. It was hard to tell what color his hair was because of the dirty blue caps, but his neck was definitely red. He seemed to be shaking with anger.

“Hey, what’s the deal with him, Ca-” But before he could complete the sentence, he noticed a small mousy boy with brown hair cowering in the shadows of the huge boy, shivering against the broken side of the upturned table.

“How dare you eat it?” Thundered the big guy, and the kid folded himself further, his eyes and tiny nose red were watering. The round glasses resting against his nose were sliding down.

“But D- Dirk, it was m-my sandwich,” he sniffed.

Dirk bellowed, and the kid cowered further, closing his eyes and crying out, raising his hands to cover his face. 

Without thinking, Dean moved forward. A crowd had gathered to witness what was happening and it was making it hard to get to the boy. Dean’s aching ribs, and bruised body was protesting at the contact with other bodies, but he still trudged on.

“Dean. Dean, wait!” Cas’s voice trailed from behind, but Dean wasn’t going to just stand there.

On the ground, still quite away from Dean, Dirk yelled and raised his hand. Seeing this, Dean doubled his struggle to get through the crowd, wincing when someone’s arm or elbow hit a sore spot. But clearly it was too late as Dirk’s hand sailed down in an arc. Dean braced for the kid’s scream, but it didn’t come. 

Instead, another loud bellow echoed in the opening. Dean pushed the guy in front of him almost roughly to reach the front line. The scene that met his eyes was almost unbelievable.

The bespectacled little kid was still crying on the ground, and Dirk’s strike had been blocked midblow. A boy was standing in between them, facing Dirk, gripping his arm. “Leave Barry alone, Dirk,” he said in a calm, restrained voice, spitting out the last word. Chills ran up Dean’s arm.

The boy was about 11 or 12 years of age; tall and lanky… almost to the point of skinny. He had long brown hair that fell into his warm brown eyes. Eyes that seemed to be blazing.

“Move aside, you pest.” Dirk shoved the boy, and because of the sheer force of Dirk’s mass, he was flung to the side next to Barry. 

“No,” Dean whispered, starting to move again, but the boy moved expertly, anticipating Dirk’s next slam and slid from underneath, even though his knee hit the side of the table, as he parried. Dirk hissed completely ignoring Barry and roaring at his new target. Dean watched as the boy quickly dodged all of Dirk’s attempts at kicks, although he was still scrambling on the ground. He was quick and sure footed as he got up. When Dirk charged, the boy ducked low and swiped his foot across the ground, knocking Dirk down on his ass.

A cheer went up from the onlooking crowd as the boy turned and helped a still crying Barry on his feet. He spoke something to Barry that Dean couldn’t quite hear what.

Barry let out another dry sob and then flung his arms around the boys thin shoulders, who placed a hand on Barry’s back. 

In all the noise, Dirk was getting up, red faced and angrier than ever. He fisted his hand and aimed a punch, but this time Dean was right there. He reached for Dirk’s arm and yanked him back with all the strength he could muster. Then pushed him aside.

“Don’t ever attack from behind the back,” Dean spat, “You coward!”

Dirk, who couldn’t have been more than 13, paled. He threw another furious look towards the two boys and hurried away from the onlooking crowd.

Dean turned to look at the two of them. Barry seemed to have quieted a little, the other boy was staring at Dean intently. Up close, Dean could see that his hair wasn’t the usual dank brown, but it had a sheen to it, just slightly reddish. And his eyes; up close, his eyes weren’t just a soft brown, there were flecks of dark green and sea blue.

He wore a dark green hoodie, much too large for him. Even the sleeves ended so further below that he had had to fold it over twice so his fingers were visible and the seam of the shoulders fell down to his upper arm. The jeans he wore were grey, now mud splattered from having fallen down. In fact, his lip was split and there was an evident scratch on his cheekbone which was getting bloodier every passing second.

“Thanks,” said the boy, his voice melodious and quiet, and Dean felt a jolt of familiarity. 

Acting on an instinct, Dean asked, “Why did you do it? That idiot is twice your size!”

“Barry is my friend,” said the boy. “Besides, I hate bullies.”

A memory from long ago came to Dean, same words, spoken in the same voice in the thick of the night from across a rusted grill.

“Will?” Dean asked, his eyes widening.

A slow grin spread across the boy’s face, his hazel eyes lighting up. “Dean!” he said, “Dean, is that really you?” 

As recognition came in, the smile slid, the wonder in Will’s eyes dimming as the anger returned, “What did they do to your face?”

“Hush,” Dean whispered, looking around, then ushered Will away from the crowd, Barry following in his wake.

Noticing, Will stopped around the corner of the building, under the awning. “Dean, this is Barry. Barry,” he turned to the boy, “This is Dean. He’s from the orphanage, too.”

“Thank you,” said Barry, through dry heaves.

“Dean!” It was Cas, coming up from behind. “Where did you disappear?”

“Cas?” Will asked, the smile back in his voice. “It’s Will!”

Cas looked from Will to Dean and back again. “Weren’t you just on the ground getting your ass kicked?”

“Oh no,” said Will genially. “I was doing the ass kicking.” 

After another round of introductions that left Barry thoroughly confused, Will whispered some words of assurance and sent Barry to the classrooms. The moment he rounded the corner, Will’s sharp gaze was back to assessing the outwardly damage done to Dean and Cas.

“I was late, wasn’t I?” Will groaned in despair. “I should have set that alarm off sooner. Look at you guys!” He sounded absolutely miserable. 

And despite everything, it made Dean smile. He shared a look with Cas who was gazing down at Will kindly, then said. “You did more than we could have asked of you.” Dean clasped a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Thank you. You might have saved us from getting punctured for life.”

“I still wanna punch Gary in the face though,” Will muttered petulantly and Dean laughed.

“C’mere,” he said, beckoning to Will, “Let me look at your face, you got a split lip there and there’s a cut on your cheek there.” Dean gestured.

“Won’t be the first time.”

“I know you hate bullies, but you can’t charge into every fight Han Solo style,” Dean said, taking a look at Will’s bloodied chin. “Chicks stop digging the scar face look after a while.”

Will smirked. “You talk like you’ve had a lot of chicks dump you for the same reason.”

Dean laughed. “C’mon smartass, let’s head back. I think between the three of us, we’re busted up enough to make up a bull story and ditch the rest of the day.”

The school nurse was surprisingly kind. She’d heard about the ‘fire’ at the orphanage and her grey eyes were round with worry as she fretted over them all. Dean got most of her attention, since he looked in the worse shape.

“Tsk tsk tsk,” she clucked her tongue in disapproval as she dabbed a yellow tincture over Dean’s black eye. “I shouldn't be saying anything, but the way they treat you boys up there.” she pursed her lips.

“Look at how your face is swollen,” she said, the corners of her mouth pulling down.

Dean was grateful. It was obvious that he’d been beaten up a while ago and not in school that day. A recent bruise wouldn’t look that black. But she bandaged him all the same. If it had been Dean’s earlier school, such abuse would have warranted counsellors, child services and police complaints. But no one really cared for orphans, did they? He felt sickened at the possibility of Sam having been beat up like this with no one care or look after him.

“There you go, sweetie,” she said briskly patting Dean’s arm. “You,” she gestured to Cas, next worst in line. “You’re next.”

Cas moved forward reluctantly, taking Dean’s place on the chair and Dean shuffled over to Will who was standing awkwardly in the corner. Blood from the scratch on his cheek bone had dripped down on the fabric of his hoodie.

The nurse was fussing over Cas, busy muttering more angry words. She didn’t pay attention as Dean grabbed a piece of the antiseptic soaked cotton and dabbed it over Will’s cheek. He winced, startled. And as he jerked back, the long fringes of his hair fell into his eyes.

“Ouch! What’d you do that for?”

“So you don’t get an infection out of it, dumbass.” 

“It burns,” Will muttered, touching his face.

Dean smiled. Will, who had tripped the fire system of the whole building yesterday; Will, who had thoughtlessly jumped to his friend’s defence was mad about an antiseptic burn. 

He didn’t say anything, though. Rather, he beckoned Will forward, “Here. let me help you with a bandaid at least. It’s not deep, so that should do.”

Will went on, and let Dean help him. There was something about the boy’s face Dean thought. Something so inherently familiar that his chest ached. With tenderness and longing. A needy want, but want of what, he didn’t know.

“There you go, you’re all fixed now,” Dean said. 

Will stared, an odd expression on his face. His eyes darted from Dean’s hand bloodied with his blood, to Dean’s face.

Dean jerked his chin, a questioning look in his eyes, as if to ask what he was thinking, but Will simply shook his head, then turned away.

It was beyond easy to slip out of school. The nurse had been more than forthcoming and had given them the permission without batting an eye. God bless her soul, Dean thought. It did, admittedly, take a long time to walk even with both Cas and Will supporting his weight. At least they had some prescribed painkillers with them that would let him support his own weight once they kicked in. There was so much Dean wanted to ask Will. About how he had achieved what he had achieved the night before, about that jerk who was beating up Barry, even about the freaking Olympiad, but his lungs couldn’t produce sound as he walked. Most of his effort just went into putting one feet in front of another.

At long last, they reached the gates of the orphanage. Dean withdrew his arm from over Will’s shoulder. Cas adjusted his stance, bracing for more weight, but Dean stood upright, withdrawing all support.

“Will…” he started through a thick throat, suddenly recalling the panic from the night before, when standing right here in the front lawn, his eyes had been racking to crowd to find the unknown face of this very boy. A face that wasn’t unknown anymore. 

Will raised his hand, palm facing Dean, then smiled. “Save it; whatever you’re gonna say. Cause if you’re gonna thank me, don’t.”

“But…” Dean started to say again, and he could see Cas nodding in vehement agreement on the side.

“Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same for me,” Will challenged. “And then you can thank me all you want.”

For once Dean was speechless. Will grinned conspiratorially, first at Dean and then at Cas. “I’ll see guys at dinner. Better check on what Barry is up to,” he said before running up the stairs. At the last minute, at the top, he turned and winked at them, then ducked inside. 

“That kid is something else,” Cas whistled. Dean said nothing. He just grabbed on to Cas’s hand moving forward, still rankled by Will’s words. 

Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same for me.

But more than Will’s challenge, his own thoughts rankled him. He would have gone ahead and beyond to help, to protect this strange, brave boy.

******************************

A/N 2: Is this what you guys had been waiting for? Finally Dean met Will!. Please tell me what you thought of the chapter?

If you wanna be tagged, please send me an ask

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[julietandcinderellavocaloid]

Determined Alice Chapter 4

The inside of the bar was a sight to behold. It wasn't falling apart, exactly, but it did have that older, run down look. Sickly green paint peeled off the walls, the wooden tables wobbled from under the patrons' elbows, and there were a couple of what Meiko desperately hoped were beer stains on the floor. Animal heads with bald spots dotted the walls. None of the bar stools matched.

Wearing confidence like a new outfit she was eager to show off, Meiko stalked into the bar and dropped onto a barstool next to the guards. Their conversation came to an abrupt halt, and Meiko could feel their eyes traveling up and down her body as they sized her up, and some maybe checked her out while they were at it. Meiko was used enough to it that it didn't bother her if one or two of the guards kept their eyes on her for a moment too long, which she was sure exactly what happened.

"Gimme the strongest thing you've got," Meiko said when the bartender came to request her order. She slapped a gold coin on the counter. "And some bread, if you please?"

The bartender grunted and accepted the coin. He bit it to test its authenticity, and Meiko had to resist grinning at the look of surprise on his face. Now that he knew the coin was real, the bartender didn't hesitate any longer to fill Meiko's order.

Meiko spun around, rested her elbows on the bar, and leaned back. Most patrons may have turned their heads when she first entered, but now they returned their attention to whatever they were doing before. The guards, however, still studied her.

"Excuse me, miss," began one of the men. He was neither the oldest or the youngest of the group, instead somewhere close to the middle, but the way the others let him speak indicated that either he was the one in charge or the only one they trusted to speak for the group. It was possibly because he had the prettiest face.

Receiving her drink and loaf of bread, Meiko took a big gulp from the mug before she responded, "Yeah?"

"Would you mind sitting elsewhere? My men and I are discussing important matters."

So he is in charge. "Don't mind me," Meiko casually replied before taking another sip. "I'm not bothered in the slightest."

"With all due respect, we're not really concerned whether or not you're bothered."

Meiko turned the upper half of her body and allowed part of her now unzipped coat to fall with the gravity, exposing some of her cleavage. "Then I don't see what the problem is."

While the other men definitely noticed Meiko's breasts, even if some pretended not to, the one speaking didn't react. He merely maintained eye contact as he stated, "Please, my men and I are tired and would like to relax somewhat as we discuss future affairs. If you could relocate elsewhere so we can discuss confidential information without risking too much civilian eavesdropping, you would have my eternal gratitude."

I'll tell you what you can do with your gratitude. Meiko mentally swore. Either he's got some serious self-control, or he's queer or ace. Just my luck.

Changing tactics, Meiko picked up both mug and loaf and said, "Well excuse me, sir. I didn't realize only men in uniform were allowed to relax wherever they pleased."

The man didn't appear to care if Meiko's feelings were hurt. It was fine. Nose turned upwards, Meiko spun around and stalked towards an empty table in the corner, close to the washroom. She plopped down into the chair and took another swig of her drink, the alcohol burning her throat as it ran down. For as cheap as this bar looked, at least it didn't water down its beverages.

"I'm so sorry about him."

Just as Meiko anticipated, when she set her mug back down, one of the guards had approached her table. He was the youngest of the bunch, and in every way, the stereotypical cute guy. With light brown skin, blond hair and blue eyes, and the confidence of someone who knew his dimples could kill but wasn't sure how to use them to his advantage, Meiko knew all the right things she needed to do to play this lad right into her hands.

"I'm not too salty about the whole thing," Meiko said, waving her hand in a way that invited the lad to sit with her. "I'd walk around like I sat on a broom handle too if I came from the Capital. Is it really as bad as the news is portraying? It seems like the sweaty armpit of the goddess's evil twin sister over there."

There was a pink tinge to the lad's cheeks. It took him a moment to find his voice. "Yes, ma'am. An assassin was caught spying inside of Lady Sora's mansion. His execution was meant to be just like any other execution – done and over with, hardly anyone caring at all.

"Only we got word of rebels intending to break him out. Now we're running around all over the district, trying to stop any suspicious individuals."

It took all of Meiko's self-control to not furrow her brows. Who sold us out?

"Oh, um," the young soldier began looking around, "but I suppose I shouldn't be telling you this."

"Don't worry," Meiko promised as she placed her index finger against her mouth, "my lips are sealed."

The lad relaxed in the chair and let out a steady breath. His curled fingers loosened. Seeing this, Meiko promised not to wring too much private information from the boy. This lad was too innocent-looking to be much of a threat. If Meiko got him into too much trouble, she wouldn't feel good about herself for a day or two.

"So," she said lightly, as if discussing the best time to purchase oranges imported from the Summer Continent, "are you coming from the Capital or returning?"

There must not have been any harm the lad could see in answering the question, for he responded, "Coming. We're on route to Synchronicity. Higher up cares more about stopping anyone from coming in than fighting them once they already arrived at our doorstep."

"Really? Won't that leave the Capital vulnerable?"

"In most cases, yes, but some of our best fighter teams have stayed behind while the best scouters and the rest of us nut cases are out and about in search of rebels we don't even know for sure will show."

You're a talkative one, aren't you? So glad your pretty face came to check on me.

Before Meiko could open her mouth to wiggle the last bit of information she needed – in which direction was the Capital, someone cleared his throat. When Meiko and the lad turned their attention towards the sound, they saw the guard from before looking down on them. The lad's fingers curled again.

"Return to your seat," the man said. "Now."

"Yessir," the lad said in a rush, jumping from his seat and scurrying away without another sound.

Meiko hoped he wouldn't get into too much trouble for her sake.

Pretending that the lad did not just reveal potentially sensitive information, Meiko leaned back in her chair and said, "Why'd you have to ruin the conversation? The pretty one was just telling me the best place to get a drink around these parts."

"He doesn't drink."

"That you know of."

The man narrowed his eyes. "Look, lady, I don't know what game you're playing, but you need to stop it right now. It's obvious enough already that you're up to something."

"I'm not up to anything." Meiko slowly tore a piece off the loaf and popped it into her mouth. "All the lonely woman I am wants is some decent conversation. Is that too much to ask?"

"I think you should leave."

Laughing without humor, Meiko said, "I'm sorry, but who are you to tell me to leave this establishment? This isn't your business. I doubt you can kick anyone out just because you got a fancy uniform on your person."

"You think I won't?"

"Go ahead," Meiko challenged, smirking. "I'd like to see you try."

The problem, however, was Meiko didn't expect the man to try. She was sure he would grunt and storm away, and maybe complain to whoever was in charge about having her escorted off the premises. So when he lurched forward and grabbed Meiko by the wrist, instinct took over.

With her free hand, Meiko instantly had a knife prepared to make its new home inside the man's neck. However, something faster than her caught her wrist before she could send her blade flying. Before she could contemplate what had happened, a gruff voice spoke.

"Is this lady causing you trouble, sir?"

Eyes flickering to Meiko's exposed knife, the man replied, "A lot more than I would like to think."

"Shall I remove her from the premises?"

"Yes."

That was the end of the conversation. The man behind Meiko yanked her weapon away and pinned both her wrists behind her back. Kicking and screaming, Meiko tried to break free from the man dragging her out of the bar. Everyone turned their attention towards the scene, but none made any effort to help Meiko. All the thrashing Meiko could do was single-handedly but futility fight her way out of this large man's grip.

When she was hauled out of the bar, the winter air bit into her skin again. The wind had picked up. Jerking, Meiko reacted to the piercing air as she continued to try and fail to break free.

"Meiko! Meiko! Enough! It's me, Meiko."

Meiko's flailing came to a halt when recognition crashed through her. In her stunned state, the man holding her back loosened his grip. When she regained herself, Meiko broke free, spun around, and glared at Big Al.

"I had everything under control back there," she snarled.

Big Al didn't even bat an eye. "Really? It didn't look like it from where I was standing."

"You didn't have to get involved."

"I'm pretty sure if I didn't, a fight would have broken out by now, and the police would have been called. Is that what you want? To get arrested? Maybe you aren't aware of this, but you would be useless to help anyone if you were locked up in a jail cell of some small town in the middle of nowhere."

A remark was on Meiko's tongue, but before she could say it, Big Al grabbed her by the upper elbow and began dragging her away. Meiko again reacted by trying to get one of her knives, but she stopped when Big Al snapped at her to not try it. For a moment, Meiko began to reason with herself that this was Big Al and she didn't need to fight him off. Only emotion didn't always find logic. Not when this scene was all too familiar.

The last time something like this happened—

"LET ME GO!" she shrieked, and Big Al immediately dropped his hand. Meiko took a big step back, heartrate accelerating.

Big Al stared at Meiko as if he had never seen her before. His golden eyes widened at her curling in figure. Meiko could see the understanding beginning to form in his softening features.

Before he could so much as utter a sound, Meiko spun on her heel and dashed away from the man. The winter wind stung her eyes. That was why tears were rising and threatening to fall.

Finding an empty alleyway, Meiko turned the corner and dropped to the ground. She hugged her legs and rested her chin on her knees. For the next few minutes, Meiko focused on her breathing. Her heartrate slowed. Her inhales and exhales soon became even again.

All the while, she kept her eyes open. Nobody would sneak up on her a second time, not if she could help it. That was how she noticed Big Al find her a minute after she fled but remained a few feet away while she regained control of herself. Shame dropped onto Meiko like a ton of bricks. The last thing she wanted was for anyone, especially Big Al, to see her like this.

Well, she reluctantly decided, there's no going back now.

Picking herself up, Meiko shuffled her feet towards the older man. Big Al kept his arms crossed over his chest, only tightening his hold on himself as Meiko drew nearer. When she stopped approaching after coming within earshot, Big Al kept his words short and low.

"Either you can run off again, or I can give you a second chance in this mission. The only condition is you do as I say. No questioning orders. No doing things your way. Just what I say when I say it. Your choice."

As much as Meiko didn't want to be honest with herself, she knew there were no better choices. This mess they were in was all her fault. If not for her, she and Big Al would still be with their legion, possibly in the Capital by now instead of God knew how many miles away.

"Fine," was all Meiko said, and that was the end of it.

Big Al merely nodded. "Good. Now, let's go. While you were gathering your information, I found a way to get us to the Capital and get some much needed sleep in while we're at it."

"Really? How?"

"I'll explain later. Right now, we need to move."

With that said, Big Al turned and began to walk away without checking to see if Meiko would follow. Meiko hugged herself and contemplated walking the other way, leaving all of this behind for good. After a few seconds and a deep breath, Meiko marched forward, walking at a quick enough pace to not lose Big Al but to keep the distance between them.

[the-fanciful-fangirl]

The 107th Night

Chapter 5 of my Star Wars fanfic Night Terrors:

It was on Veré Naberrie’s one hundred-seventh night on Coruscant that she finally stopped dreaming about her best friend screaming. 

Come to think of it, and she’d been doing a lot of thinking lately, it was the first night she had dreamed about anything other than the day the Emperor had decided that a young woman with her heritage deserved more “than to grow up aboard a battleship like some ill- wanted stowaway.” 

Though Veré hadn’t known entirely what many of Sidious’s words had meant at the time, she soon learned… and learned… and learned. All it seemed her father’s Master wanted was for her to excel at everything. 

She started her mornings early, with one of those ghastly red robed guards barging into her monochromatic “room.” Truthfully it was more like a cell. There were no windows and no decorations. A plain desk sat in the corner, covered with whatever data pads she was to study that day. The guard always gave her precisely five minutes to dress and prepare herself for physical training in the morning. She spent hours dueling with lightsabers and hand-to-hand. It was usually against the Red Guardsmen or training droids, neither of which went easy on her. 

Veré was getting used to seeing her skin mottled with bruises and covered with bacta patches. Despite the intense physical training- torture- Sidious insisted upon for his new pupil, he also insisted there be no scars left. Once, when she’d been only half conscious after a punishment of lightning and a thrashing from one of the more vengeful guards, she’d heard Sidious tell the medic that she was for show. At least she wouldn’t be left with any physical scars from all this. 

Veré found that as the days went on she cared less and less about what was happening around her. The physical training in the morning was always followed by a trip to the medic, then an afternoon and evening of intense academic schooling. She was learning about politics, military codes, planetary law, all sorts of things, and the Emperor was an exacting headmaster. The tutors he had employed for her were no less strict and she’d found her knuckles wrapped in bacta more than once after making an error, no matter how small. 

Whenever the tutors were finished, and it was always late, she was escorted back to her room. A lonely ration bar- that they would force her to eat if she refused, she’d tried that four times before it earned her the sting of force lightning- was her only company. 

Her schedule never deviated, until one night she was awakened by an unexpected sound.

Veré rolled over for the sixth time in as many minutes, unable to fall asleep from the absent throbbing of her left shoulder and hip. The pain was a lesson, a gift, Sidious said often. He was preparing her for her future, one where her strength would serve the glory of his Empire. After so many days, she was starting to think he really could see the future.  

The sound of her door unlocking was not supposed to happen at night. She had done everything that had been asked of her that day. She’d been able to beat four training droids at once, dutifully eaten every ration bar, and studied all her data pads. Her political science tutor had even complimented her knowledge of Nubian monarchs of the last five hundred years. She had gone to sleep convinced that there would be no raids or punishments this night. But if she had learned anything on Imperial Center, it was that she knew very little about her own future. 

She couldn’t get up fast enough- kriffing shoulder- before one of the guards was pulling her out of bed. A few months ago, she might have protested or yelled, or stomped her feet. But instead she allowed him to drag her out the door. 

Veré was for once grateful that they kept the lights dim in this part of the Palace. By the time her eyes adjusted to the lights, they were… no. They were coming up to the doors of the throne room. She pulled back a little at the hand pulling her forward by her bicep and received a bruising squeeze that almost certainly meant to submit. She held back her yelp as the doors parted.  

The throne room was massive, and had a sort of oppressive cold energy that always made her feel like she was suffocating. Her Papa’s presence was cold, but nothing like this. 

“I thought we had discussed letting go of your childish sentiments, my young pupil.” It may have been the middle of Imperial Center’s night cycle, but Sidious’s voice was as foreboding as ever. Veré stepped forward to the throne and knelt down, her head bowed. 

“I forgot myself, Master. I apologize.” Her voice sounded flat in her ears. Sidious chuckled darkly to himself. 

“I am pleased you have finally learned your manners little one. Come up to me.” 

Though she climbed the stairs swiftly, Veré felt like she was walking through a duracrete wall. At the top, Sidious waved her to stand at the side of his throne. 

“I have a new lesson for you today.” He said. Veré held her arms at her back and clutched her wrists to keep them from trembling. 

“Yes Master?” She hated how easy the words came to her mind and her lips. She earned a crooked smile in return. Out of one of the many shadowed side entrances, a pair of guards entereded, dragging a humanoid form between them. For a moment, Veré saw Galen there, where he had been months ago. But no, this was a man, much older than her and Galen, maybe older than her father too. There was a sharp, familiar, and painful tap on the shields of her mind. Focus. 

The quivering man was tossed at the base of the dias and he scrambled to stand before one of the guards brought a force pike down into his back. Veré held back the tasteless ration bar swirling in her stomach. She herself had tried to stand up in the Emperor’s presence without permission three times before she’d learned better. Sidious’s voice echoed lightly in the chamber as he turned to regard his young pupil. The sound of his words skittering off the walls was like the whispers of dark, ill-meaning creatures. 

“This man is a traitor to our Empire.” 

Veré looked at the man. He was thin, scrawny even, not much of a fighter. Sidious’s presence in the force warmed incrementally in amusement. 

“Yes, I agree, he doesn’t look like much, young one. But looks can be deceiving.” Veré nodded slowly. “This man is part of a treasonous group of rebels from the Mid Rim. Last month, their attack on an Imperial shipyard killed fifteen officers and three civilians.” Her nose scrunched up at that. 

Veré’s attunement to the Force had grown in her time with the Emperor, so she felt the frail man’s intent to stand up and shout defiantly before he even moved. Two pikes came down this time. Their now familiar buzzing sound rang in her ears. 

“Because of this man and his pitiful band, the fleet has been unable to achieve control in the sector.” The Emperor sounded sad but Veré could sense his amusement like a foul stench in the air. “Until we learn where the rest of his friends are hiding, I cannot in good conscience bring Death Squadron back to Imperial Center any time soon.” 

It took everything in Veré not to cry right then and there. She’d spent the last three months studying the entire structure of the Imperial military. She knew exactly who commanded that fleet. Her eyes looked squarely at the floor in front of the throne as Sidious spoke again.

“Could you perhaps find out for me, my dear? I would be most appreciative.” 

Another thing Veré had learned was that everything had a cost. As she wedged her presence in the Force past the man’s meager shields, doing her best to block out the sound of his pleas, she tried not to think of what this would cost her. 

That night, Veré’s dreams were different for the first time in months. The sight of an older version of herself almost made her miss the screams of her best friend. 

———

Halfway across the galaxy, Darth Vader awoke alone in his meditation chamber, unable to dismiss the unbidden images that plagued his mind. A young woman, dressed in black, eyes like the fires of Mustafar, the lightsaber in her hand lit, a massacre littering the ground beneath her booted feet. 

The next morning, a command to return to Imperial Center after months away, should have eased his darkened mood. But for the first time since his last trip there, he was afraid of what he would find. 

----

Another heavy chapter but y’all knew it was coming. Check out the rest on Ao3 and FF.net!

[geminicblue]

20 Galaxies: Legend in the Sky Chapter 15

A light flared up behind Jayson. As Ru's eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, she made out a large hummingbird in the center of the light, perched on top of a bush. It had a long, flowing, curled tail and tiny black feet, and prismatic feathers that gave of a sharp glittering glow. It watched them out of one white eye.

Jayson turned slowly, trying not to scare it. "I think this bird just said something."

"Parrots talk," Ru pointed out. "I don't see why other birds can't."

Jayson lifted the bill of his hat and leaned towards the bird. Its head twitched upward to meet his eyes. "Parrots don't glow," he concluded.

"Neither do pendants," Randy said.

"I'm a lytra."

The voice clearly came from the bird. It gave them no more time to speculate. It sprung into the air, its wings becoming a blur. The higher it flew, the brighter its feathers glowed, until it dissolved into a light like the Star. Ru shielded her eyes.

"You may call me Fuse," it said. It had an accent that mostly affected its vowels, but there was something familiar about the way it spoke. "I see I disturb you as I am. This may help."

The bird flashed, and the light fell away in sparks. Glowing feathers littered the ground. In the bird's place stood a tall, charcoal-skinned human. Ru had never seen a person like this before, slender but sturdy, rainbow eyes, squarish fingers. Colleen gave a small whimper, and Ru noticed she was wide-eyed and paler than ever. So much for not being disturbing.

"I ask that you listen to my story," Fuse said, "And what will be yours. No one will notice you have left your homes."

"That's supposed to make us feel better?" Jayson scoffed.

Fuse spoke similarly to the Blue Star, with a gentle but direct voice that kept all of their attention. "As I said, you are no longer on Earth, but the planet Aereka. It orbits a star on the opposite side of the galaxy, which you call the Milky Way. We know it as Loraesa." She swept her hand in an arc over her head, tracing the stars. "Loraesa is part of a system of twenty galaxies."

"We call that the Local Group," Jayson said.

His voice had a touch of mocking, which Fuse apparently missed. "The Accilean System," she corrected. "I represent this galaxy in a council that is dedicated to protecting the system and guiding its people to live good lives. You have been called here because we need you."

Somehow, she looked all four of them dead in the eye at the same time. "Your planet, which we call Skae, is outside the system. It is the one unawakened planet within the twenty galaxies. Because you are outside the system, you are the only ones who can help us. You have been chosen to be Skaeya-cyu -- "flying fighters," as you would say. Warriors who protect the System from invaders. Through the System, you can harness power to aid you, power you never thought possible on your planet. It is not an easy task, but you will not be alone."

The four responded with a silent stare.

"This is a pretty good prank," Randy snickered. "How'd you do the special effects? I bet Joe could never come up with something like this."

Prank, dream, the words did not fit right in Ru's head. They were obviously in a completely different place, and she trusted Colleen's judgement about dreams. "We're just kids," she said at last. "How can we defend galaxies?"

Jayson was already wandering off. "No thanks," he said, "I don't really want to dream about being a superhero."

"Wait!"

Fuse's voice rose in a frightening way, and startled Jayson into looking at her again. Ru saw tears brimming at the edges of her eyes. "Please, don't go. I know it is a lot to ask of Skaeyans your age, but we truly do need you."

Colleen, surprisingly, was the first one to speak up. "It isn't a dream. We should listen."

Jayson crossed his arms. "OK, let's say we're not dreaming somehow. Ru brings up a good point. Why kids? Why not Secret Service agents or the Army or Police? Why not you?"

Fuse quickly regained her composure. "Members of the Accilean Council are not allowed to fight. I cannot answer for the others. I do not choose the Skaeya."

Jayson's scowl deepened.

"You don't seem to realize how serious this is," Fuse said. "If you refuse to become our guardians, then you, everyone on your planet, everyone in this galaxy, will certainly die."

Silence fell across the clearing. "Why?" Colleen whispered.

"Because of the Lraenu."

Ru flinched. That unfamiliar word felt like it could break her ears if Fuse had said it louder. She was hesitant to ask what a "Lraenu" was, and could not pronounce it the same way Fuse did.

Fuse motioned for everyone to come closer. Jayson was the last to join their circle, his eyes sharp and gleaming in the shadows of the brim of his hat. Ru knew that stubborn expression well.

"The first of our Skaeya rebelled against the Accilean Council," Fuse said. "Since then, the galaxies have been under attack by his soldiers -- vicious, ghostly creatures we call Lraenu. The Lraenu can shapeshift, but in their true form they are practically invincible. Practically. You four have the power to stop them."

"Cool," Randy said.

"But we don't have power," Ru said.

"You will soon. Not long ago, one of our agents made contact with you. You did not know what what happening at the time, but he was taking the material necessary to make those talismans you wear. He activated your power and it has been building since then." Fuse knelt in front of Ru. "What is your name?"

"Ru."

"It's actually Prudence," Randy said loudly.

Ru stared daggers at him. Fuse seemed not to notice. She pointed at Ru's pendant. "These talismans have been granted to help you access your tools. It is important that you keep the talisman with you at all times. Consider it a part of you. Don't lose it. Don't give it up. Most importantly, don't break it. Ru, I can sense it will be easiest for you to learn how your power works. First, you must arm yourself." Fuse rose and backed up a few paces. "Call out, 'switch meteor!' as loud as you possibly can. As if you wanted the sky itself to hear you."

Ru glanced at the others, looking for a hint of what to do. All eyes were on her, Jayson skeptical, Colleen nervous, Randy intrigued. It couldn't hurt to say a few words, she reasoned. The forest was too quiet to be screaming, but Ru sucked in a slow, deep breath. "SWITCH METEOR!"

The cry echoed through the trees. After a few seconds of silence, she was sure her face was a bright enough red to see in the starlight alone. The fact that none of the others were laughing kept her calm. She expected it from Randy, but he looked disappointed instead. "What's supposed to happen?" Ru asked Fuse. "Why'd you make me yell like that?"

There was a slight smile on Fuse's lips, but a sincere one. Colleen gasped. "A shooting star!"

At first, Ru could only see the twinkle of strange constellations. Then, a glittering blue streak of light came into view. "That's too big to be a shooting star," Jayson said. "And too slow."

A breeze kicked up. The palms swayed, hissing ominously, and suddenly the stirring of air felt more like a storm was moving in. The star ballooned to the size of the moon and lost its tail. "I think it's heading this way," Randy gulped. "Run!"

The entire forest turned blue-white under the light of the incoming meteor. The trees thrashed as the wind gusted and howled. The winds were pushing everyone away from Ru. She stood motionless at the center of the storm, unable to take her eyes away from the sky. Randy and Colleen locked their arms around tree trunks to keep from being blown away. Jayson had dropped to the sand and was clawing his way back to his sister. "Ru! Ru, move!"

His voice was so distant. Her ears were filled with the rush of air. The light of the meteor blocked everything out.

It hit. The impact knocked her spirit from her body. She was rising upwards at an incredible speed, through clouds, through the sky, stars and suns swirling endless all around her, all reaching for her. When they touched her, something inside shattered.

She never felt so free.

Abruptly she was back in the forest. She was keenly aware of every one of those trees, every grain of sand under her feet, all the stars overhead, even what she couldn't see. Her nerves hummed with the energy of it all. The absolute clarity of her mind and senses astonished her. Fuse was close by now, and even without light, she somehow radiated color even more vividly than when she had been a bird.

Colleen peered out from behind her tree. "You're -- you're different."

Ru glanced down. Her clothes had changed, though they didn't look all that out of the ordinary. A blue t-shirt with white sleeves, black jeans, blue sneakers with white wing decals on the side. A blue headband with long tails was tied firmly around her head, and there was a barrette above her right ear that she couldn't see. A tiny light pulsed inside the gem of her pendant, something she would not have noticed if her senses hadn't been heightened.

At the same time, Colleen and the others were different as well. It was as if Ru had stepped into a movie and they were figures in the oldest, grainiest black and white photo. They were lifeless, missing details. They approached slowly, wide-eyed.

"You are the Skaeya of the Sky," Fuse told her. "The leader of this generation."

The weight of the word "Skaeya" hit her opened mind with full force. In that instant she knew just what a Skaeya meant to the galaxies, what was waiting inside her to be awakened. She felt like a star just lit, burning with unimaginable energy.

"Hey, can I do that?" Randy asked eagerly.

Fuse smiled more openly now. "Give it a try."

Randy's meteor didn't take nearly as long to arrive as Ru's. It fell so fast Ru barely saw it land. The light it created on impact was too bright to look at. Even Fuse turned her head away. When the brilliance faded, Randy was wearing a green jersey with the number ten on it, a silver cape, black pants, and tall metal cyborg boots. He was not so stunned by his transformation as Ru was. "I mean, a jersey wasn't what I was expecting for a superhero, but whatever." A devious grin spread across his face. "What's my power?"

"You are the Skaeya of Light."

Randy's enthusiasm left in a hurry. "Light?" he scoffed. "Ru gets like lightning and tornadoes and stuff, and I get light?"

Ru hadn't given much thought to her elemental potential. She imagined summoning a big storm, and picked up the grin Randy had dropped.

"Randy, is it?" Fuse asked. To her credit, she didn't seem annoyed at all like most people did when Randy threw a tantrum.

Randy crossed his arms and gave Fuse his toughest look. "Yeah."

"Your clothes right now are similar to what you normally wear, based on what you think you should look like. When you are a full Skaeya, it will change. As for the power of light, it is wise not to underestimate any element."

Randy grumbled, but had no arguments. Fuse approached Colleen. "Would you like to try next?"

Colleen jumped. There was a panic in her eyes Ru didn't understand. Colleen was normally nervous around strangers, but this was something beyond even what an alien should have inspired.

"What's your name?"

Colleen's mouth worked.

"Sorry? I didn't hear you." Fuse inched closer.

Colleen trembled and gripped her pendant with both hands. "I-I can't be a guardian."

Fuse looked concerned but unbelieving. "Why not?"

"I mean, she is kind of a coward," Randy cut in.

"She probably has a more useful power than yours," Ru snapped.

Colleen swallowed. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "This necklace can't be what you think it is. My mother left it to me. I've had it since I was a baby."

Fuse's eyes widened. "May I see it?"

Colleen handed over the pendant and backed away. Fuse's prismatic eyes hardened as she sunk into deep thought. Her gray lips pressed together. "Strange," she said at last. "I have no doubts this is a Skaeya pendant. But you should have obtained it recently."

Ru gasped, then burst out, "Was her mother a guardian too?"

Fuse shook her head. "It wouldn't matter if she was or not, each pendant is supposed to be unique to the guardian."

"Oh." Ru deflated a bit, but her mind was already running away with other possibilities. "Maybe the same person who gave us our pendants switched Colleen's mom's pendant out sometime. I don't know how because you wear it all the time," she said to Colleen, "But I don't know how I lived through getting hit by a meteor, either."

Fuse handed the pendant back with a smile. "Just try switching. It won't hurt you."

Colleen's mouth formed the words, but Ru couldn't even hear a whisper. "You're too quiet," Fuse said. "The meteor isn't receiving your command. Try again."

Ru suspected Colleen was distracted by something, but couldn't imagine what. "It's pretty cool. C'mon, let's see what your power is!"

"Yeah!" Randy gave her a thumbs up.

Colleen huffed, breathed deeply, and screamed louder than Ru had ever heard before. "SWITCH METEOR!"

The air grew cold. Snowflakes filled the air, glistening in the rosy light from the approaching meteor. It seemed to hit in slow motion. Ru felt frozen in place. She caught a glimpse of Colleen's strangely empty eyes just before impact.

When the snow blew away, Colleen appeared hunched over. Her dewy eyes darted all around. Her uniform had become a glittering, full-length pink coat. There were white gemstones and ribbons, white wings on her shoulders, and boots. "Wow," Ru breathed. "Yours is pretty!"

"What is this?" Colleen whimpered. "Why does everything feel so strange?"

"You're awakening to the system," Fuse said.

Randy was yelling, somewhere more distant than he had been. Apparently he'd already lost interest in whatever Colleen would be. "Light power! Shine!"

"That won't work yet," Fuse called to him, amused. "We'll start practicing that when you're all armed."

The group looked at Jayson. He was leaning against a tree, arms tightly crossed, hat pulled down over his eyes. "That's my brother, Jayson," Ru said. "He thinks he's dreaming."

"How am I not?" Jayson said. "This is impossible."

"He's a chicken," Randy sneered.

"That doesn't work on me," Jayson replied coldly.

Ru walked closer. "C'mon, you're next."

All coolness evaporated. "Um, no, I don't have to do this. You guys, don't you see it? Something isn't right here!"

"If you think you're dreaming --" Fuse started.

"SWITCH METEOR!"

Fuse jumped.

"There, you happy?" Jayson glared at the sky. "I don't have to do this. I didn't say I won't."

Ru grunted in annoyance, but had no time to speak. Hot winds poured in from the sky. Flames burst from the ground as the meteor struck. She was surprised none of the trees ignited.

Jayson came out of the fire. He had kept his hat, but the Sox logo had vanished and was no longer dusty and frayed. He wore a black jacket with a four-point star in red on the left side, black pants and shoes. But Ru couldn't see the rest --

"Dude, your shirt's on fire!" Randy yelled.

Jayson looked down, yelped, and batted frantically at the yellow flames that had engulfed his entire shirt.

"Stop drop and roll!" Ru shrieked.

Colleen pulled at Fuse's shirt. "How do I use ice? Quick!"

It was then that Ru noticed Fuse didn't seem worried at all, and Jayson stopped rolling in the sand a minute later. The fire apparently wasn't hurting him, it seemed to be a part of his new shirt. The flames faded significantly as Jayson rose to his feet and dusted himself off.

"It's clear what your power is, correct?" Fuse said with a smirk.

"I hate you," Jayson replied in a level voice.

Fuse grinned, gave them all an approving glance, then closed her eyes. An undercurrent of energy radiated from her feet, into the ground, spreading and circling the entire planet beneath them. Ru felt like she understood how that was done, though she could not put it into words or quite understand why Fuse was doing that. "The Lraenu do not realize we are here. I have time to grant you another ability."

"I get to learn how to shoot lasers now?" Randy made a finger gun.

"Flight," Fuse said.

Ru didn't think Randy's face could light up any more, but it did. She felt a flutter of excitement herself. "We can fly?"

"Skaeya-cyu means 'flying fighter' -- it's not just a name. I hear Skaeyan humans often dream they can fly. It's because they know they can. They were made to forget."

"By who?" Jayson demanded.

Fuse eyed the stars. "I -- don't actually know," she admitted. "It happened long before my time. Perhaps long before the System's time."

Jayson was not about to let it go so easily. "And what exactly do you mean by the System? You say it differently than -- I mean -- well, we can't be outside the system like you said, because Earth is in a galaxy, right? On the edge of one, anyway."

"The System is more than the physical location of the stars," Fuse started.

Randy waved a hand between the two of them "Um, excuse me? We were about to learn how to fly, and you want to sit here and talk?"

Fuse laughed and looked to her left. There was suddenly a presence. An enormous, shadowy, but familiar presence overwhelmed Ru's mind. She knew who it was before they stepped out of the trees. The red of their cloak was fiery in the meager starlight.

"You!" Randy exclaimed.

"This is Ember," Fuse said. "He is the Council's guardian. He can help you remember."

Ember moved no closer, but Ru felt her eyes being drawn to that void where his face should have been. Her eyes and mind focused in an uncomfortable way. Then, a click. A door opened. That weightless feeling came flooding back, that rush of previously unfathomable freedom. She bolted forward and leapt into the air.

Her feet never touched the ground.

"It worked!" Randy yelled.

She heard him grunt and a heavy thud as he landed face-first in the sand. "Ember has to teach you first. You'll know when you've remembered." Fuse smiled up at Ru. "I knew you would learn quickly."

Ru kicked at the air and tried to draw herself forward with her hands, but she only made herself rotate in place. "It isn't like swimming," Fuse said. "The easiest way to start is picturing yourself going where you want to go."

Ru's eyes went straight to the sky. Pink starlight gleamed beyond the silhouettes of palm leaves. Fuse waved a hand at her. "Go on, try it out! Just don't go far, and if you see or feel anything wrong, come back right away."

The air was less dense above canopy. Ru started up slowly, taking in the full breadth of the elegant, sparkling skies. The air swirled lightly around her, tossing her hair but keeping it out of her face. There was no fear as the ground swept away from her. This was where she belonged.

A vast field of palms lay beneath her, blue and feathery in the night, littered with tiny, glistening yellow lights. Beyond, there was an ocean, a perfect crystal reflection of the brilliant arc of fuchsia stars near the horizon. The sheer size of the yellow moon nearby left Ru breathless, especially compared to their single, pale-faced moon at home. The more she sighted, the more she could feel. Every single star had its own energy. She felt like she was glowing herself.

"Wow," she heard Colleen sigh.

Ru hadn't realized she'd stopped. The others were drifting her way, she didn't even need to look at them, they had a place in her mind too. Jayson flickered, Colleen shimmered, Randy blazed, Fuse beamed. The full sky overwhelmed them all. Ru recalled the sky of her home planet, perfect blue, crystal white, wild, seething gray and black, and realized she would never look at it the same way again.

Fuse's wings hummed loudly as she drew near. "The bulk of your training will take place at the Council's complex," she said, "but the only gatestone from Skae leads here. You will have to come to Aereka before you transfer there."

There was a strange implication in the bird's voice. It was hard to tell what she was looking at. Ru squinted at the shoreline running off to the horizon. At first, she saw nothing but the thorny silhouettes of trees. On a second sweep, something caught her eye. It was very far away, but it was square and unnatural. She thought she could pick out its signal from all the others she was receiving, like a single line of smoke rising into the sky. "What's that?"

Fuse knew exactly what Ru had found. "That is a Lraenu hive. You must keep clear of it until you are well-prepared."

"What? Where is it?" Randy flew higher. "That's the bad guys, right? I'm ready, let's get em!"

"You are not ready," Fuse said gently, "But I am going to send you home now. Especially when your powers are new, you must return to Earth to keep them strong."

"Our powers are like a battery?" Jayson scoffed. "How are we supposed to protect galaxies if we have to stay home all the time?"

If a bird could smile, Fuse would be. Her voice radiated warmth. "You will see. Return tomorrow night and I will guide you to the Council's complex."

"What if the Lraenu are here waiting for us?" Colleen said fearfully.

"You must be prepared at all times," Fuse warned. "They can travel to Earth. You have a few advantages there -- your power is strengthened and theirs is weakened, and you have allies on your planet watching over you. Eventually, though, you must learn to defend yourselves."

They summoned their meteors again to change back into normal. Fuse lead them back to the gatestone with a few words of encouragement, then they were on their way home. Ru's sneakers touched down lightly, as if she was still part of the air, part of the fog that had collected in Tanager Park sometime during the night. The park had been so striking when they'd left the planet, now it was just old. Quarterhill's backyard. The Quarterstone, the gatestone, was no longer illuminated.

"This is awesome," Randy exclaimed.

Jayson's eyes were hidden under the brim of his hat, the corners of his mouth turned sharply downward. Colleen clutched at her pendant, which had returned to its original dolphin shape. Ru's head was spinning, but Randy's enthusiasm was contagious. They had powers. They could fly. They had just met an alien, of all things. Was it real?

Blue light illuminated the hedges. The Blue Star and Ember were near. There were four bracelets  in Ember's hands. He swept closer and fastened one around Ru's wrist. Without understanding, she touched it, and gasped as symbols appeared in the air above it. The others gathered around her, even Jayson looked intrigued. "What is this?"

"These are each copies of a book of Accilean legend and prophecy, written before the system came into being," the Star explained. "Learning the Accilean language will help you master your abilities, and we hope, in turn, you may help us better understand its contents."

Ember handed out the other bracelets as Ru poked the symbols. They scrolled sideways with her finger, rows disappearing on the right and more appearing on the left. "I've never seen this language before," she protested. "How will we know where to start?"

"It will come to you." The Star's voice was soothing. "The Accilean language is a little different from any of Earth's. Anyone can understand it when it is spoken, but to read, write, or speak it takes practice."

"Anyone can understand it?" Ru repeated. "How? Like pictures?"

"You never noticed that I am not speaking English?"

All four pairs of eyes snapped to the star. "Say something again," Randy said slowly.

It was true. The words that whispered from the Star's tranquil flames were unlike anything Ru had heard before, yet the meaning of the words stood out to her instantly. "You understand now. Return home. Come back to the stone at midnight."

The Star winked out. Ember was gone with it.

"Like I need extra homework," Randy said. "At least it'll give us powers."

"You guys, you know we gotta keep this a secret, right?" Ru said.

Randy rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mom."

"Dude, we all know you'd be the first one to call down your meteor if you were about to get in another fight with Joe," Jayson said. "Seriously, they said the Lraenu are here, and it's probably better if they don't know who we are."

Colleen's voice trembled. "We don't know what they look like."

"Hopefully we don't need to know yet," Ru said.

With that, they all rushed home. Ru noticed she wasn't the least bit tired. She and Jayson talked about the bracelet books on the way -- they didn't want their mother to find the books by accident, but she was rarely around to take care of the house anyway so it wasn't likely she'd stumble across them.

"But I guess aliens would explain all the weird stuff that happens in Quarterhill," Ru whispered.

"Or dreaming," Jayson said flatly. "I'm going to try and sleep."

"How can you? There's no way I can." Ru was about to take her pendant off, hesitated and left it hanging around her neck. "Hey Jayson? Just because you think it's a dream, it doesn't mean you can't play along, right? Why wouldn't you want to be a superhero?"

Jayson paused at the door. "Flying is pretty cool. I just don't trust the bird. I think she was hiding something."

"Like what?"

"Who knows? We've apparently got twenty whole galaxies to deal with. Good night."

First Chapter || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

[paladin-pile]

Smol Keith and Krolia

Part of the “Pal’s Fic Graveyard” series.

Summary: After being hit with an unknown weapon on a blade mission, Keith turns into a toddler. Krolia not only has to earn Keith’s trust, but the right to be his mother from the other paladins who are suspicious of her, and protective of Keith. Meanwhile, the toll of war is breaking down the team. (post s5, after canon-divergent finding of real Shiro.)

“We care for him as one of our own, but if he dies, will he not fall with honor like the rest of us?” The Blade operative questioned, hand poised above the panel to close the pod door. 

“He is not like the rest of us,” Kolivan hissed. “If he dies, Voltron will be weakened. The paladins have a quintessential bond like nothing else in the universe. do you have any idea what severing it will do to them?

“But he is no longer a part of Voltron...”

“That’s what they keep telling themselves.”

Looking back through the pod doors, into the inferno, Kolivan did something he had never done before.

He went back.

…….

“Shiro.”

Lance’s voice pulls Shiro from his almost-sleep and he blinks sluggishly, forcing his tired muscles to move. Lance’s face is worn, and spread with poorly-concealed fear that makes a cold dread catch Shiro’s breath.

“I’m sorry,” Lance says quietly, reaching to help Shiro sit up. “I know you need to rest, but Kolivan just called. He’s on his way with Keith.” 

“Did something happen?” Shiro breathes, and Lance’s jaw tenses.

“Keith...” he begins, then swallows. “He was on a mission and they, well, they don’t really know what happened-”

Shiro is already on his feet, ignoring how his legs wobble. Lance steadies him anyway.

“Let’s go,” Shiro says. “I’ll be fine.”

Lance nods like he expected this, pulling Shiro’s arm over his shoulders. They shuffle out the door and Shiro takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Lance is quieter than he remembers, a little taller too, and Shiro’s blurts out the biggest things that’s been on his mind.

“My...the clone,” he mumbles. “Did he take care of you guys?”

Lance is quiet for a beat too long, and when Shiro looks over his eyes dart away. With a twist of his lips he hikes Shiro’s arm higher on his shoulders, other arm tightening around Shiro’s waist.

“It’s okay,” he says finally. “We’ve got you now.”

Shiro thought they were headed for the control room, but Lance takes them straight to the hangars. There’s a rebel ship there, landed haphazardly with skid marks left behind. The room is in chaos, and Shiro glances around worriedly

At first he doesn’t notice anything wrong, and then he hears a scream.

It’s a familiar voice, and Shiro’s heart stutters to a halt. Gasping, he lurches forward, nearly dragging Lance. They break through the circle of paladins surrounding Kolivan, who is cradling Keith to his chest. The Galra is trying to lower Keith onto a hover stretcher, but Keith’s fists are locked tight onto Kolivan’s tunic, body rigid as he lets out another ragged cry.

Shiro jolts out of his daze, stumbling forward to cradle Keith’s face in his hands. His heart plummets as he sees the Keith beneath his hands is so different from his memory. His hair is longer, skin paler. There’s a scar peeking out from the neck of his suit, and he so thin.

Shiro tries to steady his own breathing, brushing the sweat-soaked hair from Keith’s face. He makes soothing sounds but Keith neither sees nor hears. Lance presses up against Shiro’s back, wrapping his hands around Keith’s wrists.

“Hey, hey, buddy, it’s okay!” he babbles. “Look, Shiro’s here, we got the real one this time, see?” His voice wobbles at Keith’s obvious distress. There is blood running from Keith’s nose, scattered across his face from the thrashing. The skin under Shiro’s touch is cold. Keith’s eyes scrunched shut as he writhes. Gasping a great gulp of air, he snaps his jaw shut, guttural sounds of pain wrenching from his throat. It cuts off with another gasp, followed by a heart-breaking wail, and Shiro is shaking.

Failing to pry Keith off of Kolivan, Coran barks an order and the Blade leader lifts Keith closer and begins running. Hands suddenly empty, Shiro flails in panic, but Lance has a firm arm around his waist. The blue paladin is speaking to him but Shiro’s mind is static. There’s only a blur of sounds and movement, Keith’s screaming still ringing in his ears.

He is lying flat. Shiro recognizes the ceiling of the med bay. He turns his head to see Pidge leaning over him, blocking his view of the Keith being shoved into a pod.

“...No visible wounds-”

“...Unknown weapon....biological….”

Shiro tries to sit up but Pidge stops him, firm hands pressing down, then moving to clutch his own.

“It’s okay, it’ll be okay,” she says, but there are tears on her face. Another cry rends the air and she flinches, leaning down to curl around him. Shiro puts his arms around her, exhaustion tugging at his consciousness. There is a hiss of air, and the screams fall silent. Both he and Pidge are trembling. Shiro fights to stay awake but it’s too much. Pidge’s small hands are on his face and he wants so badly to comfort her, but his eyes slip closed. Garbled voices filter through his consciousness.

“Yrithrium gas.”

A gasp.

“...react….systemic poisoning….mother…”

Shiro slips away.

…..

Krolia is halfway through a reconnaissance when she receives a message from Kolivan:

Your son was compromised on a mission. Struck by unknown druid weapon. Proceed to the Castle of Lions immediately.

It’s every mother’s worst fear.

It took six varga for the transmission to even reach her, and it will take at least two days for her to reach the castle. She doesn’t even know if her son is alive, or if he will be when she arrives.

Krolia snatches the storage disk out of the control panel, uncaring that the data has only partially downloaded. The mission is worthless now.

She fight her way out of the base, flies through the barrage of fighters more recklessly than usual. Her vision blurs as tears begin to fall, and she grips the controls harder. She can’t fall apart, not yet, so she channels the pain into anger and action. Such is the way of her life; one she would never wish upon her son, but it’s too late. There may be no life left for him at all. All this time she has left him alone, and now she must atone for her sins. She would take the retribution on herself a thousand times if it meant he was safe, but yet she cannot, and the universe punishes her child.

Please, she wishes to the blinking stars. He’s so young, so precious. Let me hold him one more time.

....

(single scene in the middle of story):

Krolia wakes suddenly in the middle of the night. Her senses are alert, but when she does not immediately see a danger she relaxes. Whatever woke her, she doesn't mind. She never tires of lying in the soft bed with the sleeping form of her child beside her. She rolls over to face him, threading her fingers through his hair, but freezes when she feels its dampness.

The strands are plastered to his forehead with sweat. His limbs are drawn close, fists clenched at his chest, and his small brow is furrowed in distress. Krolia makes a soothing sound, allowing the low rumble from her chest she hasn't used in so many years. She knows how to comfort a kit: it’s instinct, but unfamiliar. She whispers his name but he does not wake, breathing quickening and and mouth open in a silent cry. Krolia whines and pulls him to her chest, heart breaking at the whimpers and tears now flowing.

“Keith,” she says, more earnestly. “Keith, my baby, it’s okay. Wake up.”

Keith wakes himself with another cry, jerking away and nearly falling off the bed. He calms down when he realizes who is there, but still presses himself into the corner. Tears are streaming down his face, and for a moment they stare at each other, Krolia’s hand still outstretched.

“Shiro,” Keith whimpers, and Krolia’s heart aches at the pain in his voice. “Where’s Shiro?” A fresh wave of tears come, and Krolia shifts closer, coaxing him back into her embrace. He crumples to her chest, body shaking with sobs.

“Shiro! I want Shiro!” he wails, clutching her nightshirt.

“Where is he?” Keith cries, voice cracking. “Is he dead? Is he gone? I want Shiro!”

Krolia gathers him into her arms and goes straight to the black paladin’s room. Shiro opens the door in his pajamas, hair rumpled and rubbing his eyes. She feels bad for waking him, but Keith is more important right now. She holds him out and Keith nearly leaps onto Shiro’s chest, wrapping around him like a the baby monkeys Krolia had once seen on Earth television.

Shiro’s eyes grow wide and he cradles Keith in his arms, rocking him gently. He gives Krolia and questioning look, and something in her expression must have answered it, because his shoulders slump. He kisses Keith’s head and steps aside to let her in.

Thanks for reading, don’t forget to check out the other casualty fics on the masterpost!

[lavender-lotion]

WYIB Chp. One - A Little Like Heartbreak | 3,383k

Read more chapters here! Read on AO3 here!

Stiles is all alone, and that, that isn’t something he knows how to handle. It doesn't help that he’s trying his best, trying desperately to be enough for people who don’t care about him, who don’t even want him. He’s - he’s done. 

————————————————

Warning: Mention of Rape

The saddest part, in his own opinion, is that he doesn’t notice right away. He and Scott had already begun drifting apart, spending less and less time together until they were no longer ScottandStiles and hardly even best friends. Then there was the Gerard incident where his ‘best friend’ didn’t think to ask about his black eye or bruised ribs or split lip. Scott never once noticed how much pain Stiles was in even though he now had the ability to smell it. Smell the still open cuts and the blood that sluggishly made its way through Stiles’ half-ass bandaging job.

And not one person questioned him about where he had been during the Kanima incident. Instead Jackson had joked about it, joked that Stiles had just gotten scared and run off after all the lights went out.

But Stiles has never been afraid of the dark. Though, he is afraid of monsters who hide behind human faces. He is scared of damaged teens and hunters and old men. It wasn’t Peter in his Alpha form who tied him up, beat him and then did worse just because ‘your screaming is so pretty’. It wasn’t Jackson but the Kanima’s master who made the decision to kill the mechanic and the police officers, to spread death wherever it pleased

Stiles is scared of humans. They’re always the ones behind the monster's mask, anyway.

The point is, he’s not sure he can call Scott his friend any longer. It’s late September of their Junior year and there’s the Alpha pack and someone killing people and Stiles is trying to be okay with the fact that Scott ignored him for most of the summer. The pack had been trying to find Boyd and Erica, and Stiles, being mostly human, couldn’t just sniff them out.

He had tried using his Spark to help, but that didn’t really work. He still hadn’t been powerful enough to do much other than simple levitation and the manipulation of mountain ash - despite his constant efforts to better himself. It was a slow and strenuous process that often left Stiles rung out and dry heaving into his toilet. It was neither fun nor all that productive, but working himself to the point where he passed out on the cool tile floor of his bathroom made him feel like he was doing something.

It doesn’t seem to matter how hard he was trying, since he hadn’t even seen Scott since the night he was kidnapped and his entire life changed. He hardly saw Scott over the summer, the other boy suddenly having other and more important properties. The pack was busy and Stiles understood that, understood their was only so much he could do in his humanity, something the others were not held back by. He was holding out hope that Scott would fix everything, that it would all go back to normal.

He’d always been particularly naive when it came to the things he put hope into.

School started back up and suddenly Scott sat with the pack everyday, with all of them. Stiles quickly found that the pack table no longer held a spot for him, as though he were forgotten. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d been training his Spark, practicing to become their Emissary. It’s not as though h’s working himself to the point of exhaustion nearly each day this summer so that he could be faster, and stronger, and better. Not as though he hadn’t even the chance to prove himself.

Apparently, they didn’t care.

So he walked away. He walked away and tried to ignore how alone he felt. It - it could have been worse, given that he could truly have no one. He had his dad again - something he would forever be thankful for. Finding the man passed out drunk after school had been so horribly reminiscent of the period of grief and longing from after his mother died that for a horrible moment he was terrified. He had done all he could do at the time, helped the man up to bed and poured out the rest of the liquor.

The next morning, he broke. He told the man everything he could, everything he had needed to, for so long. He couldn't risk losing the man over something as simple as the truth, so Stiles told him everything. He started with the Hale fire, laying out all the information he could in hopes that his solid knowledge on the act would convince his father that what he was saying was the truth.

That night he curled up in his father's bed, breathing in his dad, gun oil and old spice and safety and curling up to the man, sleeping in the same bed for the first time since he had been ten and his mother had first gotten sick.

Once his dad knew, their relationship very quickly reverted to what it had so long ago been - dependable and strong. For so long they had been close, just the two of them against the world. Especially after his dad had dug himself out of the pit of alcoholism and they had been closer than ever, holding tight after nearly losing one another. The space between them had only began building when Scott got bit, when Stiles had to lock away an entire part of his life for his father's safety, and it had clearly weighed on them.

Now, now Stiles felt light.

He once again spent long afternoons in the station, curling up on the couch his father kept in his office, or wandering the halls, checking in with the Deputies who were still alive. The station was still a place of comfort, still felt like home whenever he walked in - the bitter smell of burnt coffee once again a constant in his life. This station had once kept him alive - the year after his mother died Stiles had once been taken care of by these people, when his father was still too broken to do so.

So it had felt good to be back, right. For the first month of school he spent near all his free time researching. Derek had said they didn’t know anything about the ‘Alpha Pack’ so Stiles made it a point to find out all that he could. If he couldn’t help with sniffing out Erica and Boyd, he would sure as hell make sure that he was doing something. He wouldn’t let them call him useless again, wouldn’t let them discredit him as ‘only human’.

So he looked into everything he could - he called packs in the area, made a map of places the Alpha pack had traveled to and put together a timeline of basic information. He talked to Peter and Chris (he’s not Gerard, he’s not Gerard, he is not Gerard), and only ever met either man in highly populated, public places. He wasn’t paranoid, but he would never set foot in the Argents home again.

Stiles still had nightmares. Even now, four months later he woke screaming and thrashing and needing help that he never got. On the nights his dad was home, the man would hold him tight against his chest as he cried. It - it helped. His father smelt like safety and the shape of his arms around him was familiar enough that it kept the memories at bay from where the darkness allowed them to creep in and take hold.

He still didn’t sleep near enough, but it was far better than those first few weeks when he would wake sobbing, nails digging into his skin as he clawed away the man's touch - fought with himself to push down the bile that always rose in his throat.

It was better now, with his dad, and some nights he were able to fall back asleep. The nights he weren’t, he continued his research. It was soon enough easy, learning to navigate the supernatural world came surprising ease after a little practice. First, he had mapped out everywhere the Pack had been seen for the last few years. They moved around often, visiting different territories seemingly at random. Sometimes they stayed and made ‘peaceful’ treaties, other times they wiped out entire packs.

Soon enough he knew who each member was, where they came from, and what they’d been through. He ranked how deadly they were, the way they fought and how to best them. In three weeks he obtained so much research on the pack he felt as though he personally knew them. It was something he could take to Derek and say, ‘I did this, I hold value, let me into your fucking pack’.

He was trying. If he couldn’t find his missing pack mates then he could sure as hell still be useful, still show that his humanity did not make him worth less.

He was probably killing himself, letting his body waste away and working it to the point of insanity. He didn’t care. Didn’t care that sometimes he got dizzy when standing, or sometimes his vision would turn blurry. He was helping. In his way.

That’s what he had thought anyway, until a Tuesday night near the end of September. He had just visited his mother's grave, alone. It was something he had never done before, always readily accompanied by Scott. The first few years Scott had to set the flowers into the vase himself, Stiles’ hand shaking too harshly for him to do so. The first time he was able to, Scott held him as he sobbed into the boy's shirt.

Scott had always been by his side and the other boy had been there when Stiles needed him. And he did, need Scott that is. Even if they were now hardly friends, let alone anything resembling brothers. Even if it was only Melissa he received a text from, the other boy seemingly having forgotten. Stiles still needed Scott, perhaps always would - at least one day of the year.

But Scott wasn't there, so instead of going home to an empty house and old memories and suffocating silence, he grabbed his folder full of three weeks of research and headed to Derek’s loft.

Stiles took a deep, calming breath. The stairs had been a little too much and he was gasping for air, chest burning and stomach empty. He wanted to throw up from the exertion, his body physically rebelling moving further for a few moments. He knew it had been long since he had ate, maybe even longer since he had slept, but he hadn’t quite realized just how long until this moment.

When he was able to walk, he knocked on the large metal door of the loft before pulling it open. He called out Derek’s name as he stepped through the entryway, stopping abruptly when he looked up. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, really.

None of Derek’s previous hideouts had been anything even remotely habitable, but this place wasn’t awful. What made him stop was not the three couches or the kitchen, but the pack. The entire pack was there, sitting inside what had to be the ‘living room’. Derek was in an arm chair on his own, Scott, Allison and Isaac curled up together on a couch, Lydia and Jackson on a loveseat and Peter - alone, head down - on the stairs.

Stiles was absolutely taken aback.

Not only did Scott forget what fucking day it was, but he was here. He was with his pack and clearly this pack was more important than his brother, or else Scott would have been with Stiles when he laid fresh flowers on his mother's grave. Stiles had known they had all gotten closer, had not been ignorant to their growing friendship, but Stiles hadn’t realized it was this.

He hadn’t realized it were movies nights, or cuddling close on the couch. Sharing spaces outside of class, choosing to spend time together. He hadn’t realized it were more than finding their missing pack mates, more than the urge or survival taking over to group them together, gather their strength and keep it close.

Stiles tried to swallow down the bile that was rising in his throat, tried to choke back the angry sob he wanted to let it. Instead he squared his shoulders and cleared his throat, throwing the most murderous glare he could muster at Scott before turning back to Derek, “I have some pretty useful information.”

“Is it about Erica and Boyd?” Derek asked, words clipped and short.

“No, but you should look-.”

“I don’t need you wasting my time, Stiles.” Derek said. He sounded put upon, as though dealing with Stiles were the most exhausting thing one could do in a day.

“Look, you should seriously read thi-”

“Dude why are you even here?” Jackson said from his spot beside Lydia, sneering at Stiles.

“I’ve been doing a lot of research, and I really fou-”

“Well can you leave?” Jackson snapped, tone all too familiar. The boy had bullied Stiles for years, and it apparently never stopped.

“Derek, ca-.”

“This is a pack meeting.” Isaac cut in, looking about as revolted with Stiles’ presence as Jackson had, “You need to leave.”

What hurts the most is that no one argues. Not Allison, whom he had been nothing but nice to. Not Derek, whose life he had saved - held him afloat in a swimming pool for hours - when it would have been easier to leave. Not Lydia, who he had seen before anyone else, recognize her for the value she truly held. Not Isaac, the boy who Stiles had been offering his help to for years because no one else saw the bruises or the twitching of his fingers - no not Isaac, as he was the one telling him to leave.

And not, not Scott. His brother, his best friend for so long. Had been the one person Stiles always knew he would have, right after his dad. Scott had been so much to him, had meant so much to him that Stiles often hadn’t known how to articulate it. And Stiles had always thought their bond went both ways. Though now, now he’s never felt more wrong.

It makes something bright and hot flare in his chest. He’s not sure if he wants to cry or yell in his indignation, but he’s furious. He’s furious because he gave himself to this pack, far more intimately that he ever would have liked. He was taken by Gerard because of this pack. Taken and tied up and, and - and more than Stiles is willing to think about. These people took so much from him, much more than he was ever willing to give for them.

And he knows better. He knows that he doesn’t deserve this, that he deserves far more. He doesn’t deserve to be looked down on, to be treated as though he is lesser. Insignificant. He had done too much for them, from the beginning had done more than he ever should have. He had killed Peter for them, took a life for most of the people in this room, and he is still thrown aside.

And then he had kept giving, gave his relationship with his father, his energy, his time. He had given all that he was, let them use him when needed. Then he had learned magic, pushed his body to the point of breaking only to toy with the edge, nearly falling over. And he had gotten nothing in return.

It’s feels a little like heartbreak.

But he won’t show them weakness. Not when they’re no longer on his side. He holds it in, squares his shoulders and stamps down hard on his magic where it is soaring high in his chest, bright and wonderful, his control so much better than it once was. He’s a flurry of betrayal, and anger and hurt and abandonment, and his magic wants to strike out in response.

But he doesn’t let it show, can’t. He marches to Peter, the only person looking at least a little annoyed at the treatment Stiles is being given. In fact he looks quite murderous and Stiles is silently thankful. Thankful that he has someone. He doesn’t even mind that it’s Peter of all people, hell Stiles secretly likes the man.

It helps that he finds Peter almost completely justified for what he did. Sometimes - sometimes you run out of options. Sometimes things are no longer black and white, and the world often exists in brilliant shades of grey. He can, he can understand where the man came from, to have his entire family ripped away from him so violently. If someone killed his father he would burn the world down in his fury.

So he walks towards the man, as calmly as he can even with his blood boiling and his magic raging, and hands the man the thick folder he brought with him.

“This is the Alpha Pack. Who they are, what they do, how they fight and what they want from us. It’s everything on them.” Stiles says, voice low and weak but Peter still hears. Sure the rest of the pack do too, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“You are quite the wonder, little spark.” Peter says and maybe Stiles shouldn’t be as flattered as he is by the compliment, but a flush settles across his cheeks. He knows Peter doesn’t waste words or throw around empty compliments, knows that means the man's words are genuine. He doesn’t even question how the man may know about his magic. For all Stiles could know, the man could have smelled it.

“Is your father going to be home this evening?”

“Uh no?” Stiles says, voice tilting at the end in question.

“You shouldn’t be alone with your grief, especially after what happened with them.” Peter’s voice is low, giving Stiles the illusion of privacy even though he knows it’s false. Stiles does however snort when Peter spits out the last word like it tastes bad.

“I’ll be okay.” Stiles says with a small smile, having to bite his lip to stop himself from beaming. He frankly has no idea how Peter knows what today is, but it means more than he can express though he tries anyway.

“Thank you.” And maybe Peter understands what he means, because the man offers him a small smile and a nod, looking down to the folder in his hands and already beginning to look through it.

Then, like everyone seems to want, he leaves.

He doesn’t do more than take shallow breathes until after he’s driven away. He’s still too raw, his emotions running their course. Thunder rumbles overhead, lighting flashing and striking beside his jeep, bright white and he slams his brakes, skidding to a stop. He breathes deep, watching in fascination as lightning strikes again, his headlights shining bright onto the now burned patch of grass in front of him.

And then, and then Stiles screams. He lets out his fury, his hurt. He yells until his throat his raw, chest heaving with the air he's pulling in. Thunder rumbles once again, louder and longer than he’s ever heard before. The rain slows, slowly tapering until it's nothing more than a light shower, the gently tap tap helping to calm his heartbeat.

He breathes deep again, looking at his phone when it pings. He opens it to a text from Peter, and the words make his gut twist in pleasure, the praise of the words making him feel high. ‘You are miraculous.’ stares back at him, and it feels warm, the same way his father's arms do when he’s held close, how his mother's praise used to feel. He smiles, infinitely thankful that he seems to have this man on his side.

Stiles turns his keys, fingers still shaking around his steering wheel as the familiar drain that comes with using magic slowly begins to settle. He’s thankful the loft is close, still having to focus hard on the drive home. When he does arrive, he collapses onto his bed near immediately, thankful his father appears to home and asleep - the bottle of Whisky still more than half full where it had sat in the kitchen.

Stiles head hits the pillow, and thankful sleep takes him.

[ijustwant2write]

The Real Me- Bellamy Blake x Reader One Shot

(GIF credit to owner)

(A/N: God, why am I part of so many fandoms? And oh my god, I cannot wait for the new season to start! Btw it’s a long one.)

Masterlist

Summary: (Set in Season 1, Episode 7 ‘Contents Under Pressure’) (Y/N) and Bellamy have been in a long term relationship and are trying to run thing smoothly on the ground. However it has not been easy meaning that unknown sides to a person can be shown, not all of them being good.

Characters: Bellamy Blake x Reader, Clarke Griffin x Reader (platonic), Octavia Blake x Reader (platonic), Raven Reyes x Reader (platonic), Finn Collins x Reader (platonic)

Warnings: Torture, swearing, shouting, arguing, sadness but happy at the end

Meanings: (Y/N)= Your name

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

'This is getting out of hand.’

The thought repeated itself in my mind constantly. The storm outside had barricaded us all into the dropship, packed tightly together with a huge amount of supplies as there was no telling how long we would be stuck in there. We were still so new to Earth and what had happened to it after the radiation hit it. No one wanted to say it but we all had the same thought; what if we were stuck here for ever?

Although Bellamy and Clarke seemed to be the main leaders of the group, I took it upon myself to take on the motherly role. There were a lot of hotheads and rebels amongst the group (since all of them were criminals) meaing that someone much calmer would have to step in at times, aka me. But I could be classed as one too. When I heard that my boyfriend, Bellamy, was being sent down from the Ark I immediately panicked, fighting a guard to get thrown on last minute. He was the only thing I had left.

But now he has changed. Finn had just been stabbed by a Grounder who we know had captured. Finn went after Octavia when she went exploring again, something Bellamy and I both hated, she was now practically a little sister to me. Just as the storm hit Finn had been carried inside the dropship to be operated and monitored by Clarke alongside his girlfriend Raven. Meanwhile Bellamy dragged a bloody Grounder inside too and onto the third floor. We were all moved to the second floor which included a lot of groaning.

Bellamy didn’t even notice me as he, Drew and Miller stormed through with the unconscious grounder. Battling against the crowds, I mistakingly followed them, not really knowing what to expect. I felt someone tug on my leg as I took the first step in the ladder.

“Octavia!” I exclaimed, jumping down to hug her, already making a fuss to see if she was alright.

She returned it but looked worried.“I don’t know what my brother is going to do. I’m scared!”

“Maybe you should stay down here-”

“Whatever he’s going to do, we have to stop him!”

She clambered up the ladder before I could protest, I followed swiftly after. From the gasp that left her mouth, I gathered that something bad was happening. As I made it onto the third floor, the grounder had been tied up, the boys looking ready to attack at any minute. I was in shock. I had never seen anything like this. Grounders were scary from a distant and even up close but I almost felt sympathy for them. No, that was wrong…wasn’t it?

“Bellamy what are you doing!?” Octavia demanded as she stomped towards him with clenched fists.

“He kidnapped you and stabbed Finn. Imagine if he had hurt you too!” Bellamy raised his voice.

“But he saved me! There’s no need to hurt him.”

“You need to go. I don’t want you to see this.” he finally turned to look at her, spotting me too.“(Y/N), you should go too.”

I couldn’t help the scoff that left my mouth.“What? No, I want to know what’s going on up here.”

“You are both leaving. That’s an order.”

He knew how much I hated him ordering me about like one of his henchmen.

“No-”

“JUST LEAVE!” Bellamy screamed, a vein on his neck popping out.

Reluctantly we both left. Bellamy hadn’t been the same since we landed. I understood that there was a lot of pressure to lead everyone but I was here to comfort him. The past week had been the worst. He constantly ignored me, was always snappy and never held me when we were sleeping. He wasn’t one to share his feelings, that was pretty much obvious to everyone, but he card too much about others and not himself.

Octavia went to check on Finn as I stayed with the Delinquents. The storm was getting worse. People were starting to get scared, some curling up into each other. Finn’s screams could also be heard, not helping with the situation. As I was about to say something to help call down everyone, a huge bang sounded throughout the dropship also shaking it. Screaming was now in the midst of it all as pieces of debris attacked us.

I stood on a box to grab everyone’s attention, shouting out,“GUYS! It’s ok, it’s just debris from outside. We all need to remain calm. Clarke and Raven need to concetrate on helping Finn, so let’s all try to keep the noise to a minimum, ok?” I couldn’t really hear anyone it I saw them nodding. Climbing back down I started to walk around, making rounds to the group’s to make sure they were all ok. As I walked around I spotted Clarke and Octavia rushing up the ladder, something was wrong I could just sense it. Following them upstairs my eyes landed on the grounder again, only now he was bleeding and bruising. They were toturing him.

“This blade is poisoned. My friend is dying down there. Please just tell us which is the antidote!” Clarke begged as she held up the knife used to stab Finn.

The grounder’s cold eyes just stared at her, he hardly blinked.

“Clarke, you don’t have to be here to see this.” Bellamy spoke holding a seatbelt. Wait, what was he using that for?

“I want to be here. We need answers quickly.” she moved away from the grounder as Bellamy replaced her.

He drew his arm back, whipping the grounder with the seatbelt. A horrible clashing noise between the material and skin filled our ears, Octavia and I both screaming.

“Bellamy stop it! He saved me! Let me just talk to him!” Octavia begged.

He couldn’t hear us or was choosing not to. His hits became harder, faster, not showing any signs of mercy. Drew held back Octavia who was trying to retaliate, still screaming at Bellamy to stop. Miller wasn’t sure if he should pull me back either as I was frozen to the spot. Somehow I couldn’t pull myself away from this but I knew I hated it; the grounders were killing us though I couldn’t stand watching this torture much longer. The grounder didn’t say anything, not even a single groan came from him. How was he able to resist screaming out?

“This isn’t working, we’re running out of time!” Clarke exclaimed causing Bellamy to stop.

Bellamy dropped the belt, the clattering sound making us all jump. He bent down to grab a spike out of the grounders bag, all the contents scattered across the floor. There were three vials but there was no way of telling which one was the antidote.

He stalked back to the grounder.“Tell us which one it is and we won’t torture you anymore.”

Silence.

With a frustated huff, Bellamy drove the spike through the grounder’s hand, finally receiving an earpiercing scream from him. My shaking hands quickly covered my ears and I had to turn away from it all. The trap door burst open, a furious Raven dashing in.

“Finn almost died, again! You are taking too long!” she shouted.

“He’s still not saying anything.” Bellamy snapped.

“That’s because you’re not trying hard enough.”

Octavia thrashed around again.“This isn’t going to work! Stop hurting him!”

Raven grabbed two exposed cables, pushing them together to cause a spark. The grounder’s eyes widened, he must have never seen anything like it. She smirked, knowing it scared him.

“This scares you, huh? Big, scary grounder doesn’t like a bit of electricity. Now, you’re going to tell me which one is the antidote. My boyfriend is dying down there.” her voice was hushed though we could still hear her.

“Bellamy,” I ran up to him, gripping his arms,“this is inhumane. I hate the grounders as much as the next person but we can’t do this.”

“It’s the only way.”

I buried myself into Bellamy’s chest as Raven electrocuted the grounder, loud screams following.

“I can’t stay here any longer!” I ran to the ladder, needing to escape.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Everyone had asked me what was going on with the grounder but I answered no one. The night seemed so long and I prayed to whoever was out there that I could get out of this dropship soon. As the night wore on, people started to settle down to sleep. It would be uncomfortable, especially being so close together, no one was going to complain though. They were tired of the shouting and screaming coming from the level above and below them, sandwiched between the drama. I too fell asleep, upset that Bellamy hadn’t even come to check on me.

When morning arrived we risked venturing out. The storm had kept us awake most of the night, more dents being made from flying debris. Luckily for us it was safe in the morning but the camp was completely ruined. All of our hard work demolished in just one night. Seeing as Clarke or Bellamy were no where to be seen, I gave out the order for everyone to try to are if anything could be saved it fixed easily before starting to build it all again.

“(Y/N).” I heard Bellamy call my name before I could exit the dropship with everyone else.

Slowly turning around, I avoided eye contact.“Yes?”

“So you won’t even look at me?”

“What do you want?”

He sighed, grabbing my hands to pull me closer.“I didn’t want you to see any of that.”

“Neither did I.”

“Please understand I had to do it.”

He sort of had a point.

“It’s not just that though.”

“What do you mean?”

I finally looked up.“You weren’t yourself in there, you haven’t been yourself for a while now.”

He suddenly turned snappy.“Well I’m sorry that I’m trying to run this camp and not get anyone else killed.”

I ripped my hands out of his.“Bellamy, don’t take this out on me. I understand that there is a lot to take on but you could talk to me once in a while. Actually, that’s your problem, you won’t open up to me, you never have.”

“Because I don’t want you to see the real me!” he yelled.

I was shocked but silent for a few seconds.“W-what do you mean?”

He ran his hands through his hair, not wanting to look at me as he distanced himself.“I put on this tough guy act because I want to be strong for everyone. I went soft for my sister, letting her go to that party cause my mother to die. I can’t show a soft side, the others wouldn’t listen.”

“So don’t show the others. Just show me.”

“But I need to protect you.”

“You won’t be protecting me if I leave.”

“Leave?”

“For this to work, you need to communicate, especially now. We’ve been stranded on this planet, left to our own defenses; I would have thought that you would want me close to you.”

His head snapped towards me.“Of course I do. I just don’t want you to get hurt. My sister hates me, I couldn’t stand it if you left too.”

“Then show me you love me! And your sister doesn’t hate you, she just wants to explore and you’re stopping her; rightfully so actually.”

“I’m sorry.”

I sighed, feeling bad about it all.“I know you are, I am too. I just don’t want any of this to tear us apart. I love you so much and this is a lot to take in.”

“I know it is.”

I quickly kissed him.

“I’ll make it up to you. We’re going to make this place a home, for everyone.”

[bwblubw]

When All That Is Left Is To Fight, Fight Not Shall I. (Long Form Warning).

 There is a guard down on my emotions. Water is flowing through me so naturally when I lower my head into the tub. It enters my nose and ears. I hear the ringing, and I feel the brightness cast radiance on me even when I face the bottom of the filled tub. The slow waves are then water peacefully becoming my heart beating. I could not drain the heavy tears that mixed and made me pitifully sensitive to the lifelessness I represented. Yet, the water was so hot that I came alive, perplexed. I truly did not understand the meaning of this. Why did I rise? Certainly, this was an err in any legal sense, but, this was my bathroom, not a courtroom.

There was nothing there at the bottom of the tub. It was not the sea to swim in, but the coldness of my heart. When I rose, I felt the room tingle me as some foreign substance. I could barely move in my fright. When I came to surface, I did so violently, as if to shake a battleground. It was then that I was art for my hair created mystical patterns when it made splashes on the walls. I was a painter. In all directions, my eyes could have averted, but without ever having scanned the room, I had already known what was around me. It was unnecessary to move from this elegance. I knew all. I felt all.

The tightness that breaks the virgin purity and happiness came over me with such force that I covered my thighs. There will be no more sun for me. Not now, not after the clouds that are life rained down on me when I was already sinking in nothing but a tub. Alas, I was satisfied with this masochistic pleasure. I welcomed the torture. My thoughts were endlessly disturbing. I thought of crashing people with carts, no, with my own car. I never had a car, but I envisioned hitting old ladies and jock men with a red convertible. I felt terrible but nothing shamed these carnivorous thoughts. I crashed into the water and raised my head again with feverous behavior. Again, I painted the walls with my hair, then my hands. I pressed my hands against the titles and let the water come down through the indents with grace.

I could envision the coral reef as beautiful and bright as it could be, dying like me.

My tears came, these I could not suppress. For what was I doing in this misery? Why I had I not left? I could not figure the answer. That is to say, I had been in the tub for an entire hour. No, I had been living in water for an entire hour! I wasn’t human anymore. I had nothing human about me. I had done this to myself with the many chances given to get out. But, to end my life was too brave, to go outside I question fate and possibly die was overwhelming. I couldn’t do it. “I could never go outside anymore,” I said in a terrible squeak. “I cannot do it.” I pondered over my existence with my wrinkling fingers. I was changing, morphing into the water’s likeness. I was becoming water! To go outside would be against the right of fish, to defy mutiny of the fish. I would die, most certainly as I morphed more. Perhaps, I had schizophrenia because I was sure I started developing gills and seeing a lid come atop the room. I was caged in. I would not be able to breathe outside now. It took dignity, confidence, and assurance to die now by stepping out of the tub. Neither, I had. I was always too childish to make a choice. I suffered from this loss then, easily. Certainly, I could become one in this fish tank.

Who could ask for pleasure when it is none existent? Now, it is the time to sink below the ground. Now, it is time to feel the trickles of salty tears run down the face and blend with hot water. My skin is turning pink from the exhausting heat. I knew I was so thirsty as I thrashed around in the boiling water.  Now, is time to feel the pain boiling in the chest and really call for help. Whatever is said is only worse for the future, so why say anything anymore though? Perhaps, I am naturally a rebel. A doomed one that thinks nothing will matter. I do not matter, not even the courts believe my brother matters. We are worthless people! These wounds are far deeper than even the worst self-inflicted ones could be. These worlds of feeling what we know to be true. And, they wonder why he drinks his PTSD away? Why I talk so negatively when I am often rejected for everything I say?

No, I don’t mean that really. What is going on? I ask myself as I peek from the water making gentle bubbles. I just want someone to listen and hear my cry. I think I’m dying. Not physically, but emotionally. When beaten so hard that there is no fight…well how do I fight? I don’t know. I’m too afraid to ask for help. I’m too afraid to die either. There are no more options left. I am a fish! I cannot speak. I can only make bubbles.

There was no one to choose the ashes that fell. There was no one to lift the sorrow with kisses on the eyelids for them to shut. It was blank. Everything was blank.

The empty space, that is what it was. I thought if I reached out and believed with all my heart, I would make something of myself. Really make it!

It’s not funny, is it? I thought for a while. Not funny when I cannot find the trouble of lost stars. For what can the sun blaze down on the ones that have all these bars and concrete walls?

I’ve had enough. I’m trying hard to end it all but cannot seem to make that a reality now that I cannot drown in my fish tank. I cannot drown if I am a fish. Something wants me to believe I am fish. I don’t want to believe anything. I don’t want to be pushed to believe anything either, but I believe I am fish! I just want to sleep all day though.

“Where’s my towel? It’s over there in the corner by a little duck, isn’t it? Fetch it for me?” I demand, sticking my finger up like a commander. Who am I kidding, no one is there for even that bit of affection. I think I’m dying inside again at that thought. That’s my anxiety talking. That my soul as a creative spirit is dying and all that is coming out is smoke, soot, fog, the really grimy things.

With nothing left but wounds, there is no breakthrough. The only window is high above them for those with the courage to reach. Those them that are dying that is.

And, I am wasting away like them. In these four walls is where the skeleton that would have breached remains. O God, why me? Why torture me and make me believe that I had a chance? Why lie and tell me I could be anything when I couldn’t be anything more worthless? Of what could have been so blissful, all gone now, why to me?

The choking of the prideful roar of a creature with patterns that match the glorious facade of the Taj Mahal is most cruel. I’m a catfish patterned and given long whiskers, but I clean up after all the runts! I’m suffocating and no one listens. No one cares; the world is spinning round and round. I don’t like carnivals now for that reason. I don’t like that tears can be hidden and drowned in everyone’s waterfalls of emotions. Why are humans blessed with emotions? No, cursed is more becoming to say at this point. I cannot take it anymore! “I gotta get out of here!” I scream and jump out of the water. It is almost too hard to breath when I come to the surface as this new fish creature. My heart is racing out of my chest. How can I fight now when all that is left is to fight and fight not shall I? I am lost. I reach for the door but there is no doorknob. “I’m trapped!” I cry and bang at the door. “Help me!” I cry again, no one hears me. “I need out,” I start to tear and those tears become beds of water for the entire room. All I have done is increased my tank size. I cannot leave the tank! What is happening now, I wonder, “I need out of here! I am not a fish!”   

And, suddenly, I cannot move. I slump down by the door and look to the light above me. “Is it God,” I wonder for a while. Welcomed nonetheless for the moments we can hold hands with those we love. I have no one to hold. So, is this God I wonder over and over. “Is it my time to be taken?” Then, I cannot think. I was a fish all along, that is why I could not leave the tub. I left the water and now I die. They, the miserable dying people, love to see it, the fish, suffer outside of water. And, suffer it did poor creature. For no catfish is blessed with the claws of cats.

There is no fight when claws have been clipped.

- Fiore Blu

[eirlithad]

Calling on Song//Chapter Thirty

Rating: M (subject to change)

Relationship: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan

Summary: Kasde Rhiannon Trevelyan was promised to the Chantry. Fate found her at the Conclave. The Maker saw her through it. As the world falls down around her, she decides to take a stand. With a little determination, and a fair amount of snark, she just might make a difference.

// Previous // Next //

Chapter Thirty: Short Tempers, Long Threads

          If there had been even the smallest chance that bellyaching would get her out of a meeting, Kasde would have pounced on it. Unbecoming as it was, nothing filled her with more anxious dread that standing in a room full of people that hated her, shouting criticisms down her throat. Again. That alone made her uncomfortable, not to mention a certain someone’s cold, dead eyes still floated at the forefront of her memory.

           Groaning, she rubbed at her temples. She had been pacing the width of the Chantry hall for far longer than was strictly acceptable, trying to keep her frayed wits from snapping. Maker, she prayed, give me the serenity to accept what I cannot change. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

          Patience, however, was not one Kasde Trevelyan’s better traits.

          Almost immediately, Cassandra’s eyes shot to her, and she nearly fled right then. She had expected the Seeker’s wrath, but had clearly underestimated the frightening power of a pointed glare. To her merit, Cassandra neither moved nor spoke, likely awaiting an adequate explanation.

          The spymaster and ambassador tittered quietly to one another at the far end of the table, the latter casting nervous glances about the room. Whatever Josephine’s stance on the matter, she was evidently more concerned about bloodshed in the war room. Leliana, on the other hand, was nonplussed, lightly fingering a lose thread on the embroidery of her glove.

          Kasde swallowed the growing lump in her throat awkwardly. She began to turn – began to look – but jerked her chin forward and cleared her throat. Serenity, she reminded herself. Serenity, serenity, patience…

          “I’m sure you’ve all heard the news,” she started, slowly. “The rebel mages have agreed to an alliance, and to help us seal the Breach. Josephine?”

          “First Enchanter Fiona has been most grateful,” the Antivan replied. “Likely, she sees this arrangement as an opportunity to redeem the mages in a…rather public display.”

          Kasde snorted wryly. “She can have all the ulterior motives she likes, so long as she helps.”

          “And if her motivation is less than innocent?” Leliana pried. “What then?”

          “I will deal with it, when it comes to it.”

          Cassandra made a disgusted sound. “That is exactly the sort of narrow thinking that put us in this situation to begin with!” she shouted. “Your lack of foresight cost us any chance at an alliance with the Templars!”

          “My sort of thinking kept a Tevinter magister off our doorstep!” the Herald fired back. “Or had you forgotten that discussion? Foreign power, potential disaster, send the Herald… Am I ringing any bells?”

          The Seeker’s lip curled. “Regardless, your actions have put the Inquisition in a very trying position. We tipped our hand sending you to Redcliffe. Clearly, you were not ready.”

          “Now, that’s hardly polite.”

          Dorian leaned his shoulder casually against the doorframe, observing the argument with an expression of dry amusement. The smile, however was an obvious lie.

          Cullen’s voice boomed in the small room. “You,” he barked. “You have no business here. Get out.”

          “Is this the kind of treatment the Inquisition offers its mage allies?” Kasde snapped. “Helluva start, Commander.”

          He flushed. “He has failed to prove his loyalty either way!”

          “He proved it to me! In Redcliffe! Satisfied?”

          “No!”

          “Tough!” Kasde squared off with the tall Ferelden, who – despite his distinct height advantage – seemed to shrink under her gaze.

          Jospehine cleared her throat politely, as though scolding two children, rather than the Herald of Andraste and the Commander of the Inquisition. Silently, she made a note on her clipboard. “If we rescind the offer of an alliance,” she stated, “it makes the Inquisition appear incompetent at best, tyrannical at worst. We must make do with what we have.”

          Cullen ignored her and plowed ever forward. “What were you thinking, turning mages loose with no oversight? The Veil is torn open!”

          “They’re people, not farm animals, you ass!” Kasde thundered. “If you have a problem with my judgement, we can settle this in the training yard. Otherwise, keep your opinions to yourself.”

          “I wouldn’t be much of an advisor if I did that, now would I?” Cullen sneered.

          “You’re not an advisor!” she bellowed, shoving against his breastplate. “You’re a bigoted ex-Templar with a mage complex!”

          “Herald!”

          The last thread of her patience gave way, and Kasde launched herself at the Commander. Dorian, for all his preening and bravado, was quicker than a spooked nug. He caught the Herald about the waist, and her fist cut through empty air, just short of Cullen’s nose.

          “Now, now, solira,” he crooned. “We don’t want to hit the nice Commander now, do we?”

          “Yes, we do!” she growled. “We really do!” She thrashed in his tight grip, fingers clawing at exposed skin to break his hold.

          Dorian clapped a hand over her mouth, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. Smiling brightly at the others, he said, “Excuse us a moment,” and hauled the Herald bodily from the war room.

          His palm muffled her enraged cries, but did nothing to stop them. Furious grunts and high-pitched, angry squeals echoed through the main hall, which was blessedly empty. Dodging wild limbs, Dorian toed the door to the advisor’s quarters open, and deposited his load within.

          Once his hand left her mouth, Kasde’s ranting resumed in full. “—dog-humping bastard!” she roared. “Fereldens!” She kicked over a nearby stool with a disgusted shriek. “Uncultured, undereducated backwater…jackboot! Too busy waving his sword around like a Chasind lunatic to see what’s in front of him! I swear if I had one—”

          The mage let out a loud, defeated sigh. “One day, you’ll thank me for this.”

          His hand cracked across her cheek with enough force to daze her momentarily, effectively ending her verbal onslaught. Kasde blinked rapidly, as though waking from a deep, deep sleep.

          Dorian observed her curiously. “Better?”

          “Better,” she agreed, still somewhat stunned. “Thanks for that.” She dragged a hand across her face. “What am I doing, Dorian? How do I even fix this?”

          “I hear apologies are all the rage of late. You might try that,” he offered thoughtfully.

          “Apologize. Right. I can do that.” She let out a pitiful whimper. “I don’t think I can do that.”

          Chuckling quietly to himself, Dorian took her by the shoulders and angled her at the door. “Oh,” he said, “I think you can. The trick is to avoid eye contact. That way, no one can tell you’re embarrassed.”

          “You seem quite the expert.”

          “Quiet, you. Now, chin up, and off you go.”

          Kasde whined.

          “None of that. Shoo.”

          It proved agonizingly difficult to keep her eyes off the floor. Her noble birth did nothing to curb the shame in her belly. Nobles felt shame; they were merely experts at hiding it.

          The war room was silent. Kasde would have preferred shouting and ridicule. The only sound was that of creaking leather as Cullen wrung his hand about the hilt of his blade. She met his eyes briefly.

He was very, very angry.

          “I apologize for my temper,” she began, voice calm and diplomatic. “What I said to you, Cullen, was completely out of line, and I am deeply sorry for it.”

          He blinked, startled by her humility. “Apology accepted,” he grumbled.

          Lifting her head, the Herald continued on, “I will not, however, apologize for my decisions. None of you were there, and none of you know what happened inside the castle.” Josephine moved to ask, but she raised her hand for silence. “And I will not tell you. For me – for Dorian – the horrors witnessed are still too fresh. I’ll not have them paraded before you to soothe your sore feelings.”

          Leliana nodded. “That is fair.”

          “The situation at Redcliffe was already tenuous,” Kasde stated. “I could not have predicted that Alexius would throw me into the future – none of us could have. But we can use it to our advantage.” She turned to Josephine. “Send word to Empress Celene. In the future, the Elder One had her assassinated. Say whatever you have to, but make her listen.”

          “A vague warning from an upstart organ—”

          Kasde slapped her palm against the table. “Try!” she barked. “You’re giving up before even starting. How can you expect the people to have faith in us, when we don’t have it in ourselves?”

Josephine nodded primly. “It will be done.”

          “I will inform my scouts to keep their eyes and ears open,” Leliana purred, a bit too cheerfully. “If there is a plot to kill the Empress, I will know it.”

          “Cullen, how many Templars do we have effectively?”

          He scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. “Several dozen, by my last count, more than half of which were green recruits when they left the Order.”

          “Spread them out,” Kasde ordered. “I want all of our men trained and ready to combat demons.”

          “Demons?”

          She nodded. “The Elder Once swept across Thedas with an army of them. No one fights a demon quite like a Templar. You know them best; make it so.”

          “As you command.” With a bow, he moved to leave.

          “Not so fast,” Kasde said, stopping him with a hand on his chest. “I need you to work with the mages.”

          Cullen bristled visibly, a tight snarl tugging severely at his scarred lip. Varric’s words came back to her, that he hated mages. She had a moment to wonder – to doubt – but his reluctant nod stilled her.

          “Not you personally,” Kasde explained, “but they may have insight standard Templar training does not. Strengths, weaknesses, something we can exploit.”

          “Understood.”

          “My mark makes me resilient somehow, and allows me to close rifts. Our soldiers don’t have that luxury. I need to know they are prepared to hold until I can reach them.”

          A light chuckle rumbled in his chest, vibrating up her arm and toward completely unrelated areas. “As I said, it shall be done. I have your leave?”

          She started. “You do.”

          As he left, Kasde found her eyes following him. He was a baffling man, prone to quick anger and even quicker forgiveness. A man of conviction and loyalty, but also filled with fear and doubt. Some small thread in her was connected to him, and the further away he moved, the more it tugged at her to follow. She wondered, idly, if it had always been there, or if she, herself, had tied the knot during her time in the future. Was this feeling, so jarring and new, tainted by what she had seen? If not tainted, molded? More frighteningly, was it something she even wanted?

          She shook her head, certain she looked quite the fool. What kind of woman – what kind of leader – allowed herself such idle distractions?

          “Leliana, give me your reports on any recent rift activity,” she snapped. “I need to hit something.”

          The spymaster shook her head, tutting disapprovingly. “Not until a healer has seen to you.”

          Before the Herald could fabricate a believable excuse, Dorian was tugging at her shoulders, saying, “I take full responsibility. Healing’s not exactly an artform in Tevinter, but I know a thing or two. I’ll have your Herald back in fighting shape in no time.”

          Despite Josephine’s panicked sputtering – or, likely, in spite of it – they made for the door, Kasde mouthing a silent ‘thank you.’

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