#animal illness / death warning going forward in these tags

[sleepyfan-blog]

Phantom

Author’s Note: Sirass part three! I hope you enjoy :D

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Tagged: @egrets-not-regrets @kit-williams @bleedingichorhearts @the-pure-angel@whorety-k 

Warnings: none

Summary: Sirass and Pollux go to the afflicted reef to scout how many fellow Astartes they’ll need to destroy the burgeoning garden of rot. What they find surprises them.

“We’re going to have to burn all of the samples the humans took of the diseased wildlife and plants.” Pollux muttered, swimming back and forth in agitation as he waited impatiently for Sirass to finish gearing up.

“I know that, you’ve left instructions and warning for the blue stylus pushers to handle that, right?” Sirass snapped, rolling his eyes beneath his helmet as he continued to check over his gear, wanting to be sure that none of it had any flaws before they went diving into a territory defiled by Nurgle’s Worshippers. “We’ll need to check the machinery as well.”

“... But the Plague-bastard’s curses and afflictions only affect the living. Metals rust and decay but don’t fall sick.” The Imperial Fist spluttered, eyes going wide under his helmet.

“Clearly you’ve never had the dubious misfortune of having to deal with Glitchlings.” Sirass huffed, shaking his head a little “... When were you brought from?”

“Mid M-32, why?” Pollux asked “What the fuck is a Glitchling?”

“My bastard Primarch decided to cut a deal with the Plaguefather for… I’m not sure why… Some time in the past as I know it, after you were brought here. The ritual he used to seal the deal fused Machine Plague and Warp Bullshith together to create Glitchlings. They’re Nurglings, but for machines instead of living creatures. They delight in the corruption of machines and twisting them into horrific monstrosities.” Sirass explained “I heard about it from some of my Chaos brothers in passing and the knowledge stuck with me.”

“Oh fuck that entirely. They aren’t going to be thrilled about having to purge the data.” Pollux sighed. “And don’t call the Ultramarines stylus pushers. They do far more than that and you know it. They’ll likely handle the data as well, and explaining why fire and destruction is the only safe path forward.”

“... True enough.” Sirass sighed, reassured that his gear was in perfect working order. “I’m ready to go.”

“Finally! Remember, this is a scouting mission, as neither of us can deal with a full Rot Garden, we don’t have the kit to do so. There are Salamanders inbound, but it’s going to-” Pollux stated.

“It’s going to take them a few days to get here. Yeah, I know. This isn’t the first shit-awful mission I’ve been on, and I doubt it’ll be the last.” Sirass finished, cutting off the Imperial Fist. “We need to have a rough estimate of how many Death Guard are making this fucking thing, and whether or not they’ve managed to corrupt any humans into worshipping their shit-ass deamon-god. I remember the briefing protocols for something like this, I don’t need to be reminded. Let’s get going.”

Pollux grumbled under his breath, and Sirass pretended not to hear the bitchy bastard as they swum swiftly over the deceptively beautiful waters, diving in.

~

“... Wasn’t the garden bigger, the last time we were here?” Pollux asked Sirass over vox, sounding as perplexed as Sirass felt.

“It was. I helped with the last survey of the afflicted reef two days ago. Something’s changed… I could almost taste the Chaos in the water, but that’s faded somewhat too…” Sirass murmured, scanning the area more closely. “The densest bit of fuckery is this way. I haven’t seen any signs of Death Guard here today, what about on your side, Pollux?”

“No signs of Death Guard on this side of the Garden, either. Maybe they’re deeper in, or off on a hunt?” Pollux offered. “I… Suppose we should push further into the territory.” It went without saying that they should touch nothing in this cursed place unless they absolutely had to.

The signs of decay and illness were still very much present in the plant and animal life, but it wasn’t nearly as dire as it had been a couple of days ago. Some of the fish were actually moving at close to their normal speeds, doing their usual behaviors. The numbers of parasites in the waters had gone down according to Sirass’ scanners, and the amount of chaos taint had plummeted precipitously, now that he knew to look for it, knew what the signs were.

This was true even as the two mer cautiously swum deeper into the garden. Signs of healthy life were beginning to appear, and the dead were no longer crawling or moving in a parody of life. Sirass stilled completely as he reached the middle of the garden, eyes widening beneath his visor “What… Who?... Why?”

Before him was the crawling vine-rose things that marked the heart of a plague garden. It’s tendrils should be glowing and pulsing, trying to reach for anything that wasn’t tainted by Nurgle in order to consume. The center mass of the foul creation should be undulating and hard to look at without nausea and pain ripping through his body and mind.

Instead, the thorn-covered vines were a dull grey color. Lifeless and unmoving. The center mass looked like it had been ripped or slashed apart by something large and pissed off. Clearly someone else had killed the heart of the this Rot Garden, which was what helped to perpetuate Nurgle’s curses and diseases. They hadn’t completed the job, and if left unattended, the Plague Heart would come back to life and start causing problems if it wasn’t thoroughly torched in Promethium-based flames and torn out, roots and all.

But it was an excellent start. 

“I have no idea who did this… I didn’t think there were many Astartes in this area, apart from the group who lives with the humans nearby. None of them reported in, attacking this and they really should have…” Pollux muttered to himself. “We should retreat from here. It may be dead for now, but it’s still dangerous… And the Death Guard could come back. They’ll get nasty as they’ll assume we did this.”

“Mh, let’s get going then.” Sirass agreed, nodding shortly. Agreeing with an Iron Fist felt very strange and vaguely wrong… But Pollux was correct in this instance. The two of them took turns flitting from cover to cover around the periphery of the slowly shrinking Garden of Rot for the four days it took for the Salamander Flamer squads to arrive. Not a single Death Guard, nor any cultists appeared in that time.

Once the Salamanders had arrived and began the task of purifying the area with flames and psykery, Sirass and Pollux left after being checked and cleared for corrosion. The Ultramarines attached to the humans’ ocean preservation group had indeed purged all of the Nurgle Shit from the area, including information and explained why.

Sirass’ human sprinted over to him as soon as he cleared the ocean water. You hesitated for a couple of moments asking “You’ve been through decontamination, right?”

“Yes, my love I have been. The area is being purged by experts.” He explains with a nod.

“Good… It’s going to be a lot of work to restore that area, but it’ll be worth it. I’m glad that… That you’re okay. The… The stories they told us about what those twisting-illnesses can do to a person were awful!” You shudder, running up to him and hugging him tightly.

Sirass smiles a little, holding you close. He nuzzles you lovingly as he takes off his helmet, attaching it to his belt and giving you several loving kisses all over your face “I apologize that you were frightened for and worried over me, love. But I am fine. If you’d like to thoroughly check me over once we get home, I won’t object~”

You blush at his tease but nod, going up on your tiptoes and giving him a loving kiss “Yes please.”

He grins as he scoops you up, swimming through the air towards your apartment.

[giganonyx]

TBB SEASON 3 SPOILERS

HEADS UP- I WILL BE TAGGING EACH OF MY EPISODE REVIEW THINGS WITH “tbb s3 spoilers”, AND OTHER SPOILER TAGS, PLEASE BLOCK THESE TAGS SO U DONT GET SPOILED!!!

AHHHHH OMEGA MY BABY. She has a pony tail stoppp my child is all grown up I will cry. Ok but she ate the new hairstyle she is slaying.

ERGH SHE HAS BEEN THERE 150 DAYS. Sick and twisted. She contrasts SO heavily with the whole sterile, orderly environment, it’s literally heartbreaking to watch. Forced into this mindless routine, her hopeful attitude constantly being beaten down on?? HURTING. GET HER OUT OF THIS HELL HOLE.

GOD seeing Crosshair look so broken BROKE ME. His shaking hands??? They took away the ONE thing he still had- his superior sniping skills, his steady hand. They took that AWAY from him. FUCKED UP. THEY TORE HIM DOWN. I can’t I’m so sad.

DADDY’S HOMEEEJWJWISNWIANQOQOQB (Hunter was on screen for the first time this season) (He is SO FINE)(MY HUSBAND HAS RETURNED FROM HIS HIATUS IN A TRAUMATIZED STATE BUT NONETHELESS HAS RETURNED TO GRACE MY SCREEN AND BE THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE)

I had a horrible sense of dread overtake my body when he said something like “our mission isn’t over yet”… like idk I felt so ILL. PAIN. WHY do I have the feeling my man isn’t going to make it SHUT UP.

ALSO HIM MAKING RECKLESS DECISIONS???? The kidnapping of his daughter and the death of his brother have done a NUMBER on this man.

WRECKER my cutie patootie!! Yk it’s bad when Wrecker starts to become a voice of reason (which, Hunter in his desperate mindset, promptly ignores 😭)

HAHBANQKNSJQQKO CROSSHAIR IS SO FUNNY DURING HIS ESCAPE WITH OMEGA- literal snark fest

Need Omega bullying a mouse droid on repeat.

Stop mouse droid bullying 😭

OOOO NALA SE’S WARNING TO OMEGA TO LEAVE?? I’m scared. And Omega ate it up tho. She said “say less lmao I’m gone ✌️”.

Did palpy not feel a disturbance into the force. Was bro so into the “project Necromancer deets” he couldn’t tell his vessel was peacing out. Common Palpy L.

RUN OMEGA TAKE YOUR SARCASTIC BROTHER WITH U

JUST A GIRL AND HER DOG AND HER GRUMPY BROTHER EHEHEHEHE

OUGAHHH OK OK IM BOUNCING AROUND EPISODES HERE BUT STAY WITH ME

WHEN CROSSHAIR SAID “forget the hound, Omega.”, it lowkey felt like he was talking about himself. He was telling her to forget him, he was a broken animal, with no point in nurturing back to health. She needs to give up on him if she wants to move forward. BUT SHE DIDNT BECAUSE MAMA DIDNT RAISE NO UNLOYAL LOSER. NO. OMEGA IS THE REALEST ONEEEEE.

EMERIE you confuse me. I hate u yet am intrigued by u. Looking forward to her character development ahhhh.

HUNTER MY POOKIE BEAR BACK TO HIM BC that man was doing FLIPS chopping off the eldritch horror vines. They snatched his brother and he said “hell naw hoe let go of my BRO” and just. Went to town. Me when Hunter exists 🎉🎉🎉🎉

OH OU OH IHHIWHAIANQO ALSO THE MYSTERY GUY IN THE GREEN TACTICAL ARMOR?? IS THE ONE DOING THE “TORTURE” OR WHATEVER TO CROSSHAIR AND THAT GROUP OF CLONES??? If that’s really tech I’m gonna scream. You’re telling me he’s torturing his own brother. Tech would never even THINK about doing shit like that the man just wants to read nerdy newspapers. Desecration of the nerd lifestyle. OK I REALLY HOPE ITS HIM. LIKE I REALLY DO. OOO PLEASE I WILL CRY. WHY ELSE WOULD THEY SHOW THIS MYSTERY CLONE. NO NEED. IT HAS TO BE BROWN EYES (delusion).

OK I AM SO TIRED MY HEAD HURTS MY LIFE IS CHANGING Jesse we need to cook (I need to make tbb art) BUT I AM GOING TO BED FIRST

[wipbigbang]

This is Round Two of the Artist Claims for the 2023 round of WIPBB. You may claim up to three fics this round. If you want only one fic, please fill out the form once with your top choices. If you want two fics, fill out the form twice with your first choice in the first form submission with one unique ID and the second choice in another submission with a different unique ID.

The synopses are located at https://wipbigbang.dreamwidth.org/172201.html

The form is located at https://forms.gle/ES2D3d2mTG1nU4Pk6.

Round two of the art claims will go on until July 1st.

Avatar: Legend of Korra

#010

Title: Legend of Korra: The Winter Soldier

Pairing/Characters: Avatar Korra/Asami Sato

Rating Mature | M

Warnings/Tags: Graphic Violence, Major Character Death

Summary: This AU for The Legend of Korra basically follows the plot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, mostly from Korra's perspective, as she takes the place of Steve Rogers in this story (nothing surprising there). Feeling lost, alone, and out of place, she does missions for the White Lotus and tries to learn about a world that has moved on without the Avatar.

Without her being aware, one mission triggers a cascade of events, where secrets are exposed, enemies old and new are revealed, and a powerful fighter comes gunning for the Avatar. In an environment filled with spies and betrayal, Korra must figure out who she is fighting and who, if anyone, she can trust if she is going to survive.

Taking place mostly in Republic City, this story tries to keep the setting as consistent with the show as possible, except moved forward in time. Bending still exists, mixed in with modern communications and other technology, as well as firearms, and many of the familiar characters from Legend of Korra will show up.

#011

Title: Starvation Paradise

Pairing/Characters: Iroh II/Asami Sato

Rating Mature | M

Warnings/Tags: Graphic Violence

Wilderness survival, heavy drinking, major character injury, major character illness, animal death, blood, hunger, some nudity and bodily functions, implied sexual content

Summary: A drunken accident leaves General Iroh and Asami Sato stranded somewhere in the frozen north. The oasis they find is their salvation, but as long as winter lasts, it is also their prison. As hopes of rescue wither and die, they must use what they have to survive. Or not.

[narwhalandchill]

ok misc stream thoughts!!!

ANYWAY livestream over nice 30 pulls of aventurine funds for anni!!!! they didnt do anything insane but honestly it was kinda cope to expect them to, ratio for free was clearly a more of a spontaneous move and hes available throughout anniversary anyway so the "another 5*" were.... a little over the top im sorry wjkjwdjkwdjk altho i wouldnt have complained obviously. a free himeko or sth couldve been on theme for the cosmodussy event but eh cant be helped

im actually glad for the skippability of the reruns 😭😭 like i have luocha n jingliu (+ LC for latter) so by skipping acheron for now im gonna have a nice time getting aventurine and most likely his LC (2/3 of his 4* LC selection is so sad tho), love that fucker hope he gets to do proper mayhem in story too. cool death talk please dont actually die yourself for real for real tho i will be sad. like i do think its based of aventurine to pull off a stunt that appears to be what we in the business might call a certified chapter 5 komaeda moment but. ahahaha nooo dont actually die youre such a funny hat man .

(also sick boss form is sick but . bootleg FL im sorry aventurine. they hit perfection already and theyre never fucking topping the galaxy cape cyclops eye beak mask drip i swear JSWJWJDKWJKDWJK but also yes me biased? in favor of that ginger? i could never)

but it seems ill have a solid time getting aventurine and saving up for now??? since i dont think im too interested in robin or boothill either. i was kinda worried topaz' rerun would be in 2.1 for IPC antics with aventurine bc i am kinda curious abt pulling for her but now its gonna be 2.2 at the earliest so. Phew

the stream ran a bit too long lmao but like overall i tend to like the dev discussions so most of it was still neat, altho downside of dev streams is that not knowing chinese i cant just like. afk and listen on headphones and go get water or something 💀💀 and they were definitely dragging stuff out on purpose no way they werent but eh. people will live its just bideo game livestream. and like these folks do hard work on the game they can yap about what they do sometimes its only right lmao

leakers public shaming session was definitely a jumpscare but i do genuinely empathize w shaoji on that one. like. ive always been one for kit + banner leaks first and foremost and story leaks just. i dont care for them much. ive had my share of looking at them occasionally but i definitely agree with the way story leaks either by themselves or when misconstrued and misinterpreted really fucking mess with the intended experience for any given story and how that must feel like shit for the writers. like if story leaks stopped happening altogether id be perfectly content. and thats just ppl who look at story leaks on purpose cuz. im not going to even begin w how like. yes the leaks subreddits and most big leakers do spoiler warnings and keep the story stuff spoilered. but then theres literally the entire rest of the internet where shit gets spread untagged and without warnings the second they are posted anywhere at all and how that fucking ruins peoples experiences. like its 1 thing to click at a spoiler tagged post knowingly and get ur experience messed up with. but when u dont even want to see it its rly fucking bad and i v well understand condemning all story leaks (even those properly flagged) just on that basis alone. but yeah actually felt bad for him there and see where he was coming from for sure, even as a consumer of leaks

ok well that sure was a wall of text. didnt expect to write that much JWJKWJKDDWJK but ya

Anyway. biggest priority is holding strong w skipping acheron as sick as her animations are but def looking forward to her teaser and the animated short. like . even with the black swan dykery. (that was a fucking jumpscare too). i dont need her rn. despite how cool she is 😭😭

& also have to say im v happy they clarified their stance on hi3rd references like. the way theyre going abt it is absolutely how it should be going. hsr by nature is more directly linked to hi3rd like honkai is in the name but its such a dumbass idea (like some fan takes out there....) to want the stories of hsr depend on another games lore. rewarding old fans with easter eggs and tidbits is perfectly fine and im even interested in seeing where they go with acherons obvious raiden situation - especially knowing theyre not about to ruin their own story with "it was hi3rd all along!" (not that i ever rly thought theyd seriously blunder that bad lmao 💀) . so yea thats neat

i think story wise im not gonna say much of my thoughts bc unfortunately i have clicked on like. a leak or four. not the major stuff i dont think but enough that commenting on stuff w some of the things im aware of in the periphery is going to tint stuff . but im still excited to see where things go!!!

AAND OH. ACTUALLY i do have one more thing . so the multiple POV thing being actually implemented is SOOOO good im so fucking happy theyre committing to it being a thing 😭😭😭 like SO many story pitfalls can be avoided by just letting it be that TB doesnt need to be fucking everywhere a major thing happens as the centerpiece of events so we as players can see it. like it gives a way of showing different events and sides of characters in a much more natural manner its sooo good that theyre implementing it already. like this alone has me in such high hopes for the story going forward. like yea theyve branched from our POV before already and in penacony as well but expanding on it even more is 100% the correct way forward

last thing: god they did jingliu so dirty in her concert illustration. WHAT is she wearing 💀💀💀anyway yeah lesgo 2.1 its cool

i lied real last thing: siobhan . siobhan i would do anything---

[the-haunted-office]

Rules update - trigger warnings and content warnings added

I have added a section to my rules regarding trigger and content warnings. Please have a look at the list below and let me know if there is anything you need added. I will do my best to tag these things going forward. Thank you!

- Trigger warnings/content warnings - I will tag the following items as indicated below. They’ll be tagged as CW - for example: CW blood. If you have any particular triggers, squicks, or things that make you feel uncomfortable, please tell me so that I may add it to this list and remember to tag them for you!

blood horror (generally speaking, this will be used for posts that include particularly frightening content like you’d expect to see in a horror movie/book/etc.) eye horror body horror gore death terminal illness infidelity suicide suicide mention (used if suicide is mentioned as a past thing or muses talking about it) self harm self harm mention (used the same as suicide mention) slugs snails animal cruelty animal injuries animal death religion (posts including things such as demons, ouija boards, etc.) pregnancy

Suggestive content will just be tagged as suggestive.

[lovdyke]

😕

[a-game-of-stars-and-ink]

Falling for So Long

*Deep sigh* New Medieval Whump Series.

Characters:

Echo - A 21 year old female soldier in King Ilium’s army. She has brown hair and silvery-blue eyes.

Kazamir - The Tyrant King Orick’s herald. (”Kazamir” means “Destroyer of Peace”) He is 25, and has a reputation for being arrogant and vicious. He has black hair and grey-green eyes.

Altina- A kind healer in her sixties.

Mavaria- A veteran soldier in her early forties.

Tagging @whumpwillow

Warnings: Fantasy war, battlefield, death, whipping, fever, infection, vaguely referenced animal death.

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

Echo tightened her legs against her horse’s back as she raised her sword. Around her, the sounds of battle seemed to fade into the background. A hard jolt went up her arm as her sword collided with the blade of an enemy soldier.

Battle never got any easier. The clang of metal on metal, the dying screams of soldiers and horses, the stench of blood and sweat and fear that hung heavy in the air.

She twisted in the saddle, driving her sword forward, grimacing at the sticky spray that coated her gauntlet and helmet.

“Echo!” Mavaria’s voice shouted. “Fall back.”

Echo hesitated, before turning her horse around, following the rest of her battalion into the trees.

At the edge of the forest, she halted next to Mavaria.

“Go, Echo.”

“I’m staying with you.”

“Get out of here! I’ll be along as soon as I’m sure the others know to follow.”

Echo remained where she was.

“Dammit, girl.” Mavaria snapped, giving her horse a smack. Echo cursed as her mount took off, nearly throwing her out of the saddle.

Tightening her grip on the reins, Echo turned her horse back, going in an arc, intending to circle back to her commander.

_____

Kazamir wrenched his blade free, his lips twisting into a grimace at the sickening pain in his stomach.

Mentally, he cursed himself for being so stupid. He should have known better than to question the King, especially before a battle.

His grimace warps into a snarl as he surveys the battlefield, eyes locking onto on of the enemy commanders.

Mavaria. One of King Ilium’s favorites. Even his mistress according to some. Kazamir tightened his grip on his sword, and urged his horse towards the older woman, who was currently following behind her retreating troops. The soldiers she valued so much that she put their lives before hers.

She couldn’t see him coming, not at this angle, it would be easy to kill her, and it would put him back in favor with King Orick.

He bared his teeth in a vicious grin, levelling his blade.

He was almost to the Commander when another horse collided with his, Kazamir cursed as he was knocked from the saddle, lashing out blindly, he grabbed the enemy soldier by the wrist, and dragging her off her own horse, and to the ground with him.

The impact with the ground sent a spike of nausea-inducing pain through his stomach, and spots danced before his eyes. Gritting his teeth, Kazamir rolled onto his front, and pushed himself onto his hands and knees.

The soldier who’d unseated him was also getting up, grabbing her sword from where it had fallen a few feet away.

Kazamir grit his teeth, and lurched forward, driving his shoulder into her back and tackling her to the ground.

She writhed and bucked beneath him, but he was bigger than she was, and he had her pinned firmly.

The pain in his abdomen was enough to make him feel ill, and he swallowed hard to keep from being sick.

Silvery-blue eyes glared up at him, and Kazamir managed a sneer.

“Thought it might be you.” He said, voice tightly controlled. “Echo, is it not?”

The girl did not reply, she just regarded him with those stunning eyes, colder than a frozen ocean. She did not correct him, however, so he assumed he was right about her name.

One of Mavaria’s soldiers. He had encountered her once before, during a very tense political meeting right before the war had started, nearly a year prior.

He only remembered her because during the brief negotiations, he’d thought that she seemed like the most unpredictable of the soldiers. The one most likely to try an attack.

Nobody seemed to have heard the attack, and both of the horses had bolted after the retreating forces, leaving the two of them alone.

Kazamir wasted no time binding the girl’s wrists with leather cord, before yanking her to her feet.

“Walk.” He barked, and reluctantly, she obeyed.

They had barely made it a mile before he began to feel overheated and ill. No matter how hard he tried to shake it off, it clung to him.

Dizziness struck as pain once again flared through his stomach. Kazamir stumbled, and went to his knees.

______

Echo didn’t know if Kazamir had tripped or just lost his footing, but she didn’t wait around to check, she immediately took off in the direction that the others had gone, hoping she could make it back to the camp before the rain turned to sleet and she froze to death.

After she was sure she had shaken Kazamir off of her trail, she slowed to a walk, discouraged by the fact that she could see her breath in the rapidly cooling air.

She jumped at every noise, half-expecting Orick’s herald to catch up to her at any moment.

By the time night fell, her body ached with exhaustion, and she was sure her feet were more blisters than untouched skin, but she trudged on, trying to ignore the chill that had sunk into her bones.

_____

Kazamir staggered, bracing himself against a tree. After regaining his feet, he had tried to go after Echo, but it quickly became apparent that he’d lost any chance of finding her again.

So he’d continued his trek alone, doing his best to make it back to the battlefield. By now, he was hopelessly disoriented, and, despite his best effort, his strength failed him, and he collapsed, uttering a weak cry at the pain that bolted through his abdomen.

It didn’t matter. There was no one around to hear him.

___________

It was nearly dawn by the time Echo met up with a patrol led by Mavaria herself.

After cutting the binds on her wrists, the commander had given her a half-hearted scolding, and helped her onto one of the unridden horses.

Upon hearing of how Echo had escaped Kazamir, Mavaria had asked her to retrace her steps. It would be worth it to capture him if possible.

“You must be tired, Echo.” Altina said, riding beside her.

“Is that concern I hear?”

“For a little stray like you? Never.”

Echo bit back a laugh. Altina had delivered Echo when she was born, and had been a steady presence in her life ever since.

“Aww, you weren’t at all worried about me, old woman?”

“Didn’t they ever teach you to respect your elders?”

“Oh, so you admit you’re an elder?”

“Wise up, young one. I was old when you were born.”

This time, Echo did laugh, and Altina did too.

The mirth was short-lived. After crossing a small stream, the smile dropped off Echo’s face as she took in the sight of the figure lying collapsed on the forest floor.

This time, Kazamir didn’t seem so frightening.

[dreamsclock]

Hello, Sparrow! I hope you're having a good day. I came to tell about a story idea that I'm currently working on that I've see a concept for a few times; Manhunt!Dream and the other members of the manhunt gang get shoved into the Dream SMP from a glitch when worldhopping for the next manhunt, and have to deal with things like their other world selves, and dealing with some problems the server has, because they don't know how they can really get out. (1/2)

somehow, this ficlet that was supposed to be 0.8k (as are most my ficlets) turned into 2.5k??? HELLO??? i just loved this idea so much and loved how challenging it was to differentiate between both dreams, so sorry for the length LMAO !!! you’re so creative, this is SUCH a fun concept, and if you ever finish what you’re working on PLEASE tag me in it because it’s such a good au !!! :D have an amazing day, and i really hope you enjoy this !!

warnings: trauma / trauma responses, abuse, torture, aftermath of torture, injuries / wounds, self hatred, mental illness, self destructive behaviour, self inflicted injury, animal death mention, death mention, starvation implication, mental deterioration (pls ask to tag if i forgot one!)

Dream’s not sure how to talk to another version of himself.

Not that they’re much like each other at all, at all - at least, not from what he’s heard. They look similar, they sound similar, and that’s seemingly where the similarities end. You’re not shitty like he is, the people from this universe tell him very firmly, after two weeks of nothing but suspicion and slowly weaning hostility, you’re different from him, completely. You’re good, he’s bad.

You’re good, he’s evil.

...Dream’s never thought morality to be so clear cut. And so he requests a visit.

Sam is reluctant, but Dream, with more patience than he’s ever had in his life, talks him into it, wheedles and pesters until the man relents begrudgingly. Now that he’s here, though, standing with his other self behind a wall of steadily lowering lava. Because he doesn’t know what to say in situations like this - God, he doubts anyone does. How many people get to talk to their imprisoned, homicidal, undoubtedly incredibly mentally ill alternate self from another universe? It’s not something that just happens, and Dream’s stomach worms in anxiety.

The curtain lowers. Dream’s breath catches. Staring at the figure in the cell doesn’t bring a single shred of recognition at first.

That can’t be him.

That’s his first thought, of stunned disbelief. That can’t be him, because he doesn’t look like that. He’s not that... small. Defeated. His other self is tucked into a corner, neat, tidy, minus the blood on the walls and his skin and the way his head lolls forwards. He’s not close enough to see his face, but he’s close enough to see the ghost pale sliver of skin and the angry burns on his hands and arms: Dream swallows, steps back, glances to Sam, expecting to see similar horror on his face. 

Sam looks back at him passively. “Move with the platform, please,” he says, and suddenly Dream is forced to move or fall to his death, stumbling along the platform like his legs don’t support him, because seeing himself in such a miserable, wounded position has thrown him off entirely.

The Dream in the cell doesn’t move when he enters, doesn’t lift his head to study him like Dream does. Now he’s close enough, Dream can see a mask still on his alternate self’s face, straps wearing thin, the porcelain cracked and bloodied. 

“Hi,” Dream forces out, voice dry, “uh, this must be weird for you.”

The Dream with the mask doesn’t look up. “Sam told me about you.” His voice is rough, hoarse; Dream wonders if it’s from lack of use or from screaming. “Said you’d been bugging him to visit. I didn’t think he was going to let you.”

“Well, to be fair, I was annoying about it.” Dream crouches down beside him, cautiously, tugging off his hoodie (God, it’s warm) and discarding it in the chest beside him. “You’re not- I mean, you don’t look so hot.”

“Well, to be fair,” the Dream with the mask mimics, “I’ve been locked up for five months. I’m not going to look my best, am I?”

Dream snorts, lifting a hand to scratch the back of his neck awkwardly, and freezes when he sees the other cringe back like he’s expecting a hit. He doesn’t dare say anything about it - doesn’t want to ask in case he doesn’t like the answer he gets - and the Dream with no mask doesn’t either, so Dream fumbles for a topic change that isn’t going to make them both miserable.

He settles on one after a minute of stifling silence. “So,” he says, as conversationally casual as possible, “you’re... uh, you killed Tommy?”

...Yeah, he thinks when things get more tense, good job on casual conversation, Dream.

There is no Tommy in his time, not that he’s met. There’s Sapnap and George and Bad and Ant, there’s Techno and Phil, there’s even Sam and Callahan and Alyssa, but no Tommy. No Tommy, who flinches away from him every time he tries to talk with him, no Tubbo, who tried to kill Dream the first time they’d met, no Ranboo, who he hasn’t met because of how hard he tries to avoid Dream. The Dream with the mask turns his head, just enough that Dream can see the contemptuous nausea that slides over his other self’s expression, tight and hard and exhausted. 

“Yeah,” the Dream with the mask replies, “and I brought him back.”

“That wasn’t nice,” Dream says, and then cringes at his own words, “obviously.”

He gets no reply. That’s understandable. Settling down with crossed legs on the ground - it’s hot, uncomfortably so, but if Dream can manage it, so can he - Dream pulls the hair tie out of his own hair and offers it to his other self, who stares forwards at it uncomprehendingly. “Here,” Dream says, gesturing forward again, “you look like you need it more than me.”

The Dream with no mask sighs. “I’m not allowed that,” he says, like it’s obvious, “I’m not allowed anything other than what the Warden says I can have.”

Dream rolls his eyes. “Okay. But I’m telling you that you can have it. What’re you gonna do, use it as a weapon and hold me hostage until he lets you go? Come on, now. We’re good, but we’re not that good.”

Looking begrudging, his other self takes the hair tie, using shaky hands to pull his hair back from his face and instantly looking more comfortable. Now his hair is back, however, more of his body is clear to see, and Dream can’t help but wince at the blood and bruises covering his neck. 

“You can stop referring to us as ‘we’,” his other self tells him wearily, “that’s not- that’s not how it works.”

Dream arches an eyebrow. “As far as I know, we’re, like, exactly the same person.”

“We’re not.” The Dream with the mask looks bitter underneath it, annoyance and a strange wistfulness twisting his lips into a shadow of a snarl. “We’re both Dream, but that doesn’t mean anything. You’re different.”

“How?”

“Well, the fact you’re here voluntarily proves that.” His other self glances at him with thinly veiled resentment. “If we were anything alike, they would have locked you up when you first got here.”

Dream grimaces. “They tried to. Sapnap and George and Bad talked them out of it- well, my Sapnap and George and Bad, not- not yours.”

The other Dream flinches. “I don’t have a Sapnap and George and Bad.”

Not anymore, anyway, goes unspoken and very much heard.

You don’t have anyone, do you? Dream wants to say unbidden, pity and understanding rising sharply inside him, but instead, he very cautiously drapes his hoodie around his other self’s shoulders. It’s warm in the cell, too warm for a hoodie, but the hoodie is clean - it’s fresh and crisp and smells like outdoors, and when the Dream with the mask presses the hoodie against the side of his face, tension sliding out of his shoulders, Dream knows it’s the right thing to do.

“We’re more alike than you might want to think,” Dream tells his other self quietly, “you’re stubborn, right?”

A silent, stubborn pause, before the other exhales. “I guess.”

“And you did Manhunts, didn’t you? Your Bad was telling me. The only difference between my world and your world is that you stopped at this world, and I didn’t. I kept running. But otherwise, we’re the same. Right?”

There’s silence this time, but Dream pushes on anyway, knowing the silence isn’t a negative. “You’re hard working and you’re loyal to a fault and you get restless when you’re still for too long. You have a stupid laugh that makes people laugh, and you love running. You don’t like the taste of an actual banana but love the taste of banana bread, and your favorite smell in the whole world is either Bad’s cooking or a forest. You think George’s laugh is funnier than the jokes he makes and- and you have a scar on your ankle from when you saved Sapnap in a fight as a kid.”

“...Dream...”

“-And you’re loving,” Dream finishes firmly, “you love your friends, you care about everyone on the SMP, and it hurts that they’ve done this to you, it hurts you that you hurt them, because you love-”

“Enough,” the other Dream snaps, shoving Dream back viciously and getting to his feet, “I don’t need to hear this. You’re being dumb. Why are you saying any of this?”

Dream jumps to his feet, not swayed much by his other self’s anger. “We’re not that different,” he says firmly, “and I don’t think I deserve to be locked up in a shithole like this. Which means you don’t either.”

The other Dream scoffs, turning to face him from his limping stride across the cell. Even with the mask on his face, Dream can tell he’s unimpressed. “Whether you think that or not, it’s not gonna change anything,” he tells him, “I did a lot of bad things. They haven’t told you half of it. I’m rotting in here. They’ve made it clear.”

And a plan begins to form in Dream’s mind, mad, hare-brained, impossibly stupid. If Sapnap or Bad or George had been here, they would have dragged him out of the cell instantly upon seeing that look. As luck would have it, only his other self is here, and all the other Dream can do is cross his arms suspiciously. 

“Don’t,” he says warningly, “whatever you’re thinking about, don’t.”

Dream steps forwards. “Can I have some potatoes?”

Still wary, the other Dream gives him four. It’s just enough that his health begins to rejuvenate, half heart by half heart. Satisfied, Dream grits his teeth, taking a deep breath, and plunges his hand into the lava.

It’s agony, even for the second it’s in there. White hot pain drives him to his knees, and for moments, all Dream knows is screaming pain shooting up and down his burnt hand, and ringing in his ears, God, he’s not going to pass out, he’s not going to pass out, he’s had worse, he’s had worse he’s fine Jesus Christ pull it together-

His other self’s panicked demands serving as background noise, Dream staggers to the sink in the room, sticking his hand into it and counting to twenty to get his ragged breathing under control. Slowly, the other Dream’s words begin making sense in his head as the pain half abates, leaving him in agony, but manageable agony.

“...Fucking idiot!” The other Dream is hissing, steadying him and keeping him upright. He’s got one arm wrapped around his back, the other keeping his hand and arm submerged, voice still panicked. “You’re not supposed to be this dumb, you’re supposed to be smarter than this!”

Dream manages to shoot him a faint grin. “Why?” He asks. “’Cause we’re so similar?”

The other Dream groans, shoulders tense and worried. “You’re so annoying. Why did you do that?”

When the pain is tolerable out of water, Dream dances away, light on his feet, focusing on the discomfort of the ground rather than the throbbing burning in his hand and arm. “Punch me, then,” he says unsteadily, “if I’m annoying.”

“...Punch you?” The other Dream says in complete disbelief. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What if I say please?”

“Wh- No!”

Dream winces. “What if I tell you that Tommy burned Spirit’s remains two days ago in front of me after I told him to?”

...The other Dream, much like Dream, is very good at punching.

“For the record,” Dream adds, as soon as he knows there’s going to be a bruise on his jaw in minutes, “that’s not true, I’m so sorry. I actually have Spirit from Tommy: he gave their remains to me. Well, he didn’t give it to me, Puffy gave it to me from Tommy, and when you’re out I’ll give them to you, but-”

The other Dream is already turning away, nursing his hand and stumbling back like he’s expecting immediate retribution. Dream raises his hands to try and calm him, keeping a safe distance. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, firm, soft, “I swear it. Sorry for making you do that. I just- That was a crappy move of me, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a dick.”

He steps forwards, awkwardly, and the other Dream doesn’t move, face still firmly hidden behind the mask. His fingers come up, flutter near his head, close to the mask strings. Take it off, Dream urges him, take it off, come on, please. Show me what I already know.

And he does. The Dream with the mask becomes the Dream without the mask, dull green eyes boring into Dream’s own, and they’re red-rimmed and tired and a scar runs through one of them but they’re the same, in a way that’s suffocating and freeing all at once. It’s the final thing Dream needs to put his plan into place. With gentle hands, he takes the mask from the other Dream, wrapping it firmly round his own face and grimacing at the smear of blood he can see. He stares out at his own face, that’s somehow him and not him, and makes his plan a reality.

Because Dream isn’t evil, and neither is this version of him, no matter what anyone says. And if the other Dream is stuck in here, then why shouldn’t he be too? If their Dream is still a threat, locked away and traumatised and hurt and scared, he thinks he should be classed as a threat too.

If there’s something that both Dreams are, it’s self sacrificing. 

(Self love still counts if he’s being friends with himself from another reality, right?)

“Hey Sam,” Dream calls, cocky, “spot the difference.”

Looking into cams, Sam stares into the cell in dismay and anger at the two Dreams, both of them bloody, both of them similarly dressed. “I know which one’s you still,” he says over the intercom, frustrated, “Dream, I’m getting you out now, God. Stand in the water in the corner.”

Dream doesn’t move, and, with a little effort, lets his body straighten, something adrenaline fuelled and mean uncurling in his chest, something he only ever feels in especially tough manhunts. “Are you sure you know which one’s your Dream?” He purrs, and from the silence on the other side of the intercom, he knows Sam sees the evil Dream in front of him, knows he recognises the stance and the malice in his voice and the mocking line that his jaw makes. 

And he wins when Sam disconnects abruptly with a muttered curse, the camera’s flashing red light signaling a victory. Chuckling, Dream wrings his burned hand, heading to the sink to submerge his hand in it again. It’s a hollow victory - he’d rather not be stuck in here - but he’ll be damned before he leaves someone rotting in this hellhole.

“Guess I’m not going anywhere for a while,” he says, turning to his other self with a wry smile, “I hope you’re up for some company.”

“What the hell?” The other Dream asks him, wild, eyes darting to Sam in dismay. “How are you- You’re never going to get out of here. You realise that, don’t you? They’ll never be certain which is which, not after that stunt! Worse, they might just assume we’re both the same, that you’re just as bad as me, and keep you locked up here anyway.”

Dream grins. “That’s the plan.”

“You’ve just trapped yourself in here! With me!”

“Well, I mean, technically, we’re the same person, so I haven’t exac-”

“You’re insane.”

Dream has to laugh at this one, wheezing despite the anxiety rising over his spontaneous plans. “That makes two of us, right?”

The Dream with no mask stares at him like he’s never seen him before. And then, as if he’s forgotten how, he cracks a smile, small and uncertain. “You’re such an idiot,” he says, and it’s almost warming to hear, “you’re gonna be the death of yourself.”

But he sits back down, doesn’t look so small in his cell, and gestures for Dream to do the same. Yeah, Dream thinks, this is worth it, a thousand times over, this is worth it.

Because he’s determined they’ll both get out of here relatively fine and in one piece, and if there’s something the other Dream knows he is, it’s stubborn.

They’ll survive. They have to.

[bxthharmon]

Never Go Home Again, Pt. VII || JJ Maybank

Words: 2050

Series Warnings: violence / talking about abuse / toxic relationships / talking about nudes sex tapes and sex tapes / drugs / underage drinking

Pt. Warnings: Violence / an arrest??

Series Summary: A new girl, a shoebox of old memories, a past she’s trying to forget coincide with a hotheaded, but selfless, boy.  teenagers getting in way over their heads

Pt. Summary: A fight at movie night forces reconciliation, but happiness is short lived when JJ and Pope face consequences for their actions.

A/N: this parts pretty short (sorry!!) but eventful nonetheless. thanks for the continued support, lemme know if u wanna be tagged and ill be happy with any feedback. also, pleaseeeee talk to me!!! be my friend!!!

Chapters linked in my masterlist.

“masterlist”

“I’m so glad they’re still doing this.” Kie smiled, looking back at you, JJ and Pope, all sulking in your reluctance.

“I didn’t even know this was a thing.” You said, shrugging.

“Keep calm, carry on.” She continued, “Back to OBX life, you know? Aren’t you guys glad that I made you come?”

“Ecstatic.” Pope snarked.

“My couch was pretty comfy, I’ll be honest.” JJ added, making you elbow him.

“Yes, Kie, thank you.” you smiled back at her, glaring at the two sulking boys.

You laid down your stuff next to Kie, looking back at JJ and Pope, who were looking shifty as ever, whispering about their latest drama. You told Kie you’d get the snacks, and went to the counter, looking at the options.

“Hey, uh, can I get two pepsis and a pack of nerds please?” you began exchanging the money when Rafe came up to you. You glanced warily at him, your last encounter having been… eventful.

“Hey, new girl.” 

“Uh, hi?” you said, thinking back to your first, and only, encounter at Topper’s party. “Can I help you?”

“Well we got off on the wrong foot, don’t you think?” 

“To be honest, I wish we didn’t start off on any foot.” you noticed Pope and JJ staring at you as you interacted with Rafe.

He clenched his jaw, “Look, just tell your boy that we know what he did, okay?”

“Sorry, what boy? And what did he do?”

“He’ll know.”

You turned to leave, answering his farewell with “douche” and sat down between Kie and Pope, handing the boys their pepsis and opening the nerds. “Just saw Rafe.” You said, causing JJ and Pope to lean forwards intently, “He said, and I quote, ‘tell your boy that we know what he did’. I mean what the fuck?”

JJ and Pope shared a look, and you narrowed your eyes. “Where is he?” JJ asked.

“Right there.” You pointed to where he had rejoined Topper and Kelce. You watched the two boys spin around, clearly shitting themselves.

“Great, the whole death squad.” Pope muttered.

“Don’t stare, bro.” JJ spun Pope’s face back around, and you leaned towards them.

“Boys, what the fuck is going on?”

“Tell you later.” JJ said nonchalantly, making you and Kie share a worried eye contact. JJ turned back to Pope, “Just warning you bro, if they corner me, I’m coming out swingin’, okay? Slice and dicin’. I’m on edge right now. If that doesn’t work, I got this right here.” 

You and Kie made exasperated eye contact this time. 

“We just gotta stay in a group. They can’t come get us in a group.” Pope confirmed.

“Like a school of fish.” JJ added.

“Stay in the school. Can’t leave the school.”

“I’m sorry, JJ…” Kie interrupted, her voice riddled with frustration, “Please, tell me that you did not bring a gun here.”

“JJ, there are kids!” You added.

“No!” he denied, “Kie I didn’t bring the gun, okay? Everything’s fine.”

“Oh, wow, thank you JJ, that’s really convincing. I love that JJ.” Kie sassed.

“You two,” You shook your head, “are fucking idiots. Whatever you got yourselves into, why the fuck did you bring it to a place where there are kids! And families!”

“We didn’t want to!” JJ hissed back, “Blame Kie!”

“No!” you argued, “Blame you two for doing the stupid shit that made you bring a gun to a fucking kids movie night!”

“Founding principle, you guys. No secrets among pogues. What is Rafe talking about?” Kie reminded them.

“Yeah,” you backed, “What she said.”

They hadn’t explained the rules very well, and the two of them looked at you briefly, amused frowns on their faces. “Kie,” Pope said, “It might go down tonight.”

“What does that mean?” you asked, “‘Might go down tonight’, what the fuck did you do?”

“Deny,” JJ glared at Pope, “Deny, deny.”

The film started, and it started to get exciting. You were leaning your head on Kie’s leg, sat on the floor while the others were all on seats, when you heard the boys whispering for the hundredth time. You saw them get up, and sat up properly.

“Hey,” Kie hissed, and they turned back to you, “Where y’all going?”

“We gotta wring it out.” JJ shrugged, admiring the way you scrunched your nose up at the thought.

“You gonna hold it for each other?” you frowned, making Kie snort as they shuffled away.

You waited a couple of minutes then turned to Kie. “Hey, what’s taking them so long?” she shrugged, and you looked back to where Rafe and his friends had been. “Rafe and his mates are gone, do you think they’re in trouble?” 

She looked at where they had disappeared, and nodded, the two of you getting up and following where the boys had gone, grabbing JJ’s bag as you left. You crept round the side of the crowd, walking into a hell of a scene.

Pope and Topper were tackling each other, and Kelce had JJ around the neck, allowing Rafe to throw punches. In your peripheral vision, you saw Kie hit Topper with JJ’s bag, as you grabbed Rafe from behind, pulling him back so he lost his balance. He fell backwards on top of you, grunting as you rolled over, getting a punch in before he threw you off and pulled Kie off Topper. You stumbled up, going for Kelce and JJ, getting another punch in before Rafe threw you away again. You rolled over the ground, hitting a tree, and, winded, tried to get up again, unsuccessfully. You crawled and then pushed yourself up, getting one last punch in on Rafe before the orange hue of flames took you all by surprise. Rafe and his kooks stumbled back, scattering in shock, and you ran to JJ, looking him over for injuries, ignoring the aching feeling in your side where you had been tossed aside.

Kie looked over to you and JJ, and you told her to go, you’d get JJ home. You pulled his arm over your shoulders, letting him lean some of his weight on you as you limped home.

“You were pretty badass in that fight.” he mumbled, and you laughed.

“Yeah well, would’ve been better if Rafe didn’t keep throwing me around.” 

“Mm, I’ll kill him for throwing my girl like that.”

You stopped, turning to look at him, trying to ignore the bruises forming on his face. You were standing in the middle of the road, minutes from the Chateau, but no cars would come. You frowned at the bruised boy. “Your girl?” your cheeks tinting with a blush, and he smiled softly.

“My girl.” he confirmed.

“If I’m your girl then why didn’t you let me kiss you?”

He sighed, “You were drunk, and I didn’t want to take advantage of that. And I wanted to be sure you really meant it.” 

You giggled, “Kie was right then. She said you pushed me away because I was drunk.”

“When is that girl ever wrong?”

You were stood close enough to breathe each other's air, acutely aware of his hand on your hip.

“JJ, is this a bad idea?”

“Probably.”

“Do you care?”

“No.”

“Is one of us gonna get hurt?”

“Probably, but I’ll try my best to make sure it’s me.”

This time, he was the one to lean down, as he caught your lips on his. You leaned into him, wrapping your arms around his neck, as his arms found their way around your waist. You broke apart for air, breathing in each other’s scents and holding on, as if for dear life. You kissed again, this kiss lighter, more peaceful. You closed your eyes, burying your face in his neck. “Don’t break my heart, Maybank, I don’t think I could take it.”

--

“Don’t let it get in your head, bro. There’s three of them and two of us.” reasoned JJ. “That’s some typical kook shit right there.”

“Hell yeah.” Kie agreed, serving a customer as you sat on the counter next to JJ, the four of you in Heyward’s shop, and JJ not having left your side since your kiss.

“What was your thought process, using your head?” You asked Pope.

“I don’t know, man.” Pope admitted, “I just, kinda, acted off instinct. I was a cornered animal.”

“Hey Pope,” Heyward called, making the four of you look up, “someone here to see you. Y/N, get off my counter.” You hopped down, standing beside JJ, who slipped his hand into yours as Officer Shoupe walked in.

“Evening, Officer.” Pope greeted, standing up straighter and looking over to JJ.

“I have an arrest warrant for felony destruction of property.” Shoupe said, pulling out his cuffs, “keep your hands on the counter where I can see them, young lady,” he shunned Kiara, “Out of my way.”

“Whoa, Shoupe. What did he do?” Heyward asked, You and Kie also beginning to ask.

“Take a look at the warrant.” Shoupe said, as you and Kie started to shout.

“You’re arresting him?”

“What’s the proof?”

“Be careful!”

“Shoupe, are you listening?”

“How much did they pay you, man?”

Shoupe was laying off the rights as you all began to shout. You followed the officers out, still yelling and being pushed back, cut off by JJ’s shout.

“It wasn’t him!”

You stopped and turned to JJ, reaching for his hand, which he shook off. “It was me.” he continued. “He tried to talk me out of it, but I was mad because he’d just been beaten up. I was so sick of those assholes from Figure Eight that I lost my shit. I can’t let you take the blame for somethin’ I did. You’ve got too much to lose.”

“JJ, what are you doing?” Pope asked.

“I’m tellin’ the truth. For once in my goddamn life, I’m gonna tell the truth. I took his old man’s boat, too.”

“What the hell?” Heyward turned, almost offended by the idea.

“JJ, come on.” Pope reasoned. You felt Kie’s hand slip into yours, a gentle squeeze of consolidation.

“Just shut up, Pope!” JJ yelled. “Just shut up.” he turned to Shoupe, “He’s a good kid. You know where I’m from.”

Your heart was breaking from the way JJ was talking, and you felt Kie pull you into a hug, you must have started crying.

“Yeah.” Shoupe nodded.

“This was all me.” JJ lied.

Shoupe looked at Pope, “That’s the whole truth?”

“Whole truth, swear to God.” JJ butted in.

“I know what you think, goddamn it, I’m asking Pope.”

You saw the pleading look in JJ’s eyes, and Pope nodded, “Yeah, that about covers it.”

You watched as the uniforms cuffed JJ, and pushed him into the car, and you saw the apologetic look in his eyes as they took him away, and you felt Kie hug you again, Pope joining as you sobbed.

They pulled away at some point. Kie took you back to hers. “Y/N, what happened between you and JJ last night?”

“He kissed me.” you explained, “We’re not like, official but we’re also, I guess, exclusive?”

“Did he stay at yours?” you nodded, “Did you guys…”

“No. we just talked.”

--

You got the call a couple of hours later, waking you up from your nap, cuddled up in your many blankets.

“Waddup, Sarah?” you mumbled, yawning as you answered.

“Okay, so wanna go to a party?”

“Uh, you know what happened last time, right?”

“Sure, but this is a fancy party. You’re my plus-one to Midsummers. I’m adding you to the invite list.”

“Uh, what about Topper?”

“Already a member of the club, besides I have no real friends there, so please come. I’ll even sugar mommy you so you can get a dress.”

“Fine, Kie’s going anyway. I’ll find something to wear, don’t you worry about me.”

“Thanks so much, I owe you one.”

“Yeah,” you sighed, “You do. See you at this party?”

“See you!”

You hung up, and texted Kie.

You: sarah just invited me to midsummers??

Kie: sarah? Y sarah?

You: idk, she just called me up. Idek what the big deal is, u and sarah will be the only ones ik. 

Kie: lucky, u dont wanna know most of them

You: jeez, wtf did they do to u?

Tags: @tangledinsparkles​ @jellyfishbeansontoast​ @lolitstiana​ @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch​ @teamnick​ @thoughtsofthestars​ @obxmxybxnk​ @jjmaybankswife​ @kaelyn-lobrutto24​ @sxcretinhuman​ @alexa-playafricabytoto​ @angvelics​ @badwolf00593​ @coloradogirl07​

[shining-red-diamond]

Ch. 24: Hieroglyphs

Cast of Characters//Ch. 1//Ch. 2//Ch. 3//Ch. 4//Ch. 5//Ch. 6//Ch. 7//Ch. 8//Ch. 9//Ch. 10//Ch. 11//Ch. 12//Ch. 13//Ch. 14//Ch. 15//Ch. 16//Ch. 17//Ch. 18//Ch. 19//Ch. 20//Ch. 21//Ch. 22//Ch. 23//Ch. 24//Ch. 25//Ch. 26//Ch. 27//Ch. 28 (coming soon)

Words: 1.6k

Genre: Fluff, some angst

Pairing: ATEEZ OT8 x OCs

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: mentions of illness, scarab beetle attack, mentions of fear

“Easy, San,” Seonghwa instructed as his crewmate carefully hopped down into the carved hole in the Sphinx’s foot.

The crew followed the map to where the Great Sphinx was located, and they found two large stones that covered an entryway to a hidden cavern. Jongho and Yunho removed the fases yellow stones and set them to the side, and Seonghwa was the first one to hop into the hole with a torch in hand as the flashlights had run out of batteries in India. One by one, the crew joined him in the dusty space, Mingi being the last one to join them.

“Okay,” Seonghwa said, “the maps tell us we don’t have far to walk this time, but like the last two there are still death traps. Be cautious.”

“Here,” Jongho piped up as he pulled out his lighter, “these torches will last about an hour, so we’ll have to go quickly if we want enough light to get us through.”

The tiny flame touched each torch, fire blooming and providing an orange glow in the pitch darkness. Seonghwa, Yunho, Jongho, and San all held a torch and positioned themselves to illuminate the front back and sides of the group. The walls themselves were much wider than the catacombs in Rome, allowing the crew much more room to journey through; ancient hieroglyphs decorated the walls as they depicted the most powerful pharaohs and told stories of the gods of Egypt. Dirt covered the path they walked on, but it wasn’t as rough as Italy’s.

“We need to look for the wall with the inscription on it,” Dahae piped up as they began their walk beneath the Sphinx. “The diamond is in a room with treasure hidden away by the great pharaohs.”

“What’s written in the inscription?” Seonghwa asked as they turned a corner.

“It’s all in hieroglyphs, but Celestia translated it.”

San couldn’t help but smile. Even when she couldn’t do much, she was still helping with the journey in her own way.

Dahae cleared her throat and read, “‘The treasure of Nephertiti. May the Eye of Horus watch over it. Thieves be warned as punishment will be upon you if you choose that path.”

“That last part makes absolutely no sense,” Dinah shook her head.

“I mean, Celestia did write ‘Weird, but okay’ at the bottom,” Dahae laughed.

The rest of the crew chuckled at Celestia’s humor, but Seonghwa composed himself as to continue with their quest. It wasn’t long before they reached a blank wall guarded by jackal headed statues made of gold. Putting his flaming torch to use, the first mate leaned it towards a sort of indention on the wall. He brushed the dirt away and discovered the warning that was translated on the map.

“Are we supposed to look for a switch or something?” Grace-Anne broke the silence as she tried to look around.

Seonghwa took note of a small vertical crack in the wall. It was so microscopic one would need to scan the wall a few times to see it. He followed it with his eye and found that it was a door that had been sealed.

“Yunho, Jongho, help me push this,” he commanded the two strongest members. The three of them handed their torches over to the women before placing their hands on the wall.

On the count of three, the men used their combined strengths to get the passageway open. It took a few grunts and strained muscles, but the door finally moved with Jongho falling forward a little. Inside of the cavern was dark with the exception of the torches illuminating the area. However, some sunlight was peaking through, but it provided enough light to display the treasure that was spread out in piles.

“Look,” Mingi pointed to something on the ceiling. The Eye of Horus was painted just above a large bust of what Seonghwa guessed was Nephertiti. More hieroglyphs decorated the surrounding walls, and four stone pillars held gold statues of Egyptian gods. Gold coins, jewels, and other precious treasures littered the floor, tempting to the soul who happened to stumble upon it.

“According to the map,” Dahae said as she checked around, “the diamond piece should be somewhere...San you’re standing on it.”

The navigator glanced down at his boot and saw something twinkling in the minimal sunlight. “Hey, you’re right,” he smiled.

Just before he could reach for it, Taeran stopped him.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she shook her head and released him after a pause.

With his gloved index finger and thumb, San carefully picked up the piece and placed it into a small pouch for Grace-Anne to examine later.

Suddenly the ground shook violently, causing the crew to tumble to the ground. Thankfully, the quake only lasted a few seconds, and some of the crew were dusting off the dirt and coins that fell on them.

Seonghwa stood back to his feet and helped Grace-Anne to her feet. “Whoever took some treasure,” he warned, “put it back. We’re not thieves.”

“No one took anything except the diamond,” Dinah defended. “Something else must have triggered the shaking.”

“Was it a curse?” Mingi whimpered in fright.

“I doubt it. Besides, the riddle didn’t say anything about a curse, but they did talk about some sort of punishment ‘for thieves.’ WOOYOUNG, STEP AWAY FROM THAT STONE!!!”

The crew turned their heads to where the young man was kneeled tying the laces on his boots. His head popped up in surprise at his girlfriend’s voice screaming at him. When he saw what his foot was on, his face turned a ghostly white in horror. At jack rabbit speed he jumped to his feet, and back as far away from the stone as possible.

The dark, yellow stone was sunken in between two brown ones and engraved with a large beetle on top of it, and Dahae knew it was another trap.

Crackling and chirping noises sounded from the walls and underneath them. It started soft but quickly grew louder and louder with each second.

“What’s that?” Dinah panicked as she pointed out something metallic blue that was oozing out from the cracks between the ceiling and the walls. It wasn’t oozing, but rather...crawling?

Dahae let out a horrified gasp as she pulled Wooyoung from the statue. “Scarabs!” she squealed. “Run!”

The crew made a dash for the door, however, the beatles were multiplying in numbers and charging towards them at lightning speed.

“Keep waving your torches at them,” Dahae instructed. “They won’t touch us if there’s light.”

Those who didn’t have a torch huddled together as the four men surrounded them. The group scuttled back towards the entrance, one beetle nearing Taeran’s foot and Mingi being quick to kick it away.

“Don’t stop running until we get to the entrance!” Seonghwa ordered.

-

“Byeol,” Celestia’s voice called. “Come here, kitty!”

Hongjoong’s eyes slowly opened. He wasn’t sure what was going on or who Byeol was, but it sounded as if the Choi’s somehow got a pet. A cat, as Celestia mentioned. He heard his bedchamber door creak open, but nobody came in. That was until a sopping wet Siamese cat jumped up on the bed and began to dry itself on the duvet. The captain jumped as he wasn’t expecting an animal to pay a visit.

“Hey! Get out of here!” Hongjoong shouted weakly.

Phoebe and Celestia dashed in and scooped the cat up off of the bed.

“Sorry, captain,” apologized Phoebe. “We were just about to dry her off, but she got away from us.”

Hongjoong sighed. “It’s fine. I just want to know when the cat became a new member of the ship.”

“Well, she snuck on here when we were in India,” Celestia explained. “I found her snuggling San, and she quite likes the company.”

Hongjoong couldn’t ever get mad around Celestia. Really, no one could. She was just that type of person that no one could ever hate or be angry with. She was such an angelic soul and did her best to be kind. Her pregnancy hormones did attempt to hinder that at times when she had her mood swings, but it was understandable as she was growing another human.

“We need to teach you how to knock, silly,” she cooed at the cat.

Phoebe wrapped Byeol in the towel and carried her out to go finish drying her off.

“Would you like for me to take the duvet to the laundry room?” Celestia offered.

Hongjoong shook his head. “Dahae will take care of it,” he mumbled. “You take care of the cat.”

“Alright.”

Not even two minutes after she left, Hongjoong heard what he guessed was a stampede of horses on the ship. He opened his eyes to see what was wrong, but his fiancée burst into the room, dirty and out of breath. The illness seemed to disappear from the captain upon seeing the love of his life in such a state. He jumped out of bed and was by Dahae’s said in a matter of milliseconds.

“What happened?” he asked her. “Is everyone okay?”

She nodded, and the center of gravity shifted. The ship was taking off.

“We got the diamond,” she whimpered through a forced smile.

Hongjoong believed her, but he didn’t believe the smile she was trying to give him. He could tell that the tears forming around her red eyes weren’t of loss, but rather of fear.

“Did a mummy scare you?” he teased a little in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Dahae shook her head. She didn’t say anything else at all, but rather just embrace Hongjoong as she couldn’t hold back her sobs anymore.

“It’s okay, my love,” he shushed as he stroked her hair. “I’ll run a bath, and we’ll talk about it.”

-

Tags: @treasure-hwa​ @ateezlovenet​ (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed)

[meetthetank]

Cruciamen Chapter 10: Order of the Devoted

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: F/M, Other Fandom: NieR: Automata (Video Game) Relationships: 2B/9S (NieR: Automata), A2/A4 (NieR: Automata) Characters: 2B (NieR: Automata), 9S (NieR: Automata), A2 (NieR: Automata), A4 (NieR: Automata), Emil (NieR: Automata), Kainé (NieR) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, genre typical violence, On the Run, Monster of the Week, 9S is a half demon, 2B and A2 are shapeshifter Dragons, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smut in the future, inaccurate depictions of medical procedures, Fantasy Biology, A2 is Nonbinary

The first thing A2 notices is how soft the surface they’re sleeping on is. It reminds them of times as a hatchling when they would nuzzle into their mother’s downy feathers, safe and sound while they slept. Something is draped over their body too, just as gentle. For the first time in a long, long time, they are content and unafraid for their safety.

The next thing they realize is that this is not where they lost consciousness, and all of the warmth in their body rushes away, replaced by icy gripping fear.

Their eyes fly open and they sit upright, ready to fight their captors to the death and escape their prison. They expect to see a pit of rotting mud and meat, or a dank cellar of stone. Instead, they find themself in a small cozy room, complete with a mirror and dresser opposite of their bed. A quick scan around the place reveals nothing out of the aggressively ordinary beyond a plate of fruits and other, strange foods that A2 has never seen before.

They don’t lower their guard yet. If their time in the Bog has taught them anything it’s that horrible things can be waiting in every shadow. The soft bed and heavy blankets might be comfortable, the room itself might be bathed in warm sunlight, the foods beside them might smell inviting, and they might not feel like they’re on death’s door anymore… but it could be a trap or an illusion or a horrible dream. Any second their surroundings could shift back to the prison pit, or they could be hallucinating, on the brink of death while some Bog animals gnaw at their limbs.

… They stare around the room for a few minutes. Nothing happens.

Somehow, waking up in a safe and comfortable room is the most unbelievable thing that’s happened to them, in their mind.

A2’s stomach roars, and suddenly they remember that they haven’t eaten in… gods, they don’t know how long. They look over at the plate of… things, on the small table. There’s a bunch of small purple fruits hanging from little vines in a pile, a block of pale yellow stuff, something that looks in between the color of flesh and the writing paper humans use to record things, a cup of warm water, and a couple of bottles of odd colored liquids. The pale colored food has the shape of an oblong rock, but sags when they press their finger to it. Its outer shell crackles enticingly, but they turn their attention to the plants instead. At least they know that the purple orbs are fruits. They pluck one off the vines and roll it between their fingers for a moment. It’s somewhat firm with a thin skin around it, broken where it was connected with what reveals a soft flesh inside that drips with juice. They cautiously sink their teeth into a small portion of one end which explodes in their mouth.

A2 decides they like these purple fruits, and gulps down the rest of them in seconds, followed by the soft yellow block and crunchy but also soft paper colored food. All of it tastes strange, but pleasant. It isn’t as good as fresh kill, but it quells the hunger that gnaws at their gut. The darker portion of their mind chastises them for eating things that could very well be poisoned, but A2 doesn’t care. They’re fed for the first time since going into the Bog.

The sink back into the bed, full of strange new foods and ready to fall back asleep. However just as they begin to get comfortable, their body begins to itch. They groan and drag their nails against the focal points, mainly their thighs and shoulders, to find them wrapped in tight bandages. They hold their arm up to inspect, finding only clean white wrappings and the stink of some sort of chemical. It smells a bit like fermented berries but less sweet. Carefully they pick at the bandages on their elbow, unwinding them bit by bit once they find the end stuck between two layers. As the final layers start to unravel, their arm begins to sting and feel like their skin itself is peeling off. Sure enough, they pull back the last layer to find raw, red skin. Skin, not scales. Portions of their scales stick to the bandages, flake off when the bandage is removed, or cling to their skin by the smallest thread of mucus.

A2 puts the bandages back on as tight as they can.

Suddenly the wooden door to the outside world flies open and in steps a woman with black robes with a mess of curly black hair tied back. She’s much shorter than them, most likely coming up to where their chest would be, and either well fed or muscular under her robes. Probably both, if they had to guess. A2 freezes in place as they watch her cross the room with a ceramic pitcher in her hands. The woman’s green eyes widen when they meet A2’s

“Oh good!” she says, her voice warm and kind. A2 recognizes it as the same voice they heard just before passing out in the Bog. “I didn’t expect you to be awake already.”

They don’t respond. The woman keeps watching them as if waiting for them to say something. A moment later she clears her throat and approaches A2’s bed. They can feel their hair--now much lighter than before--bristle even though this woman doesn’t appear to be a threat.

“... My name is A4. I’m a nun in the Order of Devoted. I’ll be taking care of you while you recover.”

Still A2 remains silent, their eyes never leaving A4.

“You must have some questions. I know it can be scary waking up in an unfamiliar place, but I assure you this is the safest place you can be in this region.”

The only form of movement A2 gives in response is blinking when necessary.

“... You’ve been unconscious for about two and a half days,” the nun begins as she pours the water into a smaller cup. “You were in a very poor state when we found you, but our holy magic has been sufficient in helping you regain your strength.”

She sets the cup on their bedside table. “Unfortunately you seem to have contracted an illness from spending so long in The Great Bog, and it’s not one spells can fix. Bog Rot is something that requires the old medicines. Regular herbal baths, cleaning of infection sites, various salves, and-”

“I don’t need your help,” A2 snaps, brows knit tightly together. They try to look as intimidating as they can, despite how pathetic they feel wrapped up in blankets and bandages.

A4 smirks. “Ah, so you can speak. For a moment I thought you couldn’t or didn’t understand my language. But I’m sorry, you need treatment-”

“I’m not a charity case,” they growl.

The nun’s eyebrows shoot up in shock, but then she puts her hands on her hips and scowls, though her emerald eyes still hold kindness. “I don’t think you understand how serious this disease is. You-”

“I. Don’t. Need. Help.” A2 leans forward and snarls, baring their pointed teeth at A4.

For a split second there’s fear on the nun’s face, a brief flash of pallor across her face. “Yes, you do. This is only the beginning stages of the Rot. Your skin will start to become necrotic. You won’t be able to walk, stand, or even clean yourself. One by one your organs will rot away and shut down. Within a month you will be clinging to life while your body rots from the inside out.”

They scowl, but A4’s little sermon does strike a cord in them. They cross their arms over their chest and stare holes in the floor. Somehow wasting away in a sickbed is a worse fate than starving to death in a mud pit. Unlike in the desert with Emil and Kaine they’re in no condition to assist with anything, so repayment is out of the question for now.

Gods, they hate being stuck like this.

“Look,” A4 says, her stern expression falling into one of genuine concern. “I can tell you’re strong. Most people would have succumbed to the Rot and the pain. I’ve seen many warriors fall into torpor after a mere week, yet you remain conscious and alert. You’d be free to leave once you regain your strength, if you wish.”

A2 chews at their bottom lip as they think, still scowling at the floorboards.

“... Fine,” they huff. “But I’m not letting you wash me. And I can take the medicine myself.”

A4 lights up with a radiant smile that makes A2’s chest tighten. “Great! I’ll leave fresh bandages and salves for you on your table every day. You have to change them each morning or if they get too dirty. The salves will sting a bit but they will prevent further infections. Oh, and exercise is important to the recovery process as well. Helps combat muscle wasting. So I’ll be helping you walk around the Convent grounds every mornin-”

“Like hell you are,” they snap, “I’m not a dog-”

“The walks aren’t negotiable.” A4 doesn’t even look at them as she gathers up old sheets and clothes. “End of story.”

A2 sits back in their bed and scowls, once again, at nothing. Just before A4 leaves their room, they realize something of theirs is missing.

“Where did you take my sword?” It’s a question in technicality, but A2 says it like a command.

“Your sword?”

“Big, black iron blade. Has a…” A lump catches in their throat. “... A black feather on the grip.”

“Oh! Yes, we did recover that from the village.”

“Give it back to me.”

She sighs. “Weapons are not allowed in the medical wards, but…” A4 looks towards the door like a child sneaking treats from under their parents noses. “I can take you to it while we’re on a walk.”

A2 feels a growl rumble in their throat.

“It’s safe, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to it.”

There’s an air of sincerity around the nun that lends credence to her words. That, and A2 simply doesn’t have the energy to press the issue further.

“Mm…” Is all they respond with.

A4 nods, then shuts the door behind her, leaving A2 alone with their thoughts. They sigh and stare up at the ceiling, wondering why the world won’t let them die.

[more-pokeimagines]

Stone Cold Body [05] - Chapter 4

A/N: Okay, folks, here’s the next chapter, and I really hope you enjoy it. Feedback is always appreciated. :) If you want to be tagged in further parts of the series send me an ask!

Warnings: mentions of executions and violence

Past

Three weeks had passed since King Lewin I. had burned the girl at the stake, and Bede still couldn’t stop thinking about it. He didn’t know why his father hated the sorcerers so much, he didn’t know what they had done to deserve being hunted and killed like animals. But he knew only too well that he wasn’t allowed to ask, so he remained silent and carried on with his life as if he didn’t care about the death of innocent people at all, just like his father.

His sister, on the other hand, made no secret of her consternation. She barely spoke to the king anymore and even tried to convince him to cancel the ball he had announced for her birthday in a few weeks. The end of the story had been a slap in the face and a warning to never disrespect her father like that again.

Bede still got angry when he thought about it. His father had no right to treat Carlina like that, especially since she already spent most of the day in her room, silently mourning the death of a girl she hadn’t known. He wished he knew how to make it easier for her, mostly because it probably hadn’t been the last execution she had to watch but also because he hated to see his cheerful and carefree sister like that. Even though she often told him that she could take care of herself just fine, he still felt the strong urge to protect her from all the evils of the world. To him, she would always be the little girl who had asked him to read her favorite book to her over and over again while she snuggled up to him to keep herself warm. To this day, it was still one of his dearest memories and one of the many reasons why he adored his sister so much.

He was currently on his way to her rooms since she had been absent at dinner, probably because she was still too upset to actually spend time with the king. The queen, a compassionate and gentle woman, had asked her son to look in on Carlina, and he gladly followed her instructions, mostly because he was worried about Carlina too but also because he was tired of hearing about the princess he was supposed to marry anytime soon.

Absent-mindedly, Bede turned around the corner, finally reaching the hallway that led to Carlina’s rooms in the east wing. He knew that he needed to persuade her to leave her quarters, especially if she didn’t want to anger their father even more, but he had no idea how. Carlina was well-behaved and smart, yes, but she could also be incredibly stubborn. It definitely wouldn’t be easy to convince her.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” A guard had approached him, obstructing his way as he looked at the prince with an almost empty expression. Despite his statement, his voice showed no signs of sympathy. Instead, he sounded almost like the situation amused him. “But the king advised me to not let anyone pass.”

“Excuse me?” Bede asked, the disgruntled expression in his eyes a solemn warning but the guard returned his look without the slightest bit of fear. He knew that he was on the safe side since he only obeyed the king’s orders, and the prince hardly had anything to say anyway.

“May I propose that you talk to the king yourself, Your Highness,” the guard suggested. “Perhaps that will settle the issue.”

Bede frowned. It didn’t happen often that someone dared to disrespect him like that but even the stubbornness of this guard wouldn’t stop him from seeing his sister.

“No,” he said after a few moments of silence, his voice as cold as ice. “Perhaps we could do as I say, or else I will ensure that you suffer the consequences for disobeying your prince. I don’t care what my father said.”

The guard gulped, now clearly uncomfortable with the whole situation. “Your Highness, I-”

“Be quiet,” Bede interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. Now, step aside.”

He could literally see how the guard’s thoughts were racing as they stared at each other for a few more seconds. Then, the guard finally stepped aside. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness,” he said and bowed his head. “I was being presumptuous.”

“Yes,” Bede agreed. “You may leave now.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Bede turned away, raising his hand to knock at the door to Carlina’s room.

It was more than obvious that his sister wasn’t feeling well. Carlina looked absolutely terrible, despite her tarted up appearance. Her face was still tear-stained, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed as she looked at her brother who simply reached out for her and pulled her into a tight hug. She leaned against him, her face buried in the crook of his neck while tears welled up in her eyes again.

“We missed you at dinner,” he mumbled, his hands gently caressing her back to comfort her. The soft and expensive fabric of her dress felt cool beneath his fingertips. “Mother asked me to check in on you. She’s worried.”

“Father told me not to leave my room,” Carlina replied quietly. “He said I should spend my time realizing my mistakes before I bother him with my presence again.”

“I know. There was a guard outside of your room.”

Carlina sniffled. When she spoke again, her voice was shaking. “I don’t understand why he hates the sorcerers so much. They never did anything wrong, did they? And still he keeps hunting them like they’re wild animals! That’s not how a king is supposed to act.”

“I know,” Bede repeated. He didn’t understand his father’s hatred either but he had learned long ago not to question his actions, especially not when it came to his ruthless vendetta against the sorcerers. He could only hope that the killing would stop eventually.

*

Dissatisfied, Bede tugged at the high collar of his new jacket. He hated to wear his navy blue dress uniform but since the occasion called for fancy clothing, there wasn’t much he could do about it. In his opinion, the color looked awful against his pale complexion and it clashed with the color of his eyes while his mother insisted that he looked regal and mature. He, on the other hand, suspected that she only wanted him to look presentable when she introduced him to the princess he was betrothed to since birth, despite the fact that he had zero interest in marrying. But for the sake of Carlina and her birthday, he had decided that it would be best to discuss the issue later on.

His sister looked stunning, dressed in an exquisite rose colored gown which was richly ornamented with precious pearls and gemstones that resembled the jewelry she was wearing. The only thing that was missing was her contagious smile.

When he escorted her to the ballroom, an hour after the guests had arrived, he squeezed her gloved hand, trying to reassure her that nothing bad was going to happen tonight. Initially, she had looked forward to this celebration but Bede knew that she’d rather run and hide in her room after yet another incident with a sorcerer and his inevitable death sentence the evening before.

“Smile,” he whispered when they entered the ginormous ballroom that had always been too richly decorated for his liking. The guests were staring at the siblings as they made their way to the podium in front of huge windows where their parents awaited them.

“His Royal Highness, Prince Bede and Her Royal Highness, Princess Carlina,” a harbinger introduced them, even though there probably was not a single person in the room who didn’t know their names. Carlina was finally smiling again, gracefully waving at her admirers, and even Bede who usually acted restrained and sometimes slightly arrogant whenever he had to be at court, had managed to put on a somewhat believable smile. He hated events like this though. He hated how his mother paraded her children around like they were some kind of precious commodities to preserve the peace between Galar and other kingdoms.

“My beloved children,” the king greeted them when they reached the podium, stretching out his hand to help Carlina getting up the stairs. Bede couldn’t help but notice that she was a good actress. She didn’t even flinch when her father bowed his head to kiss her cheek; the exact same cheek he had slapped just a few weeks ago when his daughter had dared to speak out against him.

With a proud smile, he put his arm around Carlina. “Happy Birthday, my dear.”

“Thank you, Mylord,” she replied politely, just as everyone in the room expected. Then, she turned around to look at the courtiers as her father said, “Surely, my daughter feels honored to spend her birthday with such noble and courteous people.”

Restrained murmurs of approval interrupted him but as soon as he raised his hand, the crowd went silent again. “But this is not the only reason for our celebration today. I am delighted to announce the Prince’s engagement with Princess Amelié of Kalos.”

Bede’s smile faded in the blink of an eye. Even though he had assumed that his parents would make things official today, he didn’t expect to meet his betrothed in front of every aristocrat in the kingdom. Of course it didn’t help that he had no desire to meet her, let alone spend the whole evening with a girl he didn’t know.

A figure moving through the crowd caught his attention and for a moment, he closed his eyes, wishing that the princess would be at least a decent person, but when he opened his eyes again he realized that it wasn’t Princess Amelié who was curtseying in front of his father now. It was a woman, dressed in a simple, yet expensive looking gown. Her long hair was pinned up and decorated with barely noticeable beads and pearls.

“Your Majesty,” she greeted the king, her voice low and husky. “I deeply apologize for interrupting your wonderful celebration but Her Highness, Princess Amelié, will not be able to accompany us today. She fell ill a few days ago but she sends her kindest regards to the King and the Queen and their children. Her Highness particularly regrets that she can not meet her betrothed today but as soon as she feels better she would feel honored to pay her respect to him.”

“Please convey my get-well wishes to Princess Amelié,” Bede replied, knowing very well what his parents and everyone else in the room expected from him. He even managed to put on a smile. “And also assure her I am eagerly awaiting her visit.”

“Your wish is my command, Your Highness,” the woman said.

After that brief encounter, King Lewin lead the dance with his wife, followed by Carlina and Bede who wasn’t too fond of dancing but since it was his sister’s birthday, he couldn’t deny her request and he was more than surprised when he discovered that it was actually a lot of fun to dance with his sister. She was a natural talent, graceful and self-confident as they twirled round the dance floor.

It didn’t take long until a young duke asked the Princess for a dance, and after a few seconds of hesitation Carlina accepted the proposal. She gave her brother an apologetic smile but he stopped her with a wave of his hand and returned to the side of the dance floor.

Princess Amelié’s lady-in-waiting joined company with him just a few minutes later, gracefully curtseying when he greeted her with a nod. “Your Highness,” she said.

“Milady,” was the simple response.

She cleared her throat. “I have to say I am glad that I got the opportunity to be here tonight. It is a wonderful celebration. The princess must be thrilled.”

“She surely is,” Bede replied and darted a glance at his sister who was still twirling round the dance floor with that young duke. They seemed to enjoy themselves but Bede knew that they probably wouldn’t see each other again once this celebration was over. His father would never allow Carlina to marry someone of lower degree than her.

When the lady-in-waiting let out a deep sigh, he turned his attention back to her. She was looking at him with an annoyed expression. “You don’t understand, do you?” she asked. “I am not petite Amelié’s lady-in-waiting.”

“Oh, I realized that,” Bede replied flatly. “I knew it already when you spoke to my father. You know, as chance would have it, I have a bit of knowledge about Kalos and their traditions, and let me tell you, a lady-in-waiting there would never be dressed in a simple gown like yours.”

The woman’s eyes widened in surprise but just a second later, the blank expression was back. “I see. Well, it doesn’t really matter anymore. I got what I wanted.”

“And what would that be, Milady?”

“Talking to you,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I wanted to tell you how much I despise your family. You killed my little sister, you killed countless others and yet, here you are, throwing parties and wasting money, as if my people aren’t suffering because of your ignorance. I won’t let Lewin continue to destroy this country.”

“And what are you going to do about that, Milady?” he asked, the tone of his voice clearly meant to mock her.

“You’ll see, little princeling,” she promised and her lips curled into a sweet smile. “You’ll see.”

Masterlist  / Next chapter

[setsuna-maru]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, 半妖の夜叉姫 | Hanyou no Yashahime | Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon (Anime) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha) Characters: Rin (InuYasha), Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Zero (Hanyou no Yashahime), Riku (Hanyou no Yashahime), Jaken (InuYasha) Additional Tags: Pre-Hanyou no Yashahime, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Dreams and Nightmares, Angst, Pregnancy, Horror Elements Summary:

Rin and Sesshoumaru have embarked on the life of expectant parents to hanyo twins but not everyone is happy for the devoted couple. In the shadows awaits a spider whose venomous bite will both rekindle old nightmares and create entirely new ones.

Zero, still resentful from the Inu no Taisho's rejection and death hundreds of years earlier, schemes to bring down his son Sesshoumaru and his human bride.

All the while, the ill-fated pair will make the most of their fleeting time together, forging a unique path and dancing to their own rhythm.

Chapter 1: the night bandits/venus; the star love, who waits for the moon

nocturne one: the night bandits

(in the darkest point of night, I want you to be here like before...)

 It’s as though Rin has been sent back in time, for she finds herself walking around her old village; a small child once again. She's having trouble coming to terms with the sudden reversal. Looking down at her body she sees tiny, bare feet and a distinct lack of womanly curves. Her kimono is one she remembers well but hasn't worn in many years. A pinkish-red garment that wraps around her lithe, diminutive frame as she brushes her now child-sized hands across it in confusion and disbelief. Her view of her surroundings is that of a child’s too; once more knee-high to the rest of the world, she must gaze upwards at seemingly everyone and everything she comes across. 

  This isn't right  , she thinks. We're all those years just a dream? Had she never really grown up? Had  Sesshoumaru-sama  been merely a dream? All of her adventures? The time spent living with Kaede-sama in the miko's village? It's heartbreaking to think that the entire life that she lived since leaving this place might never have actually happened at all. She wonders, sadly,  what about her babies? An expectant mother—the last she remembered—at the age she's regressed to, motherhood could be enacted only with dolls and her own imagination.

 She idly wanders the village, re-visiting all the old landmarks of her childhood. She passes the paddy fields, the fish preserve, the drunken old hermit who always sat beside the same rock with a bottle of sake clutched in his hand. When he drank he liked to sing songs about the good old days and he sings the same one each time she passes. “ That’s the sound of a million ships/ just sailin’ away/it can feel like before/comin’ through, either way.”  At one point, Rin even comes upon the dilapidated shack that she'd lived in after becoming an orphan. She enters it and there’s a wolf, curled up asleep on her bed of straw and she swiftly but silently backs away until she’s on the main pathway again.

 She remembers how to get to her childhood home; knows the path like the back of her hand. She chooses to avoid it; backtracking or taking a sudden swing in the opposite direction when she realizes she’s getting too close. It’s as if returning there would mean accepting that her life since the death of her family had been nothing more than an illusion. She’s not ready for that. She’s still in denial, thinking that if she turns the right corner she’ll end up back under a tree; her head in Sesshoumaru’s lap, their hanyo twins growing in her womb. It’s as if the village itself is waiting on her to accept her retrogradation; the villagers do not speak to her or seem to even acknowledge that she’s there. It’s like she’s caught in some strange limbo; unable to rejoin this world but prevented from moving on. She floats through the village like a spirit who does not belong there anymore. A stranger in a body she can't accept as her own; merely the puppeteer of it's bird-like, underdeveloped limbs.

 Eventually, the world gets tired of waiting for her while she wanders around in circles and Rin is deposited into her childhood home. She had taken a left at the singing hermit (“ That’s the sound of a million ships/just sailin’ away/it can feel like before/comin’ through, either way.”) and walked directly into the cozy wooden house of her youth. Her mother is sitting in the middle of the room,  tending to the fire pit. Her brothers play a game in the corner. Her father has dozed off on the straw mat, exhausted after a long day.

 Her mother adds another log to the burning flames and addresses her daughter. “Rin, don’t be lazy. You’ve been mucking around for years now. Enough is enough. Come help your  Oka .”

 Rin’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Her mother  knew; knew Rin had been gone for  years. How could she have let her mother think she’d abandoned the family like that? What kind of daughter was she? Why would she ever—

  None of this makes any sense. She’d had every reason to believe that her family were dead and gone forever. She’d  watched  them die. It had seemed so real; her most painful memory. The one that had continued to haunt her for long after. She'd watched these people  die  but here they were, nonetheless.

 She looks at her now-living family and wants to feel happy. That horrible night; the screaming, the stabbing, the blood—It had all been just some terrible dream. And now, they’ve been given a second chance. She could look forward to the future where her family was alive and they could all be together again.

 But, despite telling herself this, Rin can’t muster up a single feeling of happiness at the sight in front of her. It was like looking at ghosts. Ghosts that don’t even realize they’re ghosts.

  Dead dead dead.  All of you are  dead, she thinks.

 A bright, orange light starts to emit from outside. Rin turns around. There’s light emitting from the lone window at the front wall and from a bright square that has formed around the doorway.  She goes over and pushes the doorway curtain aside to see what’s going on but the light is so bright it nearly blinds her. She reaches an arm up to cover her eyes as she lets the curtain fall.

 When she opens her eyes again, everything is dark. She's still in her family's old house but it’s almost pitch-black and she struggles to make out the forms of her parents and brothers, asleep under their covers. The orange glow begins to peek through the window again and the room is gradually illuminated with the color—the color of flames, she realizes.

 Against the far wall, the orange light begins to morph into distinctive shapes. Hulking men in armor with weapons in their grasps. Behind her she can hear the stomping of horse hoofs and the cries of the neighbors. The orange glow illuminates the entire room now, in a mockery of daylight. The light is oppressive and overly luminescent and makes it seem as though the house could explode into flames at any second.

 The stomping noise is now dangerously close and Rin dives out of the path of the doorway moments before men on horseback crash through the front wall of the house. It's instant chaos as the horses neigh loudly, the men shout and her family screams as they scramble out of bed.

 Rin’s only instinct is to escape. It makes her feel like a terrible coward but she knows she'll surely be killed if she stays. The bandits have already started on her parents. One of them roughly grabs her mother, yanking off the kimono she'd been sleeping under and stabbing her with a long spear. The painful howls emitting from her mother’s mouth are even more awful to hear than the sight is to witness.

 She needs to get away. Praying the chaos will be enough to allow her to get out of the house unnoticed, she props herself up on her hands and knees and crawls as quickly and quietly as she can to the doorway. As soon as she makes it outside, she climbs to her feet and breaks into a run.

 Her escape doesn't bring safety though. It did, once. In a memory she no longer trusts was ever real.

 The bandits are everywhere. 

 There's no direction she can run to avoid them. While she stands immobile in the middle of the village, desperately considering her dwindling options, the bandits begin to notice her. They point and yell. "The little girl, let's take her too!"

 "Grab her before she gets away!"

 "Kill her if she tries to resist!"

 "Kill her anyway!"

 They begin to advance on her and Rin can think of only way she could possibly be saved.

 "Sesshoumaru-sama!" She screams. But it's too early. He doesn't know her yet. If he ever really existed at all. If he wasn't just a dream she'd made up in her mind.

 "Sesshoumaru-sama!" She screams again. She screams his name over and over again until she feels the bandits blade in her side and the moist flow of blood as it drips down her skin.

 tarantella one: venus; the star love, who waits for the moon

(when you go, do you miss me?)

 Rin's eyes snap open and in her first few manic moments of consciousness, Rin bolts to a sitting position and pulls her kimono up to examine her leg. The sensation of something wet on her thigh is still there. A quick exploration with her fingers confirms this and her heart drops. She pushes more of the fabric out of the way to get a better view and her eyes land on the trail of blood running down her leg.

  Real, real, it was real, she thinks as she frantically searches for a wound. Something had really hurt her,  stabbed her,  and now she was going to bleed out on the forest floor. In her distressed state, she ignores what should be the curious lack of pain if she had indeed suffered a flesh wound. Instead, she continues to look for evidence of the deep cut she’s convinced is somewhere on her body.

 "Rin," a low, deep voice breaks into her panicked thoughts.

 "Calm yourself.” Sesshoumaru leans down on one knee beside her, his clawed hand coming to cradle her chin.

 “The bleeding just started. I smelled it and was about to wake you." The voice is measured but laced with concern. She was one of the few people who have recognized the nuance.

 It’s such a relief for Rin to hear that voice. Just hearing his voice and being in his presence grounds her and she allows herself to accept that the experience had only been a nightmare and she's now safely back in the real world.

 She  was  bleeding, though. Rin examines her leg closer. She's calmer now but still disorientated from the nightmare. Not completely back to reality just yet.

 "Rin was having a nightmare," she says. "Someone stabbed me in my leg. There was so much blood," she explains.

 "There's no wound," Sesshoumaru reassures her. "It was just a dream. The bleeding; it’s from your cycle.” His keen sense of smell meant he could accurately judge the difference.

 She gulped nervously. “Do you think the babies are alright?”

 “It’s probably nothing to worry about,” he reassures her again, although they’re both well aware that he’s hardly an expert in the subject.

 This isn’t the first time this has happened to her. Rin had been a midwife-in-training and knew that women were supposed to cease bleeding during pregnancy, so when she’d bled the first time after knowing she was with child she’d panicked, believing she was having a miscarriage. Sesshomaru had had to rush her to the nearest human village so she could be told by a jaded local midwife with an obvious distaste for human-yokai relations that she hadn’t suffered a miscarriage. Apparently, continuing to bleed even while pregnant was normal and didn’t necessarily indicate a problem. Though, even with this information, Rin still found herself becoming anxious each time it happened subsequently.

 “Rin is going to the pond to clean up,” she says, rising to her feet. “Will you wait here until I come back?” Her nightmare had greatly disturbed her and she really doesn’t want to return to find herself alone.

 Sesshoumaru nodded and Rin began to walk toward the pond. Another stream of blood rolls down the length of her thigh and she holds her kimono and her underlayer up and away from her body. They were already slightly bloodied and she doesn’t want to risk staining them further.

 It’s still very early in the morning. The sun has yet to come up and Rin has to strain her eyes to tell where she's going and walk slowly so she won’t trip over anything. Treading barefoot across the lush field at such an ethereal hour, she’s able to relax slightly. The stark, cool sensation of dewy blades of grass catching between her toes is refreshing compared to the warm, sticky blood that drips down her legs.

 Rin wonders if the nightmares about her family’s death will ever go away completely. They had become significantly less frequent over the years and she’d gotten to the point where she could go months without having one at all. But they always returned. There seemed to be no comfort in the entire world, not even the devotion of Sesshoumaru-sama himself, that could keep them at bay.

 She reached the pond and stripped off her kimono, leaving herself clad only in her hadajuban. She carefully rinses the blood out of the cloth and then sets it aside. Splashing some of the pond water onto her legs, Rin cleans the sticky liquid from her skin. Once she finishes, she picks up her kimono and begins to walk back before pausing to admire the sky. Dawn would be breaking soon; the first hints of sunlight were peeking out over the horizon, leaving only the brightest stars still visible.

 “Beautiful, isn’t it,” a man’s voice, unfamiliar to her ears, breaks into her reverie.

 Rin jumps a little, startled. She’d had no idea anyone else was even out there. Even though it’s still quite dark, she pulls her dampened kimono back on. It would be improper for a married woman like herself to be seen in her hadajuban by someone who wasn’t her husband. Once she’s convinced she’s decent enough, she darts her head around in search of the voice's origin. Blinking into the fading darkness, she spots a figure perched atop a rock at the edge of the pond.  Had that person been there the entire time?

 Rin could just make out the man’s appearance. He was fairly tall, with chin-length hair and wearing a dark kosode under a lighter colored haori and a pair of striped hakama. Despite addressing her, the man wasn’t looking towards her. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the lightening sky.

 “That bright planet that hangs up there on early mornings like this; do you know the name of it?” he asks her.

 Rin looks back to the sky, where one star burned bigger and brighter than any of the others.

 “Oh,” she says, “‘that’s ‘the metal star’ isn’t it?” That was the name that Rin had known it by, although Miroku-sama had told them other names for it he had been aware of, like Jīn-xīng and Shukra Graha.

 “Venus; the morning star,” the man says, eyes transfixed on the celestial object in question.  “The star of love.”

 Rin was intrigued by the man’s description. She could understand why it would be called ‘the morning star’ but...

 “Why, ‘the star of love?’”

 “There exists a far-off land called Rome,” he tells her, “where they ‘do as the Romans do’ as they say!” He says this with a laugh but Rin doesn’t get the reference and isn’t sure what about it is supposed to be funny.

 “The ancient Romans worshipped Venus as their goddess of love and named the brightest star in the sky in her honor.”

 “Ah!” he continues, “but the Romans aren’t the only ones who associate this star with love. Travel west towards the continent and you’ll find those who refer to it by two names; sao Mai, the morning star and sao Hôm, the evening star. Because they’re considered distinct entities, existing at different times, they’re likened to separated lovers. They also have another word for the same star, sao Vượt—The climbing star.”

 The sky was becoming lighter and lighter as the man talked and Rin could make out his physical appearance more clearly now. He looked young and not really like any human Rin had encountered, with his auburn-colored hair. But he didn’t look like a yokai either. Perhaps he was a traveling foreigner; it would explain how he knew so much about far-away lands and cultures.

 “The climbing star?” she inquires.

 The man nods. “They have a poem about it; ‘When you go, do you miss me? I am the climbing star waiting for the moon in the sky .’”

 “That’s beautiful,” Rin says. It reminds her of a song she used to sing.  ‘I will wait, all alone/For Sesshoumaru-sama’s return.’

 That was what she was, Rin thinks. A climbing star. A morning star. Venus, with all her love, who waits for her evening moon.

 “It is?” the man asks. “Beautiful?”

 “Yes,” Rin nods. “It reminds me of a song I used to sing.”

 “Oh?” he says, finally turning to look at her. There’s a peculiar expression on his face. “What did it sound like—Your song?”

 Rin feels a sudden sense of unease at the tone in his voice.

 “Was it…” he hums a brief melody, “the sound of a million ships, just sailing away… ”

 Rin can feel her heart sink. She  knows  she’s heard that before. But  where had she heard that before? It sounded so familiar to her but try as she might, she just couldn’t place it. She racks her brain, trying to come up with the memory.

 The man continues to stare at her, vacantly. All the friendliness from before has been drained away.

 “Rin,” Sesshoumaru’s voice says from behind her. “Is this man bothering you?”

 Rin turns around to see him standing there, eyes slightly narrowed.

 “No, Sesshoumaru-sama, everything is fine. This man was just telling Rin about—”

 She turns back to the mysterious stranger but there’s no one perched atop the rock and the man is nowhere to be seen.

[afni-fics]

Elder Scrolls DC - A Reluctant Dragonborn - Chapter 26: Dragon Rising (part 5)

Chapter 26: Dragon Rising (part 5) by C_R_Scott Chapters: 26/? Fandom: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Red Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Tim Drake, Lucien Flavius Additional Tags: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Skyrim/DCU crossover, Reluctant Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Not Beta Read, Alternate Universe - Skyrim Fusion, Modded Skyrim, Skyrim Spoilers, Tim Drake is Dragonborn | Dovahkiin, Batfamily-centric (DCU), Tim Drake-centric

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Summary:

The conclusion of the "Dragon Rising" portion of the main Skyrim storyline.

-------------------------

When Tim and Lucien made their way into Dragonsreach's throne room, they could hear, even from the front doors, that Jarl Balgruuf was already in a loud, animated discussion between his steward Proventus and a different guard. This one was male and had very striking facepaint. Tim frowned. Irileth was nowhere in sight. 

Swell.

"Good. You're finally here." Proventus said. "The Jarl's been waiting for you."

The new armed guard on the Jarl's left hand agreed. "We were just talking about you. My brother needs a word with you."

A quick glance back confirmed Lucien had decided to hang back by a couple of yards, but his own hooded face was lined with a subtle scowl since he didn't see Irileth either. Then Tim paused at the foot of the stairs leading to the throne and bowed respectfully to the Jarl. 

Jarl Balgruuf looked at Tim appraisingly. It made Tim uneasy. "Irileth informed me of the dragon's death at the Watchtower, but she mentioned something... strange that happened there." The Nordic ruler narrowed his eyes at the younger man. "I'd like to hear your perspective on the events."

Tim slipped on his best Wayne mask, the one he normally reserved for dealing with Lex Luthor company executives whenever any decided to visit Gotham and Wayne Enterprises. He was nothing but professional as he spoke. "I wish I could give you my perspective, my Jarl," he said politely. "Unfortunately due to my illness and injuries, I wasn't in the right state of mind to remember much of that night. I do know that there are accounts from others who were there when the dragon died that I appeared to absorb 'something' from it." He shook his head. "What that 'something' was, I couldn't even fathom how to describe it with any accuracy from second-hand accounts. The most I can offer is that I've heard the word 'Dragonborn' used in conjunction with the events. I am sorry I can't offer more clarity than that."

Balgruuf stroked his beard thoughtfully. "If Irileth's men, honest Nords to a man, who were there that night and witnessed the miracle, are calling you 'Dragonborn', then it makes sense that the Greybeards have sent out a summons for you now. You must be Dragonborn."

Tim felt a lump rise to his throat, but he swallowed it down and clung to his "mask" like a second skin. "Who are these Greybeards, and why would they want to summon me?"

"They are masters of the Way of the Voice," Balgruuf started as one of his servants brought him a drink. He took one silver goblet and waved the rest away. "They live in seclusion high on the slopes of the Throat of the Word." He took a long draught before continuing. "The Dragonborn is said to be uniquely gifted in the Voice - the ability to focus your vital essence into a Thu'um, or a Shout. If you really are Dragonborn, they can teach you how to use your gift."

The servant girl offered Tim a drink, but he waved her away politely as he kept his focus on Balgruuf even as the left-hand guard began to address him.

"Didn't you hear the thundering sound as you came to Dragonsreach?! That was the voice of the Greybeards," the man in the dark armor said with absolute self-certainty. "Summoning you to High Hrothgar! This hasn't happened in... centuries, at least. Not since Tiber Septim himself was summoned when he was still Talos of Atmora!"

If the guard was going to say anything else, he was cut off by Proventus "Hrongar, calm yourself. What does any of this Nord nonsense have to do with our friend here?"

As Proventus triggered a heated argument with who Tim now knew as Hrongar, the Jarl's brother, he took the moment to take a breath and absorb what had just been said. He swallowed the desire to include his own frustrated voice to the squabbling between Proventus and Hrongar, but held his tongue. Instead, he let Balgruuf finally break the argument up before speaking up again.

"What do these Greybeards want with me?" Tim asked.

Balgruuf shook his head. "That's the Greybeards' business not ours," he said with almost an apologetic tone. "Whatever happened when that dragon was killed, it revealed something in you, and the Greybeards heard it." The Jarl met and held Tim's gaze solemnly. "If they think you're Dragonborn, who are we to argue?" Then he broke off the gaze and sighed. "You'd better get up to High Hrothgar as soon as possible. There's no refusing the summons of the Greybeards. It's a tremendous honor."

As the Jarl mused wistfully, something about envying Tim about his upcoming 'pilgrimage' and waxing nostalgic about the peacefulness of the Graybeard's high altitude monastery, inwardly Tim was trying and failing to wrap his head around this entire situation. How had things escalated so damned fast and in such a completely insane direction?! He wasn't whatever they thought this "Dragonborn" was! He couldn't be! He was just a human vigilante from Gotham. He wasn't a metahuman. He wasn't descended from magic or an alien from Mars or Krypton. He was just a rich kid from Jersey for Christ's sake!

There was a subtle shift in the Jarl's voice and Tim's attention jerked back to the man on the throne. "You've done a great service for me and my city, Dragonborn."

"Oh crap!" Tim thought silently with a faint edge of alarm, though his face betrayed nothing of his inner thoughts. "He's referring to me as 'Dragonborn" like it's replaced my name. This can't be good."

"By my right as Jarl, I name you Thane of Whiterun. It's the greatest honor that's within my power to grant."

"Wait-- What?!" Tim's mask slipped as he blinked in surprise and stared at the Jarl with blatant bewilderment.  He was momentarily distracted by the fact that Proventus had walked up to him bearing a large parcel that was wrapped with what looked like a cloak bearing the crest of Whiterun, an image of a horse's head in profile. "Oh, no, no, nonono..." Unconsciously Tim took a step away from Proventus.

Despite the young man's obvious confusion, Balgruuf pressed onward, not caring in the least about Tim's visible discomfort. "I also assign you Lydia as a personal Housecarl, and this weapon from my armory to serve as your badge of office."

"Now one moment--" Tim tried to interrupt, even as the Jarl's brother Hrongar was attempting to offer him what looked like a very ornate greatsword that was nearly as long as Tim was tall. He tried to wave the sword and the parcel away, but thankfully Lucien came up and accepted both on Tim's behalf, looking about as startled as his friend was feeling. Lucien shrugged his shoulders apologetically at Tim. He had no clue what was going on either in that moment. 

Tim held both hands up as if surrendering to Balgruuf, if only to just make him stop talking for the moment. "I... appreciate all of this. You have shown me a great deal of generosity, Jarl Balgruuf, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart... but..." Then Tim caught sight, out of the corner of his eyes, a heavily armed woman with a sword and shield coming into view. He focused on that for the moment. "I don't even have a house in the area to have a 'housecarl' in," he argued. "You don't need to give me one of your soldiers."

"That's easy enough to fix."

Tim felt the blood drain from his face. "Oh sweet fucking Jesus," he thought to himself with dismay.

"Proventus," Balgruuf said. "Didn't you mention that there is a house that is currently vacant in the Plains District the other day?"

Tim tried to open his mouth to protest again in a vain attempt to derail the Jarl's obvious train of thought. However, thankfully, another strong voice spoke up loud and clear.

"That won't be necessary, my Jarl!" 

Tim almost sagged in relief as the main doors to Dragonsreach flew open and Irileth marched herself into the great hall with calm unwavering authority. 

"My apologies for being late," she said as she bowed respectfully to the Jarl. "But there was a disturbance being caused at the city gates by a couple of Redguard men I needed to attend to." Then she glanced at Tim and Lucien, taking a moment to look over the things that had been handed to Lucien with a subtle frown, before turning her full attention back to the Jarl. "And there won't be a need for your new Thane to purchase a home within the city walls. Timothy and I spoke the other day at the Temple about his favorite areas in the Hold..."

Tim glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, repressing his new confusion as best he could. They never spoke about any "favorite areas" the other day when she visited him at the Temple. She just asked him to come to this meeting with the Jarl and left when he agreed. Then, as she continued her "suggestion", he realized what she was doing.

"...He mentioned having a fondness for Riverwood. The people there were kind to him after surviving Helgen, and he spoke with me at length about how much he was looking forward to taking in some of the hunting in that area once he leaves the city. I believe Gerdur's husband mentioned that they have an old house that's been vacant for years in the village during his most recent delivery of lumber." She gave Tim a knowing look. "It would take a number of weeks to bring it up to livable conditions, but considering our Thane is going to make a pilgrimage to High Hrothgar upon leaving the city, his new housecarl will have plenty time to make that happen.

Balgruuf regarded Irileth thoughtfully, then he smiled at Tim. "Yes, I can see why Riverwood would be such an appealing place for a young man such as yourself. In my youth, when my father was still Jarl, I remember relishing the freedom to roam those forests during hunts with my old friends Kodlak, Olfrid, and Eorlund. It's not a luxury I can afford myself these days, but I cherish the memories." He turned to Irileth. "Please send a missive to Gerdur. Let her know that our new Thane has chosen her village as his home whenever he is in the Hold, and send Lydia to see about starting preparations to make the vacant house ready for use by the time he returns. 

Irileth nodded respectfully. "Yes my Jarl."

Tim marveled at how smoothly the dark elf routed the Jarl. She couldn't stop him from offering Tim a piece of property in Whiterun, but at least she was able to put a solid day's travel distance between that potential "home" and Dragonsreach, as well as make it expected that it would be weeks, at least, before he would be able to spend any significant time there.

Balgruuf then regarded Timothy. "We are honored to have you as Thane of our city, Dragonborn. May the Divines watch over your journey to High Hrothgar." Then he turned to his steward. "Back to business Proventus. We still have a city to defend."

***

Once dismissed from the court, Tim and Lucien were led out of Dragonsreach by Irileth, under the excuse that she was going to help prepare him for his journey to High Hrothgar, since neither he nor Lucien had ever been to that part of Skyrim. 

As soon as the heavy wooden doors to Dragonsreach were slammed shut behind them, and the trio had put decent amount of distance between themselves and any nearby guards, Tim turned to look at Lucien and Irileth. "Ok... Can someone please explain to me what the hell just happened in there?!"

  ====================

Note:

So, in my Skyrim head canon, Jarl Balgruuf is the kind of man who cares about his people, wants to be a fair ruler, but has absolutely no impulse control to speak of. Proventus tries to keep his Jarl on task, but has no ability to restrain his boss's worst impulses if Balgruuf has his mind set on something. Irileth is really the only one who can keep the Jarl on the straight and narrow... so long as she's in the same room as him.

Poor Tim, though... He's so confused.

At least he's healthy now, right? And he's got a new greatsword he has absolutely no clue on how to use:

#elder scrolls dc#fanfiction#tim drake#skyrim fanfiction#red robin#batfam#crossover#lucien flavius#wip#afewnovelideas

[wonjaekook]

Kaleidoscope

A/N: I really meant to make this a happy take on the trope and not a depressing one… I guess I couldn’t help myself :’) also, always feel free to come to my ask box or reblog with input in the tags! I always welcome feedback, whether it’s compliments or criticism or anything in between.

21 Tropes: 7. Soulmate AU (colors) + coral w/Jungwoo

Description: Life is a kaleidoscope, with different colors and patterns appearing with each shake. Each moment is a new color added to the tube and, sometimes, it gets shaken too hard.

Word Count: 3.6k

Genre: fluff, angst

Warnings: very brief sex mention, [SPOILERS] death mentions, terminal illness

Jungwoo has been told before that life is more beautiful in color. He always thought that everything he saw was like a kaleidoscope, but in black and white. He’s okay with that - black and white still mix to make a million shades of gray and he can still see glittering crystals and silvers in the tumbling shapes of life. “One day, you’ll find the one,” they always say. He knows they’re right and he’s never felt hopeless about finding the one, so he’s in no rush. He’s okay with the way he views the world right now.

But perhaps being able to see color would make the aquarium a little more interesting.

Right now, he’s not third-wheeling per se, but he’s one of the few people of his group of friends that can’t appreciate the colors of the various fish and lights and plants that fill the aquarium.  His friend, Lucas, was beyond excited to finally be able to see color after he met his soulmate last week, so he forced a bunch of people to come to the aquarium with him. To be perfectly honest, Jungwoo hadn’t completely thought it through when he agreed, but, now, standing in front of a large fish tank where he can barely tell the fish apart from each other, he’s more than a little antsy. Why couldn’t they have gone to a zoo where the animals are bigger and have more distinct patterns and shapes between them?

“Woo, I gotta call my girl so we can meet up, so I have to step out real quick. Be right back.” Jungwoo turns away from the tank when Lucas starts talking to him.

“‘kay. I’ll just be here.” From across the hall, Jungwoo can hear Mark eagerly explaining something to Haechan, one of the few others who also can’t see color yet, about one of the types of fish, but he can tell that the younger boy probably doesn’t care too much. He turns back to the exhibit in front of him.

He peers into the tank again, watching the many fish swim by. Then, through the glass, he sees someone on the other side. You’re not unattractive to look at at all and you seem to have a kind, friendly face, so he smiles and waves when you make eye contact and you give him a shy wave back, face warming from the attention of a stranger. He tears his eyes away and looks back into the tank, observing the many types of coral at the bottom. Out of the corner of his eye, he swears he sees the flash of a color that isn’t grey. Looking over, he spots a piece of coral glowing what he would later find out is a pinkish-orange under the fluorescent light. Confused, he looks closer and suddenly, the world is bursting into color around him.

The fish become distinguishable not just by shape and pattern, but by their color differences both large and subtle, with descriptions on the outside of the tank to match. The light inside the tank glows blue and he steps away from it, looking around at everything that had suddenly come to life. He doesn’t want to blink for the risk of it being some trick of the mind, but when he does, all of the color is still there, wrapping the world in a sort of warmth and cold and shallowness and depth that he had never imagined possible. In the past, he had tried to imagine what this would be like, but nothing in his wildest daydreams could have come close to what it really feels like.

Suddenly, he’s remembering the cause and whipping back around to face the tank. At the same time, he sees your blurry figure turn towards him through the glass and water, the same bewildered expression on your face that he’s sure is on his. When you make eye contact again, you’re both rushing to the side of the tank, shouldering past people and ignoring the calls of your various friends as you run to each other.

You emerge from around the side of the tank and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone so beautiful. Both of you rush forward, barely stopping yourselves from barreling into the other. Without much thinking, you’re holding each other’s hands. Now, you’re paying more attention to the way his eyes look in this light than to the fact that the world just blossomed in front of you not even a minute ago.

“Hi,” he breathes, barely breathing because he’s afraid that the magic will somehow diminish or scatter. “I’m Jungwoo. Kim Jungwoo.”

“(L/N) (Y/N).” You can hardly say back, your body so numb with the buzzing emotions and colors and everything that you’re experiencing for the first time. His hands in yours hold a type of warmth that you’ve never felt before and every look, every touch sends your heart beating faster and your skin tingling in the most pleasant way. Even though you’ve never met him before now, you feel like you’ve known him for ages. Without a doubt in your mind, you know he’s your forever.

When he had hardly paid any attention to it before, he can really feel his heart beat in his chest now. He feels like he’s awake and dreaming all at the same time, looking at you, holding your hands in his. Your hands, the hands of a person so strange to him but closer to his heart than anyone else. Your hands, that he’s touching for the first time now but that he’ll be able to hold for the rest of his life. The strings of your hearts have finally met, connected, and each second you’re together, he’s certain that they’re intertwining further. Forever had been such a lost, foreign concept to him before, but now he knows what it feels like. This, you, are the first step to his forever.

Life is a palette of colors for the two of you to choose from, to paint onto your very own canvas. Each color is a piece to be added into the kaleidoscope, where you’ll see something new every time you shake it and look in. That day, when your hearts finish aligning and you can finally think clearly again, the two of you agree to discover the shades of the world together. You both think that the colors of the rainbow would be the best place to start.

So, when he thinks of red, he thinks of the first time he saw the autumn leaves with you.

It was a couple months into meeting you. You had met in the late summer, when everything was in full bloom, so it’s no surprise that neither of you had ever experienced the changing of the leaves before. The day before, you had been walking past the park when you saw the most brilliantly red tree and you knew you had to share it with him.

“I can’t believe you saw it without me first,” he whines, but lets you tug him along.

“Oh, hush. I can’t help what I see when I walk home from work. Besides, I’m showing you now, right?” He can’t deny that you’re right, but he also can’t help but wish that you had shared that first together anyways.

Yet, as the tree comes into sight and the two of you stop underneath it to stare up into the canopy, the sunlight shines between the fiery red leaves, dappling your face and cascading it in shades of warm colors. As he looks at you, the disappointment at you having seen the tree first without him fades into an internal warmth that makes him realize that this will be the memory of leaves and autumn and redness that will stand out to both of you, not that first glance. In his mind, he fills in the color red with this memory and the way you looked smiling up at the glowing fall leaves.

When he thinks of orange, he thinks of the sunset he saw coming out of the aquarium with you, and every other and sunset the two of you go out of your way to experience together.

There would have been no way for anyone to properly prepare either of you for the way that first sunset looked. The two of you stop, staring at the horizon. All things considered, it isn’t that remarkable of a sunset, but, to the two of you, it’s the most amazing sunset that there ever was. Your grip on his hand tightens more and more as you look on, but he doesn’t mind. The two of you stand there, on the steps leading out of the aquarium, staring at the sunset until all sunlight slips out of view. The first space he fills in is the color orange, where he thinks of the many shades of the sunset and the tightness of your hand in his.

When he thinks of yellow, he thinks of the field of sunflowers he took you to on your second date.

The date idea was Taeil’s - he was always one of the romantics of the group and was more than happy to give Jungwoo advice, especially once he told him about their idea of experiencing colors together. Haechan had overheard and laughed, but Jungwoo took you there the next day anyways. When the two of you arrive, the sight is beyond anything that he had ever expected, with the rolling fields of flowers continuing for what seemed like miles. He looks at you and you’re just as enamored, soaking in the sight of so much yellow and life around you. He fills in the color yellow with the sunflower petals that you had accidentally scattered in his backseat on the way home, too eager to bring too many of the large flowers home. Though it isn’t really a color, he also fills in yellow with the sunniness of your smile that day.

When he thinks of green, he thinks of the matcha drink that you get whenever you go to your favorite coffee shop.

Any time you’re having a rough day and need a pick-me-up, he stops by that cafe and gets one for you, along with a pastry. At first, you had resisted him buying you things, but when he wouldn’t relent, you eventually just let him. In exchange, whenever he wakes up a bit too late or spends a little too long on his hair in the morning, you bring him a cup of his favorite coffee, or, if he skips lunch, you bring him a sandwich from a deli down the street that he likes. After a couple of months, the barista at the coffee shop knows Jungwoo almost as well as he knows you and the owner of the deli has become familiar with your face and cheery noon disposition. Your favorite coffee shop quickly becomes his favorite as well and your respective coworkers who witness the alternating exchanges of beverages or food every few days coo at your relationship. He’s dubbed “The Boyfriend” and you’re “The Girlfriend.” He thinks that, though he might not have all of your orders memorized just yet, he’ll eventually know all of them. Because matcha is the first that he commits to memory, he fills in that shade of green with it.

When he thinks of blue, he thinks of the bright sky above and the chipping paint of the inside of the pool that you fell into in your first summer together.

After almost a year of knowing each other, you were more than comfortable joking around and revealing skin. So, at Johnny’s pool party, he should have known that you wouldn’t back down from his taunt to push him in. His reflexes are fast enough that he catches your wrist as he falls, pulling you into the water with him. Your cry of surprise and the sound of the outside world is cut off as you’re both submerged. Opening your eyes, you see a blurry image of his face surrounded by the blue of the paint on the bottom of the pool, his hair swirling around him. Your wrist is still in his hand, so, underwater, he pulls you closer to him to press a quick kiss to your lips. You nearly laugh out loud at him, some bubbles escaping your lips, and he releases your hand so the two of you can resurface. He closes his eyes, the sting of the chlorine becoming too much, and swims back to the surface, taking a breath as he emerges. Blinking the water out of his eyes, his vision eventually clears and he sees you staring up, taking in the bright blue, cloudless sky above. He finds himself staring up with you, water droplets cascading down your body in sync with his. In his head, he fills in blue with the paint on the bottom of the pool and the color of the sky reflected in your eyes.

When he thinks of indigo, he thinks of the forgotten color of the day bleeding into the night that he didn’t realize was there until you pointed it out to him one night.

By the time you’ve known each other for three months, he thinks that he has seen enough sunsets that he would be able to flawlessly describe every color in one. But, when you’re sitting on the roof of your apartment building together one night and you point up at the sky, you surprise him once again.

“Look,” you say, arm extended, “see that color there?”

“I think you have to be a little more specific than that,” he says back, trying to follow the line your hand is making.

“That indigo. It’s so cool that that’s the only thing separating night from day. It’s not quite blue but not quite violet. People always forget about it.” You lower your arm back to your side, cuddling closer to his side. “I think I really like that color.”

After that, he makes sure to find the indigo in every sunset, filling in the box with that in-between color, making sure not to forget it.

When he thinks of violet, he thinks of the pin in your hair, holding it back when he just wants to tuck it behind your ear for you.

Once he gets comfortable enough with you, he occasionally plucks the pin out of your hair so that he can play with it more easily, stroking it when you put your head in his lap. He lets you put the pins in his hair, making it stick up in funny ways in return. Sometimes, he hides your bobby pins just because he wants to see your hair falling loosely and naturally from your head. You know he does that. You don’t mind. Somewhere along the way, after seeing you wear it so much, he associates the color violet with you, coloring it in with the shade of your hair pin.

He can’t decide if his favorite color is the pinkish-orange coral he saw when he first met you or if it’s the rosy blush that covers your cheeks when he makes you laugh. Maybe it’s the hazy gold glow you get after sex, or the deepest color in your eyes that he has to really get close to see, or the bright red color of the little matching string bracelets both of you wear, or the dark green of the spider plant you picked out to put in your apartment and was the first thing you took care of together, or your favorite violet nail polish that you put on because it matches your pin and you like the way your fingers look intertwined with his, or the baby blue of the shirt you were wearing when you first told him you loved him. Every time he’s with you, his eyes open more and the strings of your hearts fully entangle, woven tighter with each color you experience together.

But, the more colors there are in the kaleidoscope, the easier it is to make you dizzy with a single twist. The colors start to blend together and what used to be so easy to pick out and associate with good feelings becomes overwhelming. The patterns that appear start to become so scary that you almost wish you hadn’t looked into the other end of the tube at all.

No matter how hard he wants to believe it, not all of life is beautiful and good. Nothing, not even something planned by the universe itself, lasts forever. The colors slowly start to twist and what was once sweet becomes bitter in his mouth.

Now, when he thinks of red, he thinks of the blood you coughed up in your second year together. You wished, he wished, everyone you knew wished that it would be any easy diagnosis, like you coughed too hard or something. It was just the beginning.

When he thinks of orange, he remembers the glossy paper hospital bracelet around your wrist. It’s almost constantly there - a beating, harsh orange that stands out against your skin at all times. He just has to look down at your wrist to remember where you spend so much of your time now.

When he thinks of green, he doesn’t think about the matcha drink that used to be your favorite, but you can’t stomach at all now. Instead, he thinks of the slight tinge to your skin when the nausea is about to overcome you and he has to stand over you in the bathroom, holding back your hair while poison rushes through your system and you vomit all sorts of colors that shouldn’t be coming out of someone who should be healthy.

When he thinks of the blue, he thinks of the glowing light in the corner of your hospital room, where he can’t fall asleep in the chair next to your bed and can only watch as your body falls apart. He spends as much of his time there as he can and though the room is mostly barren white, the blankness is almost relieving. The little blue light is one of the few spots of color and he can’t help but stare at it, trying to remember the feelings that came with the range of colors you experienced together. When the barista at the cafe had known him well before, now the nurses and doctors know him even better. The looks of happiness are replaced with those of pity.

When he thinks of indigo, he thinks of the ink that runs when your tears hit it, blurring the words of your diagnosis together. You don’t want to leave him. You don’t want to leave him alone in a world without color and without the other half of his heart. You don’t want to go. All he can do is hold you and wipe away your tears, even though all he wants to do is fall apart with you. You do enough crying for both of you, but that doesn’t stop him from shedding a few tears of his own later, sitting in that stark white hospital room, staring at the little blue light in the corner.

When he thinks of violet, he thinks of the pin that you used to wear, but can’t anymore because your hair has thinned out and you’re afraid that if you touch the strands too roughly, they’ll break. He thinks of the veins that stand out too harshly under your skin, which has lost so much of its color. He thinks of the place where the sunset blends into the night that is supposed to look indigo but is filtered through the window that changes the way the colors outside look, which you can barely see from your hospital bed anyways.

When he thinks about seeing the brilliant autumn leaves, he can’t imagine seeing them without you.

The orange of the sunset is no longer quite so orange and he knows that, soon, he won’t be able to tell the sunrise and sunset apart.

The field of bright yellow sunflowers isn’t so sunny, especially as winter begins to creep in. He wants to feel that warm, bright memory again, but he knows he can’t.

He barely goes home enough to see the dark green spider plant that you bought together, but somewhere at the back of his mind, he knows it’s wilting from lack of care. It’s the least important wilting thing he has to see now.

The baby blue sweater is tucked away in your closet somewhere, which he hasn’t touched since you went to the hospital because he knows you’ll be frustrated with him if anything is messed up when you get back, even though he knows you’re not coming back.

Watching the sunset was something that was meant for the two of you, so, when he had promised not to, he begins to forget what that shade between blue and violet, day and night, dark and light is. He doesn’t want to remember indigo if it’s not with you.

He puts your favorite purple violet nail polish out of sight in the bathroom so that he doesn’t have to look at it and be reminded every time he comes home to an empty house without you holding his hand, with you stuck at the hospital which he knows will be the last place he ever sees you.

Life is a kaleidoscope and after shaking it so hard, the colors have started to blend together and make both of you too dizzy to look anymore. He knows it’ll blend it black and white again, but he doesn’t care about that. You’re the stars in his eyes and the magic in the air and everything beautiful about the world.

And he’s going to lose you.

If he had to decide, he would say his favorite color is the pinkish-orange of the coral that he saw when he first met you, before you were shaken too hard and began to fall apart.

[acemenagerie-a]

aesthetics for the entities, part i + ii.   bold what applies to your muse, italics what applies situationally or only in certain verses.  this is based on a horror podcast;  potentially triggering and / or upsetting content ahead!

Carla von Closen

i.  the buried.   weighed blankets.  drowning.  the comfort of a loved one’s weight.  soil and sand piling on top of you.  hugging so hard it hurts a little.  cramped hiding spots.  letting out air underwater to sink to the bottom of the pool.  walls pressing in on you.  not moving from a position even though you’re cramping a little.  dragging the last second before you have to inhale.  lonely subways.  feeling like one with the earth.  a layer of dirt on you.  looking for something below.  cardboard boxes and tiny pillow forts.  hands calloused from digging.  knowing that your purpose is just below the surface.  entering your final resting place before it kills you.  a storm drowning you out.  dust and sand speaking to you.

ii.  the corruption.   insects.  a close imitation of the natural course of life.  an illness in a community.  a rag that dirties more than it cleans.  an untreated wound.  containment.  breaching containment.  unbreathable air.  fungi.  one with that you love.  one with what loves you.  a corpse unfit for a glass case.  hearing a song in the sound of tiny wings and legs.  honeycomb patterns.  an ecosystem within a person.  a curse passed on.  the hubris of a scientist.  an ugly death where a glorious one is owed.  blood on a handkerchief.  parasites.  something pushing up the sewer.  a mask to keep something out.  trypophobia.  knowing you belong.  death weeks after impact.  fever.  food that’s gone off.  pandora’s box.  death behind a glass.

vi.  the end.   the last page of a book.  nightmares that don’t feel like nightmares.  a skeletal hand.  the grip of the grim reaper around your throat.  existential pain.  ivory dice.  flatlining in a hospital.  gambling with death.  as old as the universe.  soul and spirit tied to an object.  a dream where you die.  closing your eyes for the last time.  the plead of a dying one.  knowing the fate of someone you know and being unable to prevent it.  a thousand cords tugging you towards your end.  skin that’s freezing to the touch.  an act of desperation.  someone’s life for yours.  an eternity spent alive.  the cost of your selfishness.  watching your own burial.  causing your own burial.  the smell of death.  numbness to fear.  words from someone gone.  meaninglessness of the actions or lives of single people in the universe.  multiple near-death experiences you refuse to die from.

vii.  the eye.   googling something you shouldn’t have.  eureka moments.  the unforgiving lens of a camera.  witness reports.  hidden libraries.  eyes of different colours.  feeling of being watched.  a death recorded in tape.  a tragedy you can’t watch away from.  endangering yourself for knowledge.  truth.  analog records.  a symbol of an eye.  a watch tower.  compulsion to document.  turning on recording devices without thinking about it.  saving the evidence before the person.  extracting information.  truth or dare, without the dare.  a thirst for knowledge.  books that speak to you.  coordinated shelves.  cataloguing systems.  voyeurism.  police report you can’t put down.  reasoning your way out.  smell of old papers.  books that read you back.

viii.  the hunt.   sharp canines.  sore calves after a run.  the scent of blood.  an adventure for the journey’s sake.  the adrenaline right before the kill.   a whistle’s echo.  the woods.  the doe eyes of a prey animal.  your own breath in the air.  sharpened claws.  being tracked.  fear of someone knowing your every movement.  hunting down monsters.  hide and seek.  running away only to end up where you started.  staying alive purely because the enemy enjoys seeing you run.  a set of footsteps behind you.  blood dripping from bare hands.  barks and growls.  focused eyes.  a victim going limp under your hands.  a mouth full of fresh blood.  catching the scent of something monstrous.  perfecting your craft.  peering into the dark and running after it.

ix.  the lonely.   an apartment too small for a double bed.  completely vacant streets.  waking up to see everyone gone.  fog.  point nemo.  a house too big to hear your family members in.  alone in a faceless crowd.  a mask with nothing behind it.  separated cubicles.  a deafening silence where joy should be.  a blinding spotlight.  the least missed in your friend group.  streets without lights in the windows.  isolation.  not truly knowing your friends.  your friends not truly knowing you.  need for silence.  fear of crowds.  staring into space knowing nothing is looking back at you.  a ship alone at sea.  depression.  knowing your friends are better off without you.  talking to someone only to realise they’re gone.  a family too large to notice you there.  safety in being alone.

x.  the slaughter.    a game of tag.   senseless violence.  a true crime hobby.  improvised weapons.  blinding rage.  intent to kill.  a horrific day in a quiet community.  a medal of bravery.  holding on to what validates your anger.  history books that spare no details.  an injury you want revenge for.  war.  counting kills.  songs of soldiers.  a knifeblock on the counter.  a pool of blood.  shellshock.  unspeakable horrors.  anger pushing you forward.  unimaginable pain.  not seeing who will hurt you but knowing the pain is coming.  a fully human monster.  an authority sending its lessers to their deaths.  kill or be killed.  unedited wartime memoirs.  a weapons collection.  not knowing the names of who you kill.  too many to remember.  loss of hope.  there’s no heroes in war.

xi.  the spiral.   sleep deprivation.  corridors you can get lost in.  maze puzzles that loop back on themselves.  losing possessions.  losing people.  losing your sanity.  corkscrew curls.  rows of funhouse mirrors.  optical illusions.  a separate reality.  walking through the wrong door.  delusions.  not knowing what your hands are doing.  blank spaces in documents.  hallucinations.  wrong proportions.  a nameless thing.  a place that has never existed.  doubting your own mind.  blind faith.  losing track of names, labels, categories.  distorted sound.  an imperfection in a glass that twists the view.  loss of time.  a garish colour.  doors that open to nowhere.  lies.  an unnatural laugh.  jokes and tricks.  illusions.  a doorway.  a sculptor with a wild imagination.  limbs in impossible angles.  doing what’s fun, not what’s sensible.  fractals you can get lost in.

xii.  the stranger.   wax figures.  a close approximation of a human face.  a borrowed appearance.  a strange smell.  glass eyes.  furs and pelts.  a dance.  a song of a choir.  the uncanny valley.  stitching yourself together.  the colours of a circus.  a puppet with no strings.  mannequins.  glitter and sequin.  a stranger you’ve always known.  someone strange in the place of someone you knew.  stolen identities.  stolen skins.  a machine imitating humanity.  the anonymity of a service worker.  hiding in plain sight.  uncomfortable to look at.  a faked accent.  concealing.  forgetting who you are.  forgetting who others are.  a replacement no one notices.  images that look posed.  the only one seeing the false face of someone.

xiii.  the vast.   open spaces.  carnival rides going up and down.  fear of heights.  endless infinity around you.  your insignificance in an universe.  stomach turning at a drop.  fear of not the crash down but the moment you slip.  the sway of a cable car.  an adventure holiday.  losing track of where the surface is.  miles and miles of nothing around you.  staring at the sky and feeling like you may fall into it.  loss of control.  a fall that doesn’t end in death.  glass floor to the view below.  terminal velocity.  the sound of wind in your ears.  a reach over the railing.  a jump from the top of the building.  falling into nothing.  feeling your feet let go of the ground.  a leap of faith.  motion sickness.

xiv.  the web.   undecipherable code.  a puppeteer holding the strings.  power over the weak-willed.  strings of fate.  manipulation.  an arranged accident.  a hundred minions doing your bidding.  cobwebs.  spiders.  a laid trap.  never voicing discomfort.  outwitting a cheater.  doing things without realising it.  red string across a corkboard.  finding something lost where you were sure you checked.  power over the unreliability of chance.  watching others dance for you.  an entangled death.  a thousand tiny legs and fangs.  shady forum threads.  something important gone missing.  suspiciously disregarded case.  a missing witness.  connections.  the world wide web.  power of victimhood.  gullibility.  no control over your own decisions.  an invisible leash.  mass psychology.  a horror film in the making.  scapegoat.  never remembering to ask for a name.

+  the extinction.   the end of an era.  apocalypse movies.  the alarms of warning systems.  a desolate landscape.  end of the world cults.  nihilism.  the last written history.  a changed world.  no survivours.  old prophecies.  a thousand predicted ends.  a new chapter.  an end with no escape.  catastrophes.  a calendar counting down.  breaking point.  overindulgence.