#and to think i was going to write about goose hoarding kisses like a dragon hoards stuff fhdhdj

[pollyna]

In the grand scheme of things, Maverick knows he will be the first one to go. It's not that hard to imagine how it could happen. He even used to joke about different scenarios with Goose. But , in the grand scheme of things, what Maverick thought to be obvious is completely and utterly irrelevant. It's Monday morning, they don't have any more coffee at home and the doctor says it's throat cancer.

(5 times Mav falls from the sky and doesn't die+ 1 times Mav doesn't fall, but it feels like the sky is crumbling around him.)

[crossroadsfossil]

How about a Fae deal for Bnha? You decide what kind of deal was made!

Writing warmup:

“I want to be human.” The bird asked, hopping side to side with the energy only the newly fledged could have. She looked him over, stretching her form as she curled around him like a snake. Or a dragon with a new item in their hoard. 

“Human?” She repeated, folding her hands in front of her. She smiled at him, the bird tilting his head to the side to see her better, to get a look at her too-sharp teeth. There were many of them, from many types of beasts. She was very proud. He rearranged his wings, feathers of his neck and chest fluffing out as he took a hop backward. She laughed. This was going to be delightfully fun. 

“You’re in luck, little crow. I think we can help each other.” She cooed, leaning close and brushing the back of her hand over the feathers of his breast. She yelped when he pecked her. 

“Not a crow.” He warbled back. 

They had to wait until the day before or a day after a new moon. She chose the day before, as the lines between worlds were thinner in the dark places, and they would need to use the dark places to get what they wanted. She curled around the bird as she methodically plucked feathers from his back and wings. She admired them every time one came out, especially when one came out with blood beading on the edge of the quill. She so desperately wanted to lick it up, to taste the richness on her tongue but for the spell to work, she had to resist. It was terribly difficult and she hoped the myna understood the depth of her struggles. 

He asked when they first started if it was supposed to hurt. She asked if he had heard any fairy tales, for changing like this always hurt. He heard the tales from the humans, half-stolen from perches outside open windows and sitting on the porch rooftops while mothers and grandmothers spun tales. He didn’t sit on stoves to glean the stories nor did he lurk in haylofts or under threshold stones. She marveled at how different the houses of their lands dictated the aspects of storytelling. It certainly explained how he had known so little about the fey. Then again, she knew very little about the yokai and mononoke. She just knew that they could be pulled into her rules and she could use that. 

By the time the circle around them was completed, feather vanes overlapping and the myna half-plucked and her own fingers raw from use, the moon had finally crept over the line of trees, casting the thinnest light possible. Shadows grew out from the feathers, landing over them and blurring their shadows. She willed them to puddle together and meld, letting her magic twist their wishes into a spell. 

She wanted to be human too. She wanted to walk among them on real bones and with real fingernails and be able to bite and crunch and kiss and love. She wanted to feel the ground beneath two feet with soft human soles and brush hair out of her eyes. She wanted to dance and sing and talk like the mortals did. She wanted to love like the mortals did. She did not know what the myna bird wanted, but that didn’t matter. 

As the dim-moonlight began to wane, she started tearing at their shadows. She twisted here and wrenched there, molded a pair of mirrored bodies. She sculpted beautiful hands and delightful feet with soft soles, she made strong legs and strong arms, and smooth skin. She wove and knotted and as the moonlight faded fully away and they were left with the darkness that came between moonrise and dawn. They wouldn’t know fully until morning how well she had done, but she knew she was successful. They giggled against each other, fingers tangled together and delighting at the goose-flesh prickling their skin as the cool-night air whispered over their new smoothness. 

The sun rose slowly and so they were not surprised with what the dawning day brought them. A myna head blinked at the light, then down at his hands, flexing the digits in and out before bringing them to his face. Anger flashed across it and he glared at her. 

“I warned you about deals with the fey.” She sang at him, standing and clapping her hands together. Her access to magic was there, changed, but there and she immediately set to work pulling clothes from their shadows. Cute and loose for her, and a crisp, edgy outfit the myna had pointed out to her some days past. They dressed, discussing the next plans. There was so much they still had to do. They would have to work together to forge identities; old skills remained. She still had her shapeshifting and minor magics. He kept his mimicry of all forms and silver tongue. 

With daylight also brought an additional surprise. She barely had a shadow at all, and the myna? Well… he had twice the shadows a normal person usually had, and his second was horribly affectionate. 

“D’aw- we’re parents!” She cooed, nuzzling the creature, trying her best to repeat the chirps and growls it was making at her. It was a good thing humans had grown weird in the last two hundred years and they could explain all of this away with quirks.