#and when one inevitably dies the other has to drag around the corpse or find some way to finally separate or it will die as well

[foundationsofdecay]

Thinking about Sleep Token and TMBTE and mirrors and reflections and the loss of a sense of personal identity in general.

"I know what you want from me / you want someone to be / your reflection, your bitter deception, setting you free "

"My reflection just won't smile back at me like I know it should / and I would turn into a stranger in an instant if I could"

"Mirror talk, fake love"

"In reverse, you are all my symmetry / a parallel I would lay my life on"

The idea of being so entangled with one another in the first place that you've become one and the same, reflections of the other after so many years of giving and taking, and you can't even meaningfully separate and finally be set free without breaking you both and leaving pieces behind, but it's suddenly happened and now you must become someone new, for your own sake

[yostresswritinggirl]

Readers: We want Red Xiao x Reader x Green Xiao content PLEASE

Exiled: Well yes but actually no

+

Intermittent

Pairing -> Red/Green Xiao x Reader

Word Count -> 2088

Themes -> Okay, get this: Fluff, Angst, Suggestive scene (but not too bad). It's a trifecta.

Series -> #SojournerSpecials (masterlist)

Credit: @m370N4 for Header

Warnings -> Spoilers, violence, oh gawd there's so many violence

Your lover is going through a phase.

Perhaps you should have expected this much after the things that he's gone through, and the things that he is going through. The Archon War does not pick its victims. Saints and sinners, weak and strong, participants and bystanders; they all have one thing in common, they all can die any day now as the war rages on.

The thought of impending doom puts your heart into great unease as your arms tighten, lips softly pecking the red diamond on the Yaksha's forehead as he sighs in what you hope was relief.

The adepti are strong and aid in this war under the stead of Rex Lapis, but on the forefront of greater danger leads the Yakshas. The fateful battle between Osial and the Geo Archon ended not too long ago to put an end against the Lord's destructive ministrations, but Gods do not die, only slumber; his hatred in great intensities brought forth demonic plague that now haunts the blood bathed lands of Liyue. With his indispensable power and contractual obligation, Xiao became one of the five known Yakshas devoted to conquering those evil.

You were no beast in the battlefield but alongside Cloud Retainer and Ganyu you hold well in ensuring the well-being of mankind, but you only wish there was anything you can do to help the true warriors of the Harbour.

"How are you feeling?" You ran your hands through his chopped hair as his body leans against you, still tense. Xiao produces a strangled groan upon the question, a sound you still have yet to grow accustomed to.

It was a side effect even the glorified Archon did not expect. Yet it was too late to back down from the duties, to turn away from the chaos.

"Still standing, nothing I cannot handle," leaning away from your hold, his honey eyes then sets upon yours in gentle reassurance. Exposed fingers softly brushing against your cheekbone reminiscent of a flutter, so light it sends your heart into a faster pace. "And on your end? I have heard of the mortals establishing a new type of governance, how is it faring?"

Xiao hooks his fingers under your chin in full attention, and the pairing with his tantalizing smile sent your mind melting. "It's going-," your cleared your throat of the strangled pitch you produced and tried again, "Going great! Ganyu made it her duty to oversee it as the secretary."

"That is a fine arrangement." He hums inquisitively but you both know his attention was on somewhere else, what with the way his sharp orbs kept flickering to gaze on your lips. And with how his face was slowly, surely drawing near.

"Indeed, indeed." Breathed you as you closed your eyes, ready to capture his lips for a longing kiss, his other hand rests on your lower back to guide you to his lap—

When the shutter doors slammed open, the interruption causing you to yelp as Xiao embarrassingly hides your head to his exposed chest. That did NOT lessen the warmth of your cheeks.

"Conqueror of Demons! I- I'm sorry to interrupt-"

"Pervases, go on."

"The Yaksha of flames-" A rumbling roar of a scream had all three of you shoot your heads up in alert. And within seconds you had scrambled to your feet, rushing out of the shrine to investigate the commotion. The atmosphere had you choking from the scent of arson, black smoke erupting from the burning grass and natural flora around the area.

But in the middle of the ruins had you almost dispelling the contents of your stomach, your hand shooting up to cover your mouth at the the sight. Besides you Xiao dashes past in a vain attempt to quell the flames— the lick of fire that burned the Pyro Yaksha whole, who screams in both agony and anguish over the deep unknown, skin and clothes turning black and charred.

Xiao's swings barely made a dent to the wall of fire that prevents anyone from coming close to the Yaksha. "Please, leave me alone! Let me go! Stop it!" There was an illusionary sense to her words as she screams at the empty void in front and within her, piercing and aching. You called for her name, shouted, in hopes that she may snap out of it.

Dried up tears came upon her ruby gaze as it flickers over to yours. She heard you. Her lips quivered into those of familiarity and she opens her mouth- only to scream her loudest, one last painful cry, as her body drops as a smoking corpse.

Charred and pure black. Twitching and steaming, but not alive.

You didn't realize you were crying until you felt the comfort of Xiao's hand wiping at your cheek, his red fingerless gloves catching the dampness as you released your sobs.

You didn't notice the gradual decrease of red in his clothing until you looked at him one day without feeling a pang on your chest. When you looked at him with only curiousity upon him calling your name, he offered a smile as he cups your cheek; it didn't feel like the same traumatic time when the Yaksha died, your cheek leaning on his cerulean palm.

It wasn't red. Maybe that's what drove away your thoughts.

"It looks good on you," you mumbled as you watched his now black and green hair sway from the breeze.

"Thank you."

The clouds of Jueyun Karst brings peace to all that gazes on it. That may be the reason why it was Menogias' favorite place to sit by upon finishing her duties for the day, and at times she invites you over when you are done with your own; 'your presence soothes me, it's unfair that Xiao gets to keep you to himself, even if he is your lover!' you giggle at the verbatim the Hydro Yaksha always spouts everytime she drags you away from the other, with a cute yet teasing pout on her pristine face.

Those moments always has you laughing guiltily as you wave to Xiao, who only dons a gentle smile at you two's dynamic.

But she was beautiful and elegant despite her slaughtering hands, with a mind vivid and witty.

And so you find peace next to her, as both of your hands weave cloth into apparels to calm your minds. She had always been an avid fan of stitching and knitting even her own clothes, the only reason you knew how to weave the needle was because of her incessant teachings. Right now she knits a sleeve of beautiful patterns while you took on the duty to make a wooly scarf. Jueyun Karst is cold.

"How are you faring, dear? I have heard you and Xiao-" your hands paused at the implications, "-were witness to the passing of the Yaksha Indarias. Changes are glaring among that of the Conqueror of Demons, but you are a special case who is not under the influence of the karmic binds."

Her cold blue gaze seem to pierce your soul unintentionally and you couldn't bring yourself to look upon them.

You gulped and ceased on finishing the blanket to look at her own work. It was pretty. Tiring and fearful, not just for yourself, but for her too. And especially Xiao.

She holds you close in a soft embrace as you poured your honest confessions; it felt unfair for them to suffer like this, driven to self-destruction or to eternal agony. Menogias strokes your hair affectionately as she reassures your worries.

After all, they knew their oath would come to this.

And they still honored their duties to protect Liyue, for both the mortals and the realm of the Adepti.

"H-How about you?" You sniffled, looking up at her now gentle gaze. "Have you been feeling well? I don't want you to be destroyed by your own mind too."

The Yaksha's gracious smile parts after a pause to finally reply, when a glint from the side suddenly interrupted your peace-

azure pupils dilated upon recognition;

your body flies back upon her powerful push;

blood spurs from her right thigh as a jagged pillar of rock pierces through;

your back and hitting the cliff's compact ground as your vision swims.

No, no, no, no, you recognize that glow even if it was similar to another. Your body whimpers as you struggle to get up, rolling to your side to see the inevitable— the floating silhouette of the Geo Yaksha raises his arm where an orb glows over it, a single eye glows from his shadow...

The last you saw was the flash of neons and black before the world was engulfed by a blinding light.

The next thing you know you were desperately trying not to puke as you cradled the mawled and still bleeding corpse of Menogias, weakly patting her cheeks as your desperate attempts to wake her- to convince yourself that she was still alive. That the spears of stones impaled through numerous part of her body was nonexistent.

Behind you Xiao flicks his head to the side as his mask disperses. His jade spear dripping with blood as her gentle eyes hardened as it squeezes out the tears.

"(Y/N)," your wails turned into whimpers and hiccups, loose arms wrapping around your waist as Xiao pulls you away from the bloody mess. You didn't have the spirit to protest, your eyes still trained on the deceased Yaksha's face as you wept in your lover's arms.

A familiar censer that wasn't there before hangs by his waist.

And when the pain didn't make you weep anymore, a beautifully woven sleeve of blue and clouds adorn his left arm. Those who live after a millenia would not be aware of a reminiscent and deep scar hidden beneath it.

"I was not aware you were out of your domain," the moment he landed, a firm hand grasps your waist to keep you steady on the balcony's railings. Where you're currently perched on, precariously.

You were still unused to the purple cloth that flows behind him. But it matches the wind that comes with him, and the beautiful clashes of colors that makes up who he is now. He was not reminiscent of the red gentleness that he was 2000 years ago, but a teal shadow that lingers at the edges of your vision as a blur.

"I wanted to thank you for purging the malignant monsters that haunted my domain by the cavern," your gaze falls away from the moon as you swing your legs up and over, turning to face the Inn and him yet still remaining seated on the railing.

His eyes were hostile, not at all indicative of the lightness it had long ago. Chest covered in white, and the many memorabilias that dangle with him. Xiao's hands rests on the railing by your side as your fingertip traces the Vajra hanging by his neck, chunky to pointy; Pervases, the name leaves your lips in a whisper.

A guttural growl leaves him in intensity that had you reeling yet still worried for him. Behind his lidded eyes were pure hurt from the fear you conveyed, but he shook his head at all the thoughts that invades. Xiao lets loose a tired yet mocking laugh, "I just remembered something unpleasant."

Before he can turn back to gaze at your ethereal form, you've thrown your arms around his head to pull him against your chest. Your grip and uneven heartbeat alerted him of your will to not cry at his misfortune; such sympathy is wasted on him, yet he wraps his arms around you close in a gentleness that once again reflects his deepest trait.

"...your blessings, not your flaws."

At the sound of your familiar lyrics, as if with a mind of its own, the tension on his shoulders drop immediately into your warmth.

"You've got it all, you lost your mind in the sound;

There's so much more, you can reclaim your crown;

You're in control, rid of the monsters inside your head;

Put all your faults to bed."

Urged the strokes of your hand on his head, the voices quiet into almost nothingness. The Conqueror of Demons smiles again.

"You can be king again."

To the realm of the Adepti and those who knows even the slightest of him, it was nothing to debate about when it is claimed that you were the real reason that the golden-winged king, the Conqueror of Demons— that Xiao still exists today.

If you recognize the song 🤝 big sad

@moaa @dandelion-dreams @witchsungie @lehra @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @snackgod @rxsalinee @cala-ran @wind-wheel @lilydewi22 @yellowflowre @traveler-lumine @nonniechan @creation-magician @hanniejji @gojos-baby @just-some-stars @volleybloop @kookieyachi @xiaophilia @bunniesrorange @anormalguyreader @scarletroseneko

[starculler]

Fic List & Progress Tracker

An updated version of my previous WIP List Post. I'm always ready and willing to talk about anything on here :D

Last Updated: 4/10/2023

Series

(Dis)Placed:

A 7-part YJ/Avengers Crossover series currently undergoing a complete rewrite, featuring Dick Grayson and Clint Barton:

Losing It All Was Never So Easy

Robin is the latest pawn in the Light's newest game, and all it'll cost him is everything and everyone he's ever known and loved. >> 3028 words, first draft

It's A Leap of Faith (And A Little More)

Clint is ... So Tired, but there's a scared, traumatized, undead kid and no time to rest so he'll do what he does best and push on.

Grief Hangs Heavy In The Air

The anniversary of Dick's disappearance is coming up again, a suffocating and heavy affair for everyone left behind.

Dawn Breaks, Slowly But Surely, Over the Horizon

Life is odd when you're on the run, but Clint and Dick are making the most of it.

Building A Home Among the Ashes

They took Robin from him, but he's willing to put in the work to make it his own again.

The Bitter Taste In My Mouth

Bruce has lost and gained yet another son. This one... Somehow he'll keep this one safe. He can't lose anyone else.

One Foot In Front of the Other

What price is he willing to pay to get back everything he lost?

A New Cat In Town

A 2-part (and counting) AU where Selina takes in recently-orphaned Dick Grayson who goes on to become the thief known as Stray.

Shelter

Selina finds a 9-year-old orphan on the streets and while she'd never call herself a bleeding heart, she can't find it in herself to leave he little stray out here to die.

Debut

Word on the street is Catwoman's found herself a kitten

Crèchemaster Anakin

A 9-part series of multichap and oneshot fics about the version of events if Anakin had become a Crèche-minder instead

Lead Me Down Another Road

Anakin is 12 when his path to knighthood veers in a new, unexpected direction >> 3060 words, first draft

Untitled

There's a little Togruta that will not stop following Anakin around. The The crèche-minders and Obi-Wan find it funny and endearing. Anakin, however, has had it up to here with the snippy little youngling.

Hear the Drums of War

War is coming to the galaxy. It started with Geonosis, but no one know when (or how) it will end. >> 770 words, first draft

Untitled

Anakin watches initiates he's helped raise be sent off to war as fresh-faced Padawans and come back as corpses. Nobody's happy about it.

Untitled

It's been a year since Anakin officially stepped down from being Obi-Wan's Padawan, but Ahsoka still feels like she's stolen his place. Before she ships out to meet her new Master, she decides to approach the senior Padawan to clear the air.

The Taste of Victory is Bittersweet

Anakin is 22 when he finally becomes a Knight. He wishes his trials had been normal, rather than faced in battle.

Untitled

Anakin appreciates the congratulations and celebrations of his Knighting, but all he wants is to bury himself against a few of his favorite people and not think about the life his achievement cost.

End of An Era

The Jedi's fall is not a silent one. The Empire's rise is deafening.

Untitled

Lying to your friends is a reprehensible, if necessary, evil amidst the Empire's rise. Still, with Sabé, her former handmaidens, and a few loyal Senators at her side, Padmé will do what she must to help keep the few remaining Jedi safe.

ROTS AU

A 3-part series where Anakin falls, but his loved ones are enough to drag him back to the Light.

Part 1

Obi-Wan defies his orders to go to Utapau on a hunch and is there when Anakin and the 501st storm the Temple. This changes ... everything.

Part 2

Sidious gets his hands on Anakin. Tere was never going to be another ending to this story. Vader is inevitable whether his apprentice walks into the role willingly or not.

Part 3

Vader is the Emperor's right hand: a terrifying specter of a man clad head-to-toe in black. A nightmare whose very presence dims the light of whatever room he's in. Before him, all cower. Before him, the Emperor will fall.

Multichap & Oneshots

Batman:

On Your Knees

The shot rings in Dick’s ears, a piercing screech that muffles any sound Bruce might have made as he crumples to the ground. >> 2544 words, First Draft

Haunting (Of Wayne Manor)

Jason couldn’t care less that he’s been shut out of the family. He couldn’t care less about the chilling solitude or the gnawing pit in his stomach when he lingers too long on the why. And he certainly couldn’t care less about the Dick Grayson shaped specter chasing after him every hour of the day, bright and buoyant as he hadn’t been the night Jason’s gun put a bullet in his head.

Robin Reversal (Title TBD)

Dick is 9 and newly orphaned, but it’s not just Bruce and Alfred he has to get used to living with in the manor. It’s a lot less lonely of a start, but not everyone’s enthused about the manor’s newest guest.

Star Wars

Crèchemaster Vader

Crèchemaster Anakin alternate ending AU When the Jedi fall, The Sith Lord gets his hands on the potential apprentice long-denied him. Without the necessary sway over the young man, he settles for the gaggle of young hostages the Knight protected so fiercely that night. >> 1301 words, third draft

Events (Ongoing)

Flash Fiction Friday

12 Prompts Completed

DinCobb Zine Contribution (TBD)

Complete

Anidala Zine Contribution (TBD)

Complete

[motherwasapapafucker]

The rock came down and...

The primitive was injured, dying probably. Slowing them down almost certainly. The action was born of cold logic, they'd all be caught if they continued to support him. The Doctor grasped the yellowing boulder in his hand, focused on the injured man and resolved to do what had to be done.

 The rock came down and…

In the Dalek City on radiation blighted Skaro the Doctor slipped through the carnage. Brave, noble Thals dying around him; Susan and the two irritants doing their best to keep up even as that fool Chesterpot nattered on about helping where they could. There were more important matters to attend to, they needed the fluid-link. Once it was recovered he could turn his attentions to dealing with the Daleks. 

It wasn’t like the teacher’s words were reflected in action anyway, this tended to be the case with lofty speeches in the Doctor’s experience. Still, he’d been useful in radicalizing the Thals. A direct assault on the city was the perfect cover for recovering the device and if the planet was saved in the process? Well that would just be one less issue he had to deal with, wouldn’t it? 

The rock came down and…

He is Ramón Salamander, the world’s shopkeeper. Beloved in public, he has used his status to manipulate and corrupt the powers of the World Zone Authority to his own ends. Pursuing a ruthless, single minded conquest of the world he has murdered and schemed for decades. Or at least, that’s what they think. 

Ramón Salamander is dead. His corpse left rotting in a tunnel, the Doctor once again slipping into his life. Astrid Ferrier and her allies only wanted him stopped, the delicate balance of power restored, but there’s so much more he could do with Salamander’s influence. It would have been easy to run off, leave things as they were. Afforded a few more hours in the life of Ramón Salamander the Doctor changes the face of the world. 

The rock came down and…

On a cold, rain soaked moor he finalizes the last explosive in a chain that will collapse the cave system. The Brigadier pensively watching as he works. Dutiful even in discomfort, the man is grimly determined to see the matter through to the end. 

"Not getting cold feet are we Alistair?" The Doctor smiles grimly. 

"No, I...we both agree this is necessary it's just...is there really no other option Doctor? The peace treaty…" 

"In better circumstances perhaps," he sighs. "You saw what happened to the infected, the chaos at Waterloo. We simply cannot rely on their good will." He offered the detonator. Alister was a friend but he was a commanding officer above all else. It was only fitting he be the one to pull the trigger. "For the future," he prompted, guiding Alister's hands around the device. "For all mankind." 

When Liz finds out what they’ve done she can't look either of them in the eye. 

The rock came down and…

Skaro again. A younger Skaro, bursting with life and blighted as always. An irritating diversion foisted on him, the price paid for his continued freedom. The Daleks emerging from their conflict with the Thals eons ago and centuries in their own future to spread out across the stars with a single-minded drive. A toxic spill in the waters of eternity. His fault allegedly. 

The Daleks must die, that much is clear. The Doctor has no argument there, but the suggested method is crude, lacking in finesse. Allowing himself to be captured, he plots their downfall from the comfort of an interrogation cell. He is a stellar manipulator, words echoing down the centuries as he tells Davros exactly what he wants to hear. The empire dead a scant two-thousand years after its founding. Undone by advice that was only ever beneficial on the surface.

The rock came down and…

Castrovalva, the flirtation is at an end. The city collapsing around them, the Master’s attention darts between the Doctor and the body hanging in a network of something that only looks like web on the surface.

“You...you.” he stammers through a stolen voice. “A mercy after everything you’ve done to him.” the Doctor declares, gun shaking with the effort it takes to get the words out. They’re objectionable things, but useful in the right hands. It could easily become a crutch but faced with the scale of the Master’s latest scheme and his own weakened form there was no other option. He’s indulged his old friend too long, his presence in his life as much an affectation as dress capes and vintage cars. It has to end. 

The rock came down and…

Home, or near enough. He’s facing himself allegedly. His shadowy accuser bleating indignantly deep within the matrix, voluminous robes sagging with a faintly comical weight as he attempts to posture through the collapse of whatever grand ploy he had in mind with the trial. 

“Don’t you see!” his arms flap wildly. “Don’t you see where you’re taking us, the depths you’re dragging us into.” “You know if I really were you, or you really were me I’d never be this sore a loser” “Oh you conceited little shi...” the voice snarls, but by then he’s all but gone. Robes collapsing in the wake of his sudden, wholly involuntary abdication. 

The rock came down and…

The Doctor guides the girl from Iceworld out of the TARDIS, a firm hand on her shoulder ejecting her from this world back into her own. Perivale, nice enough if you like that sort of thing. She wanted to stay of course, especially after everything Mel had told her. He couldn’t blame her, he’d want to escape this sort of life as well, but there were too many coincidences. Something was pulling her strings, something familiar. The girl watches the box vanish and sighs, trudging back towards her old routines having caught a glimpse of something larger, more important than any prospect she can imagine. 

Nearly forty years previously a bonfire built on the scrubland beyond Maidens' Point draws sleek, rumbling bombers off-course. The village and nearby military base are all but destroyed in the ensuing inferno. A dismal little house in a damp little street in Perivale forty years later barely registering the sudden change to the people living within it. 

The rock came down and…

He’s in the DEEP, Vollmer’s corpse continuing to mutate even in death. Low, warbling klaxxon warning him that his own death is close if he doesn’t take action soon. He moves the body as best he can, slipping the still warm gun into the back of his trousers as he clambers into the escape pod. He can feel the TARDIS at the back of his mind, itching away at him even as the pod draws him further from the facility. He doesn’t want to abandon it, doesn’t want to be trapped on this planet but what choice does he have? The facility explodes, subsonic rumble shaking the escape pod violently as the detonation wave reaches him. 

The rock came down and… There is a girl, young, uncomprehending. He delivers the news personally, hates every second of it. Vollmer’s words hanging heavy as he does his best to etch out some sort of existence here. Trapped again.

Self-inflicted exile. He helps the family as best as he can; at a distance at first but inevitably he is drawn into their lives. Inevitably they are drawn into his, doing what he can to preserve Vollmer’s memory even as he hides his own role in the man’s death for the benefit of them all. He fights the good fight, indulges his adventurous spirit where he can. Continues to fight to preserve stability, to limit the chaos, the death. The ship lingers in his mind, a phantom lover kissing softly, calling out to him from somewhere dark and cold. In time the radiation will subside, in time he will return to her. 

The rock came down and… He is reborn, cold and confused. Throat dry and scratchy, struggling to remember how he got here, how he died. A woman is pointing a gun at him, something horrendous lurking over her shoulder. The two figures are faintly familiar.

The bullet hits before he can properly place them.

The rock came down and…

...his hand stopped, hovering just above the stricken man’s skull. Gently dropping the rock, the Doctor produced a handkerchief and applied it to the man’s forehead. This was no time to be rash, he could remove the obstacle, of course, but in doing so he would alienate his allies. 

He had few of them here, and those he did have were already cautious around him. The savages were bad enough, but ensuring the two teachers continued to support him was imperative. Killing the injured man would only cement their view of him, it would even risk driving Susan away. Better to show compassion, mercy, it was important to be canny about these things. 

The end would ultimately justify the means, he was sure of this.

[doctors-star]

u want prompts? i am going to make shit up. how about trying to outrun a horse or piggy back rides for cowboys

“Well,” Finn says cheerfully, patting Johnny’s chest with the flat of his hand as though to reward him for good behaviour. “This may just be our dumbest idea yet.”

“Then we ain’t doin’ half bad,” Johnny objects, shifting Finn’s weight on his back as he carefully picks his way through the grasslands. In the half-dark of the moon and stars, the prairie is as a great aquamarine ocean of shifting blue-green grass that brushes against Finn’s dangling ankles as Johnny walks, and it has the curious edge of unfamiliarity and unreality in the night. Finn ain’t that heavy, and he knows the lands around Danser well enough not to be worried about getting lost, but it’s more than just the occasion that has him pressing hard for home - there’s a distinct undefined weird at play tonight, and he’s keen for familiar sights and sounds to ground him. Bitchin’ at Finn goes some way towards that. “If me carryin’ you through the night is our worst, we got a good ways to fall.”

“Oh, sure, and we’re gonna,” Finn says, still irrepressibly bright. “But we are tryin’ to outrun a horse, so. Although, I guess you’re outrunning the horse - I’m competing with the rider.”

Johnny considers, not for the first time, the merits of dropping Finn, and finds them barely insufficiently compelling. “You’re being the horse next time,” he grunts.

“Never fear,” Finn says smugly and ruffles Johnny’s hair now that he’s too pinned down to wriggle angrily away - Johnny does toss his head crossly, but this just makes him stumble. “Next time we have to run for it on foot in the night on account of how everything’s gone wildly tits up and Ainsel’s accidentally made off with our horses, you can stick your foot in a gopher hole and I’ll carry ya home.”

“Too kind,” Johnny grumbles absently, pausing to make use of a small rise and reacquaint himself with his surroundings. The desert falls off to the south, the trees forming a sharp dark line to the north and east, and somewhere between ‘em, Danser. And, god willing, Ainsel and Tommy with the horses, Will with his bag of bandages, and Noel with some helpful words of severe disapproval. No matter what Johnny had said about having yet further to fall - this displayed a level of ineptitude Noel was not, exactly, going to love.

“We’ll have more cover in the trees,” Finn points out rather more seriously.

Johnny makes a face. “Too dark - ain’t no sense in us both busting our ankles and falling in the creek in the dark.”

Finn pauses, like he’s weighing the truth of that against how funny he reckons it’d be, but concedes the point. “Desert’s a bit exposed, though,” he says, sounding resigned.

“Yeah,” Johnny says slowly, and not without confusion, as he continues down the rise and on through the grass. He shifts Finn on his back again - all right, maybe Finn is kinda heavy, or at least, his weight is wearing on Johnny - and there’s a rustle in the grass on the tree-side of them. Johnny doesn’t figure it’s much they gotta worry about: coney maybe, or gopher come out to ogle the humans outta their natural habitat - but Finn flinches away from it like he reckons the gophers have all gone rabid, or something. “I figured we’d keep going in the prairie grass ‘til we hit town.”

Finn fidgets awkwardly and nearly sends them both arse over elbow until Johnny works a hand free and smacks him quickly on the thigh. “I just-” he begins awkwardly, giving off the impression that it is only a great deal of effort that is keeping him from fidgeting. “I don’t much wanna be on prairie lands after dark, y’know.”

Johnny does not know. “I don’t wanna be out here either,” he says, bewildered. “That’s why we’re heading on home.”

“Oh, sure,” Finn says, like he’d kinda forgotten that they were desperadoes on the run, “but - I don’t wanna be here, specifically. Desert’d be fine.”

“‘Cept how we’d be shot for morons without any cover,” Johnny points out, not very gently. He twists his head awkwardly and manages a good squint at Finn’s cheekbone and a crick in his neck. “What’s eatin’ you, huh? You ain’t never gone off the prairie before.”

“Hayfever?” Finn tries.

“So help me God, Finn, I’ll drop you.”

Finn clings a little tighter, ankle flinching away from the floor. “Awright, jeez. It’s just-” he sighs massively, breath gusting down Johnny’s neck like the touch of a ghost and making him shiver. “I don’t wanna come across the Coyote.”

Johnny shifts Finn’s weight again and ignores the twinge in his back, pressing on along his straight line across the grasses to the faint lights of the town. “Coyotes aren’t that dangerous. Will says-”

“Not coyotes,” Finn corrects, “the Coyote. He, uh, might not want me hanging around long after dark. Not my patch,” he says, as if that’s cleared everything up.

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “You’ve got a feud with a coyote that’s landed you a curfew?”

“No-o,” Finn says carefully. “It’s not that bad. But. We might be better off in the desert.”

“Did you hear me about the gettin’ shot thing?” Johnny snaps, a bit louder than he had meant to. And then he stumbles forward a few more steps, emerging into a bizarre clearing of grass which he definitely had not seen from the little hill, or even one step before landing in it - this perfect circle of mown-short grass. Sitting in the middle of it is a coyote.

It tilts its head on one side.

Finn offers a sharp, nervous grin. “Technically,” he says to the coyote, “I am not on the prairie. So.”

The coyote does not so much as blink.

Johnny reckons he might be in over his head more than a little. “Desert, you said,” he declares firmly and begins trekking south.

Finn does not relax. There is a rustling noise behind them - quite a lot like the sound of a coyote following them through the grass. Johnny attempts to pick up the pace.

“I am sorry about this,” Finn says conversationally. “But can you go any faster.”

“Nope,” Johnny puffs. “You’re fuckin’ heavy.” He manages a slight increase in speed, which the coyote matches easily, and nearly trips over his own feet for it. This had not been so difficult when they’d started out - Finn seems to be getting heavier by the second, like every inch of him is slowly turning to lead.

It reminds him of a warm day when he wasn’t quite grown, but wasn’t a boy either - there had been an accident, and his Uncle Jack had died, and he was tall enough to be one of the men carrying the coffin. If, and only if, he could contain his excitement at being considered one of the men, said his mother, for long enough to behave decently, jeez. So he’d wrangled himself into solemn calm and taken up his place behind his father, and lifted when told to - and he remembers thinking, dang, why’d we need six men? Uncle Jack isn’t heavy at all. Until they’d started walking, and then Johnny had been glad of the others - but still, not too bad. But they’d kept walking. And kept walking. And by the time they’d reached the church his arms were shaking and his breath came fast and he couldn’t put Uncle Jack down fast enough, the corpse’s limbs all slowly petrifying and dragging them all down, inexorably, inevitably, into the dust.

Finn is heavy as a dead body on his back.

It is suddenly less difficult to push those last yards and hurl them both over the boundary, into the dirt. Finn is thrown from his back and rolls neatly; instinctively he tries to stand, and crumples into a small ball of hissed curses as his ankle makes itself known. Johnny himself manages to control his stumble to his knees and scramble backwards away from the grassland. He watches a black nose press through the leaves, white-glowing eyes the only thing visible in the shadows; after a considering sniff, all melt away. There is no sound, but he no longer feels eyes on him - and then there is a barking call far to the north, and the pound of hoofbeats drumming through the earth under his palms heading for the disruption, and then nothing.

He turns, very politely and calmly, to Finn. “What the fuck was that?”

Finn waves a hand dismissively. “You don’t want to know. But he’ll probably hold ‘em off for a while, as long as it’s fun to do it - we should keep goin’, though.”

“No no no-” Johnny says firmly, holding up one hand. “This - weird shit has gone on long enough. What in the god damn hell just happened to us?”

Finn narrows his eyes and tilts his head to squint thoughtfully at Johnny. In the darkness, sprawled out at the foot of the desert with limbs in every direction and propped up on his elbows, he nonetheless looks strangely alert - as though he might at any moment leap onto his twisted ankle and outdance the devil to keep them both safe. For all that the desert leaves them exposed, Johnny feels safer here than he did in amongst the prairie grasses, the same way a man feels safe from wolves behind a stock fence, for all that wolves can jump. This space has been demarcated, somehow, and called Finn’s, and Johnny don’t reckon anything else is going to come in and mess with that.

“Alright,” Finn says eventually, still with that considering tilt. “This town ain’t what you think it is. There are more things in heaven and earth, Johnny McPherson, than you ever dreamed of. There’s magic in these hills, in them stars above, in you - like as not - and definitely in me. Ainsel pretty much isn’t anything else. Sold his soul to them devilish fae.” Finn spreads his palms to the night and Johnny feels it pressing close like a crowd of people, wrapping him in the tangible darkness of a shroud, the cloying earth of the grave. “But this night - in this place - is mine. And nothing out here can hold me,” he says, eyes fixed on Johnny and black-dark in the moonlight, “not on my lands. No-one can touch me; nothing can stop me in any way that matters. Why should I fear the grave, Jonathan Elmer McPherson, when I’ve known it already? I felt its touch and it could not keep me. I am master of Danser Town, and I am chained to it like a dog. A dead-and-alive dog, black as shadow an’ the world beyond the end, and there ain’t none as can move you on without my say so. You, Jonathan Elmer McPherson,” Finn says, with a grin as cold as hard iron and as pointedly canine as a wolf - it sets Johnny’s teeth on edge, makes him shiver under his skin, makes the soles of his feet tingle with the urge to run like he’s being stabbed by a hundred tiny needles but he can’t move can’t run can’t look away from Finn’s terrible black eyes and shining silvered teeth - “you are my little lamb.” Finn raises an eyebrow in amusement. “And I will look after you.”

The desert is horribly silent for a moment. Johnny’s toes dig into the dirt. A breeze strokes through the hair at the back of his neck, and he shivers

“Well, you ain’t gotta pull my leg,” Johnny grouses, indignant more than cross. “I was only askin’.”

Finn snorts inelegantly and throws his head back to howl with laughter at the moon. Johnny feels around for a pebble and bounces it neatly off Finn’s drawn-up knee.

“An’ how come you know my middle name, anyhow?” he says, pushing up onto his feet to glower down at Finn as he snorts and tries to get his breath back under his control. “You been writin’ to my momma, or what?”

Finn unfurls, still wheezing slightly, and Johnny hauls him up onto his good foot. “Aw, never you change,” he tells Johnny fondly. “Anyhow, someone’s gotta know what gets written on your headstone. Gee up.”

“Oughtta leave you here,” Johnny grumbles, bracing for Finn’s weight. The man ain’t quite so heavy now - or not yet - Johnny reckons maybe he’d just needed a rest. They ought to make Danser, no trouble. “I thought I was a lamb, not a horse.”

“Nah,” Finn says with confidence. “I’m the lamb. You can be Saint John the Baptist.”

“I ain’t got the patience.”

“You out-walked a horse with marvellous patience,” Finn points out cheerfully. “And, as Saint John, you get to dunk me in a river and claim it was for the good of my soul.”

“Oh.” Johnny tilts his head and shift’s Finn’s weight on his back as they set out once more for home. “Well, when you put it like that.”

[plumoh]

[FE3H] farewell, i love you

Rating: T

Word count: 2114

Summary: Felix keeps dying; Sylvain can't allow this to happen. / Time loop.

Note: AO3 link. Major character death, ambiguous ending; originally written for Sylvix week 2020. I love time loops and the tragedy of loving someone :’)

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I know.”

“Leaving you is the last thing I’d do. And if you’re the one who leaves, I’ll follow.”

The smile he sees, stretching his lips, isn’t a happy one; it’s flat, barely a twitch, not reaching his eyes and making his face glow with resignation.

“Of course you’d say that. You always do whatever you want.”

***

Sylvain dunks his entire head into the river and wishes he could wash away the bloodied memories from his mind as well.The freezing water does nothing to draw him out of his torpor—it keeps him stranded on a single thought he will never be able to discard, haunting him until the day he dies.

Two hands grab his shoulders and yank him backwards, forcing him to furiously blink to get the water out of his eyes. He shakes his head, sending more droplets all around him like he was a drowning dog.

“Damn it, Sylvain, stop that!” Felix growls.

Sylvain grins and flicks more water in Felix’s face. Felix punches his arm in retaliation.

“Ow, you’re no fun, Felix,” Sylvain whines.

“What do you think you were doing? Are you trying to freeze your brain?”

Felix is frowning, arms crossed over his chest, radiating tension and unease. He has been nothing but on edge for the past weeks. It’s surprising he’s still able to hold a conversation with anyone, and without spitting vitriol and fire, at that—Sylvain is well aware of how Felix can get at this stage of the war.

“Well, if I freeze my brain I can’t have dilemmas over what I want to eat for dinner, and I think it’s very sad,” Sylvain says, tone light. “Oh wait, that means I’ll be able to think with my dick.”

Felix keeps glaring at him. He’s more stubborn, this time. It wasn’t so difficult to make him drop a subject, before. Sylvain rubs his neck, unable to meet Felix’s eyes (what kind of irony is this?).

“We’re marching on Tailtean Plains tomorrow, so I was cooling off,” he admits.

The weather has been terrible for the past month; even for Faerghus, the Great Tree Moon is considered a rather pleasant moon, with rays of sunshine lasting longer than a few hours a day. But this year, rain has been pouring, slowing their advance through the mud and the fog, grating on everyone’s nerves and chipping at their patience. Felix has been snappish and frustrated, not concealing his desire of looking forward to reaching their destination, and put the war behind them.

Sylvain knows this won’t end well. They haven’t engaged in battle yet, but he knows that it’s doomed.

Felix stays quiet for a moment, then lets out a shaky exhale. “You need to focus.”

Sylvain bursts out laughing, startling Felix and those who are bathing next to him.

“Don’t worry, there’s no way I’ll lose focus,” he says. “I can’t lose focus, not now.”

Sylvain directs a smile at Felix; he doesn’t know what he looks like, but Felix is staring at him, eyes wide and shining like he’s facing a complex problem that he can’t solve by swinging his sword at it, like he’s had the solution swept from under his feet at the last moment, and he can’t bring himself to think of another one. Sylvain tries his best to avoid putting this kind of expression on Felix’s face, so he aims at a bigger grin, but Felix stands up abruptly, and retreats to camp.

“Don’t lose yourself.” Sylvain thinks he hears as he watches Felix’s back getting farther and farther away.

The Tailtean Plains are drowning in a heavy rain that makes every step a struggle. They can’t see farther than two meters ahead; the sound of the rain blending with those of the weapons clashing, the soldiers yelling and the beasts howling create a cacophony ringing in Sylvain’s ears wherever he goes. Fighting in these conditions is pulling at his thin willpower to stay sane.

He spurs on his horse and doesn’t look anyone in the eye when he brandishes the Lance of Ruin to kill the Kingdom soldiers, like he was born for it. He paints the ground in red and cuts a path through those people he was once supposed to fight alongside with—he vaguely remembers his orders but he’s stopped listening to orders a long time ago.

Felix is like death itself on the battlefield. He’s a whirlwind of ferocity and grace, striking true with every thrust and never leaving an enemy alive in his quest for victory. He always looks forward.

Sylvain has the tendency to look everywhere except forward. That doesn’t mean he’s able to be on time.

He sees the archer notching an arrow at Felix’s back. Even on horseback, Sylvain won’t be able to reach him fast enough to protect him. His voice won’t carry far enough, and even if it does, it will be too late.

“Felix—!”

Felix’s body goes down just as Sylvain sees, on the other side, Dimitri approaching. Felix’s blood flows in-between the cracks of the earth. The rain on the Tailtean Plains drowns their screams and their blood and their tears.

Sylvain barks out a laugh, slapping a gloved hand on his forehead and dragging it down his face. Dimitri’s face is pinched, his gaze traveling from Sylvain to Felix, and from Felix to Sylvain. Ever so slowly, he readies his lance.

“There’s no fucking point,” Sylvain says, and the world goes white.

***

“Didn’t we establish that if you’re not strong enough, we can’t die together?”

“But Felix, you’re the one who’s too strong.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? How can anyone be too fucking strong?”

“If you’re too strong, you leave me behind.”

***

This Felix is different. His words are still coated with poison and his swordsmanship is still impeccable, but he’s less subtle about his intentions. He might kiss Sylvain like he represents his entire world, he might whisper sweet nothings into his ear, and he might tell him he will protect him, Sylvain knows that someone else will always be his priority.

This Felix will drop his sword if he thinks this is the only solution he’s left with. He will run and cross the whole battlefield to fulfill his duty, to make sure he isn’t fighting in vain. This Felix is more transparent about his desire to change Faerghus, and to change Faerghus he needs to ensure that the right person sits on the throne.

Sylvain, in this universe, will always be second to Dimitri.

Gronder Field burns, swallowing corpses and ideals alike. Sylvain knew something would go wrong; he always knows when something will go wrong, but he never knows when something will go right. He watches as Felix moves towards Dimitri, like a flower drawn to its source of light, to fight alongside him.

This Felix forfeits his life and dies in Dimitri’s arms, because he believed in Dimitri.

Sylvain sinks on the ground, his forehead hitting the hard soil and smearing blood all over it, and he closes his mind.

***

“Don’t you think that sometimes we shouldn’t cling onto our principles so fiercely? It’s said that many people lose themselves to their ideals.”

“If they’re dumb enough to get killed because of stupid ideals, it’s their problem.”

“What if that ideal is growing old and dying in a bed with someone you love?”

“Is it Sylvain code for having sex?”

***

The first time Sylvain came face to face with Felix on the battlefield, on opposite sides of the war, he couldn’t bring himself to fight him.

Felix still died first.

***

Sylvain is letting his mouth devour Felix, pressing on his lips, on his jaw, going down on his collarbones then on his torso. He’s not stopping and he’s wishing this moment never ends, so that he will continue having Felix in his arms and not be forced to let him go. His hands are wandering and touching, caressing the skin of his back and of his thighs. The desperate and urgent nature of his moves don’t bleed into rough handling, though; Sylvain is careful and is treating Felix’s body like it is his personal sanctuary.

“Are you okay, Sylvain?”

Sylvain fears his words would transform into sobs if he speaks up. So he kisses Felix, relentlessly, absorbing everything from his scent to the curve of his mouth and the sounds his throat makes. He takes. He takes and takes, and stores it all into a corner of his mind, for him to assemble later as if he is piecing together the different parts of something that he can’t quite remember.

Felix responds to his kisses and touches, and stops asking questions. He’s become patient and less prone to lashing out—Sylvain knows this won’t help avoiding the inevitable threat looming over them.

Sylvain gets carried away by his worries and the comforting kindness he finds in Felix, and ends up being the weaker one, once again. He’s weak so he gets injured in his endeavor to protect Felix, because he’s not capable of achieving anything if it doesn’t involve his body, and Felix gets killed soon after when he’s protecting him.

***

“I...”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

“The future you envision... Am I included in it?”

“What kind of question is that? As if I could get rid of you.”

“It’s a promise, then? Living together, and dying together?”

“...It’s a promise.”

***

Felix follows Ingrid to join Claude’s class. Sylvain follows Felix.

Dimitri dies. No matter how tight Sylvain is holding Felix, no matter how pathetic he becomes as the days pass, he sees the way Felix is slipping away, drifting aimlessly without a purpose anchoring him to somewhere peaceful. Sylvain watches him slip between his fingers and disappear, going back on his word (he always goes back on his word, but he doesn’t remember, he never remembers), and leaves Sylvain behind.

All he can do is attach a memory of Felix on a sword he didn’t want.

***

When Felix gets deployed at Arianrhod, Sylvain begs Ingrid to switch place with him. She’s not pleased and neither is Dimitri, but they relent and tell him he has to be careful. Sylvain doesn’t answer them.

Their positions don’t allow them to fight side by side, so Sylvain spends their entire trip to the fortress telling Felix he loves him.

“You make it sound like we’re going to die.”

“I just felt the need to tell you I love you,” Sylvain says with a smile.

Felix snorts, but the curl of his lips is gentle and vulnerable, and he doesn’t resist when Sylvain pulls him into an all-consuming kiss. Sylvain feels himself breaking.

When he doesn’t see Felix or Rodrigue coming to back him up during the siege, Sylvain doesn’t bother ending the fight, exhaustion seeped into his bones, and he shatters the world.

***

“Do you think happiness is possible for people like us?”

“Everyone decides for themselves whether they can be happy or not.”

“Ah, so are you happy?”

“Maybe not now, but I’ll be eventually, probably. When the war ends.”

“Well then, we’d better survive so that you can find your happiness.”

“Yours, too. It’s a two-way street.”

***

Sylvain doesn’t believe in fate. He doesn’t believe in anything anymore. He’s a decaying soul inhabiting a body that won’t ever see the end of the war and the reconstruction of the world. Every fiber of his being has been pulled taut, and today is the day he snaps.

The Tailtean Plains wail and shriek. There is no energy left in Sylvain to continue this senseless battle with himself.

The glint in Felix’s eyes means he won’t back down. Good. Sylvain brandishes the Lance of Ruin and charges at Felix, summoning the power of his crest just as Felix makes his flash. The light of their crest is blinding and screeching. It’s wrong, so wrong, but Sylvain is tired.

Felix’s sword goes through the plates of his armor like ash, and Sylvain brings down his lance to pierce Felix’s flesh. Their gazes travel to look at each other, and Sylvain sees an entire world of possibilities in these molten eyes, but none of them will grant them what they are wishing for.

“It’s laughable, isn’t it...?”

Felix smiles weakly, and closes his eyes. Sylvain exhales slowly, finally feeling he isn’t racing against time anymore. It leaves him unsatisfied and empty, like he’s forgetting something essential, but he is free. His mind drifts elsewhere, and slams the door shut.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Felix wakes up in yet another body, a new promise brushing his lips; but these promises never amount to anything, because he’s forced to eventually break them.

[dothwrites]

Prompt for destiel where one of them saves the other from a calamity, au or canon/humans or human & angel, but they get severely hurt instead, and other gets to comfort them and help them heal, and they get to confess

---

It’s his fault. 

That’s all Dean can think as he kneels on the grimy floor, slick with Cas’ blood. His fault. 

He was the one who insisted on pressing forward with the hunt, who overrode Cas’ desires to wait. He should have listened. After all, it was just him and Cas, newly human and still a little fragile with it. He should have listened to Cas’ objections, should have listened to the little coil of unease in the pit of his stomach warning him that this was a bad idea, should have, should have, should have. 

It should have only been one demon. 

There had been more. 

The demons had fought with brutal efficiency; within a few seconds, he and Castiel were separated from each other. From far away, Dean had heard the struggles, the snap of electricity that signaled a demon’s death and the grunts from Cas that accompanied the sick, wet sounds of fists striking flesh. At least Cas was still fighting. Dean was less than useless, caught in a chokehold that slowly obstructed his airway. His joints screamed in pain while black and red crowded at the edge of his vision. 

“Dean Winchester.” His name was spoken in a sneer, contempt dripping from the lips of the leader of this little outfit. In a former life, her meatsuit must have been some kind of model--she was all lithe lines and sleek muscle and tall enough to look Dean in the eyes. Her eyes flashed black as her fingers gripped at his chin. Five bright pinpricks of pain blossomed across his cheeks as her nails dug in. Dean grunted, but wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of crying out. 

“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? The whole world, open for the taking, room enough for everyone to spread out now that you killed the man upstairs, and you still couldn’t let us be.” A thin trickle of blood dribbled down Dean’s chin as her nails broke skin. “Well, you should have kept your nose out of it.” 

She drew her hand back, silver glinting as she moved. All Dean saw was the wickedly sharp point of her angel blade. He remembered how it felt, skin and muscle splitting underneath the force of the blow, how easily the blade slid into his body. Looked like he was going to get to experience it again, except this time without the failsafe of the Mark to pull him out again. 

“Dean! Dean!” 

The blade started to plunge down and Dean closed his eyes. They hadn’t had enough time, him and Cas, and now he was leaving Cas to the rest of a mortal life, alone. I’m sorry, Dean thought, tensing in preparation for the inevitable blow. Cas, I’m so sorry...

The blow never hit. Instead, what hit was a dervish, a whirl of blows and snarls and yelps. Somewhere, in the mad scuffle, Dean recognized the shock of dark hair and the flash of Cas’ shirt. Seeing that gave him enough strength to break free of the hold. His own blade slipped into his hand and he plunged it into the gut of the demon who had been holding him. 

He’d had just enough time to feel triumphant before he heard the low grunt of pain. 

He’d known what it was, but he still turned around to confirm. His eyes landed on a nightmare. 

A demon stood tall, blade in hand. Crimson liquid dripped slowly off of the tip of the blade to splash upon the ground. Though it was impossible, Dean would swear that he heard the impact of every drop. A sick, twisted grin spread across the demon’s face as they looked down. 

Castiel staggered backward, hands clutching at his stomach. Already, a dark stain spread across his shirt. Horrified, Dean could only watch as Cas dropped down to one knee, before he finally collapsed to the ground. 

Dean’s still not sure the exact sequence of events. He knows that he charged forward, a pained shout erupting from his throat. He knows that there’s a dead demon. He knows that his fumbling fingers managed to find his phone and call Sam, leaving bloody smears on the screen. 

And he knows that Cas is dying. 

“You stupid son of a bitch, why the hell did you do that?” He won’t cry, not here and not now, but he wants to. Cas moans lowly in pained protest as Dean drags him into his lap. He ignores the sticky warmth leaking into his jeans from the ragged wound in Cas’ stomach the same that he ignores Cas’ eyes squinting shut in agony. He’ll deal with those later, push through those nightmares when Cas isn’t gasping for air right in front of him. Dean lays his hand on Cas’ neck, fingers pressing down on his pulse point. It’s thready and rabbit-fast. 

“You have to ask?” 

“Dammit Cas.” Dean bends down low over Cas’ body, as if he could shield him from the rest of the world. Too little, too late. He’d screwed up and now Cas was paying the price, like always. “You know that I’m not worth it. You know it.” 

“Dean.” Cas’ mouth moves like he wanted to say more, but all that comes out is a dribble of blood, leaking from the corner of his mouth. His hands grasp at Dean, but his grip is so weak that it slides off without ever making an impression. “Dean,” Cas manages to say, breathing in deep and forcing the single syllable of his name out with extreme effort. “I, I--”

“Don’t you say it,” Dean hisses, pressing down hard on Cas’ stomach. The sound of Cas’ agonized cry is enough to twist a knife in his heart, and the feel of warm blood gushing over his hand makes him sick to his stomach, but at least it forces Cas to stop talking. 

“You’re not fucking dying on me,” Dean almost snarls, voice wobbling towards the end. “You hear me, Castiel? Not yet.” 

Cas’ eyes close. He doesn’t respond.

---

Dean watches the skip and jump of the heart monitor and listens to the steady beats. Like a metronome, it counts the beats of Cas’ heart. Each rise and fall, each electronic beep soothes Dean’s rough edges, as it acts as a reminder. Cas is still here. He didn’t lose him. 

Twenty-two stitches. That’s what it had taken to save him. That and some very good surgeons, some impossible luck, and a series of driving maneuvers delivered by one Sam Winchester. Dean would doubt that his brother was capable of such driving, if he hadn’t been in the back seat with him for the full duration.

They’d cut the margin of error so thinly that it was translucent. Minutes, the doctors had said, with the vague whiff of suspicion that came from bringing in a stabbing victim. If traffic had been heavier or if Sam hadn’t been driving quite so fast and furious on the Fury Road...Well, Dean would have another corpse on his hands to burn. Again. 

Dean’s attention is caught by a low groan coming from the direction of the bed. Within seconds, he’s at Cas’ bedside so that he can see the exact moment that Cas’ eyes flutter open. 

He’d been so angry earlier. Furious, that once again, Castiel saw fit to throw himself to the wolves, all for Dean’s sake. He’d been ready to give Cas an earful when he finally woke up (once they discovered that he was going to wake up).  But seeing the hazy, pained look in Cas’ eyes vanish to be replaced with a slow, pleased smile erases all thoughts of rage from Dean’s brain. All it leaves him with is sweet, clear relief. 

“Hey sleeping beauty.” Dean cards his fingers through Cas’ hair, as tentatively as though Cas were made of porcelain. “How are you feeling?” 

Cas pauses to consider. “Numb,” he finally rasps. He glances to the side, where the IV stand drips down into various tubes connected to his body. “I assume that there’s a large amount of medication responsible for that?” 

“Yeah, you’re getting the good stuff,” Dean says. He can’t stop touching Cas’ hair. It’s a little gross--Other than a few quick sponge-baths from the nurses, Cas hasn’t bathed and his hair has taken the brunt of that. It’s a little greasy, but Dean couldn’t care less about that. Not when Cas smiles up at him through a grizzled beard. 

“Don’t be angry,” Castiel says. His fingers wrap weakly around Dean’s wrist. “I know that you’re probably furious with me.” 

“Damn right I am. How many times do I have to tell you, I ain’t worth--”

“Stop.” Cas squeezes his wrist. His grip is pathetic enough that it forces Dean into silence more than if Cas had managed his usual bone-bruising force. “Nothing you say will ever convince me that you’re not worth saving. Nothing,” Cas says, as severe as his voice will allow. He strokes over the soft skin of Dean’s wrist. His eyes look at something faraway only he can see. “I sometimes think that I was created in order to keep you safe. Please don’t deny me that.” 

And what can you say to that? 

Dean lifts Cas’ knuckles to his face, brushing a gentle kiss over them. “Way to make a guy feel guilty, asshole.” 

Cas smiles wanly. “Whatever it takes.” His voice turns thin and ragged around the edges. Dean knows that it’s not going to be long before he slips back into sleep. 

“But you have to try and stay around.” Dean takes in a deep breath. The words sit on his tongue, ready to taste freedom. “It’s not fair to make me go through this without you. I love you, dumbass, and if you go off and get yourself killed just because you were trying to save me then I’m going to be really pissed at you.” 

They haven’t said it. They’ve kissed, they’ve fucked, hell sometimes they’ve even done what Sam would probably call making love. They live together and they’ve died for the other. But they’ve never said the words. Dean had been convinced that he never would. Cas knew. That was enough for him. Everything else was window dressing. 

But there in the backseat, with Cas’ limp and bleeding body pressed against him, forced to listen to Cas’ pained wheezes, and his hand pressed against Cas’ stomach trying to keep Cas’ blood inside, Dean had been overcome by only thought. 

Cas is going to die and I never told him. 

The thought that Cas could die without knowing exactly how much he’s adored has kept Dean awake for several nights. 

Cas’ eyes are wide as his fingers clench reflexively around Dean’s wrist. “Dean,” he finally gets out. He blinks quickly, obviously fighting against impending sleep. “Dean, I--”

“Yeah. I know.” Dean brushes Cas’ hair off of his forehead and leans down to press a kiss against the clammy skin. “Go to sleep.”

“You’ll be here? When I wake up?” Cas’ voice is already slurred, sleep wrapping around him and tugging him deep into oblivion. 

Dean settles onto the edge of Cas’ bed, unwilling to release his hold on Cas until he absolutely has to. Cas murmurs happily, nonsense words that trail off into silence. 

Dean runs his finger down Cas’ cheek, bristly and unshaven. It’s warm to the touch. When he pulls away, Cas almost follows after him, squirming in his sleep until Dean takes his hand in his and laces their fingers together. Only then does Cas subside into peace. 

“Yeah Cas,” Dean says, despite the fact that Cas can’t appreciate his words. “Yeah, I’ll be here.

---

[sasorikigai]

( 🤞 ) It hadn't escaped his notice the sudden overwhelming mood that had over-taken the pyromancer's being, which seemed the norm from time to time. Not wanting him to be consumed by them, he had reached out and forced him to focus on him. " Just focus on me ... the here and now. " the wizard spoke barely above a whisper , " Stay strong, I know you're strong, Hanzo. We won't fail to get them justice, I swear you that. "

Send 🤞 to grasp my muses chin || @swordsxandxshadows || accepting!

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Darkness surrounds his milieu, and yet he finds himself at complete ease with the obsidian monolith of his erect form, vehemently resisting the overwhelming stench of fire and cinder, as the wake of Shirai Ryu’s extinction bore the burning wrath of glacier ice and sweeping wildfire. Even when he was fearless and never backed out from a kombat, Scorpion is far from being a foolish one to go on, be fulminated brilliantly with a rapid conflagration around him; becoming a meaningless figure in a meaningless world when there was greater evil perpetuating to let Shirai Ryu buried beneath the rubble of finality and inevitability. Death and destruction toppled over in paramount herculean weight, upon Scorpion’s unblinking trance and throes of trials and tribulations. Even he remained utterly lost beneath the labyrinth where his pain and all the Shirai Ryu’s excruciating fate had been written in stone, Scorpion knows he still has unrecognized, untapped power within him. Not only through his fate-granted Arcana, but through his embedded fluidity and grace of a ninja. 

Lately, Scorpion has been encumbered by the most monstrous nightmares; deathly massacre running rampant through the entire Shirai Ryu village, with his hands tied down by black, mist-damp roots, a hood pulled down over his head as he was dragged below the Earth, and it becoming something else entirely. Waking or asleep? Hanzo could not distinguish anything. Somewhere, he would forget the distant sea, his voice, the well of his life and the others that become his inseparable necessity. As vicious flurries of swords draw blood of the innocent, as bloodless sprawl of corpses curled as the slaughtered animal viscera and that is Scorpion’s torched fuel, that causes him to tremble in throes of violent paroxysm as the meditative stance of the ancient warrior breaks beneath the reflected ruination, And his love, is sustained by action, a pattern of deep devotion in things he does each and every waking moment. 

As Scorpion’s awareness sharpens towards the reality with the tangible touch, he lets the ultimate loss of regret - all the burial without witnesses of dreams and hopes - as he carries the herculean burden that embeds into the soulful depth of his pearlescent, scorched gaze. “I will always remain true to myself, the brave, committed and loving self, and purge all that disdain my soul’s signature remains.” The world and its permeated realities have left a round hole in his chest when his family and the entire Shirai Ryu massacred, and when Hanzo Hasashi died, the gaping hollowed hole began haunting him eternally, with a longing he cannot explain. “Such repeated return is wonted, haunting and flaunting its grief and remorse.” For his home is where his heart and soul reside, longing to thrive; shared in smiles and a sense of belonging, neither of which are fulfilled holistically in Scorpion’s undead life. ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || 

[carnistcervine]

Haunting AU

Hey everyone, it’s ya gurl Carnist with another AU that she came up with instead of sleeping.

*The Avatar is an ancient spirit amalgamate that is reborn into a new mortal body every time it's current one dies.

*However, since the attack on the Air Temples 100 years ago, no one has encountered any trace of the legendary being.

*It is with this knowledge that Ozai banishes his gravely injured son, sending him on a quest to find the Avatar.

*So, a freshly burned Zuko is send off with his uncle and a motley crew with a half-trained medic.

*At first Zuko's fever fueled nightmares are centered purely around the agni kai and his father burning his face away.

*However, it's not too long before the dreams evolve. The dark figure that looms over Zuko changes in shape, instead of burning him, it gently cups his chin.

*The figure is not Ozai, no, it looks barely anything like his father, it's hair is much too white, and the beard is too large.

*It is gentle with him, but he finds himself afraid anyway. Zuko eventually finds the strength to push away from the figure and run, but he finds that he's surrounded by familiar, yet unfamiliar figures.

*They loom around him, closing in on him, chanting his name.

*Thankfully when he wakes up, he's safely by his Uncle's side.

*By what is considered a miracle of Agni himself, Zuko recovers from his injury. The only reminder being the scar that now mars his face.

*Once he's well enough to stand, he demands to search the air temples.

*Iroh tries to get him to rest, as the old man knows Zuko will never find the Avatar, and needs this boy to take this time to rest and recover. But Zuko is too stubborn to listen. So Iroh assists the boy in getting around until he's well enough to walk on his own again.

*There is a heaviness in the temples that Zuko cannot ignore.

*He tries to anyway, leaving as soon as he's able to see the Avatar isn't around.

*He pushes himself to get back to firebending as soon as possible.

*Much to his dismay, he's developed pyrophobia. His terror over his own element drives him up a wall. Iroh is patient with him, but Zuko can't stand his lack of progress and nearly re-traumatizes himself trying to force himself to get over it.

*The Iron Slug roams from place to place as Zuko runs his crew(and himself) ragged tracking down every hint of the Avatar.

*He pours over any information on the Avatar or Air Nomads to find any info he use to locate the Avatar.

*He's absolutely obsessed determined.

*It's been three years, his crew have grown resentful of him, and his Uncle just keeps trying his best in the hopes that he can help his nephew.

*One fateful day, he spies a strange light while sailing through the south.

*"It must be the Avatar." He tells himself.

*His Uncle however, believes it to be nothing more than the southern lights and encourages him to get some rest, maybe drink some calming tea.

*Zuko persists and tracks the lights down to a small Water Tribe village.

*The village is nothing more than women and young children.

*Well, there are two slightly notable exceptions, a teenage boy and girl who hold the most vicious, venomous gaze towards Zuko.

*He simply brushes them off as he talks to the village's leader.

*The woman holds a firm glare at him, telling him that his people have already taken the last of the waterbenders, that their village has /nothing/ left.

*Zuko remarks that he's not interested in waterbenders, or warriors, or anything of the like. He's looking for the Avatar or information on the Avatar.

*The woman makes an odd expression, and tells him that the Avatar has been gone for a hundred years.

*Zuko knows that the woman is hiding something and threatens her at flamepoint, when suddenly his target comes out of hiding.

*A small boy, eyes burning with the purest light comes in from seemingly out of nowhere.

*The Avatar offers himself up if Zuko leaves the village alone.

*Zuko accepts these terms.

*He doesn't see the strange, pitying looks the villagers give him as he leaves.

*Zuko tells his men to lock up the Avatar, and they just look at each other, only opting to move when he yells at them to quit dawdling.

*Uncle looks very concerned and asks Zuko if he's feeling alright, Zuko says that his journey is finally over and he can finally go home, he's never been better.

*Iroh looks even more concerned at this, but Zuko brushes him off to go to his room.

*He's not surprised when he finds the Avatar sitting on his bed, head tilted like a curious puppy.

*Zuko's not really surprised that the Avatar has essentially been allowed to roam loose on his ship, his crew are a bunch of useless good-for-nothings and he has to do /everything/.

*The Avatar doesn't even so much as flinch as he approaches him, but the second he's on the stupid arrow head, he's all the way across the room.

*Like he teleported or something.

*Zuko pinches his nose. He should have known that catching and containing a spirit would be hard.

*The Avatar offers a friendly smile and calls himself Aang, he extends an offer of friendship to Zuko, but Zuko turns the spirit down.

*Aang frowns, glumly saying that he won't play along with Zuko's game if he doesn't wanna be friends.

*Zuko angrily yells that none of this is a game, when two new voices catch his attention.

*It's the Water Tribe teens from before.

*They're pretty pissed at him, ranting at him about how terrible he and his country are.

*Zuko yells and argues back until he's as blue in the face as their clothes.

*Eventually, he just yells at them to fuck off, and just like that, they're gone.

-Now for the other side of things-

*Iroh's already tired when Zuko goes on an impassioned rant about the southern lights. Like sure, they're very beautiful, but they've been down this road before.

*The Avatar is GONE. If they go and check out the lights, they won't find anything.

*They end up coming upon a tiny village, a remnant of the once might SWT. Iroh can barely bring himself to look at the place, seeing what his country has done to these innocent people hurts him deeply. But he needs to keep an eye on Zuko and make sure he doesn't get himself hurt.

*Iroh notes that the only people in the village are grown women and small children, and no one else.

*Iroh and the crew are very surprised at how easily Zuko agrees to leave the village.

*That surprise turns to muted horror when Zuko tells his crew to take the Avatar below deck.

*They want to ask Zuko exactly who he's referring to, as no one was taken aboard the ship, but Zuko is quick to get angry and yells at his crew to get on it.

*Not looking to get yelled at some more by the clearly agitated Zuko, the crew disappear below deck. They opt to gossip in the engine room like they usually do when Zuko is behaving strangely.

*Iroh tries to ask his nephew if he's feeling alright. He worries that some of their food might have gone bad or that the boy had caught something.

*Before Iroh can press further, or check for fever, Zuko disappears below deck to go to his room. He specifically requests that no one disturb him.

*Iroh hopes that Zuko is going to finally lie down and get some rest. He clearly needs it.

*The crew have grown used to tuning out Zuko's yelling, so they don't bat an eye at the shouting match coming from his quarters.

-Basically, Zuko is being haunted/possessed. The Avatar is pretty much a person that's possessed by a spirit amalgamate. Zuko is the Avatar.

*Aang is one of Zuko's past lives that's reaching out to him.

*Katara and Sokka are ghosts from the SWT that came to torment Zuko because they’re mad about being dead.

*Aang gets Katara and Sokka to slowly mellow out and chill a bit, and be a bit nicer to Zuko.

*Aang also convinces Zuko to go to all sorts of places in an effort to get him to have fun.

*He convinces him to visit Kyoshi, where Zuko is assaulted by the ghosts of the Kyoshi Warriors.

*When he inevitably gets captured by the locals after getting beaten and tied up by ghosts, Iroh has to come in and rescue his nephew.

*In fact, quite a few scenarios end up like this, where Aang somehow convinces Zuko to do something or go somewhere and Zuko ends up knee deep in ghost shenanigans, meanwhile Iroh's blood pressure could kill a komodorhino.

*Zuko has always been a bit off, but lately his strange behavior has taken a frightening turn. As no one else can see the ghosts(except Iroh, on few occasions) the crew go from near mutinous to deeply worried over Zuko and his mental state.

*Once they learn the truth of his scar, they want to go and kill Ozai themselves.

*A few times the Iroh Slug will dock at a port and a mysterious entity will be spotted. At first it's assumed to be a glow-eyed jiang-shi, only to be later identified as the lost Avatar.

*During these times, Zuko is overtaken by the Avatar Spirit and takes on one of his past live's appearances. Usually Aang's. He'll move in an unnatural manor, like something that isn't used to controlling a human body, or some limp, corpse being.

*It's not until Iroh realizes that he hears other distinct voices coming from Zuko's room, with no evidence of anyone coming in or out, that his nephew is being haunted.

*Slowly but surely, Aang drags Zuko northward so that they can "teach Katara waterbending". *wink wonk*

*It's only after they end up at the North Pole, fighting off waterbenders that Zuko goes into the Avatar state in front of his crew and they realize that /he's/ the Avatar.

*But the NWT also know that Zuko is the Avatar and they're like: 👀 so Zuko's crew is gonna have hell keeping custody of him.

*Especially when the ghosts keep trying to drag him away too.

*Speaking of ghosts, Yue is fairly ghost-like in appearance, with her pale brown skin, supernatural blue eyes, and snow white hair, but very decidedly physical and alive.

*But she is haunted/possessed by the Tui, and can empathize with Zuko on the being harassed by ghosts or possessing spirits.

*I'm still deciding on whether Toph should be a ghost or someone pretending to be a ghost.

*On the one hand: Ghost!Toph who kicks just as much ass and causes even more trouble than normal Toph, and haunted the shit out of the underground earthbending ring before she decided that harassing Zuko would be more fun. On the other: Little blind girl who dresses up as a spooky spirit and beats everyone's ass teaming up with a ex-prince who's possessed by an evergrowing, all powerful spirit amalgamation and constantly haunted by a pair of Water Tribe ghosts.

*It does eventually get back to Hakoda that the spirits of his children are haunting the Avatar and he just:  👁👄👁

[the-awkward-outlaw]

could you maybe write something about Arthur falling in love with a rival gang member? like a bit like romeo and juliet or something, you can choose the ending, thx :)

I tried to keep this one short but then I puked out like thirteen pages, so have fun, Anon! Thanks for sending this in! 

You’ve been running with the O’Driscolls for many years. Most of your life, really. Ever since you were a young teen. You’d been living with your parents and older sister in a cabin on the border of Ambarino and New Hanover. When you were thirteen, you had a habit of dressing like a boy even though you’re a girl. You just preferred the more comfortable, free moving clothing that boys wore and you kept your hair short to spite your mother. She’d been trying to push the woman’s lifestyle on you and you were just not having it. In order to rebel against her, you cut your hair so it was only a few inches long. 

Your father didn’t care how you looked or dressed, he thought you should do what felt right. He taught you how to hunt and shoot a gun when you were young, and he did this with your older sister as well. She didn’t take to it as well as you did as she didn’t like getting her hands dirty. She was too much like your mother and you were like your father. He was the one who bought you pants and button-down shirts to wear and a hat to shelter your eyes and head. 

It was the combination of your clothes, hair and that you always seemed to be covered in earth or dust from the road that saved your life. At the age of fourteen, the O’Driscolls came to your cabin one night. It was only a small group of them, but Colm O’Driscoll heard a rumor that your father was wealthy and just pretended to be poor for the sake of appearances. 

This was true as your grandfather had been a railway magnate until he’d been forced out of his business and decided on a simpler, less stressful life. He’d left his fortune to your father, who decided to hide his inheritance. Your family lived on a small ranch, which made it easy to pretend like you had just enough to get by. But somehow word had slipped out about your family’s money and Colm came to steal it. 

Colm and seven of his men barged their way into your cabin. They shot your father only seconds after breaking the door down, then your mother. Colm’s men grabbed your sister and dragged her off into the night. You never saw her again, though you still sometimes hear her screams when trying to sleep. Colm looked hard at you and thought, because of your appearance, that you were a boy. 

“You’re gonna be one of us, boy,” he said in his oddly soft voice. “You’re gonna be one of us or end up like your daddy.” 

You just nodded and went with them. You were forced to join the gang but you knew the consequences for trying to run. Of course, you also continued to dress like a boy. As you grew, you started growing your hair out to respect your mother in her death. Luckily plenty of Colm’s men had longer hair, so they suspected nothing. That changed when you started to grow older and parts of your body visibly changed. You had to wear a tight wrap around your chest, but there was nothing you could do about your wider hips. You managed to threaten a tailor to make a duster with padded shoulders to make them look bigger and hide your feminine figure. 

Years passed from when Colm destroyed your family and you stayed in his gang. You would have left when you were close to twenty, but you knew what would happen if you deserted. One boy made this mistake and Colm hunted him down and within days of him leaving, Colm killed him. The matter of his death was neither easy or quick, so you knew if you left, the same thing would happen to you. 

Of course it wasn’t easy being in Colm’s gang. Since you were smaller than most the others, you got picked on a lot and you got stuck with some of the more unpleasant tasks, like shoveling horse shit and cleaning up after the others. 

Shortly after you were incorporated into the gang, you’d heard of Dutch Van der Linde and his boys. You only knew his name and that he and Colm were rivals. Every once in a while, you’d hear about them interfering with one another’s work, but whenever you asked why Colm had such a fury towards Dutch, the others would just tell you to shut up. You thought for a long time that Colm detested this Dutch just because he was another gang leader and they happened to cross one another frequently. 

You’ve been in the gang more than ten years now. Ten long, miserable years. You want nothing more than to get out, but to do so means your inevitable death. You also know it can take mere seconds for Colm to figure out you’re a woman. He doesn’t like women in the gang, says they only slow the gang down. If and when he finds out, he’ll happily put a bullet in your head. 

Colm has never liked you much. You think the only reason he brought you into the gang was because you were a child. Maybe Colm has something against killing kids or maybe he just thought you might have potential. You don’t take his malcontent personally. He doesn’t like most the men he runs with, only keeps them around because they’re good with guns and sometimes manage to pull a score successfully. 

You’ve climbed up in his ranks though. You had no choice. In order to survive and to hide your gender, you learned quickly. Even though you knew how to shoot a pistol and a varmint rifle, you had to learn how to shoot a bigger gun. So you taught yourself. Colm’s boys taught you the craft of acting mean, targeting people and robbing them. You were good too. Perhaps it was just your feminine intuition on how to play people since you couldn’t physically fight too well because of your size, but you had a knack for tricking people and robbing them blind. Colm appreciated this and you moved up quickly. 

You hate him though. No matter what he does or how much money you get through him, you hate him. You’d like nothing more than to slit his throat while he sleeps. But you’re afraid of him too. The first time you’d ever seen him was putting a bullet in your father and then killing your mother. You know he had something to do with your sister and there’s little doubt in your mind he ravaged her and then killed her too. Only a monster could be capable of that, to orphan a child and then force them to work for the one who killed their family. 

You walk into the bar in Valentine, thirsty and sore. The past few days have been hell. For some dumb reason, Colm decided a couple weeks back to move the gang up to some fallen apart town near Colter. Then you all got trapped there during a blizzard. He’d been out with some of his boys when the blizzard hit. He came back with his right hand man, a fat man with a bushy beard named Hoskins. The others never returned, but Colm figured the idiots had gotten lost and died in the snow. 

He told you and some of the other higher ups that you were all up here to rob a train owned by Leviticus Cornwall. You’d heard the name of course. He was a big, but impossible target. Cornwall was known to go after any idiot who robbed him with a vengeance. Colm told you all to stay up here for another couple of days before the robbery. Then he sent one of the newer members, some fidgety nervous guy named Kieran, out to scout for the train. He left and told you and some of the others to go hunt some game to keep everyone fed. 

You split off from the others and managed to find a deer grazing out in the frozen wilderness, but when you came back to the hideout, it was littered with corpses. Only a few men were left standing. When Colm returned and found out the plans for the train robbery had been stolen, he lost it. He hit one of the other men right in the face. Only you seemed to notice that the kid, Kieran, hadn’t returned, but you said nothing. 

Colm set his hands on the back of a rickety chair and glared into a lamp. 

“There’s only one fella stupid enough and bold enough to steal a score from me. Goddamn Van der Linde. Well, I have a surprise for him. This is the last time he steals from me. I heard he and his bunch are wanted in Blackwater. Hoskins, you’ll help me find a way to get him.” 

You rarely saw Colm after that, but he moved the gang to Hanging Dog Ranch in Big Valley. He ordered you and the others to hunt for new scores and for the whereabouts of Dutch and his boys. 

You’ve been riding for days with hardly any sign of either gang. That’s why you’re in this shit hole of a town Valentine. Always muddy, always smelling of shit. You rap on the bar and order a beer. You’re in need of a bath, but you need to go back to camp tomorrow. You’ve been gone long enough and they might start to think you’ve deserted. Despite your hatred towards Colm, you do feel a strange sense of obligation towards him. Despite him having destroyed your family and livelihood, he taught you how to fight, how to rob and how to get away with it. Perhaps that’s just a lie you tell yourself. Maybe the only reason you’re loyal to him is because you’ve been part of his gang most your life. 

Just as you’re finishing your beer, the doors swing open and a man walks in. You only glance at him for a second and spot his leather hat and blue shirt. He stalks towards the barber’s seat and gets his hair and beard trimmed. After he’s done, he comes and leans on the bar not too far from you. He orders a beer as well. 

Something about him intrigues you. It’s rare for you to take an interest in men, and in this town he’s not out of style. Hell, he’s covered in dirt and his clothes are years old, from the looks of them. Still, he has this force and presence that drags your attention to him. You study him for a moment. 

He glances over at you and your eyes meet. He’s got stunning blue eyes. You blink and look away. You both ignore each other and buy a few more drinks. After your third, you decide that’s enough and start to head out. Just as you leave the bar, you collide with the man. 

“Sorry,” you say, forgetting in that split second to make your voice sound deep and gravelly. You’re usually so careful, but when you’re not around the gang, it’s harder to maintain. 

The man lowers his brow, clearly confused. “It’s alright, mi… well, can I call ya miss?” 

He looks you up and down, clearly confused. After all, your disguise is very convincing. 

“Sure,” you say. “Long as you don’t tell no one else.” 

He huffs a small laugh. “And who’d I tell that I met a young woman who looked just like a young, very small man?” 

You smile. “I guess no one.” 

He tips his hat. “You have a fine day, sir.” He gets on his horse and rides off. 

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

You’ve bumped into this man a few more times since that first meeting. You found a mutilated corpse under the railroad and he did too at pretty much the same time. Another day, you stumbled upon a strange rock carving near the Cumberland River and he showed up only seconds later. Another time, you were just heading back to Hanging Dog Ranch and you saw him in the big meadow skinning a pronghorn. You’ve never crossed paths with a stranger so often. 

You’re in Valentine again and just heading over to the train station. A couple months back, you bumped into some annoying feller who offered you money for bundles of cigarette cards, and you’ve finally found enough that they might be worth something. Hopefully this idiot wasn’t pulling your leg. Just as you’re about to reach the doors, they open and the man you’ve met a handful of times comes out. 

“Excuse me, sir,” he says, then stops. His eyes rake over you and he smiles. “Again? How many times you and I gonna cross paths?” 

You smile. “Don’t get the impression that I’m following you, that’s not what’s happening.” 

He smiles back. “Course not. Well, don’t let me keep ya.” 

You’ve never been a big believer in fate or destiny, but the fact that you’ve run into this man so often has got to be more than mere coincidence. As he starts walking over to his horse, you turn. 

“Sir, we keep bumping into each other. Now I don’t believe in divine interference when it comes to people and their lives, but… there’s gotta be a reason we keep running into each other. Let me buy you a beer.” 

He grins. “That’s awful kind o’ ya, miss. Guess I can grab a drink. Though not Smithfield’s. Bar owner ain’t too keen on me right now.” 

You agree and go to the smaller, quieter saloon in Valentine. You make good on your promise and buy him a drink. There, you both get to talking and introduce yourselves properly (though not entirely honestly). 

“So tell me,” Arthur says, setting his bottle down. “Why’s a girl like you dressin’ like a man? Judgin’ by how well you do it, my guess is you’ve done it a long time.” 

You sigh. “It’s…. It’s a long, boring story. Let’s just say it’s safer for me to dress like this than a woman. No offence, but men have a disgusting habit of targeting women because we’re the weaker sex.” 

He smiles a bit. “Yes we certainly have a habit of doin’ that. However, I know you’re leavin’ somethin’ out.” 

“How would you know?” 

“Because,” he says, “you’re way too vague and you’re the only woman I seen dressed like this. So what’s the real story?” 

You know you can’t tell him about Colm’s gang, but perhaps you can just tell him a vague bit of the truth. 

“I run with a bunch of boys who aren’t too keen on runnin’ with women. Guess they don’t really like us, I don’t know. In order to keep on runnin’ with ‘em, I dress like this. They buy it well enough.”

“Don’t seem like a particularly good bunch if they can’t handle you bein’ a lady. Why don’t you just leave?” 

“It’s… it’s complicated,” you say, hiding your eyes beneath your hat. “Let’s just say they ain’t keen on people abandoning them.” 

He doesn’t press further and then he thanks you for the drink. You kind of hope you don’t see him again, he already knows too much about you for your own safety. 

Just as you’re leaving Valentine, Colm and Hoskins bump into you. 

“There you are, you son of a bitch,” Colm snarls when he sees you. This is a usual greeting so you think nothing of it. “Saddle up, boy. We gotta go to Six Point.” 

“Why?” you say, mounting up on your horse. 

“I left Lowman and McCann up there with some of the others. They were supposed to stash the money from that stage robbery and meet us at Hangin’ Dog. I ain’t seen hide nor hair of ‘em. Little bastards better not be dead drunk.” 

You ride with the two to the cabin Colm sometimes uses as a hideout. You find the other men scattered around, dead but not drunk. Colm’s furious again and he kicks a bucket halfway across the site. He investigates the cabin and finds the money gone, as well as a double-barrelled shotgun he had mounted up on the chimney. 

“You, boy,” he points at you. “You stay here. Get this shit cleaned up, and stay here until I come for you in case the shits who did this come back.” 

“You want me here alone in case a possible group of expert gunman come back?” you say, not liking the odds. 

“Yeah, don’t be yella. Just do what you’re told. I’ll come get ya in a few days.” 

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

What Colm said would be a few days has turned into a few weeks. He’s had you stake out places like this before, so you know the drill: sniff out any possible leads from the closest town. While you’ve been trying to dig up clues, you bump into that Arthur Morgan time and time again. 

The first time you did since buying him a drink, he offered to buy you one. After that, whenever you meet, you both go for drinks and get to know one another a little better. It isn’t long before you start to feel a sense of friendship towards him. He’s just as vague on his lifestyle as you are, but you don’t push out of respect. Before long, Arthur asks you to meet him in places to go hunting. He seems to like the company. 

After one particularly long day, you part his company in Valentine and return to Six Point. You spend the next couple of days missing him. You miss him more than anyone else you’ve ever known and that’s when you’re hit with it: you like him. 

The next time you meet, you try to keep things cool between you and him, but you can’t help but stare at him. He is handsome after all. Plus you know that while his temper can be quick to flare up, he can be incredibly gentle and caring. There was one time you both stumbled into a cabin where the occupants had died due to a fire. The cabin was relatively intact and it looked like they’d died from the gas. Arthur picked up a pen and a children’s book. When you questioned him on this, he just smiled. 

“I have a couple of friends who mentioned they wanted a pen and a book like this.” 

“Ah, so if I was to ask you to fetch me somethin’, would you get it?” you ask before you could stop yourself.

“Of course. Anythin’ in mind?” 

You were almost surprised, but happy. “Now that you mention it, I wouldn’t mind a watch. I accidentally dropped mine and it broke a couple days back. Haven’t had the chance to replace it.” 

He smiled and promised to bring you one. The next time you saw him, he had it. When your fingers brushed his, he blushed. Was it possible he had something for you too?

From then on, your relationship with Arthur changed. There was just a sense of electricity between you both, like you were magnetized. You went from purposefully bumping your hand into his to touching his upper arms and shoulders to brushing his hair when he had his hat off. It wasn’t long after that when you had your first kiss. It had taken you completely by surprise.

You’d both been drinking heavily that night and you were doing everything to control yourself with him. You’d been more attracted to him than ever, but you weren’t sure if he liked you too. However, in your drunken phase, the candlelight hit him just right and you just leaned over and kissed him. He was taken by surprise, but when you started to pull away, he stopped you and crashed his lips to yours. 

After that night, the two of you met almost daily, even if it was just for five minutes. Arthur kissed you as often as he could. It didn’t take long before the two of you finally made love. You’d been out hunting and it rained hard, chilling you both to the bone. You were both forced to strip down to your undergarments as your clothes had been soaked. You nestled close to one another and one thing led to another and you ended up sleeping with him. Arthur was more than satisfactory in bed, he knew how to push buttons you weren’t even aware existed. He seemed pleased with your performance as well. 

After having sex with him, you start to feel guilty for hiding so much from him. You’ve made love to him several times now and you feel incredibly close to him. More than anyone else you’ve known. He makes you feel like you don’t have to hide, you can be yourself. Perhaps now is the time you open up about your past. 

You meet Arthur in the saloon, where you always arrange to meet. You’ve made up your mind when you walk up to him. He smiles when he sees you and wraps an arm around you. He kisses you softly, not caring who might be around to see. 

“Well, should we go off huntin’ or do you wanna hit the hotel first and have a little fun?” he asks with a small growl. 

You blush a bit. “I’d love to go have some fun, but… we need to talk first.” 

His smile fades, but he nods. You feel even more guilty, the poor man probably thinks you’re going to break up with him. You take his hand and lead him outside to your horses and mount up. You lead him away from the town where you won’t be overheard. 

You dismount and Arthur follows suit. He walks over but doesn’t touch you, clearly under the impression you’re going to end things. 

“Arthur I… I feel I owe you an explanation,” you say, looking at your feet. “I haven’t been honest with you. Most of the things I’ve said have been little less than lies.” 

He furrows his brow, clearly taken aback by this. You look up at him. 

“I don’t want to lie anymore, Arthur. I’m….” you prepare yourself for the worst. Most men you can think of would be upset at dating an outlaw. “I’m an outlaw. The boys I run with are a gang.” 

He sighs and smiles. “Jesus, darlin’! You nearly scared me to death!” 

You look at him in shock. “What?”

“Honey, I don’t care that you’re an outlaw. You wanna hear one of my secrets?” He grabs your hands and leans in. “I’m an outlaw too. I run with a gang. Men, women, even a kid. Not my kid, course, but he’s a good boy.” 

You smile up at him, your gut feeling considerably lighter. “Oh thank God. Can I ask which gang?” 

He scratches the back of his neck. “I run with Dutch Van der Linde.” 

Your heart skips a beat. “Van der Linde?” you say.

He nods. “Somethin’ wrong?” 

You swallow. “Possibly. Arthur, I… I run with the O’Driscolls.” 

He lowers his brow and his eyes widen. His hands let go of yours. “The O’Driscolls? You run with those assholes?” 

“Arthur, I can explain. It wasn’t really my decision and-” 

“Save it,” he growls. “Your gang has caused nothin’ but heartbreak and anger for my gang. Van der Linde is like a father to me and Colm killed his girl.” 

“And Van der Linde killed his brother!” you say. You’re not really sure why you’re getting defensive, but you know one thing: Arthur has a huge problem with your truth. 

“Word is Colm hated his brother more than anyone else,” Arthur snarls. “But he killed Dutch’s girl. They were gonna get married! And you run with those fools? I can’t even tell ya how much trouble you’re bunch has caused us?” 

You blink away some tears. “I thought… Arthur, I thought you wouldn’t care. Just because I run with them doesn’t mean I’m like them. I hate Colm more than you can know, but I can’t get out.” 

“No one’s forced to do nothin’. You can leave whenever you want. But I’m gonna tell ya somethin’, Y/N.” His eyes darken and he squares his jaw. “If you choose to stay with them, you and I can’t be together no more. I refuse to be associated with a goddamn O’Driscoll.” 

You lower your head and look down. You want nothing more than to leave, but if you do, Colm will butcher you. “I want nothing more than to run away from him, Arthur. But… he’ll kill me.” 

He sighs heavily. “So you’re gonna choose to be a coward. Well, forget about things with me then, Y/N. I refuse to waste my time on an O’Driscoll.” 

His words sting and he marches over to his horse, mounting up and leaves. Out of all the things that could have happened when you decided to come clean, this was not it. Your chest suddenly tightens painfully and your stomach just feels like it’s gone. You take a step over to the cliff’s edge and sit down. You’ve never despised your gang more. They’ve taken everything from you. Your family, your freedom, and now your lover. You can’t say you blame Arthur for leaving and you can understand his loyalty to his gang. He’s also right about you and you feel like a coward. 

After a bit, you get yourself up and ride off to Six Point. When you get there, you finally let yourself cry. How can you go on with your gang now? You’d been so happy with Arthur, happier than you’ve been in years, and now it’s gone. Life with your gang seems even darker than before. 

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

The next day, Colm comes, but he doesn’t want you to return to the gang’s hideout yet. 

“Turns out Van der Linde was behind the massacre here,” he says. “Only one way he could’ve known about this place. That coward Kieran must’ve been behind this. I also heard a rumor.” He glares at you. “One of my boys said he saw you talkin’ with a fella named Arthur Morgan. You know he’s one of Dutch’s boys, right?” 

You swallow. “Yes. I was merely telling him this is our turf and he should get lost.” 

“I see, though I doubt it. From what my boy was tellin’, you looked like you were friendly with him. More than friendly even. I can handle one of my men feelin’ attracted to other men, as long as they don’t act on it. But I will not accept anyone falling for a Van der Linde, you got me, boy?” 

You nod your head. “Yes, sir. I am not attracted to Morgan, but I understand.” 

“You always was a bad liar. Now I need to go somewhere for a few more days, but when I come back, you’re comin’ with me. Now if I hear you’re fraternizing with any more of Dutch’s boys, you ain’t gonna like what I do to ya.” 

With that, Colm stomps out of the cabin and rides off. You’re left shaken. “Goddamn it, Arthur,” you say quietly. “Why must you be… you?”

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

Two days later, you’re still at Six Point. You haven’t left the cabin since Colm threatened you. You’re sure he’s staked out some of his men in Valentine to keep an eye on you. As far as Arthur goes, you’ve heard and seen nothing. You miss him more than you care to admit, but you’ve already given up on ever seeing him again. He made it perfectly clear how he feels about you. 

You’re beginning to wonder if running and taking your chances would be worth staying with Colm. After all, it’s not like you get much money from his jobs and you’re no more safer staying than you are running. He’s turned around and shot his men several times over stupid things. You weren’t one of them out of mere chance. More than that though, you’re tired of hiding. Hiding who you are and what you look like. 

Just as you’re beginning to think of a plan of escape, where you’ll go and what you’ll do, a knock comes on the door of Six Point. It’s not Colm. He never knocks. Perhaps it’s just a weary traveller in need of shelter from the torrential rain outside. You readjust your high bun and put your hat back on, pulling the masculine disguise back together. 

When you open the door, you don’t find a traveller. Arthur’s standing on the porch, his hat in his hands. 

“What are you doing here?” you say quietly, trying to cover your emotions. Your voice is surprisingly steady. You fold your arms around yourself, waiting for his anger. 

“I came to apologize for the things I said, Y/N,” he says softly. “I know I made some assumptions without botherin’ to ask you if they’re true. I know you ain’t runnin’ with Colm out of affection. He’s the reason you gotta dress like a man, I’m guessing.” 

You nod and take your hat off. “Yes. If he ever finds out, I’m dead.” 

Arthur purses his lips a bit. “Well, darlin’, I… I’m wonderin’ if I can propose somethin’ to ya.” He waits for you to respond. When you don’t, he goes on. “I was thinkin’ you could abandon Colm, come with me into my gang. You’d be the safest there.” 

You look up at Arthur. “Does Dutch know? Does he know that I’m an O’Driscoll?” 

He sighs. “I told him about ya. He knows. He… weren’t too happy when I told him how I feel about ya. But I told him you’re little more than a prisoner with Colm. You’re only loyal out of fear.” 

You sigh and turn around to face the interior of the cabin. “I’m guessing it’s not enough to convince this Dutch to let me in. He’ll probably question my loyalty to him as well.” You turn and look at Arthur. “If I stay here, I’ll remain a prisoner. But if I go with you, I’ll still be a prisoner. Arthur, I’m trapped no matter what I do.” 

He walks in after you. “Not if I have anythin’ to say about it. It ain’t like I’m bringin’ ya in against your will. I got a lot of weight in my gang, Y/N. If I say you’re stayin’ and you’re alright, Dutch will listen to me. It’ll help a lot when he sees how useful you are to have around. Just help with the work and you’ll be accepted soon enough. I ain’t sayin’ it’ll be easy, but it might be the best chance you have.” 

He waits for you to respond. He’s right, of course. You know you’re already walking a thin line with Colm and it’s only going to get thinner. Arthur may very well be your salvation and, like he said, within the ranks of Colm’s greatest enemies is where you’ll be safest. 

“Do I have to keep on disguising myself?” you ask. 

Arthur smiles. “Absolutely not. We got plenty o’ women in camp and none of ‘em are ashamed of looking like women.” 

You smile and reach up, undoing your bun. It feels good to let your hair flow down just past your collarbones. You run a hand through it, aware you need a shower. You quickly change into a set of more feminine clothes, which you bought with Arthur a few weeks back. After washing your face, you look hardly recognizable from the man the O’Driscolls think you are. You’ll be able to slip past them easily enough.

“Okay, Mr. Morgan,” you say. “Take me to Van der Linde.” 

[areallyshittywriter]

Death Certificate

It was bright and cold. The sky wavered a dark mystic blue, with children of grinning stars shining brightly in its darkness. The wind was carrying newborn snow to the parents below, but never once ever howling in complaint. It had not a hint of human impurity, not even a breath in the sky. It was simply heavenly.

This only lasted of course, until a scruffy, thin, senile man scorched the soundless peace, with his ragged breaths and limping strides. Every wisp of his grumpy mumbling, creating a vivid cut in the air. Every inconsistent grunt felt like a lobotomy with a sharp ended stick. And every sight I took of him being a waste of a memory and a waste of time. He took his time, dragging himself from the misty abyss of the forest.

I could feel the length of my finger begin to tap mercilessly against the dark crusted parasol. Silver rusted flakes were cracking and falling against the snow, bringing another wave of heat to reverberate along my crooked bones.

“Would you please hurry up? It takes time for nature to clean up the contamination you’re polluting,” an evident coldness, leaked from my lips.

It took the goat a further 357 seconds before he finally reached a metre apart from me. Even then, I still took a step back from him; “How strange it is, that your filthy race has managed to charge straight through nature’s innocence, and still it took you 23 minutes to climb a measly slanted hill.” 

Only a gruff was his response. His gaze never reached my own; the only pleasing thing about this occasion.

“To think this would be added to an eternal list of failures, Eric Blair. Or would you prefer I call you George Orwell?” Malice and stillness were left in my words.

The man froze silent. Even his deeds and actions cannot be concealed to my omniscient species. It is vital to know everything when coming to a conclusive judgement. Actions will reveal intent. Intent creates judgement. Simple.

“Tell me, George; why did you keep your books to yourself for all these years? Surely, someone would’ve read them?” 

He took a deep breath and sighed, wiping the icy sweat from his rotting hands. 

His croak, weak against the wind, “they would never be goin’ anywhere. The books. They were only an out, from this godforsaken world.”

How, ironic. 

“Hmm, well let’s continue this discussion. The snow can only fall for so long before it touches the ground.” I began reading,

Death Certificate

Eric Arthur Blair

Date:  June 8th1984

This is to certify that the records in my office show that Mr Blair, 

Died at 7:30am on 8th Day of June 1984

That day was the official declaration of Stalin’s kingship over the world. No government had managed to prevent his dictatorship, nor any future ones. With the books kindled in fire, no one will ever achieve the ability of intellect, to fight his ruling. I could feel the second wave of heat roll over me as my tapping commenced again.

“That was a Friday. It seems you couldn’t even make it to the weekend.” There was no cover of the harshness in my voice. And still, the geezer ignored my comments and continued his sadistic stroll. I continued;

Gender: Male

Age:    47

Cause of Death: 

“Oh that'll be interesting” 

Injuries. This includes the carving and removal of the corpus unguis, cutting needles puncturing the retina and internal ear area and repeated fisted blows to the frontal lobe. Ultimately, created breakage in the cranium, acute deafness and blindness in the left eye, thus resulting in death.

There wasn’t an ounce of surprise within his eyes, let alone soul. How disappointing. Fortunately, though, I am aware of everything that occurred after the death. And I must say, it was absolutely barbarous; lucky me.

“My oh my, it seems we’ve forgotten a few very crucial and interesting details, my dear Eric.” 

The decaying goof discarded my comment and continued his striding destruction of baby snow. Even so, I’ve learnt how to pull the shakiness and tears from any pathetic human soul, so I continued my unsparing talk;

“The certificate has seemingly never stated what happened after your death! What a shame, since you never got to find out. Well, I guess I could always do a small favour and simply just add it in, can’t I?”

After death, the corpse was then taken to a guillotine to have the head sliced from the lower body. 

“Well, it stills seems quite connected to me”

The corpse was then dowsed in octane and was set ablaze with phosphorous sulphide. 

The corpse was burnt to a point of unrecognition along with a wide collection of books. 

Finally, I got him.

His treachery upon the land had seized, along with his mumbles and grunts. His burnt brown eyes were glazed in a fear so indescribably amazing, that I couldn’t help myself but grin.

There is a rule amongst my kind that we could never take pleasure in the sufferings of tyrannical beasts. However, knowing how fully capable this monster had in completely altering reality, just with a single stroke of a pen, was collapsing in the chains of fear. Well, I couldn’t help the laughter that overtook me. Especially when his lifeless grasp went to touch the very place his own kind, own friends tried to cut from him.

Although, he simply closed his eyes, took a deep breath and continued walking. As if it didn’t matter to him. Disturbing. Even after death, he can continue to accept his pitiful existence. Monotonous, I finished the last disastrous parts of the certificate. 

Occupation(s): 

Author, Novelist, Current Affairs Writer, Bookseller, Screenwriter, Literary Critic, Poet, Essayist

Marital Status: 

Married to Eileen O’Shaughnessy

Witness:

Joseph Stalin, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Kato Svanidze, Winston Smith, Emmanuel Goldstein, Keke Geladze,….  

“…basically, the entirety of Russia”.  

It was here where I finally halted. The certificate was finished, and his final moments were known to him. That is the job I own; to bring the knowledge of the final moments of the deceased to light, and to make a judgement.

Eric Blair is a special exception, however. There’s a peculiar complication of his intentions about his books. Although, a verbal recognition intent has never concerned me. Actions will always reveal intent.

Eric had turned quietly to meet my gaze.

His voice was cutting and yet somewhat like a cold croak, “I guess this is the end then”

Well, to a usual one of my species, he would be right. However, “No, it isn’t”.

 His eyes were sinking heavy and an abyss of mist swirled amongst the forest. My final torment would have to be quick.

“Mr Blair I’m afraid I have never informed you of what my species is”

Callous, he spoke, “I already know. Your somethin’ like death, or like a Grim Reaper”

“Yes, I guess in a sense. Except my species can do something yours still tries to grasp an understanding of. You see we reap the lives of not just your people, but people in other timelines as well.” 

The mist began to crawl and cling to edges of brown-skinned boots. Grasping and rising like the dead gripping to their mortality. Time was dwindling.

“I hope you understand well when I say that there is a reality where you actually published your books. And those very same books could’ve prevented the creation of your timeline.”

A living and breathing boil was breaking from its cavity within me. Glazing my cool bones in shakiness and heat, blistering an irritation that rivalled natures quakes. The gruelling fog began its pace, growing and falling in rhythmic tides, encircling its victim within. However, that never pulled away the attention of the monster from me. His eyes were locked and wet, awaiting his sentence.

“To put it simply,…”

Finally.

“You are the reason that civilisation crumbled. You kept your revolutionary words tucked away, like children. And just like that, you had allowed Stalin to rule a world, that’s unrulable. You caused the destruction of your timeline…”

The white cool mist began to mature into a black swirl of darkness, gradually picking up speed as enclosed the monster into a tight ring. His mudded wet eyes wandered in circles, as he inevitably realised his end was soon. Even so, the beastly Blair had grasped every drop of my bloodless confrontations;

“..All because you were simply too weak, too afraid to have any remote strength. You clung lonely to your books. You hid them from the world. You took knowledge from what could’ve saved the very few innocent people living. You are what all the demons in hell revere.”

The mist was cold and dark, raging like a wildfire around the decaying skin of Blair. Shapes of burnt cracked skinned hands clung to his arms and dragged him into the pulsating heart of darkness. Dragging him into the cold clutches of demons and villains below, where nature will never come to free him from the depths of his sins.

“And that is my judgement”.

So you’ve read my horrible writing. Congrats. It’s only going to get shitter from here. Please give some feedback tho

[holidaywishes]

The Light Beyond The Stars VI

part vi: could it be me?

  Summary of series: When Malcolm is young, he dreams of a place where he could run off to and leave his life behind. When he meets Cassandra, his perspective changes and his dreams only include her.

  Summary of Chapter: As people continue to fall to the sickness ravaging the town, Apollo and Cassandra realize that it is in fact a plague; Cassandra fears that her anger toward her father is the cause behind it.

  Warning: Talk of death/dead bodies (as was the case during plagues during the “dark ages” or Medieval Times that this series is taking place in, especially with the lower class) and angst.

  Author’s Note: I want to first say, I love that some people have been liking this story because I love writing it and with each new idea I put into a chapter, the more excited I get about continuing the story. Next, I want to say that I’m trying to keep things as historically accurate for the time period as possible while also still keeping things in a “magical realm” but if there is anything that doesn’t seem to match up with the era that the story is set in (Medieval times is what I’m basing it on but I guess more specifically The Dark Age and that is mostly because of the Black Death) feel free to message me to correct me or feel free to message me with anything because my asks are always open! Keep reading if you like, keep enjoying if you do and stay golden, loves! <3

  masterlist

  the other masterlist

xx

Cassandra’s P.O.V

  As you watched the town succumb to the illness, some much quicker than others, you realized you’d seen this before. Long ago, when your father had tried to heal a small town who was suffering from what seemed like just a common cold but soon became a plague that consumed the town and the village nearby.

  “Father?” you asked as he stood over an ailing patient

  “What Cassandra?” he snapped

  “This has happened before, hasn’t it?”

  “Not now, Cassie” he sighed

  “Your powers--” you started, only to be stopped by your father’s angry arm dragging you away

  “You do not talk about magic here!” he growled

  “You’ve done this before!” you challenged, “with those people in that village years ago. They were sick but you made them sicker!”

  “That’s not what is happening, Cassandra. That was complicated...”

  “How was it complicated?!”

  “CASSANDRA! These people need help!” he yelled, “they don’t need your hypotheses”

  “If this isn’t that.. then...” your mind ran rampant with thoughts you couldn’t control, forcing you to look at the people around you; coughing until their bodies were limp, some with sores around their mouths, and skin turning black as coal.

  “Cass?” your father said to you as you began to back away from him, “Cassandra, come here...” he urged but you had already turned on your heels and began to run away. As you continued to run far away from the hospital, tears streamed down your cheeks.

  “Could it be me?” you thought to yourself, “has my anger for my father really spread so quickly and infected so many?” You shook your head, continuing to run through the dense woods, trying to get rid of the awful thoughts in your head when suddenly you ran into someone, both of you grunting at the feeling of bodies crashing into each other

  “Cassie?” Malcolm’s voice cut through your fear, bringing a smile of relief to your face

  “Malcolm!” you sighed happily, quickly embracing him in a hug. When you pulled away, you were finally able to see him, to see that he had succumbed to the illness as well. Not him, you thought, please not him.

  “You look well, healthy,” he corrected, “how’s your family?”

  “Malcolm...” you replied, tilting your head in concern, “how long have you--”

  “It came on quickly,” he answered, not allowing you to finish your sentence, “After Charlotte passed, and Francis kicked me out -- banishing me to the barn, as if I didn’t spend most of my time there anyway --” he scoffed, “I was in the square when someone coughed near me. Three days later, I was sweating and vomiting all hours of the night. ” He stopped to cough heavily, the crackling in his throat concerned you and even brought a tear to your eye, “you should probably keep your distance...”

  “We need to get you to the hospital, to see my father. He will help you...” you pleaded

  “No,” he coughed again, “I can’t let you bring me there. I don’t want you getting sick.”

  “Let me help you, I’ll be fine. I promise. I’m not going to leave you here...” his body soon begun to fall to the ground and he agreed to your request, draping his arm over your shoulder so you could help carry him into town. You hadn’t realized quite how far into the woods you’d run until it took nearly an hour to get back to the infirmary and you noticed blood trickling from the corner of Malcolm’s mouth, “Malcolm?” you called softly to him to keep him awake

  “Cassandra?” you heard your father yell in concern when he saw you burst through the door with Malcolm. You pleaded to him with your eyes, hoping he wouldn’t hold his feelings for the boy against him, “bring him here” he gestured to an empty bed before glaring at you and you cowered in front of him, training your eyes back on Malcolm

  “Is he going to be okay?” you asked

  “You need to leave” your father insisted

  “What? No!” you challenged

  “He’s right, Cass,” Malcolm said, another cough escaping his throat and blood covering his lips, “you have to go. I’ll be fine. You got me here, that was all you needed to do. But, now, you have to go and keep yourself safe.”

  “I can’t just leave you here. Alone. Not like this.” You whimpered

  “You have to” Malcolm said weakly

  “Listen to him, Cassandra...” your father urged, forcing you to look up at him to find an angry stare looking back at you. You squeezed Malcolm’s hand once, as if to say ‘I’m sorry’ before running out of the infirmary; crashing your back against the wall and crying as you fell to the ground. The more you thought about how sick everyone was becoming, the more you were forced to look at the events when, suddenly, your father’s face flashed through your mind.

  “You forget that as easy as it is for us to heal, it is just as easy for us to… spread the illness ourselves.” His words whispered through your head and you could picture the way his face contorted into an expression of fear and worry. You knew that look, he’d given it to you when he told you to stay away from Malcolm. Like he knew that you’d disobey him and he just wanted to protect you. Like he knew that you were the cause of this plague ravaging the village, moving throughout the country, but he couldn’t help you. Even if he tried. There was nothing that you could do; your anger had turned to fear and it seemed to only make things worse as a woman collapsed in front of you and the blackness of her fingertips crept slowly up her hand. You found your way back to your home, the small cottage you and your father were staying in, and pleaded for the illness to stop

  “Or, please,” you begged, “let it take me instead”

  “It’s not that simple, Cass,” Anthea surprised you when she spoke as you hadn’t realized she was there, “you can’t just expect everyone to be cured if you die. Especially if you die from the same disease.”

  “Why not?” you cried

  “Because they will still have symptoms. Symptoms that others have died from, quickly and painfully. Those symptoms would not and could not just vanish without a trace. There are rules”

  “Rules?!” you shouted, angry tears brimming your eyes, “rules for this? For people dying?!”

  “FOR US!” Anthea shouted back, “We are Gods, little girl. Our rules keep order and balance to these mortals lives. They’re sick, that means they must, inevitably, die from their illness.”

  “No...” you whispered

  “Yes.” she stated harshly, stepping toward you while her gaze stayed on you, “your power was tied to your anger for your father and your feelings for this boy. Those feelings, that anger, led you to the darker side of your ability to heal.”

  “I’ve never healed anyone! How was I supposed to know how any of this worked?!” you yelled

  “You weren’t,” she said simply, causing your eyebrows to crease your forehead, “not yet anyway. You have much to learn and this boy was a distraction. One you didn’t need and one your father didn’t want for you.”

  “This isn’t Malcolm’s fault”

  “I suppose it’s Apollo’s?”

  “If he hadn’t--”

  “Hadn’t what?” she interrupted, “caught you falling in love with Malcolm? Looked into his future? Tried to keep you away from this mortal who you could never truly love? What? If he hadn’t have been a father to you, then people would not be dying?”

  “Stop” you whispered

  “You can’t fix this, Cassandra. Stop whining about it and accept this fate. His fate.”

  “STOP!” you yelled, the lights around the two of you flickering as your anger grew, “he cannot die. I won’t allow it.”

  “It’s too late, deary.” A voice snickered from behind you, sending a chill down your spine. Uncle Hades.

  “What?” you replied quietly, not turning around just yet, your eyes catching Anthea’s expression as she looked at the God of the Underworld for you

  “His fate has been met. Rather... it will be soon. He was too far gone, girl, when you got him to the hospital. Coughing blood, fever as high as fire, his lungs so full he couldn’t breathe. Don���t be sad, dear girl, saying goodbye to you was all he wanted.”

  “I didn’t say goodbye...” you whispered, slowly turning to finally face your Uncle, “he didn’t say goodbye either.” The realization hit you like a brick wall and you began your long journey back to the hospital only to find it bleak and barren when you returned. Inside, the smell of death soaked the air as bodies lay in beds and makeshift beds alike. You covered your nose as you tried to find Malcolm through the corpses strewn around but when you found him, you could see why Hades had come to taunt you. You dropped your arm from your mouth slowly so you could speak, trying your best not to react to the smell, “Malcolm?” you whispered but he didn’t respond; tears fell from your eyes. You sat next to him, holding his cold hand in yours and told him you were sorry, for not being there for him, for being the cause of his own sickness and the sickness that took his sister, for bringing this plague onto this once peaceful place. You knew his life could’ve been great, you’d seen it -- but not the same future that your father had seen. The future you saw showed a man with a family, a son and a wife he loved very much. You saw him smiling and making others smile; his life had meaning. You couldn’t deny that you had also seen what beheld him if he took a darker path but that wasn’t the Malcolm that you knew. “You have to live, Malcolm...” you whispered once more, leaning closer to the boys ear. You couldn’t let him die and fade away into nothingness, where no one would remember him, it wouldn’t be right. When you laid your head on his chest, you felt a faint rising of his chest - shallow but there, - and listened for his heartbeat. He’s alive, you thought to yourself, it took you only a second to think of the actions you could take, not considering any consequences that would come. But he was on the brink of death, his thread so soon to be cut and his fate to be met, that you could not waste any more time. You laid a gentle kiss to his lips, lingering long enough for life to fill his lungs once more, and waited for him to open his eyes and see you again, “I love you, too...” you finally spoke the words you weren’t able to say weeks prior and hoped he’d heard it

  “Cassandra...” your aunt’s ethereal voice spoke sweetly beside you, pulling your attention away from the boy in front of you

  “Aunt Aphrodite...” you whispered

  “This boy... he was fated to die”

  “He was still alive” you argued

  “But he was fated to die.” She countered gently and you knew that it must mean you had stepped on some kind of plan; an action your grandfather would not be happy with

  “I couldn’t let him die, Auntie...”

  “I understand,” she whispered, “but I am not like my father or siblings. They do not understand love nor second chances. Especially not as it pertains to mortals. You will have to explain this to them...”

  “They won’t hear me,” you scoffed, “if I stand in front of them, they’ll already have made up their minds.”

  “Maybe your grandfather will show you more kindness than you think”

  “Can I just wait here? For a moment longer?” you scrunched your eyebrows together as you pleaded

  “I’m afraid not, Cassandra.” She guided you out of the hospital and back to Olympus where you were met by the council, including your father, Apollo, and your grandfather, Zeus, while Aphrodite took her spot.

  “Explain yourself!” Hades was the first to shout

  “You know the rules!” Athena shouted next

  “Well what do you have to say for yourself?!” Ares growled from where he sat and you could swear you felt the ground shake

  “ENOUGH!” Zeus shouted, quieting them all in an instant, “we will let the girl speak and then, only if I request your opinion, will any of you speak.” You took a deep breath before you caught the disappointing stare of your father, “Child, what is the meaning of this action you have taken?” You looked at all of the Gods and Goddesses in front of you and tried to find something they’d understand in what you did but each one you looked at was fuming with rage and you knew you’d already lost. So, you looked back at Zeus and began your pitiful explanation

  “He still had life in him,” you started, “it was faint but it was still there. I would never have broken the rules of bringing back someone from Hades. I swear,” you pleaded, “He was on the brink of death but that means he was on the brink of life as well. He deserved to continue his life. The life I know he will lead.”

  “How do you know he will lead a meaningful life?” Zeus asked

  “I saw it. He is to have a family, a baby boy.”

  “Future’s can change. They can be altered.”

  “I know but I believe in Malcolm. I have always believed in him and I would’ve... it would’ve been cruel for me to let him die. Fated or not.”

  “Cassandra,” he spoke calmly and you dropped your gaze to your feet, “I can tell you love this boy. This mortal boy. While I respect your feelings, I don’t believe you were in the right frame of mind to make this decision”

  “Wha--”

  “Your feelings for the mortal clouded your ability to think about the repercussions of your action to save him from death.”

  “Grandfather, please” you begged

  “Your father told me he forbade you from seeing this boy and you disobeyed him, is this true?”

  “I--” you stammered, before agreeing reluctantly, “Yes.”

  “You were... intimate with him?” You couldn’t believe your ears but you also weren’t shocked at his brazen question that you were forced to answer

  “Yes” your eyes trained back onto the ground in shame

  “So saving his life, even on the brink of death, was a decision based on disobedience and lust.”

  “No!” you argued, shouting as pathetically as you could manage; not wanting to anger the council, “I saved him because it was the fair thing to do.”

  “Silence.” Zeus continued, standing up to give his sentence and you looked at your father who had now tensed his jaw as he awaited the fate of this boy as well, “I could take away this boys life that you recklessly gave back to him. Or I could punish the both of you”

  “Both--” you furrowed your brow

  “The boys family is gone. The little girl, Charlotte, succumbed to the illness in its infancy. The father, Francis, drank himself to death after his daughter died. Malcolm is alone. And he will stay that way until he finds the family you are so eager to have us believe he finds...”

  “I don’t understand?” you questioned

  “Since you disobeyed your father’s wish to not see the boy, he will not see you. You will no longer exist to him. If ever the two of you are in the same space, you will be nothing but air to him. Or just a face he doesn’t recognize. He will love you, for eternity, as he did before he died. But he will never see you again and, eventually, his love will turn bitter.”

  “No, no, no, wait. Let me say goodbye!” you yelled, running toward your grandfather

  “I can’t do that”

  “I saved him because that is the ability my father was given. Because it is in my nature and just because you don’t understand that, because Malcolm is mortal, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get closure.”

  “Closure?”

  “If I leave without saying goodbye and I cease to exist to him, I don’t know what path he will take. Losing everything so suddenly, especially a love you never thought you’d have, will ruin him. It will break him. And I can’t allow that.”

  “If you are the only thing that keeps him on a meaningful path, then how do you expect us to believe that he will end up where you saw him?” You thought about his question for a moment, considering all the answers but only one thing came to mind

  “Because there is good in him.” You could see Zeus contemplating your answer for a moment before eventually agreeing to your terms, yet, it all felt... wrong. Like someone was waiting to cut you off at your ankles before you could see Malcolm reach his potential. But you got to say goodbye. Like you’d asked, like you’d wished and that was nearly all you could hope for.

xx

Malcolm’s P.O.V

  You woke up surrounded by corpses. The scent of death filling your nostrils and the echo of stillness bouncing off the hospital walls. You swore you heard Cassandra’s voice while you were slowly dying but when you ran out to find her, she was nowhere to be seen. Her voice continued to echo in your ears, the words I love you, too, being among the most prominent and you needed to find her. To kiss her. To take this second chance you’d been given and run away to Neverland like you’d planned when you were both so innocent and full of dreams. But as you continued to search for her, you found no trace. It was as if she disappeared but you could still smell her and hear her. She must be here somewhere, you thought to yourself as you ran to the square that had now become a disposal site for decaying bodies as had the entire town. You waited at the steps of her home in hopes that she would return and embrace you tightly but, when she did come home, she appeared to have tears in her eyes while her father followed closely behind her.

  “Not now, boy” he spat at you, cutting Cassandra off so you wouldn’t get to her first

  “Why can’t I talk to her?” you asked, furrowing your brow as you tried to get a look at Cassandra

  “Do you ever listen when adults are speaking to you?” he chided, ��I said not now. She will find you when she is ready to talk.” You waited for that day as if it held some great prize and, to you, it did. Seeing the girl you loved was the only prized you’d ever want to win but it was beginning to feel painful. You’d started doing magic tricks in the square again, hoping that she’d find you there like she did that first night but, because of the Plague, there was never anyone around. Which meant she wouldn’t be either; Her dad said she’d find you when she was ready but you were beginning to think that she wouldn’t ever be ready.

  “Malcolm?” her voice finally lilted toward you, your back turned to her as you walked down the cobblestone streets of the town.

  “Cassandra!” you replied gleefully as you ran to her, “where have you been?” You wrapped your arms around her as tightly as you could, without hurting her of course, but felt that she wasn’t hugging you back, “is everything okay?”

  “I have to talk to you” she said, her eyes not rising from the ground

  “I have to talk to you, as well,” you started, “Cass, I was dead. But you brought me back!”

  “What?” her head popped up quickly and her eyes raced to find answers across your face

  “I heard your voice, when I was in the infirmary...” you said, furrowing your brow slightly at her reaction, “you said you loved me...”

  “You heard that?” she whispered, turning away from you before you could respond

  “Is it not true?”

  “No, of course it’s true. I do love you, Malcolm,” she sighed, “and you have no idea how happy I am that you’re alright”

  “Because of you” you smiled, turning her around so you could hold her hands, noticing her eyes brimming with tears

  “Things have gotten complicated...” she whimpered

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t stay here...”

  “Cassie?” you scoffed

  “We’re leaving,” she finally confessed, tearing her hand from yours, “that’s why I haven’t found you. I’ve been packing our house for the last few days.”

  “I don’t understand. No, you can’t j-j,” you stammered, “you can’t just leave”

  “I don’t have a choice. My father is allowing me to say goodbye to you as I fear I will never see you again”

  “Bu--”

  “I’m so sorry. I wish I did not have to leave you this way” she interrupted, a stream of tears making a perfect line down her cheek

  “Then don’t leave. Stay here, with me,” you begged but she shook her head, her cries turning heavy now, “you don’t have to go with him. Stay”

  “I can’t.” She heaved, her breathing harsh as she cried and tore herself away from you, “I have to go. He’s my father. My family”

  “But I love you and you love me, doesn’t that mean anything?” Her eyes squeezed shut and you finally felt her pain, this hurt her as much as it was hurting you

  “Of course it does but I don’t have a choice this time,” she whispered, taking a step toward you to lay a hand to your cheek, “I need you to do me a favour. This will be all I ask of you”

  “Anything.” You replied, leaning into her touch

  “Fall in love.” She said softly, fresh tears falling down her cheeks, “one day, you’ll forget about me and you’ll find someone who makes you feel whole again. It may seem difficult to imagine now but I know that you will. Don’t be afraid to fall in love again”

  “You’re the only one I’ll ever love” you countered

  “Don’t.” she whispered, her hand still resting on your cheek as tears continued to fall, “I know you will do wonderful things and you will live a long and happy life. So, please, for me. Fall in love, get married, have a child. Live this life you’ve been granted”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “You can,” she smiled, “I believe in you. I will always believe in you, Malcolm.”

  “Please, don’t go.” You attempted to plead once more

  “I wish I could stay. Promise me, Malcolm,” she repeated, “promise you will fall in love again. Promise me you will do wonderful things. That you’ll stop playing tricks but never lose that magic in you. Promise me you’ll be the person I know you are meant to be.”

  “Do you promise to always believe in me?”

  “Always.”

  “Then I will promise you to all that you ask of me.” You held her hands in yours as you agreed to her wishes, dropping your head to look at the ground in a sort of defeat you’d never quite felt before. Just as you felt a tear trickle down your cheek, she wrapped her arms around you and brought you close to her, whispering her final goodbye in your ear. 

  “Cassandra,” you heard her father call from the end of the street where the two of you stood, “it’s time to go.” She pulled away from the hug, only slightly, to lay a soft kiss on your lips. You could taste the salt from her tears but the sweetness on her lips overpowered it all. You wanted to keep her there, as she was in that moment with you. Keep that kiss so she’d never leave but her father calling her once more forced her to break the kiss

  “I love you, Malcolm.” She whispered, your hand instinctively holding on to hers as she walked away, your grasp loosening until she was just out of reach

  “I love you, too.” You whispered back but she was already gone.

[androgynousblackbox]

A day on the life of your favourite radio host

You woke up before your alarm did it’s job and then turned it off when it did. After putting on your shoes for home, stand up to open up the window and breath the smell of the beatiful flowers around the house. What a lovely morning! The sun was clear, there wasn’t any bird chirping and you could feel optimistic about today. But then again, when weren’t you a ball of sunshine with that bright smile on your face?

You could have greeted your neighborhood good morning, of course, but there was no one left to greet. The houses both at the sides of your own and in the front were empty, waiting for new owners, but it was so hard on the current economy and so funny for you in particular. How many people have sold their own children for one of those houses? Killed for them? Lied, stole? Oh, who knows! But it was entertaining to think about it as you dressed up.

You wear a white shirt you ironed yourself last night after cleaning it up; the closed vest matching the tone of your pants and your shoes, so pleasantly shiny and clean as if they were new. A wonderful way to start any day as you hummed your way down to the kitchen, preparing some toast and tea. You made a recount of your nocturnal activities and mental notes to keep track off for later. Thank goodness you had such a excelent memory, because the things you needed to remember were not things meant for writing on any common language. After cleaning up everything, you stepped outside and looked at your house with a inevitable sigh of nostalgia. It looked almost exactly the same as when your dear beloved mother was there, even the boarded up window of the attic. To think your own mother didn’t believe you when you said you threw the neighbor’s kid from there. It had been a perfectly honest accident. You just opened up for that small little boy to reach the wooden plane that had landed on your roof and then watched with amusement as he tried to balance out over the inclined surfice, only to finally slip out and meet his bitter end against the ground. You would have never harm a child, that is for sure. A man such as yourself might not have a lot of rules to live by, but that was certainly one of them. But watch them do reckless things without moving a finger to prevent it… well, that was another story, isn’t it? He couldn’t control gravity. And who was he to intervene betwen a boy and his new toy? You walked all the way to the radio station you were working, greeting everyone you knew and even some that didn't; they stared at you with such pathetic little admiration that was hard to resist to aknowledge it. Sat down on your chair, rolled up your sleeve  and waited for the signal indicating you were ready to talk. “Good day, my lovely listeners! Isn’t a espectular day today? Our way of living maybe be crushing under our feet and the hope of ever returning to what is normal seems dimmer with every second we are breathing the poison that is our life, but don’t fret, your good friend radio host will always be here for you! Let’s take a look to the news of the day, shall we?” You grabbed on a newspaper an assistant had handed to you and unfolded it, taking care for not to do it over the microphone. “My, it seems like the rate of suicides is rising once again! It seems that everyone’s salary is not the only thing that is dropping, ha! Oh, and it seems so many kids are currently on the streets right now as their parents sold them for their own sake. Better take care of your garbage, listeners, or you might find one of them looking for their lunch as you are listening and then you will have to clean up that mess! Mmm, I guess you could throw away a couple of scraps for the little lads but, between you and me, my friend, do you really want to? But you all know how children are, and unfortunely  their attempts can’t be avoided until are not able to keep looking anymore. It’s a sad, sad situation, indeedy, but that is why we must appreciate still the few delights we have left on this corrupted world, my friend. Like music! Let us hear some more about that lady that has everyone perking up their ears.” You flicked some buttons and put one one of the newest records on the station as you received a few calls on the meantime. Most of the calls were about people talking about their own sad situation. I had to sell the precious chinese porcelain of my grandmother, I lost all my money thanks to some thief, the bread is so expensive that my family is eating paper and blah blah blah Almost the exact same speech from yesterday, too boring to lose too much time on them, and instead concetrated on the people requesting for a new song or talking about their new misfortunes that your dear listeners haven’t heard of yet. Someone had to actually eat their pet dog and that got their entire family a food poisoning! Ha! Hilarious!  You can make up this, folks! You continued the show until midday and you had to say goodbye for now to give place to the next host. You didn’t have to come back until a couple of hours so you had a chance to grab lunch on some of the few restaurants that remained open. There a lady asked you if you were who she thought you were and you said yes, inviting her to take a seat in front of you and engage on a conversation. There was no wedding ring or the usual bags under the eyes of a mother stressing about what to feed her children, so when the route went about talking for a date, you played along to please her by inviting her to come over your house so you could both have a home meal. She blushed and pretended like it was a hard choice. You played as well, convincing her that it would be fine, just a perfectly decent, not at all attention worthy dinner between a pair of new friends, nothing else to see. After a little of back and forth, she finally promised to be there and stood up to continue with her chores. You made another mental note and kept enjoying your food, that you were almost sure it was actually a cat caught on an alley, but at least tasted good. Back to work, you put music, told a few easy jokes that your mother was so fond of and had a little talk with a carpenter who had his entire business burning just last week, a fire in which all his family died during their sleep. It was highly amusing to ask him about if he still dreamt about their faces so peacefully in the night, as if they were sleeping, but knowing they were never going to wake up again and he was, quite frankly, at least somewhat responsable.

Of course with enough jokes that the carpenter just sniffed a little bit and was able to contain from crying until the microphone was off. Then the night came and you had to say goodbye until tomorrow. And they better wished them luck, dear listeners, because he was going to have a date tonight with some lovely lady! You returned back home with your usual high spirit, humming the most popular song today, and prepared everything for the big event. When your new friend appeared, the dinner was already done and ready to be served. Some delicious deer meat that he bought from some local hunters that before were just doing it for the hobby, but now they practically only survived on their meat, whenever they could find it. Unfortunately the population of aceptable prey had diminished so much since so many other people had similar ideas, so it was getting quite hard out there. Well, at least people were being more creative now! Didn’t you noticed some “feline grace” on your meal today? Ha! You were kidding of course. Not really. Anyway, as you both finished, you took her hand to accompany you into the basement, where you had your record player and they could listen to some nice music more comfortable. Why do you have a record player on the basement, she aks? Why, it was initially just not to bother your sweet mother since she prefered a silent environment to read her books, but even after her death, it became just a habit to keep it there. Yes, it is smells terrible, you know, you assured her as you secure the grip on her wrist and closetd the door with a key only you had. It was dark, you know, and you were aware the smell was so intense that was going to make your darling guest to puke on her beautiful dress. What is that smell? Oh, nothing extraodinary, just the stench of rotting corpses you had yet to get rid of. Oh, what a enjoyable moment of silence was that. Did she thought you were joking? Did she assume you meant anything else but exactly what you said? On the darker stairs you could see her face changing, the beautiful and slow metamorphosis from a pleasant but confused smile to an actual realization that you were not joking, not at all, and your smile wasn’t because you were laughing at her incredulity but rather, at her whole life. By the time she turned her head to the door, you had already pulled her down stair and kicked her knees out so she would stumble the rest of the way and crash her head against the concret cube you had precisely for those situation. Ah, it was almost magical when their fall was just right and their lives ended with a clear and satisfying crack. The truly fun part is when they didn’t die right away, just knocked out for the time being, with some unimportant brain damage nobody cared about; then you had the chance to help them stay alive a little longer… and they'd regret the fall didn’t kill them. You were so excited when you discovered she was still breathing despite the blood and the weird shape her head had adquired. So you hummed happily as you dragged to the center of your hard learned symbols and grabbed some of the ritual knifes all over the wall. When you were done with her, you cut out some of her bodyparts and put it on a bag, but it didn’t seem heavy enough and added some other parts of the other guests you had the past week. They weren’t actually rotting, of course. You kinda exagerated it just for the shits and giggles, but you had to start getting rid of them again. They were so much useful outside on the garden, feeding the flowers that you were proud to keep alive, colorful and beautiful against an ugly reality. As usual, once the bag was sufficiently heavy enough, all that was left was put in a suitcase and carried to your car; it was to be buried under the same tree where the powers you were so devoted to would have their feast. They were so glotonous those rascals, but it was a small price to pay for all the things you were promised long ago. Even if the time you were going to receive those rewards wasn't exactly clear, and even if it was a tiny bit frustrating, you didn't mind. The show must go on, as they say! The job was entertaining per se and you wouldn’t have minded to continue doing it for as long as necesary. Besides, it’s not like you could actually do anything even if you did had a problem. Which you don’t, for sure, so who cares? When you came back on the morning, you were surprised to see some people coming and going the house on your left, not just as sometimes curious youngsters would do, but carrying stuff from one place to another and not minding seeing enter your home, a bright disposition on your face despite still needing a shower. New neighbors, finally! How long was it since you took out the last one? Not that long, that you could remember. Oh, you so hope they were fun people.  Or miserable ones, which was almost the same thing as far you were concerned. The last thing you needed in your neighborhood was boredom.

[secret-engima]

Hi! You know who I am and what I bring, so... Nox and Ardyn having serious arguements; what's do you reckon it would be like and how others think of it?

YOU. HOW DARE. (grumbles) fine. Lemme see how long it takes me to make everyone cry.

-There are very few things that Ardyn and Nox have serious arguments about. That doesn’t mean they don’t fight (they do, nigh constantly unless one or both need moral support instead) but the things that make them have serious fights are things they intentionally try to avoid. Those things can basically be boiled down to:

1. Nox not taking his health/self-preservation seriously

2. Ardyn not taking his health/self-preservation seriously

3. The Past (not just their personal past, but the past that lies between them as the Accursed and the Chosen King, the 114th of Somnus’s line and the Betrayed Healer King, and no matter how hard they try sometimes, after bad nights or hard days, it weighs them down).

-Both of them are aware of their own buttons and take pains to avoid them, which is why a serious, slow-burn argument literally never happens between them. If tension starts to slowly rise between them, one of them will notice before it gets too bad and call a time out for them both to cool off.

-No. When these two fight, really fight, it’s sudden and devastating. Like flash floods and lightning strikes. Little to no warning, sudden escalation that looking back on it either can fully explain. From the outside it’s a little more visible, the sudden tensing of shoulders, the way Ardyn’s teasing because suddenly layered in venom without him even seeming aware, the way Nox’s insults turn genuine and become pointed, stabbing into old wounds that normally he would never touch. For the two of them, there is no real memory of when or how their words escalate from the norm to trying to verbally rip each other apart.

-No matter what the topic is about or who “started” it (and really there is almost no way to tell who starts the escalation in these things), it always ends the same way: one of them crosses a line. Spirals out of control so far and so fast they reach out and verbally gut the other with something that only they know about. Ardyn might reference the Train Incident with Prompto, or him not being there when his father died, or, worst of all and only in his blackest of moods, Nox’s failure to save Luna (no one is ever mentioned by name, but the references of trains, ignorance, protecting loved ones... Nox always knows what Ardyn is talking about and it always cuts too deep). Nox, on the other hand, drags up Ardyn’s own temper, needles him over his old manipulations and his lies or, in his worst, most poisonous moments, references Ardyn’s lover Aera (again, no specifics or names, just oblique references, random phrases that only the two of them understand).

-(It is ironic, in a way that makes both of them hurt, that their greatest weaknesses are the Oracles they loved and lost. This one pain they share on an intimate level yet somehow can’t always stop themselves from weaponizing against the other).

-After that Final Line is crossed, the silence that falls around them both is a weight of its own. Anyone unfortunate enough to witness it can feel the hurt emotions, the regret for words that cannot be taken back and the anger that keeps apologies from being aired. From the inside of the argument it feels like a tornado just whipped through, tearing apart their emotions and leaving them both stunned and hurt and confused on how it went that bad so fast or even what the argument was originally about. From the outside, it feels like witnessing a horrible car crash, the silence that follows being the harsh ringing in the ears after metal stops screaming.

-One or both of them always leaves the room after that. If the other stays, they tuck into themselves, refusing to interact with anyone, drifting to some window or corner where they can brood and seethe.

-The silence will stay for at least a week. Maybe more. Less because they are being stubborn and more because they have little to no sense of time on a good day, and they are Not Having A Good Day right now. They won’t stay in the same room, won’t talk, won’t even look at each other.

-Ardyn will sometimes leave the Citadel altogether, disappear into the wilds for however long it takes him until he either no longer looks at Nox and sees Somnus standing over Aera’s corpse calling her a “foolish woman” (if Nox is the one who crossed the line) or no longer feels like there’s a monster trying to crawl out of his skin and finish the job he did hurting his nephew (if he’s the one who went too far).

-Nox, since he cannot exactly leave the Citadel without an escort unless he wants to panic his dad, will go mute entirely. He won’t talk to anyone, will barely eat or drink and often can’t hold it down as he stews-stews-stews. If Ardyn is the one who crossed the lines (particularly the Luna line), Nox might go out into the garden and scream wordless pain into the rain (and it will always rain when he goes to the garden, his magic calling down Ramuh’s storms even as the Fulgarian tempers away the lightning and thunder that want to come to the grieving Chosen’s call). If Nox was the one to go too far, eventually someone will find him in one of two places. One of those places is the Hall of Arts.

-The other is the Throne Room.

-For Regis, there is nothing quiet as terrifying as the day he walked into his Throne Room without warning or knowledge of Nox’s presence and walked straight into a grieving magic field so thick and powerful it took him ten seconds of frantic blinking to see Nox standing by the throne, touching one armrest with shaking fingers rather than sitting on the throne looking too-old-too-tired in a pool of his own blood with a sword through his heart (he never asks what that vision was, but he does order an extra close watch kept on Nox for the next month, just in case it was a look at his eldest child’s inner thoughts).

-Eventually, whoever wandered off will drift back in, fall into the other’s orbit without a word. They’ll stare at each other for a while, not apologizing, not speaking. Then either Ardyn will plop his dreaded hat onto Nox’s head, or Nox will slide forward and hug his Uncle with shaking hands and they will know that all is forgiven. Their regular snarking and arguments resume like nothing has happened. To an outsider, it looks unhealthy. Surely they need to talk about what happened, to understand each other to prevent if from happening again?

-They don’t though. They had an entire afterlife and time-traveling journey to hash out their issues and scream their grief and sob their apologies. What arguments that flare between them, the hurts they air, are nothing that they have not already bared their souls about and apologized for a hundred thousand times before. They know where they went wrong, they know that they are both sorry. They don’t need to say it again, just like they don’t need to bother pretending that the wounds ripped open in the latest fight ever really stopped bleeding in the first place. They know that the other will never intentionally hurt them anymore, so flash-fire fights like these are just ... slip-ups. Steam blowing before they can turn it against someone who doesn’t understand what they do and might not survive the fallout should it turn physical.

-That’s why they so rarely fight. They’ve both done enough hating and hurting for lifetimes. After everything they’ve been through, there is very, very little worth fighting over in their minds. And certainly nothing worth the inevitable fallout.

[queenmorgawse]

a story about blood

a small piece about xy and wwx’s relationship in an au in which xy met yunmeng jiang sect quite earlier in his story. written for @baebeyza for the yiling wei server exchange. 

“Get lost, you damn brat!” 

The child scrambles off the road just in time not to get crushed by the next cart, cradling his wounded hand. Whatever reply he had dies in his throat, replaced with white-hot hatred almost too violent for his body to contain. 

When he makes to stand, a purple-clad arm grabs him and pulls him upright. “Hey, you alright?” 

Xue Yang almost spits in the stranger’s face. Who is he, to offer his pity? He didn’t stop Chang Ci’An, or shove his words back down his slimy throat. Everything else is secondary.

The boy in the purple robes doesn’t seem to share his thoughts. Either he’s oblivious to the daggers Xue Yang glares at him, or he simply doesn’t care. When he drags Xue Yang along, he has no choice but to follow. The teenager is bigger and stronger than he is ⎯ though it’s not saying much, given an underfed street rat must weight about as much as a drenched kitten. 

Before he can say anything, he’s sat down at an innkeeper’s table, facing another uniformed boy with a furrow between his brows, and the one who pulled him from the street has taken his maimed hand in his, pulling various bottles of salve from his sleeves.

Xue Yang snatches it back with a hiss. The nails of his good fingers rake across the back of the boy’s hand when he reaches for him, making him recoil in return. “Ow, what the hell?”

“That’ll teach you to pick up strays, Wei Ying,” the other grumbles. Xue Yang dislikes him on sight, with his lordling airs and the haughty purse of his lips. 

His friend - Wei Ying - has already recovered, rubbing at his grazed skin. “Shut up, Jiang Cheng,” he snaps back, though not unkindly. His eyes - gray as storm clouds - drift over to Xue Yang again. “I’m just trying to help, you know? Stop the bleeding.” 

“You’re a cultivator,” is all Xue Yang says. “Like the man in the cart.”

Wei Ying’s face falls. “Oh. Oh, no, I’m not like that.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Listen, if you don’t want me to touch you, it’s fine, I’ll just hand you the bandages, okay?” 

Xue Yang eyes him warily, then nods toward the steaming bowls set on the table before him. “And I want the soup too.”

Wei Ying throws his head back and laughs. “Okay, okay! Anyone ever told you you drive a hard bargain?” He slides a set of clean linen strips across the table at Xue Yang, who pounces upon them and stuffs most of them into his pockets before setting to wrapping up his still-bleeding hand. It’s a clumsy job, but better that than let some stranger move him around like a straw doll. 

When he’s done, he unceremoniously grabs one of the bowls and all but dumps the contents down his throat. The soup burns his palate, but when the hunger that’s been hounding him around starts to wane, it’s more than worth it. 

Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng watch him eat, one with bright-eyed fondness and the other with mild indifference. 

“What do you want?” he asks when he’s done eating. It’s simple enough : in his life, no one has ever given something without asking for a favor in return. Though he fails to see what he could give some pampered young masters in exchange for his care, he has no doubt they have some ideas.

“Your name, first.”

“Xue Yang.” So he thinks, anyway. Whoever his mother was barely lived long enough for him to remember the sound of his own name in her voice. 

Here comes the real demand, then. He tenses, bracing himself for some other thankless task, maybe even money.

Instead, Wei Ying leans forward, drumming his fingers on the table. Jiang Cheng opens his mouth as if to try and stop him, then seems to think better of it and closes it, staring off to the side with a sullen look. “We saw you fight earlier. You don’t have technique, but you’re pretty fast on your feet, right? Xue Yang, have you ever been to Yunmeng?” 

-

Yunmeng is unlike anything Xue Yang has ever seen. The people there never sneer at him or kick him around, though that might be due to the new set of purple robes Wei Ying clumsily ties him into upon arrival. 

They're the nicest clothes Xue Yang has ever owned, though he gets blood on them less than a week later, viciously knocking the teeth of a too-touchy disciple with his wooden sword during training. Wei Ying has to wrestle him away by the neck of his clothes, loudly apologizing all the while. 

After, as he sullenly nurses the bruised cheek his opponent left him right after he got his hit in, Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng's shijie ( she's your shijie, too, Wei Ying told him solemnly, so you take care of her ) sits him down and serves him freshly steamed buns and a bowl of pork ribs and lotus soup.

Xue Yang doesn't dislike Jiang Yanli. She doesn't look like much, but he can tell being mean to her is not a wise choice – not only because he's been here long enough for him to notice her brothers glaring daggers at anyone foolish enough to be even mildly rude to her, but also because he might actually feel bad if she gets that disappointed look about her again. 

“You've got to get a hold of yourself, A-Yang,” she chides gently as she ladles another serving into his bowl. “One day, it'll have worse consequences than a bruised ego.”

“So what do I do?” He peers at her defiantly from behind his mop of dark hair. “Let people...do whatever they want? Like I'm small and–” Weak. Too weak to afford not being the first one to strike.

Jiang Yanli smiles a small, sad smile, and reaches to pat his head. She stops just short of touching his hair, her gaze interrogative. 

Xue Yang huffs and doesn't duck away. 

“It's alright, A-Yang.” Her voice is so soft, full of pity. Her hand is warm where it lays on top of his head. “You don't need to be strong all the time anymore. We'll be here to protect you.” 

He wants her to shut up. He wants her to never stop talking again. 

-

Jiang Yanli is a liar, Xue Yang thinks, as the Lotus Pier comes crashing down around him. Her words ring in his ears as he crawls through the smoke, close to coughing his lungs out, the only thing holding him back the looming presence of Wen troops among the ruins. 

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that she isn't here, or that Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng's fates are uncertain, or that the people he reluctantly started calling his martial brothers and sisters lay in pools of their own blood around him. The other shoe had to drop eventually. 

Not all of the cultivators involved in the massacre of the Lotus Pier die at the Yiling Patriarch's hands. Some breathe their last in the dark, as a sword called Jiangzai carves their flesh off their bones, piece by piece.

Wei Ying finds him again, a handful of months later. There is little left of Yunmeng in him, save for the silver bell he tied to Jiangzai's hilt in a fit of sentimentality. 

“You’ve been busy,” his shixiong remarks. When his eyes sweep over the scene - gore strewn across the floor, the white of Wen robes almost entirely overtaken by grime -, his eyes glow red as coals.

Xue Yang shrugs. “No more than you have, apparently.” His sleeves are meticulously clean, though his boots have been steeped in blood for longer than he cares to count. Jiang Yanli would point out the change in him, the cruel edge he always carried with him sharpened to a fine point.  

Then again, Wei Ying - Wei Wuxian, really, as few dare call him by his birth name now - is not the way he used to be either. Something about him reminds Xue Yang of a corpse risen from the grave, no longer afraid to die, inevitable.

He doesn't flinch when he looks down at the corpse Xue Yang made. It barely resembles a man anymore : lingchi has made a puddle of flesh out of him, white bones peeking out of the crimson wreck. 

“I’m surprised no one’s come after you yet. Does everyone approve of your methods?” Even as Wei Wuxian speaks, he sounds like he already knows what answer to expect.

“Am I supposed to care whether they do?” Their home didn’t burn, as far as Xue Yang’s concerned. Well, the Cloud Recesses did, but he’s never known the Lans to be the vengeful type.

Wei Wuxian breaks into a grin. It should have been familiar, as the same lopsided smile he sported whenever his kite flew higher than any of the other disciples or when he pulled one of them into the lake by their ankles, but it is frightening now.

At least, Xue Yang imagines it should be. In it, he can only find a mirror of his own. 

“Anyway,” Wei Wuxian continues with a tilt of his head towards the corpses at their feet, “I came to take care of these, but it looks like you’ve got everything handled.”

“I want to come with you.” The words slip past his lips before he can think them through. “That’s not all of them. Wen Chao’s not dead yet.” 

Hatred stays with you, he realizes. After so many years without truly feeling it, Xue Yang finds that he hasn’t forgotten its taste.

For the first time since the beginning of their talk, Wei Wuxian seems to waver. “Are you sure?” His gaze takes on a wistful tinge, like the words in his mouth aren’t his own. “Whatever happens, no one will ever look at you the same. You’ll be walking the single-plank bridge with me.” 

The implication hangs in the air between them : one stumble, and he will fall. And, of course, there will be no turning back from this.

“You think I don’t know that?” Xue Yang crosses his arms, chin raised, defiant. “I’ve already gone this far anyway. If you can do it, I can do it.” 

Something tugs at the corners of Wei Wuxian’s lips, almost like a smile. 

-

“Eat or I’ll pour it down your throat myself.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Wen Qing.” Still, Wei Wuxian reaches for the bowl. Up close, Xue Yang can see what the man himself is refusing to admit : that he’s grown thinner and gaunter with every passing day, crumbling into a shell of himself. 

Taking advantage of Wei Wuxian’s distraction, Xue Yang skirts around him and snatches up a page of his notes. It’s covered in scrambly handwriting, as if jotted down in a hurry, but he’s had enough practice by now to decipher the bare bones of it. 

“What’s a…” He squints. “...Stygian Tiger Seal?”

Weu Wuxian whirls towards him, wild-eyed. “Put it back!” 

Xue Yang raises his hands, cocking an eyebrow at the other. “Not until you tell me what it does.”

For a moment, he thinks Wei Wuxian might actually strike him. He draws himself up to his full height, resentful energy gathering around him quiet as thunder ⎯ and then the fight goes out of him, and he slumps onto the slab of stone he calls a chair again. “It’s supposed to help me,” he explains, running a hand through his soot-stained hair. “It should control the corpses better than I do on my own, like a catalyst.” 

Xue Yang considers the notes with newfound interest. “It could change everything.”

“If I manage to do it,” Wei Wuxian points out. “And if I do, you’ll have to keep it to yourself.” At the lack of change in Xue Yang’s expression, he adds, “I mean it. In the wrong hands, it’ll be carnage.”

And what do you plan to bring with it, if not carnage? 

He can see, though, that Wei Wuxian will not answer him. The Yiling Patriarch is already lost in thoughts again, half-emptied bowl abandoned on the side as he grabs a stick of charcoal and starts to sketch, muttering something about swords and giant tortoises.

For lack of something better to do, Xue Yang gathers a few more scrolls from under his nose, settles into one of of cave’s corners and starts to read.

-

For better or for worse, Wei Wuxian’s prediction comes true. When, under the cover of night, Xue Yang comes to see the remnants of Nightless City, he can find no other word to describe the scene but carnage. 

-

On the last day of autumn, a young man boldly strolls into the Unclean Realm. The cultivators who first run into him will remember him grinning even as his throat bobbed against a saber’s blade, upper lip pulling up over little sharp teeth, until the Sect Leader steps in to break off the fight and announce - to everybody's surprise - he will receive his honored guest in his own desk.

“That artefact you mentioned...” Nie Huaisang starts, snapping his fan shut once the door closes behind them. For a moment, two beasts seize each other up, black against gold. “Do you have it?” 

“I thought your being daft was only a facade, Headshaker,” the other snaps back. Still, he reaches into his sleeve. Nie Huaisang’s gaze follows his hand as it draws out a slab of stone shaped like a tiger’s head, crude in design yet unmistakable. 

Half of the Stygian Tiger Seal dangles from the young man’s hand. Nie Huaisang has had the occasion to see the original once - granted, from a distance, and not for very long -, but he can tell that though this is a an attempt to recreate Wei Wuxian’s invention, it’s a skilled one. “It’s rather pretty, but does it work?”

His interlocutor shrugs. “You don’t have the other half, do you? I thought you’d have it ready, since you were only in the market for half of it.”

“I will procure it,” he says, perhaps a little more forcefully than he meant to. “In the meantime…”

Nie Huaisang considers the missing half, his eyes heavy-lidded. When he looks up, his gaze has taken on a sharper glint. “It seems we’ve got ourselves a deal, young master Xue.”

[dicebox]

The Hand of Fate

Jerrica Reder only had moments to scream out in fury and terror before the sea took her. 

She was sinking beneath the waves before she could even gasp in a desperate breath, the makeshift ballast chained to her ankles pulling her down, down, down into the dark, cold depths below. She thrashed in vain, arms straining uselessly against the ropes binding her, her lungs burning in her chest. As she looked up, the sun over the surface was already a dim, far light. It flickered out entirely as she sunk deeper still and darkness claimed her. 

There was nothing but the dark, empty void around her as the pressure in her chest gave way, and Jerrica breathed in the first gulp of sea water. It was cold, colder than it had already been on her skin, ice filling her lungs. 

With her last thoughts, she twisted her eyes shut, and tried to think of home. Everything was darkness.

Then, she was on her back, sprawled out on hard stone. She was no longer sinking. All she could do was gasp breathlessly, the taste of the air coarse and strange in her mouth. She was no longer drowning. 

Jerrica opened her eyes. The sky above was a dull, bleak grey, the sun bright on the horizon, but giving off no warmth. Her clothing was no longer soaked with seawater, but she could still feel the chill of the deeps down to her bones. She sat up, rubbing at wrists as she found herself freed of the ropes and weights. Her breath hitched tightly with a thrum of fear as she looked outwards. 

An endless expanse stretched out before her, empty save for chunks of grey rock floating in the nothing, some carrying hints of architecture, some nothing but jagged edges of stone. Somewhere in the distance, a whale's call echoed mournfully and Jerrica couldn't help but shiver. 

Ahead of her, a rusted buoy floated in the nothing, its lantern flickering weakly.  She stood and shambled weakly over to the edge of the floating island of rock she found herself on and looked down to the sheer nothing below. 

"You're far from home, aren't you?" 

Jerrica turned about with an unsteady stumble, her hand fumbling for a knife that had long since been taken from her. A man with pure black eyes stood before her, staring impassively. It was then she knew where she was. And who he was. 

But the image she’d had in her mind from the stories had never painted a picture of a man so young, so seemingly harmless. He was a thin thing, barely older than a boy, dressed in plain clothing. If not for the promise of a yawning entropy in those black eyes, she would never have imagined why anyone would fear such a man. But those eyes were not that of a man. 

She scoffed out a bitter breath, despite the dull thrum of terror in her heart. “So they were right all along. Come to collect my soul, eh?” 

“Oh, that’s of no interest to me. Not in keeping it here, at least. But you, Jerrica, are quite interesting. I want to offer you something.” The man with black eyes said with an ethereal calm, staring at her still, and Jerrica couldn’t decide whether it was better or worse to meet that empty gaze. 

"Do you now? What's the catch?” Jerrica sneered defiantly at him, if only to show something other than fear. Regardless of his show of mere idle curiosity, his focus was upon her, and that was as terrifying as being cast into the sea. “I get to live for a year and a day, before you drag me back down here? Or do I gotta send a hundred souls to you in trade?"

The man with the black eyes did not smile. He did not blink. But for a brief moment, his eyes might have narrowed with a hint of annoyance. "People always seem to think I want their souls. They drastically overestimate the value of their own. The passing of a soul will happen regardless of my will and most likely without my notice. The pleas of the dying can be so very boring."

"Feh. Well, what do you want?" Jerrica blinked as she spoke, and when she did, she was standing on the deck of the whaling ship she had been thrown from. She swore, looking around, but there was no one but herself and the man with the black eyes. 

Then he did smile, ever so faintly, without any warmth in those empty eyes. “You act as if you know me. If you do know the stories they tell of me, then you must know what I wish to offer you. The question is... what would you do with my mark?”

“What do you expect me to do with it?” She asked, as if she didn’t know the stories. As if she wasn’t stalling, desperately trying to gather her scattered, terrified thoughts. 

The lips of the man with the black eyes curled in the barest shadow of amusement. “What you do with the gift I offer is your choice. As is everything that shall happen from this moment.” 

Jerrica turned her back to him without an answer, glaring out at the emptiness. The Void was blissfully silent. A whaling ship, its hull torn open, floated in the distance in between massive pillars of grey rock, as if the emptiness was a sea of its own.

She did know the stories, to be sure, all of them gruesome in one way or another. Witches reading entrails upon whalebone altars. Ancient kings making pacts in blood. Underworld kingpins who could walk through walls or turn themselves into hordes of rats in order to maintain their grips of terror upon the slums. Every story was ultimately the same. Someone given a great and terrible power. And then the blood would flow. 

“Do you want to see her again?”

She tensed as the voice pulled her from her brooding thoughts, her fingers curling tightly until her fists trembled. “Don’t you dare speak her name.” She snapped, as if she could make any demands of him. As if he didn’t seem to know everything already. 

And as if the Void itself was reading her thoughts, Jerrica looked back to the man with the black eyes, to see him standing in the cramped parlor of a tiny apartment. Sitting before the fireplace was a young girl with a ragged mop of red hair, her excited flailing of a toy horse frozen in time. 

It was either a cruelty or a blessing that the Void didn’t show Jerrica the child’s face. She couldn’t muster the strength to step any closer to her daughter, to see how she’d grown in the time she’d been gone.

“I will tell you this. You may choose to reject my offer. But if you do, she will live her life without you. In time, the memory of your face will fade away entirely. But she already is living her life without you, isn’t she?” 

Jerrica looked back to him again with a surly sneer, but she bit back the obvious retort on the nature of choice. After a heavy breath in and out, she replied quietly, “Tell me one more thing, first. If you brought me here, did you do it? Did you save those worthless shits?”

The man with the black eyes shifted his shoulders in what might have been a bored shrug. “Two days ago, leagues east from where your ship drifted, a sudden squall scattered a pod of whales as they were near the water’s surface. A calf was separated from his mother. The seas as stormy as they were, he and his mother were unable to find each other. He drifted aimlessly for those two days, right up to your ship. Your crew killed him, squeezed every last ounce of oil from his drying corpse, and carved their dinner from his flank. Then they pulled into Dunwall three days later. The captain paid everyone an extra half-share for their silence and now they are toasting their good fortune and drinking away their guilt.” 

“Was it you, you black-eyed bastard?!” Jerrica shouted with a fresh flare of fury. “Did you change their fate?!” 

And when she blinked, she and the man with black eyes were standing in a silent tavern, the frozen sight of carousing whalers all around them. The whalers who had tied her up and thrown her into the sea. The captain was among them, toasting, laughing, and she wanted nothing more than to reach out and strangle him. But all Jerrica could do was scream at the man with the black eyes. “Tell me, damn you!” 

“I think you already know the answer. Has the sea ever been fair to you, Jerrica? Is fate not the same?” The man with the black eyes said, perfectly calm. “Raging and treacherous. Untameable and unforgiving. And yet... call it fortune, call it coincidence, for if neither existed, people would not risk everything.”

“There is always that chance of something unexpected, isn’t there?” There was almost the faintest twinkle of amusement in his empty eyes. “But the unexpected only delays the inevitable. The sea always claims its due. Isn’t that what they say in Morley?”

“You like to talk, you know that?” Jerrica spat. “Answer the damned question!” “Your crew will credit me for their fate. They will clutch their little charms of whale bone and recite the half-forgotten rites, as if such paltry things could ever catch my interest. It was not their prayers that caught my interest, Jerrica. It was you. You are not the first to die in such a way. Oh, how the others cried, and begged, and pleaded for mercy.”

The man with black eyes paused for a long moment, looking off into the Void, his gaze distant, as if momentarily distracted by some thought. “But not you.”

She was standing on the deck of her ship, behind the group of whalers who had crowded near the railing, looking down into the sea. Most had their heads bowed in fearful reverence as they watched the waves. Watched where Jerrica had sunk down into the depths. 

“They could have died on that whaler. Whether by thirst, by starvation, or by fist and blade as they turned upon each other to determine who would be cut up for meat first. But they lived and they think you did not. They think they stopped the inevitable.”

“Am I not dead?” Jerrica held her arms out, gesturing to the emptiness of the Void. “Because this sure ain’t bloody Dunwall!” 

“You are not dead. Yet. I will only hold you here for so much longer.” The man with the black eyes paused briefly. “I will tell you one more surety. What do you think your former crewmates will do the next time they so desperately need good fortune?” 

“What do I care what the sodding bastards do? They’ll probably drink themselves to death.” 

“Don’t you lie to yourself enough already, Jerrica? Will you really just let them go on their merry way, until they decide to do this again? They’ve tasted blood, now...”  The man with the black eyes paused, looking at the frozen captain still standing on the deck, tense and grim faced. “And what of your lover? He let you into his bed, but not his heart. Or so he tried to tell himself. Of course, did you let him into yours? Perhaps if you had, he would have told you of the pathetic little cult infesting his ship. Perhaps if he had brought you into that circle, it would have been someone else who just happened to draw the shortest straw.” 

They were in the captain’s cabin now. It was empty save for Jerrica and the man with black eyes, but she could almost smell the thick scent of cheap whiskey and cheaper cigarettes, and as she couldn’t help but rest a hand on the crumpled sheets, she could almost feel the warmth of the bed. But the Void didn’t carry such sensations. There were only her bitter memories. 

“You drew the straw just as they all did. If it had been another, would you have stood by and watched, as they all did? Would you have tied the ropes around your crewmate and thrown them into the sea?”

Jerrica turned and picked up a bottle off of the desk, gripping it tightly before she threw it hard against the cabin wall. It shattered with barely a sound, all the more revealing itself for the facsimile that it was. 

“Tell me, will he be the first one you kill?” The man with the black eyes asked, as if he knew her answer. “Or the last?”

“Who said I’m going to kill anyone?” Jerrica groused, with a sinking feeling in her heart that he did know, even before she did. 

“What else would you do with a second chance? Go back to Morley and beg in the streets like so many others? Is that not why you left? And all the while those who you worked and suffered alongside walk freely, after they threw you into the sea like a spoiled catch?”

Jerrica clenched her fists until she thought her fingernails would draw blood. She wanted nothing more than to smash the smug calm from the man with the black eyes’ face. She wanted nothing more than to go home to Morely, to her daughter. 

And yet, she wanted nothing more than to look the captain, her captain, in the eye, and spit in it. Him and all of those who had been on that deck, unable to look her in the eye as they’d beaten and restrained her, mumbling blasphemous prayers as they’d thrown her overboard. 

The man with the black eyes was staring at her, unblinking as ever, but for a moment there might have been a flicker of distant, amused triumph.

She scowled. “Fine. Give me your mark. But I’m not doing nothing for you. I’m not cutting out anyone’s guts for some sodding witchcraft.” 

“My mark is yours to do with as you will. Do try to remember that.” 

It was only when the back of her hand began to burn that Jerrica remembered the pain of drowning, how the icy water filled her lungs with a chilling burn, searing at her from the inside out. This was almost the same, a cold fire gouging a brand from bone to muscle to skin, until the dull gleam of the Outsider’s mark shone on the back of her hand, brighter and bolder than any of her sailor’s tattoos.  

“I look forward to seeing what you will do, Jerrica.” 

---

The sea was all around her again and it was all Jerrica could do not to scream in panic and fill her lungs with seawater once more. Everything was spinning as the tides took hold of her and she flailed uselessly against the crushing weight of the water. 

Then she struck the hard, rocky shore, and as the waves drew back, she drew in a desperate breath of the rot and the smog of Dunwall. Jerrica pushed herself up enough to stagger a few steps further across the stony beach before she slumped to her knees, and retched out seawater and bile. 

Laid out ahead of her were the familiar sights of the docks and slaughterhouses of Dunwall’s whaling district. It wasn’t home, it would never be home, but it was her port. 

Jerrica looked down to her hand, where the eldritch rune had been seared into her skin. It hadn’t just been the dream of a drowning mind. 

She could not decide whether that was better or worse, that it had all been real.