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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

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The story creates the story tells itself. That's it, that's what this is, it's the thing I always end up saying when Critical Role hits me right in the solar plexus, because stories are how we make sense of events after they've already happened. The story is not a thing in the moment it is created, it is a thing you can only know the shape of once it's over with, and then you look at it and you say, yes, of COURSE, it only ever could have been this from the first, couldn't it?

Seven miserable loners and outcasts and reckless illegitimate rebels meet in a tavern with no desire whatsoever for heroism. Their morals are quickfire and slapdash, casual and arbitrary, we'll help out these people, those people aren't our problem, we dislike those fucks over there. There is a war brewing and they want nothing to do with it. Fuck fame, fuck fortune, we'll keep to ourselves and play fast and loose with crime and take care of our own and maybe some lucky randoms we meet along the way. We'll fight and scrap and tussle amongst ourselves because none of us even entirely understand our own morals, let alone how to reconcile them with any of these other half-assed motherfuckers we apparently have to care about now.

They fuck up. One of their own dies.

They drown in rage and fury for just long enough, until they can stop gasping and growling for vengeance to take a breath. Then they run.

They run, because they do not care to stand and fight: not against evil or dragons or tyrant kings, not against their own grief. They flee the country. Nobody is chasing them, but they flee anyway, to avoid shackles, to avoid control, to avoid being set to anyone else's purpose, to avoid their own loss and their own sins. They run to the sea. (They find danger, and shackles, and control, and somebody else's purpose there again. The world is full of shackles and those who would wield them.)

They grieve. They avoid their grief. They sanctify their fallen comrade. They do not aim to be anything, this ragtag group of miserable loners and outcasts. The only thing they know themselves to be is each other's. They do not know themselves at all, but this grief, this loss--they know it, at least, know it together, an iron band binding them all heart to heart. It is the first truth they have to hold on to, the thing that lets them see each other as the only thing that matters, the only thing that's really real.

They face down a cult and win, because the other option is shackles or death. They face a demigod and flee, again, again, again. Always they flee.

They flee towards home and home is burned. They have seen loss and they have seen death and it finds them no matter how they run away, so maybe it's time to change direction. Maybe it's time to run towards. It's still running, still half-mindless directionality, it's still familiar. They are not heroes, they are not somebodies, they have never wanted to be somebody. This group has never wanted to be anybody, not as a group, not when they're whole. They're nobodies, trying to take care of themselves, take care of their own, to grow past their grief that they pretend they're gone from now, mostly, most days, when they can. (Pretend it's not the grief that made them each other's in the first place, like none of the fighting and scrapping and scrabbling along beside one another ever had in the first place.)

They bulldoze and trip and stumble and run towards instead of away, for once, just this once, the very first time they've run towards a thing since that last time, the only time, when they temporarily lost three of their own and then broke themselves trying to chase them (trying to chase vengeance). Towards is so much more dangerous than away. Run towards something hard enough, you might actually find it. You might have to become somebody when you get there, instead of just not-being somebody else.

They're somebody now. This rag-tag, broken, mismatched knot of nobodies, not even mercenaries because they're too skittish to even really look for paid work, they're somebodies now, or so Someone Important says. It fits like an ill-tailored coat that they've been forced into without ever making a choice. Without ever realizing, entirely, how much they never made a choice. The world said congrats, you're heroes now, and these killers and thieves went, well, fuck.

And then they tried to be heroes anyway. Not because it fit, not because they knew what to do, but because the mess of them, the seven of them, barely knew who they were to begin with. If the world was shouting HEROES! YOU'RE HEROES! BE HEROES! at them this very loudly--then don't they have to wear the coat that's being given to them? Don't they have to be, have to find some way to become, the heroes they've tripped and stumbled into appearing?

They don't know themselves. All they've done so far is run from themselves--from parents and children and their own crimes, from chains and challenges, limits and labels. They only barely know who they're not. They couldn't know who they are. How do they know they aren't heroes? The one thing they know, the only thing they have, the only thing they've ever run towards, is each other. The one thing they know for absolute sure and certain that defines and binds them is that steel band of grief, that first loss, the thing that broke and forged them to begin with.

So they look for answers in their grief, in what they've lost, because if it's the first true thing about them as a group, them as a whole, then it must be able to tell them who they have to be now. They sanctify their fallen, twist meaning and moral out of conversational confrontational casualness, make a mission statement out of leave every place better than you found it. They forget who he was, petty and venal and mortal and flawed. (They try to convince themselves that they don't have to be petty and venal and mortal and flawed.) They cling to what he meant.

And they fail. God, looking back on it all, with the shape of the story and the shape it's become, is it any wonder they failed? Petty and venal and moral and flawed, these rough-edged rabble-rousers, not even mercenaries because they don't even know how to take orders besides their own. Trying to be heroes. Trying to stop a war, because that's their job, right? It has to be. That's the shape of the coat they're trying to wear, that's the shape of leave every place better than you found it, that's the thing they crashed straight into while they were running, running, running the way they've always run, run, run. So they look for answers everywhere, because they have to have the answers to everything, and they scry and they spy and they play sides. They meet with queens. They turn to each other on the streets on the way out of the palace and ask in horror, "What did we just do?"

They run and they run and they trip and they fall and they unleash more evil than there was to start with. They lose one of their own, again. They sit in shattered shards, and what just happened? How could we have seen this coming? What did we just do?

They don't know themselves. They've been running from themselves, trying to run towards misty shapes they can't define in a too-big coat and too-small shoes, without any real practice in running towards to begin with. They don't know themselves, but they need to move forwards. They need to be whole again, the six, the seven (the eight, the nein). How can they do that if they don't know themselves?

And--finally, finally, they learn.

They learn. They throw a sword in a volcano and forge a sword anew. They rediscover their own mind, their own heart, covered in blood with each other's blood on their hands. They walk into their abusers' homes and then walk back out again alive and un-alone and unchained. They recover bodies. They recover families. They find themselves.

(And the selves they find are mortal and flawed, because they have always been mortal and flawed, because they are built to be mortal and flawed, because they are still the same misbegotten messes they have ever been. But they are stronger for having sought themselves out, for what they have found. They are the stronger for those threads of heroism they tried to, managed to keep.)

They stop a war, incidentally. In the end it's not even all that much due to them. They sit, nobodies on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and watch in silence. It chafes a little, not to be in the center of things, to be able to be the heroes it felt like the world told them they had to be. (It feels a little like relief.)

They find themselves. They find themselves, and they find another lost and broken man, miserable outcast loner, petty and venal and mortal and flawed. They only start to realize how they know themselves now when they see how much he doesn't.

(The peace treaty happens, happened, is/was/will be happening, because they tripped and trembled and tried their way into it, but in the end a thousand chess pieces moved to make it so, and it is signed on a boat where we do not even set foot. The culmination, the crowning glory, the true victory of that whole middle story, is a perfectly-dressed man in chains in the hold of a boat, admitting to his own sins. It is secret and it is individual, and it is the concrete proof above all proofs that our nobody unknowns are finally their own very-known selves. Because they were Essek, once--but know they know their own mirrors well enough to look at him and recognize that.)

They know so much, now, about who they are and who they are to become. They have looked at their pasts and, yes, flinched away, but they've seen, and they know, now, as much as they can handle. In the end, the one thing they don't know the true shape of, the one thing left to seek that must be sought, is of course (of course, of course) that very first thing they thought they knew to begin with. The one thing left to face is their grief. The one thing left to discover is what shaped it from the very start.

So they run, like they have always run. In amongst the snow it is the very distillation of running, towards and away, away and towards, chasing and fleeing and fleeing and chasing, are we in front or are they? It's every mistake they ever made all over again. It's every new lesson they've ever learned.

They don't ask any more, what's the right thing to do. They don't need to ask. They know, already, swift and sure and confident as they once stumbled and dodged. This is a thing that must be stopped. It is ours to stop it. Yes, it is a heavy, clumsy coat to wear, but it fits us out here in the snows where we're not trying to prove our heroism to anybody any more, for good or for evil. Yes, it weighs on our backs and tangles our legs, but it fits as well as any role we've ever tried to wear. It fits us more than it could ever fit anybody else. It's our role. It's our coat. It was forged of our choices, our pieces, our fights. It was forged of our grief.

Nobody else is here with us, to watch, to know. Just like when we were seven shiftless, aimless, worthless nobodies wandering through a circus tent on the way to nowhere (everywhere) else. There's us and the demon born from our grief, the demon who sprang up and died and is the only reason we any of us ever met. Just us, just the nine of us, three and three and three. The three who were dragged off in chains and gave us something to run towards, that very first time. The three who chased, and watched their companion fall, and faced their grief head on, and ran. And Lucien, and Caduceus, and Essek, beginning and middle and end: The man whose demise allowed us to come together, reborn from the loss that bound us. The man who found us and told us that grief is inevitable and passing, that we must continue with it, that we still had such a long way to go. The man who we found like a reflection in an aging mirror, reflecting our own progress back at us, showing us how far we've come and what we've learned how to be.

Of course it had to end this way. (There were so very many other ways it could have ended, once. Of course there were none at all.) Of course it would be nine and nine in the end. Of course it would be this final perfect marriage of heroism and anonymity, for this group that's finally figured out their selves, past and future and right-the-fuck-now, saviors and heroes and petty nobody fucks. Of course it would be this.

And of course, of course, of course it had to go like this. Of course, after everything, the first six of them would try to reverse that grief that forged and tied them. Of course they couldn't. Of course they couldn't, of course, of course--(and was it fate, that 1-in-20 chance, that 5% chance, that 1 on a die? was it fate like the dice are always fate in every game, rolling out poetry with every throw, because all the rolls that aren't quite poetic enough get forgotten?) Of course it was a 1, not some other number, not some sheepish failure of a 4. Of course the universe itself would speak to say no.

No, says the universe, that is not how this story goes--because the road is full of shattered shards, and our heroes only learned to be heroes by discovering how bloodily bad at it they were, by nearly causing the apocalypse before wrestling it back again. Of course the universe itself says that after all this time, after changing so far and discovering so much, this the inciting thing from the very beginning that bound this group in steel must not be changed. Of course, with all their pleas, the six people who knew him cannot bring him back.

Of course that's how the story would go. And of course there's Essek, the man who met this party so long after their throes of mourning that it had sunk into their bones and grown quiet before they ever knew him, who cannot accept this outcome. Of course it's Essek, who never met and has barely heard of this man, this grief--Essek who has not yet grown into the quiet acceptance of his own grief, who does not yet know his own mirror, who has only just barely begun to understand running to instead of from and still doesn't know the shape of what he might eventually choose to chase--who seethes in rage. Who cries about not fair.

Of course it's Caduceus who takes the inspiration of that anger, that grief, and changes it all. Of course it's Caduceus, who the group only even found out of their grief. (They tracked him down to beg to know if he could raise the dead in the first place. Do you remember? One, two, three, Caleb and Beau and Nott, finding him in his graveyard to beg him to help.) Of course it's Caduceus, created to serve and to heal and to make so, so very sure that everyone understood that death could be necessary and final. Of course it's Caduceus, who stood over Mollymauk's grave by the roadside and put a hand in the dirt and cast decompose, because what is dead should be allowed to stay that way until it grows into something else. Of course it is. Because Caduceus has learned his own shape by now, too--and it is still full of devotion, of dedication to the dead remaining dead, but it is steadfast and selfish sometimes too, forged in friendship, full enough of love to try, just this once.

Of course Caduceus gave the diamond but didn't try to perform the ritual, at first, at first. Of course he's spent so very long so very gently urging his friends to reconcile themselves to their loss, to letting their loved one sleep. Of course, in the end, in the very end, he weighed all his faith that once held so firm and final and without exceptions, with this grief before him, and found just this once, maybe, within it.

Of course when he tried, the man who lives to put things in the ground (to put Molly in the ground), even after the fates and the gods and the universe had spoken--when, just this once, against the will of the natural order and the universe and the power of destiny, he asked, just once, for the path of things to reverse--of course. Of course he was the voice that needed to speak for the story to listen.

Of course Molly would end the campaign. Of course this had to be the finale of it all. Of course this ritual--not this fight, not this mission, not even this apocalypse, but this ritual, this resurrection--must be the end of things. Of course it's the end of the story. You can't go any farther than this.

There can never be nine of us. It won't be ironic any more. But irony, after all, is just a way of running from sincerity, sometimes running away from sincerity so hard and fast you crash back into it from the other side. Like running from being a person, from being that person, from letting things matter, from mattering. Like running so far and fast from being found that eventually you have no choice but to find yourself. Irony's a shield against having to know the truth.

There's nine of them. It's not ironic. It's perfect, but it's not ironic. It's just the truth. They know who they are, now. Not who they were running away from being. Not who they tried to be for the sake of anyone else. Who they always are. Always were.

This story could have been a hundred thousand different things, when it started. Of course it was always fated to end with nine.

#whoops #definitely wrote this at 4 AM #apparently it still holds up in the light of day #CR spoilers #critical role #episode 140 #ok maybe I had a few feels #prose poet at 3 am

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kkeidawrites · 4 years

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That Night

Chp. 3

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Another banquet was in full swing in the next couple of days that the moon goddess had first arrived and once more the same activities from before resurfaced. The sunrays of Asgard minimized to a light hue of yellows and purples, it would soon be night.

Gods and Goddesses, Dukes, Duchesses, Lord and Ladies alike littered the alabaster halls of the banquet hall. Each one dressed to impress, all colorcoded for the theme. How can anyone have so many parties every other day? It’s exhausting to say the least. Just imagine how much the servants had to prepare in such little time, it will amaze you.

This time the party was held in the gardens, overlooking Asgard’s lavish lands of green fields. Men and women rode horseback to play games, others included themselves in a fighting ring while everyone else lounged about and talked.

The food never disappoints and it seemed to never run low. Before your head would turn away from the lavish feast, it would automatically refill itself. Everything looked beautiful, the gold trim that surrounds the white pillars and green shrubbery elongated and twisted in beautiful vines around the pillars and added a bit to the dining tables as well.

For someone who has never been to Asgard and this was their first time they would be enthralled with the beauty of this place; the gold, the alabaster stone walls, the food, the style, the attire. It was like a dream come true. Except maybe a certain, moon goddess, who thought differently.

Mawu was bored. Stupid bored in fact. She was that bored that she had brought along Irawo to the banquet to keep her entertained. And let’s not forget the God of Mischief himself to keep her company as well. How delightful.

They stood at two different tables although it didn’t help the fact that Frigga used her powers to make sure that the tables were at least facing each other and with it she spelled the tables to only allow them to walk to and from their tables.

“Three hours you two,” she told the two as her fingers flexed to allow her magic to filter from her fingertips. “The spell will break once the hours are up, until then why don’t you both talk. Get to know one another.” She gave her charming smile and left the two beings.

“‘Get to know one another’.” Mawu mocked them scoffed in annoyance as she watched Irawo hop around on the table.

Mawu saw that there was no point in trying to break the All-Mother’s spell and occupied her time playing with Irawo; Loki in the meantime was doing everything in his ability to break his mother’s spell. From time to time you would see the illuminated green light of his spells.

Mawu feeds Irawo another carrot and the chunky rabbit munches it down, greedily and wiggles his nose in Mawu’s direction, happily waiting for the next carrot to be given to him and the goddess smiles.

“Sorry, Irawo. I don’t want you to pass out on me and go into a carrot coma,” Mawu teases and the rabbit stomps his foot.

“No more carrots right now, okay?” She watches as the rabbit begins to groom his head aggressively to show that he was unhappy. Mawu shakes her head and placed a hand under chin as she watched the festivities unfold.

She couldn’t believe that she had to stand in this one spot for the next, now two hours, and not be able to move anywhere. Mawu so desperately wanted to go horseback riding, and use swords against the opposing team. Hell, even the fighting ring looked appealing. It was much more entertaining than stand here and be bored.

“Damn it.” She hears Loki sigh out in frustration and looks to her right to see the green wearing God cross his arms and lean against the table in frustration.

“Having fun over there?” Mawu teases and Loki glares at her.

“I thought we agreed to only tolerate one another until you left Asgard.” Mawu rolls her eyes and turns back to Irawo.

“You spoke to me about it. I didn’t agree to ahem, tolerate you. As long you don’t bother me I won’t bother you.” Mawu tells him and Loki grits his teeth.

Irawo turns to Loki and wiggles his nose, sniffing the air and his gold eyes noticed the carrots on Loki’s plate. He squeaks and jumps from the table making Mawu gasp.

As he landed on the grass, Irawo uses his paws to groom his face once more then used his nose to snif around the area then pounces over to Loki’s table.

“Irawo! Come back!” Mawu calls to the black bunny, who promptly ignored her and began pawing at Loki’s leg to have him pick him up.

“Heh, little mongrel.” Loki reluctantly picks up the rabbit and placed him on the table where he quickly grabbed a carrot from his plate and proceeds to eat.

Mawu sighs heavily and moved over to Loki’s table to look down at the rabbit. She placed her hands on her hips and glared, disappointed at the bunny.

“I said, ‘no more carrots’.” Mawu said and watched as the rabbit takes a lettuce and eats that just as quickly as the carrot.

“You would refuse your pet food? How cruel of you, I thought you were the Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom, shouldn’t you know that everyone has the chance to eat?” Loki says and Mawu frowns in annoyance.

“I am trying to limit him from eating so much, he had dinner less than an hour ago and the snacks I had was his snack. Breaking him of this, won’t allow him to limit what he eats.” Mawu says trying to pick up the rabbit but, Irawo squeals and moved over to Loki, the God of Mischief barks out a laugh in victory and Mawu glared at him.

Irawo snuggles his muzzle into the God’s hands and Mawu crosses her arms.

“Fine, stay here with him then.” Mawu pouts as she returns to her table and takes a sweet bun and begins to chomp on it, annoyance written all over her features.

Loki grins triumphantly and scratches under the rabbit’s chin to have his foot stomp in pleasure of the scratches.

“Well done, little hare.” He praises the furry creature. “Well done indeed.”

The next two hours went by excruciatingly slow and Mawu breathed a sigh of relief as the feeling of restraint on her body lifted off of her.

Stretching her arms, Mawu sighed and looked to Loki’s table to see the trickster playing with Irawo. He dangled the silk rope that held his cape against his back, above Irawo as the rabbit hopped to try and grab it.

It would seem that she didn’t need to keep an eye on Irawo and Mawu hopped that Loki wouldn’t do anything to her little friend. Not sensing any ill intentions towards Irawo from Loki, Mawu made her way over to the stables where the horses were being tended to for tonight’s parties and approached a stablemate. She could see that all the horses were gone and prayed that at least one horse was still available.

“My lady we unfortunately do not have any available horses for you to use.” The young male stablemate told her and Mawu pouted a bit.

“I guess it can’t be helped-” The sound of neighing turned Mawu’s body to watch as two stablemates that could be strongmen in the circus back on Earth, hold the reigns of a large black unicorn. It tussled with the reigns it was bonded in and pulled on it to make the men stop pulling it.

The unicorn neighed in anger and stomped the ground to force the men to drag it. Mawu was amazed at how big it was and seemed drawned to the unicorn.

Mawu felt her feet move as she approached the mystical being. The stablemate watched her in perplexed fear and reached out to stop her.

“My Lady, you mustn’t approach him!” The stablemate stepped in front of her making Mawu stop and look down at the young man.

“That colt was bred by a demon horse and ever since it has been a struggle to keep it under control. It won’t let us come close to it and we have to use force in order to control it-”

“Him.”

“M-My Lady?”

Mawu glared at the young man.

“Do not call him, ‘it’ he is a strong horse and surely calling him out of his name does little to gain his trust.” Mawu says as she walks past the man and continues her travel to the two bigger men.

The one on the right holding the unicorn’s reigns turned to Mawu and fear lit up in his eyes as the Goddess continued to approach the horse, who reared back in effort to be released from his clutches.

“My Lady, please stand back! He’ll kill you!” He warned but Mawu stops and turns to the two men.

“Let him go.” Was all she said.

“But-But, My Lady-!”

“Let. Him. Go. Please.” Mawu says again, still watching the unicorn who began to huff out angry air from his large nostrils. His green and gold eyes glared at the goddess and stomped his upper left hoof in anger.

The two strongmen looked to one another and then released the reigns taking several steps back readying themselves for the horse to begin to buck and cause havoc around the stables.

The unicorn did indeed rear back on its hind legs and Mawu watched him intently, being mindful of his hooves. Once the horse returned to all fours, Mawu raised a hand out, her palm facing the horse who huffed out another angry snort.

Trotting around Mawu, the Goddess didn’t let up from her spot, her hand still out, waiting patiently. Her plan was to allow the unicorn to relax around her and let him come to her. Let him trust her in his own time.

As the unicorn calmed, he nods his head up and down, snorting the last of his anger out and trots over to Mawu. He sniffs the back of her head and then nibbles her neck, making the goddess stifle a giggle. He then moved to the left side of her face and sniffs her some more. All the while the three stablemates stared in disbelief. They have been trying to get close to the unicorn for the past two months and the moon goddess was able to allow him to get close to him in less than 30 minutes.

Mawu showed that she wasn’t a threat to the unicorn and her calming aura allowed the horse to calm him down.

The unicorn then nibbles on her raised hand then sniffs it. Taking a step back, the unicorn looks in the goddess’s eyes and sees that he was indeed not in danger and hesitantly allows his muzzle to press into her palm.

Mawu gently rubbed his muzzle then moved her other hand and scratched under his chin. The unicorn neighs in delight and moves his head closer to receive more scratches.

“What is his name?” Mawu asked her eyes still trained on the unicorn.

“H-He d-does not h-have a name.” The youngest stablemate says and the unicorn neighs softly.

“Hmm....how about Gbekele?” Mawu asked the horse who unexpectedly nodded his head, then nibbling her scratching hand.

“My-My Lady, do you p-plan on riding him?” The young man asks the goddess.

“He still does not trust me, I do not think he would let me ride him.” She says and grabs the unicorns reigns, leading him to a stall. As he approached the stable Gbekele began to trot in place, fear returning to his eyes as Mawu did her best to calm him down.

“Gbekele, please calm down,” she tells the beast but, it rears back in terror making Mawu release his reigns.

“Lady Mawu, stand back!” Her eyes cut to the left and she sees Thor and two more stablemates come rushing into the stables.

“No! Don’t come any closer!” She tells the men but, they seemed to not hear her as the four stablemates run past her and try and grab the reigns of the beast. Gbekele rears back and neighs in anger.

Mawu felt his aura become more and more confused and his anger rose tenfold.

“No, please! Don’t touch him!” She yells to the men who once again either ignored her or didn’t hear her. One man was able to grab the reigns and another grabbed the back of his bridle. The horse rears back in anger and begins bucking. The unicorn spins in a circle as he continues to buck and Mawu was unfortunately close enough to luckily miss the hooves of the horse, make her stumble on her feet and fall hitting her head on the large salt lick.

Mawu couldn’t open her eyes anymore and allowed unconsciousness to take her.

A few minutes prior to the accident...

With Loki

Growing tired of playing with the rabbit, Loki sighed and looked around the area at the many nobles. He was insanely bored and he honestly wondered where that little moon goddess went. Now that he thought about it, he never realized how beautiful she looked tonight. For someone who is undeniably insufferable, she was a beautiful woman. Loki twisted his fist under his lips and felt his cheeks flush.

Yes, he thought about her, and what of it? She was beautiful, headstrong, and she spoke of war games like a veteran. She was perfect. If anyone offered her hand in marriage she would make a great queen. He didn’t know what it was that kept making him follow wherever she went, but, he didn’t want to stop.

It was fun messing with her, and mess with her, he shall. He wasn’t named the God of Mischief for shits and giggles.

He saw she had went to the stables and decided to check there. Not wanting to leave the rabbit, he used his powers to make Irawo disappear and made his way to the stables.

As he grew closer to the stables, the sound of shouting and a horse grew louder. Something inside of Loki made him begin to feel a sense of worry in the pit of his stomach. Walking closer, a yelp of pain was heard and by the time Loki turned the corner to enter the stables his eyes widened at the scene unfolding before him.

A black unicorn was stomping his hooves in the hay based ground being held by the reins by three men and Thor and a younger man was helping up a smaller body up from the ground. Loki’s eyes looked where the body once was and his green irises noticed the blood on the salt lick and then his eyes traveled to the one person he has been looking for this evening. Mawu was cradled in his brother’s arms bleeding profusely from the head and Loki phased over to his brother’s side.

“What. Happened.” Loki gritted out as he glared at his brother.

“A stablemate came over while I was in the fighting ring and told me that Lady Mawu was in trouble. I wrangled a couple more stablemates and I saw that Lady Mawu was trying to tame the beast but, it reared back and made her hit her head on the salt lick.” Thor explains and Loki takes the goddess in his arms and gently turns her head to see the extent of damage. He then stands up, while carefully holding the goddess in his arms. Her head landed on his chest, her lips were close enough to his neck and he held in a gasp from the sensation.

“I will take her to the medical clinic,” his eyes turns to the slightly calm unicorn that huffs in Loki’s direction.

“Get rid of that beast. I don’t want to see it in any stables of Asgard.” Loki says and a green light allows the God to disappear from view.

Arriving at the medical clinic, Loki kicked the double doors and called for a physician. Not a second later, a woman in grey robes came rushing towards him and she saw the injured goddess in his arms.

“Place her here, your majesty.” She instructs, pointing to a cot and Loki carefully set Mawu down moving back to allow the physician to do her job.

Loki didn’t know what to do. How did this happen? Why did he allow this to happen? Loki moved the cloud of hair she possessed and held her cheek.

“Thankfully, her wound is not severe,” the physician says making Loki look up at her.

“I will have to monitor her for the rest of the night.” She continues and Loki nods.

“Keep me updated on her well-being.”

“Yes, your majesty.” She bows and Loki uses his powers to disappear.

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The God of Mischief slams the doors of his room open and stomps over to his bed, plopping down in anger. Why was he so angry? He didn’t even know. Or perhaps he did.

He was frustrated about seeing her that way, but, then again why did he care so much anyway? Running his hands through his inky locs, Loki sighed in irritation then used his powers to allow Irawo to reappear. The rabbit snuggles into the side of his thigh as soon as he was released then squeaks.

“Your mother is in the clinic,” he tells the rabbit and the creature tilts it head. “She was hurt. How she handled the situation was so reckless of her!” He ranted to the rabbit as the furry begins to groom his head.

“She should have realized that that beast was unruly and she goes and gets hurt anyway!” He continues as he stands up and begins pacing, ranting still.

“She’s such a insufferable, uncouth, bratty, disobliging...beautiful, caring, degnified woman.” Loki’s rant slowly turns and he returns to sitting on his bed sighing with his hands folded in his lap. Irawo squeaks and Loki casts a spell and hands the rabbit three carrots. It happily eats the treats and Loki grins wryly.

“At least you are a better listener than Thor, then again I wouldn’t go to him with my problems, he’s just as insufferable as the Goddess.” Irawo squeaks once more as if agreeing with the trickster.

“You’re right, he is much more unbearable. My mistake.” He scratches under the rabbits chin and then thinks about the well-being of the moon goddess. Hoping, praying she would be alright.

Something like this was unfamiliar for the God of Mischief but, perhaps it was finally melting his frozen heart.

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Ch. 1⬅️

Ch. 2⬅️

Here’s Chapter 3 enjoy it! Like, comment, reblog and be sure to ask me anything in the inbox.

See you guys!

#black reader #black!reader #fanfiction #my writing #loki x black!reader #loki marvel #loki laufeyson x reader #black oc #marvel x black!reader #african!goddess reader #that night chp. 3

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vmfx · 4 years

Text

YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST TIME.

We arrive at William Floyd High in the nighttime as the entire Brentwood wrestling team stepped off the bus. We enter through those front doors walking past the usual itinerary of granite floors, glass windows, metal lockers, trophy displays, plaques, and various achievements and group photos of people our age that we didn’t know. That was always the case when traveling with the team to any foreign-to-us high-school because we were only used to seeing our own halls and friends every day but most of us never cared to think about what kind of lives the kids from other schools lead.

Line up, enter the locker room. Drop your duffel bags onto the wooden bench, get undressed to the zeros. Throw your apparel in the locker. Don’t smile. Line up again, walk to the scale, step right up, tack up your weight, step off. Proceed to unlock your apparel to get dressed. Put your singlet on, your team jacket, your team pants, your wrestling shoes, hold onto your headgear, and then eat since your weight has been certified to the last pound right before you would qualify up to the heavier weight classes. Don’t smile. Now huddle as a team so the coach gives you a run-down of what to expect. Warm up, jump around, pace it. Keep moving, shoot and snap a little. Break a sweat, get pumped up, put your game-face or ego on, and wait in the hall until the team proceeds to the opponent’s gymnasium.

Five minutes before we head to the gym, I find out that our teammate Grillo was given an opportunity to wrestle a female, an extreme anomaly in the world of high-school wrestling since it’s a boy’s sport. Grillo ultimately turned down the chance to wrestle her. Why? Was it because he would feel guilty in roughing up a woman? No. Was it because he preferred the challenge of a male opponent since his perception of a wrestler of the opposite sex would be weak? No.

Grillo didn’t want to take the chance in losing against her. He didn’t want to put his supposed manhood on the line to deal with the ridicule from now until the end of high-school. He didn’t seem right about it. He had every right to turn her down. It wasn’t the only time this season one of our guys couldn’t wrestle an available female opponent. Another teammate, Pud, was upset because his pulled out at the last minute: she was having her period.

But one man’s failure is another man’s opportunity. As Grillo passed up an opportunity to experience something notable to tell his future children or his closest drinking buddies, lo and behold, our coach instead gives me the opportunity to wrestle her.

Of course, I said yes.

**********

The junior varsity string lined up at the entrance of the William Floyd Colonials’ gym as we said “Our Father”. We were given the signal to storm right on through the gym, onto the mat running in circles and closing in to the center, exploding in a battle cry of “BRENTWOOD!”. We now take our seats waiting for our junior varsity (read “exhibition”) matches to begin. A none-too-shabby well-lit gymnasium of pale-colored walls, championship banners, one huge wrestling mat squared center, and wooden benches somewhat occupied by friends, parents, family, students, and tiny clusters of girls huddling close to each other checking out their latest wrestler crushes like they’d be no big deal next month.

Four matches into the night, my teammates tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. They point to my opponent from across the gym on the Colonials’ side warming up to get ready. Short straight black neck-length hair, darker skin, full-figured build, thick but not fat nor muscular, and buxom. It was her all right. At that moment I knew, and the team knew, that we were in for something quite the un-ordinary.

91, 98, 106, 111, 118, 126, 132, 137. They all came and went. One after another, shake hands with the enemy and at the sound of the referee’s whistle they clashed. Wrestlers coming towards each other as Aries rams locking horns together, roughing each other up in hopes of putting the other man on his back. They were cheered on, whistled to, and yelled at by the coaches if they couldn’t put the hurt on their opponents like they were supposed to. But our second string team did pretty good so far. Some went for the pin, some won by points. For six minutes or less we played hard. At the end, both wrestlers came to the center, shook hands, and the ref- raises the winner’s arm in victory. Clock out and come back on the bench. You’re done for the night.

145. My number’s up. It’s the moment I have been waiting for. After skipping and shooting in place, I step to the mat and get ready. My team stands behind me to wish me good luck, patting me on the back. I walk up to the center of the mat and here she is waiting for me in a mild green and yellow singlet with a white t-shirt under it to prevent any distraction. We meet and hastily shake hands in good sportsmanship. We stance. We lock eyes. The referee’s whistle blows. Go!

First period. I shoot for her legs and tackle her. I get right to work in trying to pin her but she flips over on her stomach as I am on top of her trying to turn her back over. The referee whistles on us for stalling and we’re back up again in stance. Whistle blows. We lock up. She takes me down and is on top of me as I turn flat on my stomach. I successfully get out of position and we’re up again. After two minutes of rough and tussle, octopus arms, twists and knots the period ends.

For those first two minutes I didn’t grapple with the usual muscle, bones, sweat, vitamins, minerals, whole milk, egg yolks, and hard-knock rough-housing of wrestling a male opponent. This time I was feeling something more soft, tender and meaty; something more chewy and warm. It was the first (non-sexual) full-body contact I ever had with the opposite sex, despite the fact that it took place on a wrestling mat in a high-school gymnasium surrounded by two teams, sports personnel, and various other community bit players. No matter. Something still had to be accomplished. Contrary to what my teammates thought, I wasn’t here to get her phone number or ask her out. I was here to win.

Second period. Whistle blows. Our heads rest upon each other as we lock eyes. Both of us try to make a go for it, tapping and pushing each other for the fake out. I shoot and I go for the fireman’s carry where I grab her arm with one hand and my other free arm goes under her triangle and grabs her leg. I surge forward. I nailed it. I tackle her down on the mat. She is on her back as I am on top of her, perpendicular and stomach-to-stomach. My left arm is secured under her head and my right arm hoists her right leg in the air. For the next few seconds she is struggling to break free but the referee on his knees blows the whistle and pounds his hand on the mat, I get the pin.

We get up to brush ourselves off. We walked to the center of the mat to happily respectfully shake hands in good sportsman- / sportswoman-like conduct. The referee raises my arm in victory. My teammates and coaches smile and pat me on the back to congratulate me. Even better, this was my very first career win. History was made.

**********

“Did you touch her crotch?” “Did you cop a feel?” “Did you get on top of her?” “Did you go hard?” Those were the post-interview questions asked to me by the jack-ass male dominate jocks on my team; joking and laughing with me as they wondered how it felt in having to enjoy full body contact with a female opponent. Those same questions would also be asked by my classmates, co-workers, and future would-be people in my life should any conversation I have ever get to this point.

“Why didn’t you go all three periods with her?” one of my teammates asked me. Good point, because maybe I should have gone the whole three rounds with her and get my money’s worth for you. Perhaps I should have enjoyed myself more since this was the only time in my life I would have this opportunity but I was too busy going for the win. Maybe next time.

Later that night, the first-string varsity team easily chopped down the Colonials to shame. Another win for the Indians. Call it a night, we’re going home.

**********

The team gathered their belongings to leave William Floyd High and hopped on the bus. As an added bonus, since we won our bout, we were allowed to be in a good mood hurling insults and mama jokes at each other like all good civilized model student athletes that we were. That night, the back of the bus on the way home was rowdier than a Texas bar in the lawless 1880’s full of booze, poker, gun violence, and burlesque women. They made me the hero of the day I didn’t ask for.

What my teammate Grillo could have had was instead given to me for keeps no matter what and I could show this to any of my friends for the rest of my life. However, when straight, narrow, easily-fascinated minds are still trained on the notion that wrestling is an all-male sport, I can mention that in high-school that I wrestled a female. They won’t light up to the idea that females can wrestle in an all-male sport because they want to accomplish something and break gender barriers. Rather, they will light up only because in their minds they hear that I felt a girl.

#VMFX #writers on Tumblr #Long Island #personal #WTF #sports

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the-headbop-wraith · 4 years

Text

1 _ 19 Brambles

Soft voices glide through the room, cutting and retuning to a new scene or tone or voice with rhythmic pauses. It was a delicate matter to set one claw to the button of the remote and press with a stiff finger, cycling through the dull white noise that made up the blubbering television theme of each channel. What was defined as ‘news’ was scarcely credible, many channels were dedicated to realty programs, infomercials that promised ‘satisfaction guaranteed or money back,’ and as always the static infused HBO special feature.

Therehad to be a better use for television. Humans just refused to find it, or the general population was content tonumb their minds into oblivion with this toxic waste of ozone. Mystery huffed into the folds of the blankethe lounged over, and pressed his paw to the button again. None of his companions had said anything, aslong as the soft background chatter remained below audible they were somewhateased by his habit. The dog halflistened as Vivi went over the next destinations marked on the map, there werea few but they had lost time after the van was put into the body shop for repairs. Mystery rolled over, sliding the telly remote along the sheet cover as he did, for ease of access and the minimal of movement required of reaching it.

The argument between Vivi and Arthur had been typical, Arthur on the opposing side wanting no pair of hands on the van aside from his own, and Vivi adamant about getting the exterior of the van patched up. Lewis had been like Mystery, huddled outside in the parking lot where it was relatively safe. In the end, Arthur had folded under the assurance that nothing within the vans metal hull would be tampered with. That had been the case of course from the beginning, even Vivi didn’t want the off chance of strange people poking through the vans back, and seeing the mess that none of them had made the effort to pick up. There was no concern shed over the ward scripts, carved stones, and endless containers of sage and salt stashed in the cuvees – all over the floor. Long ago Vivi had given up any attempt to explain these items to the inquisitive outsider.

“But the baseball stadium sounds more interesting,” Vivi said. She and Lewis had the selection narrowed down – a hospital, a maternity store, and a bed and breakfast that was on their route. Mystery personally preferred the bed and breakfast, and they might just stop in along the way since it was literally on one of their roads. “A batter ghost? Why is he there, and who is he?” She scrolled through one of the tabs she had opened on the main page, there were a few pictures but nothing clear, no definite image of a spirit aside from a gray glob that could be easily be explained as lens flares or rudimentary odd shadows.

Behind her hovered Lewis, just above the head rest of the hard chair she had claimed. Mystery had caught Arthur glancing over at Lewis a few times, from his position on the opposite side of the one bed. It was probably difficult for him to wrap his mind around the sight, with Arthur being the analytical one of the group, struggling to rationalize whatever science there was into a free floating body. To describe it, imagine bungee cords that are not visible, Lewis’ body was parallel of the floor but suspended a good two feet above the headrest and peering over Vivi’s fluff of blue hair and into the computer she held on her lap.

“What’s this activity about?” Lewis inquired. His body dips down, folded arms coming within inches of the headrest above Vivi. He spoke aloud before she could read off the page, “‘Seen after games end on the field, sometimes caught in the stadiums big screen.’ Groovy.”

“There’s speculation he, or she – we don’t know – they could be a fan,” Vivi continued. “There’s a case where one of the spectators suffered a concussion from a free flying ball, but they never went to the hospital and by the time they realized how serious the concussion had been, it was too late.” She shifted in the uncomfortable seat, and Lewis raised himself a foot more reflexively. “They could be trapped there or something. What do you think, Art?”

Mystery recoiled from his leisure sprawl when Arthur jerked on the bed. “Who- what?” Arthur sputtered. He had met eyes with Lewis, when the free suspended body had shifted so Lewis could see him better. Vivi kindly reminded Arthur the subject they were discussing, and Arthur set aside his notebook as he thought it over. “Batter ghost sounds the most low key, but what about the rumors?”

Vivi tapped at the laptop, and Lewis shifted to view the key words she searched for. “There are all the usual grainy shots, most caught when there’s a game. Lots of people, lots of cameras going off?” She rubbed her finger over the scroll pad quickly, eyes flashing behind her magenta glasses. “There are a few post game pics, but they don’t look any more better.”

“We could do with another low key investigation,” Lewis chimed in.

“You liked the ‘Owl Widow’ ghost?” Vivi accused, half a smirk on her face. The Owl Widow had been horrifying as hell, but she was all bark and no bite.

“I can sympathize with anyone who would terrorize people that would hike all the way out to my house, to wreck the furniture and break the windows,” Lewis grumbled. “But… she had such a gentle heart. After all those years, it’s a tragedy.”

Vivi sighed and sank down in the chair, she pushed the laptop higher up onto her knees for Lewis viewing ease. “She’ll be okay,” she persisted. “Decades gone by and she just keeps on protecting those owls.”

Mystery folded his wrists together and pinned the remote under his lower paw. Those that study the occult would recall a myth which went, when a person and an animal die in each other’s company the souls are bound, and if the trauma of the event was powerful enough, a spirit would return. The people of the town spoke of a young birder who had a favorite owl she took out to train. It was believed that hunters may have mistaken her for some animal and shot her, and her owl, or some variation of the scenario. Murder was suspected but due to lack of evidence ruled out, and the case was never solved. However, not long following the incident hikers and campers began to tell stories about an abandoned home in the area, where dozens of owls would congregate to roost, and at night the shrill cry of a woman or a shrieking owl was heard within. Few would dare stay in the home, and those that attempted only made it a few hours into the evening before the ear splitting shrieks would drive them out into the night.

The Mystery Skulls had no problem with the Owl Widow and even believed the rumors false, until they as a group ventured up into the unexplored attic where the owls roosted during the day. Vivi had no way of hailing the spirit, and the Owl Widow was as feral and skittish as any bird. When the Owl Widow realized she was discovered, she abruptly vanished without a trace. Later, Vivi learned that it was the local’s thrill seekers sport to stay in the home or try to draw out the Owl Widow for a good scare, and that was commonly done by vandalizing the home. This disgusted Vivi and she refused to do anything more that would negatively affect the spirit.

Arthur climbed off the motels bed and gave Mystery’s head a warm rub as he waked by. Mystery took his cue and climbed off the bed and followed his companion to the door, where Arthur pivoted and stopped him.

“Stay here,” Arthur urged, motioning the dog with his metal hand as his other hand took the door handle. Mystery sat down and tilts his head as Arthur backed out. “I’ll be back in a gif, I’m just gonna check the laundry.” Mystery raised an eyebrow as Arthur turned away and shut the door between them.

“Hurry back, then,” Vivi answered. Mystery glanced her way as she resumed scrolling. “It irks me though.” Lewis hummed in question and Vivi continued. “This would be a lot of work running around, for one ghost. Stadiums are huge, unless we find a binding object.”

“What’s the info on our subject?” Lewis asked, and pointed to the screen. “Is there anything? A name?”

“We could just use any old baseball I guess, if that’s what caused their death.” Vivi was clicking links, hunting for a newspaper article in the cities historical database. “There’s a lawsuit, but when s’there not? Mystery.” The dog looked up at Vivi when she called his name. “Arthur said he wouldn’t be gone long. Don’t worry.”

“That link there,” Lewis cut in, pointing to the un-highlighted title among the few darker cousin links on the screen. “I got a good feeling about that.”

“Keep your socks on. I got it.” She clicked it and the two read silently to themselves.

Mystery shrugged his shoulders and returned to the bed. The layout of the motel room was as basic, dry, and boring as the thousands they had the privilege to stay in before – table, armchair, lamp, vanity desk, single bed – a picture print of a pasture with deer grazing in the tall grass, a distant lake and tall trees surrounding the scenery – framed and hung on the wall above the bed. Mystery stretched out over the tussled sheets and adjusted his thin ankles over a stiff fold of the covers. He raised the volume only slightly and resumed his meditation through channel surfing.

“There was also this guy that overheated and died while in the mascot costume,” Vivi mentioned. “You’d think he’d come back as some sort of demon bonded to his costume.”

Lewis often wondered over Vivi’s unique style of thinking. “What was the costume?”

Vivi fixed her hairband, then put her hands back to the keyboard and scrolled. “A badger?”

“The stadium no longer sounds low key?” Lewis humped. He rolled sideways in mid hover and folded one arm under his neck, as if to support his head by some invisible tabletop. “None of the reports remark on any aggression, accidents?”

“No, you big chicken.”

“Bawk-bawk,” Lewis droned, void of any enthusiasm. “Is it too much to ask that we return to cases where some… angry thing doesn’t come crashing out of the shadows with a huge chip on its shoulder? Have I mentioned, I would like that?” He nods, as if agreeing over an important matter.

“Well…” Vivi let her voice trail off, and glanced up at Lewis. They had those cases too often. Failed cases she categorized them. The encounters which were too volatile for traditional techniques and it was advised by any veteran paranormal investigator, that if you have no training in that particular field, you have no right to meddle with it. In those instances it is strongly advised to pack up and book it rather risk harm, or worse. It was another topic she wanted to ask Arthur about, but she wouldn’t bring it up with Lewis since he was in that realm himself.

That place, it would have been one, it should have been a Failed case. They just didn’t recognize the danger in time. Another notch, a proud scar in their resume. They never failed a case, but often the case did fail them, and she had failed them.

Packed up and ran away. No matter what danger they left to those that came in their wake. Let the experienced, the demon hunters, deal with it.

“Huh?” Lewis asked, slanting one dark eye at her.

Vivi gave her head a shake and returned her attention to the screen. “I thought of something. Anyway,” she paused, noting she had exited out of some of the history articles. “Just a bunch of sightings. Nothing threatening.”

“Great,” Lewis chirped. “What were you thinking, then?”

“I was wondering,” Vivi mumbled and curled down into the chairs back. She looked up as Lewis peered down at her, prompting her to go on. “Well….”

“Well what?” There was something in his voice, something that had been absent until recent. Vivi had only realized it herself, but his voice was sounding more natural, vocal rather hollow. Solid as if projected, rather than suggested through the vague scratch of an outdated radio. The slight transition had been lost to her, while in constant company of her subject. She wondered what sort of voice outsiders heard when Lewis spoke with them, or were they oblivious? She could ask Arthur how much Lewis’ voice had changed. “Vi?”

“Are you aware you’re floating?�� Vivi looked between Lewis and the floor, through the back of the chair she was nestled in. “Can you do that intentionally or—” She winced to the audible thud that came. “Uhh….”

“I was not aware,” Lewis’ garbled voice came, somewhere beyond the chairs back. “Thank you for notifying me.”

“Explain that to me.” Vivi set the laptop down on the seat cushion and stood up, to peer over the chairs headrest. “How can you not realize you’re free floating?” She pulled back and sat on her knees when Lewis poked his head up, skull in place of a face, and he resumed a buoyant hover above the floor.

“I’m kidding,” he said, as he fixed the jacket collar. Lewis felt his face, recognized the common distinction of solid spectral that symbolized his skull. “My concentration broke— I knew I was, but….” He fumbled, voice breaking off into scratches and he gave up. “Hard to explain.” He winced and looked up to Vivi when she set her hand on the side of his skull. The embers of his eyes brightened, most noticeably in Vivi’s glasses as she smiled at him.

“I get it,” she hummed. “I’ll try not to do that again.”

Lewis let his gleaming eyes dim and fall away from her tender gaze. He pressed his cheek into Vivi’s palm and let his ethereal essence sooth out, calming from the choppy ripples that dug through his usual insubstantial eminence. Passive waves rolled through Vivi’s aura, strong, vibrant, and cool. No wonder she had such power over the spirits; how could she not? It was compelling and desirable, more than the once strong call that had persisted on him in that early time. As the days ticked away the call became less, and less vibrant, until the draw had subsided into faint tugs; unpalatable and easily ignored. Bleu Moyen. High blue waves to dose his fires, severing his ties to the ravenous fury and blind ambition. So clear. Everything became so crystal clear when he was with Vivi.

A low shudder burned in Lewis, when Vivi leaned over the headrest to kiss the upper edge of his jaw. His eyes brightened in their dark sockets and a wisp of flame faded as Vivi drew back. Lewis didn’t want to lose her, he could scarcely recall that time of the between. He only wanted to believe his feelings were genuine.

An interesting segment was on the history channel, describing ancient magicians of centuries past. Mystery turned his ears up as the narrator described a priest of the pharaoh whom became famous for cutting the heads of various animals, and that animal would function normally, walk around, but without a head; after some time the priest would restore the head to the creature and it would resume life as normal. This spectacle was never performed on a human, never a servant, the priest would always refuse, and what matter of the illusion was never discovered, though attempts have been made to recreate it.

By the programs end, Mystery was on his side fully content to watch out the conclusion. No animals were harmed during the making of the program. A hollow promise, but it had some effect of easing him a little to see the message and be reminded that some humans did care. He rotates his head over to see Vivi more or less in the chair, she would be in the chair if Lewis wasn’t under her. They had resumed discussion of what case was more favorable, but softer, as if Mystery wasn’t there. He took a deep breath and let the air wheeze out of his nose.

Wait.

Mystery rolled over, off the bed and padded to the door. He sniffed along the edge picking up Arthur’s most recent scent, and pawed at the scuffed up white paint of the door. Mystery whined and looked up to Vivi and she peered over the computer in her lap, down at him.

“What’s up, Mystery?”

He barked and sidestepped at the door. Arthur. How long has Arthur been gone? Mystery resumed scratching at the door, and reared up on his hinds legs to take the L shaped handle between his wrists.

“He should’ve been back,” Vivi paused as she looked to the clock on the laptop. “Forever ago.” She stood up off of Lewis and crossed to the vanity desk, where the telly was stationed. She unplugged the computer, shut it, and stuffed it into her overnight bag on the desk. She fished around for the room key as Lewis raised up from the chair.

“Maybe he had to re-dry the clothes,” Lewis suggested. He stepped up beside Vivi and set his hand upon the shimmering surface of the mirror, and stared into the steady state of his skull and bright eye sockets. He had worked on this off and on, he could ‘jolt’ his state back into his more favorable appearance with a flash of a thought.

“Or he could’ve gone for a walk.” He briefly examined his face, the stubborn dark eyes, then turned to Vivi. “Clear his head. Think for a bit? He’s been really quiet lately.”

Vivi’s attention was directed past Lewis, toward Mystery standing on his rear legs. Mystery had tottered backwards with the door following his movements, and was now stepping out. The door began to slip shut, but stopped when Mystery blocked its progress and gave a bark at them to hurry. “Mystery doesn’t like to be away from Arthur for too long,” she said, as reason. “I worry about him, I have to.” Mystery ducked out of the doorway when Vivi stepped over to him.

“I know.” Lewis snatched his sunglasses off the table as he followed Vivi out the door, and into the blazing sun of midafternoon. Way past noon, the sky was getting the dusky soft purples that Lewis appreciated. He wanted to converse with Vivi about the one time when the group managed to get hopelessly lost and spread out around the motel, only because they kept following each other around the main office building, with a length of the wall distancing them apart. What messed them up was that they were just barely in ear shot, they could hear the nearest person but in all the confusion they never got it across, “Stay right there, I’m coming.” They had run around in circles all day, but the scenario was straight from a cartoon and they had great fun anyway.

He decided not to encourage the memory. It wasn’t so much for her benefit, but the thought of it pained him worse than….

“We just barely ate an hour ago,” Vivi mentioned. She and Lewis followed Mystery down the steps and through the small hallway that cut between the two halves of the motel. As per destiny, the nearest convenience mart was adjacent to the motel. Night or day, it didn’t matter to Arthur when he drank an energy drink. Hell, he’d drink one before taking a nap. Vivi would check there next. “You didn’t have to come.”

Lewis gave a sheepish smirk, missed by Vivi. “Well, you didn’t stop me.”

Vivi could smell the warm scent of the dyer heaters as they walked along the wall to the laundry room; beside the kids play area, and the gated and tarped pool. She pulled the door open and let Mystery and Lewis enter before she followed them into the cramped room. “Not here?” she spoke, as she moved into the adjoining room with the washers and laundry detergent vendor.

Mystery’s paws scratched and clacked on the cool tile as he wandered around, sniffing under a table and then at the edge of a wall. He turned to Vivi and gave some soft barks that echoed, unintentionally loud, off the walls. Arthur hadn’t been here lately, but with all the oddball scents it was a trial to discern accurately a time.

The dryer was still thumping and rumbling. Lewis examined the timer and found it had fifteen more minutes. “If you don’t think you’ll need me, can I have the room key so I can get this stuff up there?” he asks.

“Sure.” Vivi pulled the car key out of her wrist sleeve and handed it over to Lewis. “We’ll see you back in the room in’a bit.” She waved to Lewis as she returned to the glass door, Mystery scratched over the slippery linoleum to catch up with her at the door. “Chao.”

“Good luck,” Lewis answered, as the door shut. A few minutes drift by and a thought occurred to Lewis. When Arthur stepped out, Lewis wasn’t certain but he didn’t think Arthur had picked up the laundry bag. If Arthur had come to the same conclusion, Lewis might run into him on his way to or from the room.

The room was still empty of Arthur and provided no insight of a short return. Vivi shut the door and took the opposite path along the rooms, her eyes scanned about as she walked, in hopes to catch the faint blur of yellow contrasted on the open car lot below. Mystery padded at her heel as they took the route for the back stairs that ran above the main office. Below, a group of kids laugh as they race by, shoes slapping on the hard cement. Vivi tottered at the rail trying to catch sight of the jovial youths; maybe Arthur was down there lost in his own thoughts and mildly discomforted from the innocent play. It seemed like the situation he would be tossed into when he craved some seclusion. The sounds fade somewhere, and if Arthur is below she cannot see him from the angle she’s at above.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Vivi murmured. She paused on the steps to look out from the narrow arch and scanned the clear sky, the moist tinge still on the air from the recent rains. “There was a park when we rode in, wasn’t there?”

Mystery stood sideways on the steps and stares at the sky. He gave a soft yap.

“I know this deal with the van put us on a tight schedule, but we can do with a lil TLC.” She continued down the steps, and Mystery followed. “We’ve spent so many weeks cooped up together, I forget what open air feels like.”

The road that cut through this section of the city was not very busy, even throughout the day when people would be busy with errands. Vivi with Mystery crossed to the nearest shop mart with the highest gas prices she had seen in a hundred miles. Down the sidewalk from their current residence, it was only a few blocks among the stores and cafes to the open flat of the body shop where the van was being adjusted. The body shop was only going to fix up the ragged sides where the van had fallen and scraped, part of the deal was allowing Arthur to do the paint job himself. That would leave the van looking half finished and metallic until they returned to home base.

As Vivi pushed the door of the convenience store open, a blast of balmy air hit her. Immediately the clerk at the cashier counter piped up:

“I’m sorry, miss. No dog’s allowed.”

Vivi let Mystery in anyway, and Mystery went on his way examining the racks assorted foods, and the doughnut case positioned across from the cashier counter. “He’s a therapy dog,” Vivi answered.

The cashier, a tall woman with curly hair, hesitates as she looks back to the white dog free of a leash. “Do you have papers?” She seemed uneasy as Mystery sniffed along the corner of the tall doughnut case. In Mystery’s defense, the doughnuts smelled exceptional that day.

“That depends,” Vivi rebuked. She turned from the woman and looked over the near empty store, a few people drift around picking at the inventory in various sections – sweet, salty, and standard household goods. “Did you see a guy come in here? Shocked yellow hair, quail curl, orange vest.” She turned to the cashier and the blank stare the woman wore. Vivi motioned her elbow. “Metal arm?”

Indeed it was a beautiful day. Arthur was glad he had stepped out to enjoy it, get some fresh air. He hoped the van was all right, he hated the thought of strange people putting their greasy hands all over his pride and joy. Even if the van liked to break down in the harsh weather conditions, or guzzled gas like a leech did fresh blood, they didn’t pay for it. He never asked how much it was going to cost, but Vivi had been the one driving at the time and she always insisted on these matters. Arthur gave up trying to fight her about it long ago.

He sighed and leaned back into the cool wall in the stores shadow. It was cold only in the shadow, but standing in direct sunlight had warmed his chest too much and so here he stood in the shade, listening to the children in the nearby neighborhoods whoop and holler in play. He put his hand back in his pocket, pushed the pack of gum aside, and pulled up the chainless pocket watch. Four thirty-nine. The laundry should be done by now, he didn’t want a collection of his pants in bacon ripple style. Sickly yellow, bacon ripple style… whatever.

The watch went back in his pocket and Arthur brought the cigarette back to his lips for another draw. His eyes half closed and he let the sizzle work in his throat. Two more minutes. He calculated the time up in his head, two more minutes coupled with the walk back to the motel—, he forgot the bag. Get the bag, go back down and collect the freshly dried pants and shirts. Or he could forget the bag, have five more minutes to let his blood mellow.

“Arthur!”

He jumps in place and turns to Vivi’s accusing stare. “Hey. I didn’t worry you, did I?” he rasped. Arthur took another breath and looked down from Vivi, to Mystery huddled behind her legs. When Vivi began towards him, Mystery turns and bolts out of sight. Arthur backed up and hit the wall. He gets out a vague question as Vivi slaps the cigarette out of his metal hand. “Whoa now! What gives you the right—” He shut his mouth when Vivi grips the front of his shirt and heaves back a fist.

“You promised me you quit!” she snarled.

“I did! I DID!” Arthur tenses but makes no move to defend his face. He probably deserved it.

It was on the prescription, among the long list of drugs compiled into his blood to keep his kidneys from shriveling up, his heart pumping, his capillaries clear of toxins. They worried about toxins in his blood. Arthur had laughed that day, it was so out of character they had to call in a psychiatrist to evaluate whether or not his brain had suffered mental trauma that was not foreseen since his earlier evaluations. Oh what medical science was blind to; oh what they were willfully ignorant of. The only person that might’ve gotten the joke, wouldn’t have gotten it anyway. That cruel irony made looking at her twice as difficult for the remainder of the month, but he found his way out of it.

The doctors advised Arthur to quit, obstructed capillary networks was what they labeled it. It was common in amputees.

“Was this your first pack?” Vivi growled, tugging Arthur towards her.

He choked and spat out a no. “I’m gonna stop though, I will!” he stammered, leaning back. Why was Vivi so strong? Arthur was no heavyweight, but she could pick up Lewis when he was alive. “It always helped, with the… it just helped!”

“We have sage!” she hissed, face twisting, tears brimming in her eyes.

“But that’s so rude!” Arthur cringed down fully expecting the blow to connect and knock some sense back into him. ��He bought gum and sometimes chewed that instead, but it wasn’t the same. He’d show Vivi once she calmed down. He was hauled forward, staggering through the dark shade of his thoughts and awaiting the flash of light from her fist to cleave through his mind… but the harsh blow never comes. Instead, soft arms wrap around him. Arthur risks opening his eyes and stares down on the weed riddled pavement behind her blue heels. His muscles remained locked, he didn’t dare move even when Vivi’s shoulders quivered. Arthur clenched his fists at his sides and rested his chin on the poofy sweater around her neck.

“I should have asked,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “I should have asked you.” She squeezed tighter around Arthur’s chest, as if fortifying his presence with her embrace. “Why didn’t I?”

“You…” he began, and hesitated. Vivi said nothing, hadn’t calmed down, and Arthur went on, “already knew the answer. Nothing’s changed. This is fine.”

“No, it’s wrong.” She pressed her forehead into the collar of that stupid amber vest Arthur always insisted on wearing. “I wasn’t thinking about you, I wasn’t worried that…. Jesus, I don’t think.” How could she forget? Why had she been blind to this? For all her intuition, her flexible and quick mind, how could she overlook such simple, yet crucial details? Essential, yet fragile. Delicate, but poisonous. A balance that tipped dangerously.

Arthur brought his arms up and wrapped them around her shoulders, gently. “Vi, we’ve talked,” he insists. “I told him I was solid. I don’t have the right—” Arthur froze again when Vivi recoiled and pushed him back by his shoulders.

“That’s not an invitation!” She snapped. “That’s submission! That won’t do.” Arthur let his head hang, but Vivi cups his chin in her fingers and pushed his face up. “No, Art. Look, I’m not mad, I’m frustrated. Well, maybe that’s not the truth. I’m mad at me, not you. But— Would you look at me! I’m frustrated, that’s it.” She stares into Arthur’s face as his eyes crease and his brows stretch, into a conflicted expression she was too familiar with. “You’re not allowed to destroy yourself. Are you listening?” He nods, and tries to let his eyes drop from her steady gaze. “What did I just say?”

“Don’t wreck myself,” he mumbled, below a breath.

“That’s good enough, I guess.” Vivi sighed, and raised a thumb up to touch the lone tear that had made it past Arthur’s resistance. “How do I save you? How do I save my boys?”

“I miss Lewis,” Arthur says. He shuts his eyes and begins to slip down to the cold ground, his knees fold up under him. Vivi helps him down, pulling at his vest and trying not to grip the upper space of his left arm where metal met flesh. “I’m keeping it together, pulling myself back.” Vivi kneels in front of him and pulls him upright when he begins to sag sideways over his knees. “I’m not gonna fuck this up too. I can do this.” He shuts his eyes and presses his metal palm to his forehead in an effort to cool his fevered brow. “I can do this. Just… just give me some time, and I’ll work it out.”

“Hey.” Vivi brought her hands up and clasped Arthur around his forehead, his shocked blond hair folded under her palms as she held him. Arthur tucked his eyelids shut and winced to her touch. “Don’t push yourself so hard. It’ll… you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I know my limits,” he murmured. Arthur feels his heart being ripped in two, skewered by icy teeth and shredded across his ribs. “I can endure. I can.”

“Don’t give me that,” Vivi hissed. “You’re not impervious to— Art, wait!” Arthur had ripped himself from her hands and managed up onto his feet, stumbling a bit as he spun away from Vivi still crouched on the broken asphalt. Vivi hopped to her feet and followed his stabbing steps. “Art’ur!” She jerks back when he whirls on her.

“I’m not fragile, Vi! God, I’m not going to come apart and scatter in the wind.” Arthur screams, his body movements erratic as he gestures with his hands; the prosthetic arm is dull and awkward while he’s amid a state of distress. “My legs are strong, my mind’s still here! I’m okay! Just… chill.” He motions his arms, bringing them down to his hip level as Vivi watched. “You don’t trust me? Do you?”

Vivi searched for something else to focus on, and settled for the edge of the motels roof beyond the corner of the convenience store Arthur had hidden behind. “Sometimes you forget Art,” she says. “You’re so focused on anything else, you avoid the little things.” She shakes her head and then looks back to Arthur. “I don’t want to forget for you. I can’t drag you down.”

Arthur stuffs his hands into his pockets and toes at the crumbling cement, trying to dislodge a thick stubborn stalk of a wilting weed. He recollected on Vivi before the Cave, ambitious headstrong Vivi, always leading the way. Lewis always right there for her, to grab her and pull her back from the edge of disaster when it suddenly opened up in her path. And Arthur… him, always a step behind, the last one into the room, always lagging behind the others. The first to run, or the one somehow caught.

“Vi,” he says, “you never dragged me. If anything—” He stopped, and looked up at her. “You brought me back. You were there when I woke up.”

Vivi doesn’t meet his eyes as she moves towards Arthur. She takes him by the wrist of his metal arm and pulls the hand into hers and examines the stiff, numb digits, Arthur had carved himself. “I wasn’t always there,” she confessed. “I didn’t want to be there. Art?”

“Hmm?” The air became chilled when a cloud, or the sun, had inched behind some obstruction that blocked the strong yellow rays. He couldn’t feel Vivi’s fingers tracing the mars and etches in place of his metal palm, he could only detect the vibrations he had grown accustomed to when faint touch fell onto his false limb. When he had built his first prosthetic and attached it, Vivi had never taken a second look at it. He had always been gratified by this.

“We should look for Mystery,” she suggests, and tugs him by the wrist with no force applied. “I think he went this way.”

Arthur followed without protest. “We should talk a bit.”

“We’ll talk a bit,” Vivi echoed, leading Arthur behind her by his hand.

“It’s such a nice day, or was,” Arthur muttered, and squinted at the darkening contours of the sky.

Vivi led their way towards a dark alley behind the convenience store, chain link fences and the clay floor packed down, overgrown with trees and weeds. It looked more interesting and secluded than the open sidewalk beside a road. “I thought we could hit the park tomorrow.” Vivi’s voice brightened a bit.

As they departed the wall and Vivi’s voice twittered with the prospect of a day for just them, a dark shadow rose across the glossy paint of the brick. The shadow seeps from the walls surface and reforms itself, bright magenta illuminates along its outline and spreads across its torso and legs. A gilded heart pulses at the broad chest as the dark hue fades by degrees, until it is restored to its pacified shape.

Lewis took a step from the wall and leaned back onto it, he crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Vivi and Arthur disappear down the alley. He thought of following them and making certain Vivi was safe, but he decided that may have been a lame excuse to eavesdrop on following conversations. He’d… done enough of that.

“What happened to us? I mean, why did we let this happen?”

Vivi’s words rattled in his mind. He remembered Arthur then, catatonic, sleeping. His aura had been in its most indolent in that state, and Lewis had for a moment believed Arthur had died, if not for the shallow movement of his chest.

The questions plagued his deepest contemplations, alternating, “Why did we? What happened?” As if she were before him now asking the same question, inquiring for some form of answer he too yearned insight into. There remained the questioned he flittered away from, the ones that he could ponder over for long hours, while time held him prison to witness superficial events from afar. The locket thrummed at his chest, always steady, sometimes thunderous, and then at other times its as somber as a coo. The questions in their most basic function nibbled at him: What and Why?

It was all a ruse, he promised himself. He only intended to frighten them. Get them to abandon his mansion and force them far-FAR away, never to return. Leave him to sleep and forget, and fade away with each pulse of his heart. That was his intent, he swore it was all that he meant to do. Play up the theatrics, convince them it was not worth their time or sanity. He was incapable of killing.... unlike Arthur; it was beyond his nature, he swore it wouldn't go that far no matter how much… he suffered. The long, endless cycle of time tormenting his existence, abandoned and betrayed by someone he thought of as a dear friend. Something... somewhere… it all went wrong.

Reuniting with Arthur. The event brought something out of him, something he never genuinely contested before. Not with earnest. The unbridled horror in Arthur's features when Lewis emerged from his coffin, the unsightly attributes which cost everything he held dear and precious; his brazen perplexity upon seeing this… ghost. It pissed him off. He wanted to wipe it out, make Arthur taste some of that spite that curdled his soul. He couldn't stop, he absolutely could not stop himself. How far could he drive Arthur on before he broke? Arthur deserved the suffering, the torment and hostility unleashed by his failings. Nothing would make this right, but Lewis also couldn't elude that anger. It was as much of a part of him now as the locket affixed to his chest. Inseparable.

And then she was there. It had happened so fast and Lewis couldn’t bear it. The ache in his hollowed chest when he saw her for the first time since….

He said goodbye.

Why he remained far past his expiration was never a controversy for him. The question that stumped him when he was not careful, and it came upon him when his defenses were down: What was he now?

Lewis rounded the corner of the convenience store and walked across the parking lot. He saw Mystery on the sidewalk beyond the gas pumps waiting for Vivi, or him, he was on the sidewalk beside the crosswalk marks that bridge across to the motel. The dog perked up at Lewis’ approach, and Lewis said nothing until he reached his four legged ally. “How’s it going?” Lewis rattled, his voice near toneless.

Mystery’s answer was to tilt his head and lower one ear at an angle. He stood and pivots to cross the road, glancing around for any speeding traffic; there were no cars but Mystery was careful to look anyway. He spins about when Lewis begins to walk off, and Mystery pads up to follow at a distance.

“I’m not going back to the room yet,” Lewis explained. “Vi and Art are looking for you.”

Mystery’s steps slowed and he fell back. That didn’t make sense, any one of them knew without a fail that if he was separated from his company, he would either turn up at the van or the current place of occupation. He gave his head a shake as he resumed his quick pace, struggling to keep up with Lewis long stride. It was evident Lewis was in no hurry, but Lewis probably wanted to be alone and Mystery knew he couldn’t allow that.

They came to the busier district of the widespread city. Mystery recognized it down the road from the motel, an easy to and from for some of the better diners and the cafes. Arthur was impossible when it came to the prospect of being stranded, and the distance to a place for a worthwhile cup of coffee. Mystery woofed at Lewis’ back. Lewis didn’t need a reminder that he was out in public, and not dressed for one on one interactions. Numerous shops throughout the city block catered to tourists, featuring carved wooden animals, jewelry, or rugs and quilts. The small clumps of people they passed would give Mystery odd stares, and Mystery began to wonder what for. It wasn’t unusual for people to stroll around with a ‘pet’ off the leash, was there a city ordinance he was not aware of?

Then it dawned on him. No shadow was cast under Lewis and he had no reflection in the shop windows. Lewis was hiding.

This didn’t alarm Mystery, if it was Lewis’ wish to go unnoticed then he was entitled to that. For Mystery matters were complicated. Head up, chest puffed out, ears proud and forward facing. He had someplace to be and that was where he was headed. He observed that humans rarely bothered a dog with confidence, minding his or her own business and on their way to wherever dogs go. What humans did not trust was a timid, confused, lost creature that scuttled away from attention or drifted around. If he kept moving it would make tracking him difficult. Even so, he had his collar and tags and people would regard that and conclude he was just a regular out for a walk. He would be fine, and he had some notion of Lewis’ destination.

As predicted they arrived at the body shop where the van was left. Show Car Remake and Renew, a general garage and minor vehicle repairs. The main garage was a long gray building with a few windows along the uppermost walls, and the large shutter doors at the base drawn down and locked for the evening. The far side of the lot was overnight parking, the cars and trunks caged in by tall barbed wire fence. Mystery followed Lewis to the fence but was forced to wait, as his transparent companion slipped through the metal links and entered amongst the many vehicles.

Mystery lost sight of the ghost as his tall figure weaved around the portion of large vehicles and trunks. Mystery spun around and looked back to the road as the first streetlamps snapped on, cars sped by and after a short time of waiting the street quieted. It was getting late, the air grew colder. He sat down and gave the spot behind his ear a dedicated scratch, working to straighten out the hair bent there. He tensed when a white utility trunk drove by and seemed to slow down – at least to Mystery it looked like the vehicle was stopping – but no, the truck sped up and the dog let out a sigh. Never was the best time to run off and get lost somewhere in a strange city, with strange people, and strange beliefs.

Vivi and Arthur would be wondering where he was, if they had managed to reach the room by now. They shouldn’t worry, but Mystery admitted he was not immune to dangers, or the mild irritations offered by the few humans he could do without meeting.

The sudden awareness of a presence at his back caused Mystery to twist around. It was only Lewis, slipping through the large chain links in the fence. Mystery examined him over and noted the piece of cloth tangled in his hand. Ah.

Lewis looked at the cloth between his fingers as he untangled it. “Are you still afraid of me?” Mystery raises his snout higher and glares through his spectacles at Lewis. “Would it be enough if I apologized?” He unfolded and refolded the cloth and straightened out the creases to the best of his ability. It had been folded and pressed wrong for quite some time.

Mystery give a soft woof and steps back from Lewis. They should head back now. The dapper specter wouldn’t budge.

“You were there for Arthur,” Lewis whispered, traces of flames bud from his shoulders and hair. “But not for me. Why not? Why is it…?” He tightened his fist around the sad piece of cloth, “Why did I have to be the one abandoned?” He looked down when Mystery stepped forward and set a paw on his foot, the white face looked up at him. Before Lewis could utter a word, Mystery had whisked away and was already halfway across the parking lot, the faint tapping of his claws fade as the ghost stares after him.

He could have just haunted Arthur. Or he could have remained in his mansion, his sanctuary from the world ticking by with the tempo of the seasons cycling through, worlds moving; moon sweeping through crescent to quarter, harvest and back to the new moon. What time had passed while he had slumbered? Existing but not in a state of present, not dispersing but not fully cumulative either. A piece of himself was lost in every wedge of every day, not noticed and not missed. Small segments of his childhood, the places they frequented as kids, the warm smiles of his parents. How could he miss what he couldn’t reflect with? It may have been a process of Acceptance, or it just happened naturally. He ceased to worry, and he couldn’t care. The lethargy of simply existing drained him heavily, and he fed on the lone coal of his passion, his raison d'etre. What purpose, and what meaning had come to him, when the cycle of existence had evicted a squatter?

It was Mystery’s aura that had stirred him. That wild, untamed thing – a font of composer and class, with a writhing tangle of insanity that clawed for escape. He would know it anywhere, it was the last, and first thing he had latched onto before the fulcrum of his final volition had scattered. He didn’t remember much in that span of time between… before….

The light of the motel room was out. The curtains were drawn shut, as Vivi had left them, and the walls would be absolutely silent, if not for the dull rattle of the heater. Night was well upon the motel now, and Vivi and Arthur would not be far behind it. Without a thought Lewis pushed his palms into the cracked stucco of the wall, and allowed his unsubstantial shape to slither through the cold molecules of cheap drywall and plaster. Mystery gave a soft yap at his back as he faded, and then, the room was opened up before Lewis. The interior air warm from the buzzing heater in the wall, bags and a few essential supplies sat in grainy detail along one wall, the bed was overtaken by blues and yellows. Lewis turns back to the door and pulls the handle, but stood in the way when Mystery tried to nudge through and enter with him. Lewis picked up the piece of cloth he had dropped, but paused as Mystery searched for a way around him.

Somewhere in the parking lot below the walkway, Lewis could pick up on the soft warble of Vivi’s voice accompanied by the timid tones of Arthur’s speech. “Hold on,” Lewis murmured, as he shooed Mystery out of the threshold. “They’ll let you in, but I have something to do real quick.” Mystery stiffened when Lewis gave his scalp a comforting rub, an action Mystery was unaware of how much he missed. Mystery stepped away when Lewis straightened up and shut the door.

What… just happened?

Mystery whined. That was not fair! He scratched at the door and sniffed at the crack along the frame and listened for the muffled sounds from behind the door. He tugged at the handle, though he knew the door couldn’t be opened without a key.

“What up, Mystery?” Arthur was the first to ask. He stepped behind the dog and raised his knuckles to the door, rapping gently.

Vivi leaned down and hugged Mystery around his shoulders, plucking him up off his front feet as she rocked him. “Did Lew leave you outside?” Mystery whined and stared at Arthur, pleaded at Arthur’s back with his eyes. “I’ll talk to him about it, and we’ll fix this.” Mystery strained his whimpers, and Vivi took note of that tone in his voice. “D’you have a key, Art?”

“Hmm? Yeah, sure,” he muttered, as he began digging through his pockets. Arthur found the thin plastic card easily, and with one swipe the red light on the handle lock flicks to green. “Lew?” He asked softly as he pushed the door open, intent to enter before Vivi for once. “You left Mystery outside.” The heater of the room chattered as it stuttered off, and the dark plain before Arthur was left with the reverberations of its silence, along with the strange emptiness of the room. The scarce glow of the few streetlamps outside tumbled around his shoulders as he stood in the doorway. He was startled only briefly by his own reflection in the mirror, directly across from the doorway. “Damnit,” he gasped, and clutched at his chest as his heart pounded behind his ribs.

“Lew?” Vivi chimed in, as she and Mystery pressed in behind Arthur. She shuffled to the tall lamp stationed in one corner of the room and flipped the light on, coating the walls and floor with its pale white coat. “Are you here?” She had the impression that he was hiding for some reason. Vivi brushed past Arthur and crossed to the bathroom at the furthest side of the room. Mystery followed, sniffing along the bed and the corner of the wall.

There was nothing in the bathroom. The light blazed harshly over the white walls and plastic floor, a few bottles of shampoo sat around but mention nothing of guests. Vivi was usually comforted by the fragrant soaps, but she had only noticed them now when she was uneasy. It didn’t feel right. The bathroom heater came on with the light, but the air retained a chilled quality. The whole of the room felt reticent, inhospitable.

Vivi shut the light off and stepped out. She felt unnerved and was not certain where this sensation had crept out from, but it was there and she couldn’t shake it. She heard the door shut as Arthur entered fully, he cast his eyes over the walls and the short carpet as if anticipating Lewis to pop out from a surface at any given moment. Arthur sprang in place when Mystery poked his head up from the opposite side of the bed. Vivi shared a look with the white face, then their sight feel onto the bed.

The scent of fresh laundry overpowered the room, and Vivi with Mystery examined the shirts, skirts, and pants laid out over the bed covers where they wouldn’t wrinkle. Further evidence of Lewis’ presence was not visible, aside from the large leather jacket draped over the back of an uncomfortable armchair. On the table rests the room’s twin key card, beside a pair of dark purple sunglasses. There was nothing to suggest anyone had been in the room recently.

#msa #mystery skulls animated #msa fanfic #mystery skulls fanfic #msa fanfiction #msa lewis #msa arthur #msa mystery #msa vivi #mystery skulls fanfiction #msa ghost #mystery skulls

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ak47stylegirl · 4 years

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Don’t Trust a Foxowl...

How could a day go so horribly wrong, so fast? - Scott Tracy. (Okay, I’m doing more Tracy Elves! XD I hope you guys like the drawing and fic XD)

Scott pov.

He jumped between branches, making his way up to the high platform his family owned. There were easier ways to get to it, he didn’t need to climb but he found this more fun, more exciting.

Though his mother and father would have a fit if they knew, he thought to himself with a small grin as he made the jump from one giant branch to another, his leather satchel swinging about in the wind. He wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t climbing over open air, he was just taking a shortcut, nothing for them to panic about…

He was almost one hundred and forty,(14) he wasn’t a little Elfling anymore, he could look after himself, he thought as he dropped down onto the platform, dropping his bag on the floor, his parchment and bottle of ink spilling out.

He loved this place…He thought as he closed his eyes and took in the fresh air, his big pointy ears taking in the sounds of the birds singing and chirping. He grinned as he took in the wonderful view, this was one of the best places to watch a sunset…

There were a couple more platforms where the canopy gave way to this amazing view, one of them being within climbing distance to the one he was on now, he thought as he spotted his brother Virgil on the other platform, his art supplies scattered around him.

Should have known Virg would be out here, he thought with a chuckle as he sat down on the timber floor of the platform. He grabbed his parchment and opened his ink bottle, dipping the tip of his quill into the ink, getting to work on his homework.

———

He almost had his homework finished when he heard something landed on the platform. He looked up in surprise, his eyes widening as he spotted a foxowl sitting just a metre away from him, looking at him curiously.

He had heard stories and seen paintings of foxowls, his father said they could not be trusted, that they were sneaky little thieves. His mother said they were just very curious creatures, they didn’t mean any harm. They weren’t known to live around this area, so to see one right in front of him was a surprise.

“Um hi there..” he said softly, giving the creature an uneasy smile, feeling uncertain about the whole situation. Foxowls wasn’t known to be aggressive towards elves but they were still a wild animal and those teeth did look really sharp.

“Um, what are you doing so far from…from where you live, um little guy?” The bird wasn’t actually that little, it was nearly as big as him but he couldn’t think of anything else to call it, okay?

The foxowl cooed softly at him, tilting its head as it hopped closer to him. He swallowed nervously, his left ear starting to twitch rapidly, a nervous tick that he hasn’t grown out of yet…

The foxowl sniffed his bag, looking between him and it with a curious look. It cooed at him again and he could feel himself relaxing slightly, it was just curious, it wasn’t going to do him any harm, he thought with a small smile, having a good look at the beautiful bird, It was actually kind of cute.

The foxowl clawed at his bag slightly, chipping and cooing at him. He raised a confused eyebrow, “That’s my satchel bag, my dad got it for m-“ The Foxowl snatched up the satchel in its claws, preparing to fly away.

His eyes widened in horror, “Hey! No! Give that back!” He jumped at the bird, grabbing its legs and pulling it down to the ground before it could getaway.

But that turned out to be a mistake because a foxowl was a lot stronger than one little elfling and it had sharper claws and teeth than he did...

“Argh! No! it’s not yours! give it back!” He cried out as he struggled to hold the bird, sharp claws and teeth scratching at his skin, blood starting to seep out of his wounds. “Ahh! No! Stop it! Ow, give it bac-agh!” It scratched his cheek, barely missing his eye. The pain was intense, the cut was deep.

He needed help! This thing was going to get away or...or kill him, he needed help! Right now but who- “Virgil! Virrrrgggil! Virgil help!” He cried loudly, not being able to hide the fear that was in his voice as he tussled all over the platform with the creature.

His call didn’t go unanswered and only moments later, his brother and best friend appeared, “Scott, what the matte-what the heck is that?!” Virgil exclaimed, his brown eyes widening in alarm.

“Asks questions later! It has my s-Ahhgh!” The foxowl bit his arm, making him lost his grip as he cried out in pain. He made a mad dash after it, not caring that he was starting to bleed really badly now, “help me!”

Virgil tried to help him corner the bird but it was too late, the foxowl had flown out of their reach, steadily flying away from them, his satchel in its claws...

“Um, maybe it will come back?” Virgil suggested softly, trying to stay hopeful for him.

The Foxowl dropped his satchel, his bag starting to fall and fall until it hit the hard ground so very far below, hundreds of miles from their colony, in doom’s valley…

There was no way they were getting that back, he thought with wide eyes, gaping at where his satchel had fallen. Of all the places…

Dad was going to be mad…

He unintentionally whimpered out loud, just the thought of that place made him shiver with fear, though if questioned he’ll never admit to being scared of that place. He wasn’t scared by scary stories, no way…

Virgil glanced at him, deep concern filling his brother’s eyes.

His wounds were starting to sting now, making their angry presence known to him but at the same time, he was beginning to feel numb, fuzzy in the head. He couldn’t get his head around what had just happened…

What the heck had just happened?!

He jumped as Virgil touched his arm, startling him out of his thoughts. “Scott, are you okay?” His little brother’s voice shook slightly, “You’re covered in blood and ink..”

He was about to reassure his brother that he was fine but stopped short as he realised what Virgil had said.“Wait, ink?” He blinked at Virgil, that numb feeling really taking hold now.

He turned to look at where he had left his homework and found his neatly written homework covered in ink, completely ruined and un-legible. That had taken him hours to do! He was almost done!

He felt suddenly faint headed and violently sick to his stomach, swaying slightly on his feet. You know that feeling where you just want to start crying because everything has just gone so wrong, so fast? So fast that you don’t know how to react?

Yeah, he was feeling that…

“Virg, please tell me what just happened didn’t just happen?” He asked softly as he looked at the mess that used to be his almost completed homework, blinking rapidly to keep his tears at bay. “Please tell me a foxowl didn’t just fly away with my satchel…”

His little brother winced, taking a firm hold of his arm. “I think the scratches on your cheeks speak for themselves, Scooter..” Virgil tugged him towards the staircase that led down to their house and the other social spaces. “Come on, mum needs to have a look at those cuts!”

“But we can’t leave this mess here..” He protested weakly, starting to feel really horrible and sick. Maybe that was why he wasn’t putting up much of a fight as Virgil practically dragged him to their house, “We...we need to clean it up..”

“I’ll clean it up later, you’re bleeding!” Virgil frowned at him as he continued to drag him, “what the heck Scott? Why did you jump on that thing?! Dad could always get you a new satchel..”

He wrinkled his nose, even in the state of shock he was in, he still didn’t like being scrutinised by his little brothers. Even if they were right, that just made it worse…

“I couldn’t have just let it get away and...and anyway, He’s never going to believe me..” he muttered softly, his voice quivering as he ran a shaky hand through his hair, “a foxowl! A foxowl stole my satchel!? What the heck just happened?!”

“I would like to know that as well!” Their mother’s voice made him jump as he suddenly realised that they were home, and before he knew it, his mother was in front of him, fussing over him, “What the heck happened to you, Scotty?!”

A blink and the waterworks started full force, his walls crumbling to pieces.

“T-there was an f-foxowl…” he sobbed, ”-and it stole m-my sat-satchel! A-and m-my homework ruined!” He cried, salty tears streaming down his face, making his cuts hurt worse. “Everything hurts mummy!”

He was feeling every bit the young elfling, that he didn’t want to admit he was.

“Oh, oh my Scotty..” his mother pulled him into an embrace, stroking his brown hair gently as he sobbed into her collarbone, “Shhh, I’m here, everything’s going to be okay now..”

His mother gently guided him over to a wooden bench, sitting him down gently on it. Now that he had started crying, he couldn’t stop! Why couldn't he stop? He sobbed as his mother stroked a bit of hair out of his teary, wet eyes.

Her brown eyes looked at him with motherly concern, “Virgie, can you get me a wet cloth, please sweetheart?” His mother asked, a concerned and slightly teary-eyed Virgil, who had followed them over to the bench, standing slightly to the side.

Virgil nodded with a sniffle, turning and running to get that wet cloth.

He bit his lip, trying to make himself stop crying but the stinging pain of his wounds, plus now the guilt that he had caused his little brother to get upset, made that nearly impossible.

His mother lifted his chin slightly, looking at a cut on his cheek with a worried frown, “I’m going to have to call the healer, okay sweetie?” His mother sighed softly, gently stroking his hair back. “Those cuts and bites are way out of my medical expertise, you’re lucky you didn’t lose your eye, Scott..”

“I..I know..” he sniffled, rubbing at his eyes with his fist, starting to feel really sick now “I’m sorry..”

“Oh it’s alright, Scotty baby..” his mother gently kissed his forehead, bending down slightly so she was eye level with him, a feat that was not easy for a pregnant woman, “You didn’t mean to get hurt, those things just happen…”

Virgil came back a second later with the cloth, which his mother took and started dabbing on his wounds, cleaning them the best she could. He couldn't help but whimper each time the cloth made contact with his bleeding wounds, it hurt so much...

His little brother watched off to the side, his damp eyes filled with concern. He hated that he had caused his brother so much concern, why did he pick a fight with a foxowl over a bloody satchel?

He was starting to break out in a cold sweat, “Mummy, I don’t feel good..” he mumbled softly to her as his stomach flipped upside down. He was feeling really nauseous now…

”Shhh, I know dear…” his mother sighed sadly as she cleaned a particularly deep cut on the side of his torso with care. “Virgil, can you go get your father, please?”

He felt himself bite his lip at the mention of their father, Dad was going to be so mad at him, but worst of all, Dad was going to be worried. He was already worrying his mother and brother, did he have to worry his father too?

Virgil nodded, running off to find their father.

“I’m going to call for the healer now, okay Scotty?” His mother said gently, cupping his uninjured cheek tenderly. “You just stay there and try to stay calm, okay?”

He nodded with a small sniffle as he watched his mother write a quick note on a piece of parchment, before summing a small ball of blue energy, which flew out the window in the shape of a small bird with the message in its claws.

He hoped the healer would come quick, he thought as he tilted slightly to the side, feeling so ill now. He really was not feeling good...

TBC...

#Scott Tracy #Virgil Tracy #lucy tracy #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Thunderbirds fanart #my art #young tracys #this turned out a lot more whumpier than originally planned 😅#poor scotty

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bibliocratic · 5 years

Text

future jonmartin (cw for hospitals; no warnings for character death) The rocking against his shoulder knocks him shuddering from his worrying. It is like being unmoored, cast back into the tumult and it takes a while for Martin to blink, to align the vision of who is rousing him with who they are.

It's both a relief and a disappointment that it's not the doctor with news.

“Anything?” Lewis asks. A brisk voice, demanding, but it's unsteady and catches in his throat and little things like that have always given him away. “Have they... is there any news?”

Martin is standing up, gathering him up in a tight hug. He's tall, but not in the way Martin is – he's bony and meatless and his posture is terrible no matter how often he's been lectured on it, and it's such a relief that he's here, that Lewis is gripping just as hard and just as scared.

“Nothing yet,” Martin says, and he's attempting to sound optimistic, the sounds made wrong in his mouth, and it's too much like lying to comfort either of them. He doesn't want to deliver meaningless platitudes, repeat like rote statistics of recovery, of chances, but he doesn't want to worry him, and it's in that sort of double-think he lingers, the sort of equivocation that comes with parenthood.

Lewis must have come straight from uni, he thinks. He's washed out from the travel, wired and jittery from tasteless on-board coffee-grit. There was delays at every leg of the journey down from Liverpool, and when Lewis slumps himself down like a dropped bag, he's still not worn down those frantic mechanisms in him, the clock-watching, the checking for news, for updates.

“Have you eaten?” Martin asks, an old fall-back, casting an eye over him. He might have some change in his pocket, he thinks, for the vending machine back along the corridor. It's been a busy term, and video calls don't quite do things justice, because he worries that maybe Lewis has lost weight, maybe he's not eating properly, or it might simply be the unkind lighting of the waiting room.

“I'm not hungry,” Lewis says, providing a round-about answer to the question. He's a sharp young man, made of edges and this burning thirst to prove himself that Martin knows doesn't come from him, and to anyone else the way he sometimes talks can come across as dismissive, a hand-wave of a tone designed to disregard the topic. But Martin knows him. Knows his son. Knows it's not meant like that.

Watches him fiddle his bottom lip with his teeth, jitter his leg up and down, and wishes this was something he could kiss better like the old days.

“What about...” he fumbles for the strings of some other conversation. “Were your tutors ok? With you … just leaving like that?”

“They'll understand it was an emergency.”

“You had a... you have your final essay due on Monday, what will...?”

“They'll give me an extension, it's fine.”

Martin nods and goes back to twisting the ring on his left hand, round and round and round. Surely he should have heard something by now, it’s been hours of waiting, what if something's gone wrong, what if he wasn't fast enough...

“Dad?”

“Yeah?” Martin looks at Lewis, his glasses all smudged and mucky because he forgets to clean them.

Lewis puts a hand on his arm.

“Are you... are you ok?” he asks, uncharacteristically tentative, and looks right at Martin. A rare gesture of eye contact, held for more than a flicker of time.

“I'm... I'll be fine,” Martin says – Martin lies – because that's the best he can muster right now. What he thinks, but will never say out loud is – I'm not ready for this. I don't know how I ever could be. I can't imagine doing any of this on my own.

He hasn't moved from this chair. He's convinced himself that if he stays here, then everything will turn out ok, and it's stupid, yeah he knows it, but that this point he'll take any backwards ridiculous quirk of brain chemistry that counts as superstition.

His sleeves are damp and his eyes must be a mess and his fingers are bitten to nothing, and he's still got a coat thrown over his pyjamas for god's sake, and still he hasn't heard anything.

Lewis doesn't believe him, but he keeps his hand where he placed it on his arm. And Martin supposes that's fair. He'd called Lewis after a few minutes of building his composure, swallowing down shuddering breaths and pushing out air too hard, telling himself that he needed to calm down, that he couldn't go to pieces, not now, not yet – Lew? Lew, it's – it's your... I'm sorry to be calling so early but I think you should.... You need to come home. As soon as you... It's – it's your father. He's had... he's at the hospital.

(And he was proud of himself then, because stammering as it was, incapable of communicating the enormity of a moment he couldn't comprehend fully, his voice did not betray the terror it had. Not when he had heard the sound of the fire alarm sniping, assuming the toaster settings had been left on too high or something, walking into the kitchen to see the toast popped up, burning and ignored, Jon, frowning, confused, breathing funny with his palm over his chest, sucking in air in straggling little hitching gasps; Jon meeting his eyes, tears already sprung into the corners – Martin, something's wrong. Not when Martin had juggled calling 999 and holding Jon's weight bodily up, swaying and light-headed and his breathing seeming a whetstone to the pain, clutching him too hard and none of Martin's words being enough. Not when he was sat in the back of the ambulance, Jon barely holding his hand, wondering if this, this was the great joke of the bloody universe, the Archivist surviving everything but his heart in the end.)

There is a patting sound, sensible shoes slapping squeaky tile, moving towards them. Martin's world loses colour when he sees the doctor.

Lewis is standing immediately, tumbling through a number of quick-fire questions, and the doctor does a good job of not looking rattled.

“Are you a family member?” he replies, and he's not obviously looking between Martin and Lewis, failing to find much resemblance, but he is definitely looking. It's perhaps more delicate than others have been in the past, inquiring about their relationship to each other. Martin is well aware that Lewis looks nothing like either of his parents. He likes to think, in his more fanciful paternal moments, that he has Jon's prominent jawline, his propensity for scruffy stubble, sees something of his husband in the brown of his eyes.

“My son,” he gestures with a weak wave and the doctor nods, before he slides into explanations. Lewis is keeping up, asking questions about the procedure, the complications, recovery and where they go from there, and the doctor is trying to be sensitive but his son is bullish, wanting every detail and he's so much like his father like this, headstrong and unwilling to yield an inch.

It's good news. Better than hoped. Martin is too exhausted to smile. The rush of relief that should un-tense his muscles, pull the curtain down on the performance his anxieties have been playing out behind his eyes, instead it has left him hollow and dizzy.

“Lew,” Martin says, and Lewis turns, and must see something he can't because he quietens, his expression shifting softer, moves over to grab Martin's walking stick from where it's lent against the seat, pressing it into his palm. He puts a hand on Martin's shoulder.

“Let's go see him,” he says, and Martin takes the arm offered to help him to his feet.

They follow the doctor. Martin's not been fast on his feet, not since the Watcher's Crown, but he can't lay all the blame at the foot of that particular clusterfuck; age hasn't been on his side either in this regard, and his progress isn't as fast as he wants it to be. Lewis and the doctor are talking about Jon, something about local anaesthetic, sedation, how Mr Blackwood-Simms has an unusually high tolerance to anything they give him – and some part of Martin's brain thinks this is probably Jon's weird former Archivist powers, the rippling after-effects of which have never quite left him. Martin is not really listening to either of them. He puts one foot in front of another, and tries to feel relieved, and he should, he should, it's good news, this is what he wanted.

Jon nearly died today, his brain keeps reminding him. You nearly lost him, you nearly weren't fast enough.

And Martin is not strong enough to disagree.

Jon is awake when they go onto the shared ward. Propped up to sitting, already looking slightly bored at the lack of anything to do. There's an IV taped up and held in place on his scarred hand, and he looks like a wind-knocked scarecrow what with all the wires and tubes he's hooked up to, his hair unbrushed and tussled all over the place. He is not as pale as he was, more exasperated than frightened, and Martin tries to forget the last expression he saw on his husband’s face. He feels a hitch in his throat but swallows it down.

“Lewis?” Jon says, sounding surprised. “I thought you had an essay due Monday?”

“Before someone got themselves admitted to hospital,” Lewis replies easily, but he's striding forward, giving his father a hug that betrays his worries, holding on a bit too long, leaning over the bar around the bed with discomfort.

“Really,” Jon grumbles, but he seems pleased at the unexpected attention and hugs back with the hand not tangled up in wires. “All this fuss over nothing, you didn't need to come all this way.”

“I hear you got the ambulance service out. Doesn't seem like nothing,” Lewis responds and Jon waves a hand as though the comment is not worth his time.

“Are you eating?” he says instead, looking over their son critically. “You don't want your dad worrying. I won't hear the end of it.”

It's a teasing pattern of back-and-forth, familiar and shot through with affection, but Martin can't be part of it. His hands don't know what to do with themselves. He doesn't have any words that can make any of this palatable, none of this, because they're in a hospital, again, after surviving everything else, and he thought he was done being frightened of this.

He sees Lewis nudge his father.

“Go gentle, yeah?” he hears him murmur admonishingly. “You really scared him.”

Jon looks right at Martin then. There's sorrow cutting into the lines of wrinkles there, some acknowledgement of what just happened finally gracing his face. Martin is shuffling forwards to the side of the bed, and Jon is reaching up, cupping Martin's cheek.

“You saved me again, I see,” he says, teasing if it wasn't so soft, so quiet, so clearly for only the two of them. There's a weight of histories there, the many times they've both been here before, but Jon is looking at him so sadly, rubbing a thumb over the tear-stains on Martin's cheek. There's such blinding trust in his eyes. Martin doesn't know, because Jon doesn't know how to put it into words, but even as the pain spiked hard in his chest and he struggled to breath, Martin had been there and so some part of him knew it would have been ok. Martin would have made it so. “I knew you would.”

Martin is wrapping his arms around him then – oh god, Jon, don't you ever do that to me again – and Jon is solid under him, gripping tight, and it's like being able to breath again.

#let me know if this needs any cws and i'll add!#the magnus archives #post-watchers crown #tma #jonmartin #martin blackwood #jonathan simms

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theaggresivepacifist · 5 years

Text

As I Go Wandering

Mossflower’s four chieftains have a summer reunion. Some Songbreeze/Dannflor fluff for @myrose-of-oldredwall! Happy holidays, friend!!!😊

(And many thanks to @redwall-secret-santa for setting this up!)

It had been many a season since Redwall Abbey was ruled by such young creatures. Abbess Songbreeze Swifteye and Abbey Champion Dannflor Reguba were wise leaders, stout warriors, and kind and cherished friends to all at Redwall, from the tiniest molebabe to the prickliest old hedgehog; they were also energetic creatures, and occasionally somewhat restless. Song in particular, used to wandering since infancy, sometimes felt a longing pull towards the woodlands, towards campfires and swift waters and sleeping beneath leafy bowers at night.

“I can’t believe that a year ago we were fighting Marlfoxes and finding secret islands,” she observed to Dann, during one of these wistful moods. They were in the orchards, beakers of ice-cold raspberry cordial in paw, as they supervised a herd of adventurous Dibbuns reenacting the great battles of the previous summer. “I feel like it was a lifetime ago.”

“Or like it happened to different creatures.”

“Younger, sillier creatures.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Dann, feigning indignance, though the impression was undermined by the daisy crown a trio of giggling mousebabes had placed on his head.

“And it’s been a while since we’ve seen Dipp and Burble,” Song continued thoughtfully, brushing pear blossoms from her shoulders. “I wonder what they’re up to.”

“Probably off havin’ all kinds of adventures. It’s a wild life out there in Mossflower.”

“I wonder if we’d still be good at adventures.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” said a new voice, full of gentle mirth.

Song and Dann turned to see Cregga Rose Eyes, the ancient Abbey badgermother, lounging in the sun. She had been following their conversation with a smile on her scarred face.

“You should go and visit your young friends. It’s a perfect summer for travelling,” she said, almost suspiciously casual. “And a few weeks to yourselves might give you a chance to rest up before the autumn harvest.”

“We have plenty of time to relax here,” Dann protested. As if on cue, a stout young molemaid tugged on his habit hem, while a slightly older squirrel called to Songbreeze from across the Abbey lawn.

“Hurr, zurr, Daisy be’s making mudpies an’ trying to eat em all oop. It’s an orful mess, hurr hurr.”

“Abbess? The cook needs you straight away – something about a disaster in the larder and a whole season’s hazelnuts spilled all over the floor?”

“Think it over, anyway,” Cregga said, still smiling, while the two conscientious squirrels rushed to their duties.

*****

After much deliberation, and cleaning up spilled hazelnuts and mud-covered Dibbuns, Abbess and Abbey Warrior decided that perhaps a little summer reunion might be just the thing they needed.

“Are you sure you won’t need us?” Dann and Song both asked Cregga, multiple times. Cregga generously let them realize on their own what a silly question this was to ask a former Badger Lady, former interim-Abbey-leader, veteran of multiple wars, who might not be able to see but could hear a pin drop and snap steel or iron like a forest twig. Meanwhile, Rusvul, Janglur, Rimrose, Gawjo, and Ellayo, all creatures of solid experience and good sense themselves, cracked frequent jokes about having more than enough squirrel perspective on the running of the Abbey anyway.

“You’re only young ‘uns once,” Ellayo added sagely, in a tone that brooked no argument. “It’s high time you had a little fun, without us old ‘uns hanging around!”

And so it was that a few days later they set out on a glorious midsummer morning—only for a few weeks, of course, but farewelled as if they might be gone for a full season. Dann carried the sword of Martin belted across his back, and Song a light walking staff. Dibbuns, elders, Abbey brothers, Abbey sisters—all of Redwall Abbey and some from the country around—stood at the gates or on the walltops to see them off. The Abbess left them with a song, sweet and true as always, which left many a creature sniffing slightly behind cover of paw or habit sleeve.

“Though this journey borrows me,

I promise I won’t be far away,

For I carry you in my heart with me,

In ev’ry place my pawsteps stray.

When you see the summer sky,

Or river in its royal blue,

Think of me as I go wandering,

And know that I’ll come home to you.”

“Good ‘un, Song,” said Dann appreciatively, when they had passed beyond sight of the red sandstone walls.

“Now you sing us one.”

“Ah, you know me. I don’t sing.”

“I’ll teach you. We have all the time in the world.”

The two spent several days wandering on their own: lazily, enjoying the journey, occasionally stopping to chat with creatures who made their home in Mossflower Wood. They followed the river in a vague sort of way, and one morning reached a tranquil stretch of water that they recognized from last year’s quest.

“Dippler and the Guosim should be somewhere close,” said Dann, searching for pawprints in the soft sand. Song had another idea.

“Logalogalogalog!” she called, in an echoing, birdlike trill. Dann followed suit, paws cupped around his mouth.

“Logalogalogalog!” he shouted, slightly less melodically, pacing a little farther up the riverbank. “LogalogalogaOOF!”

Song whirled around in time to see Dannflor flattened by a blur of grey fur. She charged, wielding her walking staff, raising her voice in a thunderous cry of “Redwallllll!”, before skidding to a halt as she recognized a stout spiky shrew kitted out in rapier and colored headband.

“Mornin’, Dann. Mornin’ Song. What’s with all the shoutin’?” Dippler grinned, paws still locked around Dann in a bear hug, as he heaved them up from the ground. “We’ve already been tracking you for half a mile.”

“You never,” Song protested, giving Dippler a hug herself. “Where are the Guosim, anyway? Did they kick you out already, you great rogue?”

Giggling shrews emerged from a screen of rushes just up the riverbank, almost all of them already known to Dann and Song from the Guosim’s time at Redwall last summer. The two squirrels shook so many paws that their own paws soon felt weary.

“Come see the new fleet of boats we’ve built,” Dippler said finally, extracting them from a shrew tussle over who would get their honored guests some cold mint tea. “I told ye we were going to make lighter craft, like the Riverhead vole tribe had, faster and easier to manage.”

Dippler nodded to a shrew standing guard over a willow grove, and he parted a curtain of leaves to let them pass. A fleet of sleek, beautiful boats, masterfully carved from rich honey-colored wood, were docked in a shallow section of the stream, bobbing gently with the motion of the water.

“They’re wonderful, Dipp,” said Dann, admiring the shine of the varnish and the tiny carvings of waves and flowers ornamenting the prow of each boat. “Are they sea- er, riverworthy yet?”

“Better than any craft on water!” Dippler replied, puffing out his chest proudly.

“Well, in that case, how about a little river journey?” Song grinned. “We were thinking of traveling upstream to visit Burble, too, and the Riverhead vole tribe.”

“Haha, I miss ol’ Burble too. Why not? We’ve been in one place far too long. But first, you’ve got to enjoy our famous Guosim hospitality,” Dippler said firmly. “We had a feeling you’d be comin’ our way! And I want to hear everythin’ that’s happening at Redwall, too, mates!”

They camped for the night in a lovely watermeadow, where dragonflies flitted through the evening sky and paper-white and purple lilies floated on the water. Song and Dann and Dippler caught up together and then spent many hours retelling old tales for the amusement of the Guosim, who especially loved the ones about Megraw Eagle, the Marlfox islands, and Song’s unexpected aunt the hedgehog. Shrewcooks filled their bowls with piping hot tater’n’watershrimp stew and heaped wooden plates with hearty shrewbread and soft white cheese, generously studded with leeks and hazelnuts. When everyone was beginning to yawn, they bedded down on soft sleeping rolls beneath the stars, with the piping of frogs and crickets and waterbirds for a lullaby.

“It’s like being in the forest when I was a little one,” Song murmured drowsily to Dann, before they fell asleep. “I’m ever so glad you came with me.”

They spent several days on the river with Dippler and the Guosim, who were taking advantage of the warm weather and calm water to tend to their logboats and teach the younger shrews how to paddle and swim. Dippler, like the old Log-a-Log before him, was patient and kind with the youngsters. When the group agreed (after much time-honored shrew debate, of course) to embark on a visit to Burble’s tribe, he captained a boat of nervous young shrews just learning to row, encouraging them the whole way and tirelessly helping to back their boat out of sandbars and tangles of tree branch whenever the young ones accidentally crashed into the bank. By the time they had reached the end of their expedition the young shrews were keeping up with the best of them, grinning proudly, and Dippler was able to ship oars and sit at ease.

“Comin’ up on Riverhead vole territory now,” said Dippler, arms crossed, looking every bit the sage Log-a-Log. Sure enough, in the distance they could see the ruddy glow of orange lanternlight muddling the evening lilac, and then a fleet of illuminated watervole coracles gliding a path through the reeds and rushes.

“Is that old Burble Bigboots, Horror of the Leafwood?” Dann called teasingly from the prow of his shrewboat.

“That’s Burble Bigthrone, Holder of the Leafwood to you,” a familiar voice called back. “An’ Commander of the good ol’ boat Swallow, yiss yiss!”

Burble and his tribe of watervoles had soon surrounded the Guosim boats in a flotilla of their own. Shrews and voles exchanged greetings and traded favorite watersongs as they paddled ashore to the Riverhead tribe’s cavern home, where a welcome party was scraping up reels and jigs on an orchestra of well-loved instruments. Burble, once on dry land, kept shaking Dann and Song’s paws vigorously.

“We’ve been meanin’ to come to Redwall, y’know, but there’s been so much to do here. It was a powerful cold winter, so we’ve been improvin’ our little hideout here, getting everything shipshape, y’see!”

They recognized the Riverhead voles’ cavern, but sure enough, the place had been spruced up and made even more cheerful and comfortable than a year ago, thanks in great part to Burble’s exuberance. Cozy moss-covered arms and footstools were drawn up around the hearth; lanterns glowed in wallsconces; woven rush mats with a sweet, grassy perfume covered the floors and decorated the walls. Little trinkets from their various travels—beautiful carvings, pressed and dried flowers, pieces of smooth seaglass—were scattered throughout as decoration, giving the place a very homey feel.

“You kept it, you rogue,” said Dann, horrified and amused, as he spotted a familiar carved chair against the wall of the cave near the dining table. “The Marlfox throne you plundered.”

“Och, yiss, I kept it, but we mostly use it as the babbies’ high chair,” Burble burbled. “Now sit ye down! I want to hear all about what goes on at your Abbey, hoho!”

After long hours feasting and catching up with their two friends, Song and Dann stayed up late into the night talking and toasting last autumn’s russet apples over the fire, while watervole lullabies keened softly around them on fiddle and reed flute. Burble and Dippler, propped up by the hearth, were both snoring uproariously, with Burble clutching the greenstone-topped Leafwood even in his sleep.

“Just like old times, eh?” said Song.

“Should we wake up early and steal a boat in the morning?” Dann said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

“Oh, yes, I was hoping we’d get chased back to that horrible swampy creekbed again.”

“Get bit by all manner o’ bugs.”

“Fight a few ferrets and weasels while we’re at it.”

“No, thank you, I’m happy right here.”

Their conversation dissolved, as usual, into laughter. Burble shifted a little, pawing at his nose. “Madbeasts, both of ye, yiss yiss,” he snuffled aloud, though still sound asleep. “You’re perfect for each other.”

*****

After several whirlwind days of feasting and dancing, boating and hiking, Dippler and the Guosim set off for farther reaches of Mossflower, and Song and Dann found themselves missing the orchards and sandstone walls of Redwall Abbey, the faces of friends and loved ones, the sound of the evening bells. They bid farewell to Burble and the Riverhead voles (“visit us again!” one and all clamored) and broke camp on an early morning, haversacks filled with homecooked food for their travels, sword and staff in scabbard and paw.

The path home stretched out before them, twining through lush groves of oak and elm and nodding willow. They stopped a moment to stare in awe of it, smell the sweet grasses and blackberry blossom in the air, listen to the sweet warbling birdsong and the soft winging of the sun-yellow butterflies through the trees of Mossflower Wood.

“After you, mighty warrior,” Song said finally, inclining her head with grave solemnity.

“After you, Abbess Songbreeze,” answered Dann, matching her nod with a fantastically elegant bow.

Song gave him a playful shove. Her touch lingered a little on Dann’s shoulder, and Dann turned to her with a soft contented smile. This time it was Dann who picked up the melody of an old wandering song, surprisingly practiced for one who claimed he never sang.

“The road ahead is long and weary,

But walking it with you, my dear,

Though the miles go slow and dreary,

I feel aglow with summer cheer.

See the trees bedecked in flowers,

All alight with green and gold,

Oh, how I love to share these hours -

Let’s wander on ‘till we grow old.”

Paw in paw, side by side, Abbess and Warrior began the journey back to Redwall Abbey.

#Redwall #Redwall Secret Santa #Marlfox #Songbreeze Swifteye #Dannflor Reguba #redwall fanfiction #Dippler #Burble #myrose-of-oldredwall #AAAA I hope you like this! <3 #redwall secret santa 2019

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multishipperlove · 5 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Caleb Widogast, Nott (Critical Role), Fjord (Critical Role), Beauregard Lionett, Caduceus Clay, Jester Lavorre, Yasha (Critical Role) Additional Tags: zemnian, Child games, family abduction, goblins mentioned, nothing explicit though, Original Character(s), more focused on Caleb and Nott and the oc Series: Part 4 of Zemnian Roots Summary:

The Mighty Nein find a little girl hiding in a closet in a ransacked home. Only problem is that she only speaks Zeminan, which means that Caleb has to find a way to entertain her while the others look for her family.

On days like these, Caleb really wished for their moorbounders to return. They had been on the road for hours, since the early morning, and the horses they had rented were just so much slower. It was still better than walking, especially in the heat, but it wasn't like the weather didn't affect the horses as well.

To make his day even worse, they were travelling on the outskirts of the Zemni Fields, had been for a while for their mission, and even though they were nowhere near the place where he grew up, it was putting him on edge. So far they had barely run into any other people though, and most of the few who did cross their path were travellers as well.

A voice from the front of their little troop brought him back to the moment, and not surprisingly, it was Jester who disturbed the weary silence they'd been riding in for the last half an hour or so. “Look Fjord, there's a farm ahead! Maybe they'll let us spend the night there, that would be a lot better than sleeping in the hut again.”

Fjord, who looked about as mentally present as Caleb had been, startled slightly, sending his horse involuntarily to the left. Getting back to his former position he looked ahead, finally noticing the old farmhouse as well. “Oh, yeah, sure. We could ask, at least.” Turning his head, he looked to everyone else in the group. “What do you guys think, should we stop for the night already?”

“Sure, why not,” Caduceus chimed in. “If not for the seven of us, at least the horses deserve a good night's rest.”

The rest of them mostly shrugged in answer or gave half hearted murmurs of agreement, which was apparently good enough for Jester. With some newfound vigor they all picked up their speed again, and the farm that had only been a little spot at the horizon so far quickly came closer.

When they finally reached it, Fjord was the first one off his horse. “Alright, I'm gonna ask if they got space for us and the horses, anyone wanna come?”

“Take Caleb with you, just in case they don't speak Common,” Beau told them, getting off as well before helping Jester (who didn't actually need help, but definitely seemed to appreciate it anyway).

“Good point,” Fjord agreed, stopping again to wait for Caleb now.

The wizard gave a soft sigh but nodded. “I, ah, alright. Sure. I guess I can come. But just so you know, it is improbable that the people here only speak Zemnian.”

“Still, can't hurt to have a local with me,” Fjord told him with a grin, and then lead the way to what looked to be the front door.

Only as they stepped closer did they realise that the door wasn't closed. It stood slightly ajar, not far enough for either of them to look inside yet though. Fjord frowned and looked back to Caleb, who placed a hand on his component pouch and gave a slight nod.

“Yeah, I thought it was a bit quiet,” Fjord muttered, taking another step closer and pushing the door open completely. “Hello?” he called out. “Anyone in here?”

When even waiting several seconds didn't reward them with a reply, they walked in. And the sight that greeted them wasn't pretty.

The door lead into a small hallway, but from their current position they could already see into the next two rooms, one a kitchen with a dining area, a big table that would easily seat more than the seven of them, and the other something more akin to a living room. Both rooms were completely ransacked.

Chairs were pushed over, every cabinet door opened, every shelf empty. The ground was littered with broken glass and porcelain, and what looked to be food stains everywhere.

They both started to move through the mess slowly, not sure if whoever had done this was still around. But really, they hadn't been quiet in their arrival. Caleb was pretty sure that, if anything wanted to attack them, it would have done so by now.

Fjord stopped by a red stain near the living room door, and it didn't take him long to confirm what Caleb had feared. “It's blood,” the half-orc told him. “It's not even completely dry yet... whatever happened, it happened recently.”

“We should get the others,” Caleb suggested. “Maybe we can find out more. And I don't think the attackers are still around, but still... safety in numbers, and all that.”

“You're not wrong,” Fjord agreed with a sigh. “Alright, let's go. I would like to help these people, if we still stand a chance.”

A few minutes later they had told the rest of the group what was going on, and were now split up throughout the house to look for anything useful. Beau and Nott hadn't been stoked about the idea of trying to help, arguing that they didn't even know if there was anyone left they could help, but they'd all known that their protest was token at best.

Caleb was looking for any magical means of destruction downstairs, when two screams suddenly rang from the room directly above him. One of them sounded suspiciously like Nott, and he immediately turned and ran up the stairs, hearing the others who had been downstairs with him right behind.

“Nott!” He pushed into the room first, seeing her frozen in front of a closet, both hands holding the door shut. “Nott, what's going on?” he asked, seeing how pale she suddenly looked and now also hearing the muffled screaming and crying that came from inside the closet.

“What's in there?” Beau asked, her voice already sounding slightly horrified as she stepped up behind Caleb. In the corner of his eye, he could see Yasha gripping her sword.

“A kid,” Nott finally answered, ears drooping and folding close to her head.

“A kid?! Then why the hell are you keeping her in there?” Fjord asked.

“Because she saw me and immediately started screaming! I don't think she's going to be very fond of this!” Nott hissed back, and gesturing to the entirety of her face as she did so. “Give me a moment.”

As the others watched, she took a second to cast alter self and turn herself into Veth. The crooked sharp teeth disappeared, along with the glowing yellow eyes and the green skin. In it's place once more stood a little halfling lady, features round and inviting and definitely a lot less threatening.

Once the disguise was complete, Nott carefully opened the closet door again. The crying didn't stop, and beside a mop of blonde hair they couldn't see anything yet with her standing in the way.

“Hey, hey there. It's okay, the, uh, the evil goblin is gone. Come on now, you're okay,” she told the child, in an attempt to calm her down. It didn't seem to work very well though, and Nott turned back to them with a bit of desperation on her face.

“I, uh, maybe one of you guys should go,” Fjord mumbled, giving the two humans of the party a pointed look. And while Caleb still hesitated, Beau nodded briefly and stepped forward, kneeling down beside Nott to be more on eye level with the child.

The appearance of a second person seemed to give her pause, at least, and Beau gave the kid her best version of a friendly smile. Which, surprisingly, was a lot friendlier than what she usually managed. “Hey. My friend is right, you know, you can come out now. You're safe. Don't you want to come out of that stupid closet?”

The girl just stared at her for a moment, with her lower lip still trembling. “Wo ist meine Mama?” she finally whispered, causing Beau to freeze this time. She had a vague idea of what the kid had just asked for, but that was definitely not Common what she had just heard.

“Caleb?” She looked over her shoulder, motioning for the wizard to come over. “Hey, Caleb, I think we need a translator after all.”

He frowned but didn't hesitate, quickly stepping closer to them, just as Nott got out of the way to let the two humans handle it. Along with Beau he kneeled down in front of the girl, taking in the terrified face and her torn clothing, the tussled hair. “Hey... kannst du mich verstehen?” he asked gently.

She nodded, slowly, as if she still didn't trust either of them. Which was very fair, Caleb wouldn't have expected her to trust them.

“Okay, das ist gut. Oder? Es ist viel besser wenn man sich verstehen kann,” Caleb continued, trying not to get into too much of a nervous ramble now that he felt solely responsible for somehow communicating with this child. “Bist du verletzt? Kannst du uns sagen was passiert ist, oder- oder vielleicht wie du heißt?”

“Mein Name ist Anna,” came the quiet reply.

“Und wie alt bist du?”

“Fünf.”

“Fünf? Das- ah, das ist ein gutes Alter. Willst du nicht rauskommen?” He offered her a hand, and after another moment of hesitation she took it and finally got up. She was still careful, and pressed closer to him immediately, holding on to his coat with a free hand.

Caleb cleared his throat and turned back to his companions, forcing a smile on his face. “Everyone, this is Anna, and she is five years old.”

“Has she told you what happened yet?” Fjord asked, and Caleb could feel the girl trying even harder to disappear into him.

“Ah, no. We didn't get that far yet.” He looked down to her, gently squeezing her hand once. “Das is Fjord. Ich weiß er sieht etwas... gefährlich aus. Aber er ist wirklich nett, versprochen.”

She nodded again but didn't move from her spot, watching them all with a wary eye. Caduceus spoke up next, and even though Anna jumped slightly at the deep voice, she seemed to find him less scary than Fjord. If the pressure she subjected Caleb's hand to was anything to go by.

“Maybe we should have this conversation somewhere else, bring her somewhere she feels more comfortable,” the firbolg suggested.

“What, like the rest of her house, which is equally in shambles?” Beau asked.

“Don't say it like that, you're only going to scare her,” Nott hissed, glaring at her friend now.

“It's not like she understands me in the first place.”

“We don't know that, she could understand more than we think, while just not being able to speak the language herself. For now, it's better to speak with some caution,” Caleb replied, getting involved again before the two could start arguing. “Maybe we just take her outside for now.”

The others agreed with that. So after making sure she would be okay with it, Caleb picked the girl up and carried her outside to where their horses were still waiting. He made sure that she could lean her head against his shoulder, trying to shield her from as much of the chaos as possible. Especially the blood.

Once outside, he put her back on her feet, but she still refused to let go of his coat for too long. “Kannst du uns jetzt sagen was passiert ist? Hast du irgendwas gesehen?” Caleb asked again, doing his best to ignore his friend's imploring looks. “Hast du dich selbst im Schrank versteckt?”

Only at the last question did she finally react and shake her head. “Nein. Mama hat uns gesagt wir sollen nach oben laufen, und Gregor hat dann gesagt ich soll in den Schrank gehen und ganz leise sein, bis sie wieder weg sind.”

“Wer ist 'sie'?”

“Die Goblins.”

That word made all of them perk up again, especially Nott. The difference in pronunciation was after all minimal enough that they still knew which creatures she was talking about.

Caleb nodded grimly. “Kannst du mir mehr erzählen? Egal was, alles könnte hilfreich sein.”

They talked for another minute or two, before he finally got up again and turned back to the group. “She says their family was attacked by goblins. They didn't see them coming, and by the time her mother realized what was happening, all she could do was try and send her children somewhere save. Looks like Anna is the only one who wasn't discovered.”

The others, having expected something like that, nodded slightly. Especially Nott seemed to be trying very hard to keep herself in check, and not show her anger around the little girl.

“How many people are we talking about?” Fjord asked, practical as always.

“Five. Her mother, her grandmother, and three older siblings,” Caleb told them. She hadn't mentioned a father, so he hadn't asked about one.

“That's a lot,” Fjord muttered, rubbing his chin for a moment. “Must have been a whole clan or something. We should be able to track that, right?” He looked around at the others, getting a few quick nods in response.

“If she could describe one of them, I could scry on them,” Jester offered. Her usually so bubbly nature had dimmed a bit under the circumstances, but she seemed all the more eager to help as she suggested that to Caleb, looking between him and Anna.

“I, uh, we can certainly try that,” Caleb agreed slowly. “I'm just afraid that the description of a five year old could be a bit vague. Maybe that should be more of a last resort?”

“You're just too lazy to translate,” Beau joked, but immediately got serious again. “No, I actually think you're right. And I'm sure we can start somewhere else. Like Fjord said, must have been a lot of goblins if they managed to drag five people with them. There are bound to be tracks of some sort here somewhere.”

“We should leave soon then, before we lose what little sunlight is left,” Yasha spoke. She'd been quiet so far, but the look in her eyes gave Caleb chills. “Nott, you should be able to help with this the most.”

“I'm staying here.”

Everyone turned to Nott in surprise, and not few of them confused. “But... this is pretty much exactly what happened to your family, too. Don't you want, I don't know, revenge?” Beau asked.

“Well, first of all, it wouldn't really be revenge, because this is a different clan than the one who took me and my family,” Nott insisted. “And second, someone clearly needs to stay behind with the girl, we can't just leave her alone again. And that someone is going to be Caleb, because he's the only one who understands her. So I'm going to stay here to protect Caleb in case they come back.”

Fjord huffed softly. “Not that I don't appreciate your protective instinct, but don't you think Caleb can defend himself? If anything comes?”

Nott just shrugged. “Maybe, but maybe not with a child hanging on to him at all times. Two people are better than one, so I'm staying.

“I would appreciate the help, actually,” Caleb told them. “She's right, I'm more vulnerable when I'm alone with her.” While he wasn't lying, he was mostly agreeing so the others would stop pressuring her into going with them. No matter her motive, he could understand if she wasn't in the mood to take on a clan of goblins after what they had done to her.

“Perfect, at least we will know you are save then,” Caduceus said with a smile. “Let's go. Just as Yasha has said, we do not want to waste anymore daylight.”

A last check on their weaponry, and then the five of them were on their way, Nott and Caleb staying behind with Anna. Once the others were gone and out of sight, Nott turned to her wizard friend. “What now? We can't really stand around here until they come back.”

“No, no I suppose not,” Caleb sighed. “I do not want to take her inside either though, not with the way it looks in there.”

“Stay here then, I will clean up a bit and you try to distract her,” Nott offered. But Caleb looked between her and Anna, seemingly becoming more and more uncomfortable.

“Distract her how? Nott, I've never- I'm not good with kids!” he whispered, desperately. “What am I supposed to do with her?”

“Just, you know, kids stuff,” she replied amused. “You were able to convince the Bright Queen to listen to you, I'm sure you'll be fine with a kid.”

“I'm not so sure about this,” he muttered.

Nott rolled her eyes and motioned Anna to come closer, giving her a warm smile. The girl looked at Caleb first, but then stepped closer to her.

“Caleb, ask her if she knows any games. Or what she likes to play with her siblings,” Nott said, only glancing at her friend briefly before focusing on Anna again.

Caleb looked confused but cleared his throat, addressing Anna directly. “Ah, meine Freundin hier möchte wissen ob es irgendwas gibt, was du gerne mit deinen Geschwistern spielst? Was für Spiele kennst du?”

Anna seemed to get what was going on, and with a slight smile she answered, looking more at Caleb than at Nott though. “Kennst du Klatschspiele?”

“She asks if you know any clapping games,” he relayed back to Nott.

“Well, do you?” she shot back. “Because she was very clearly not talking to me. Have fun.” And with that she gave a brief wave to Anna and left the two alone, Caleb barely suppressing a groan as she disappeared into the house.

Anna was still looking at him expectantly, so he walked over to a bench with her, in front of what looked like a stable, and they settled down there. “Okay, Klatschspiele. Ah, es ist etwas her, dass ich das gemacht habe, das musst du mir nachsehen.”

She just smiled widely and already grabbed for his hands, manipulating them until they were in the right position. Caleb couldn't help but compare it to teaching someone somatic figures, even if the thought was ridiculous. But the motions to the game came back easily to him, after all he had spend quite some time himself as a child playing this. The words did, too, to the incredibly silly game.

Bei Müllers hat's gebrannt -brannt -brannt Da bin ich schnell gerannt -rannt -rannt

Anna moved slowly, still very clearly leading the game for Caleb's sake. It shouldn't have been difficult, at least not for someone who regularly went through complicated sets of somatic gestures to save either himself or his friends, but Caleb found himself stumbling more often than not.

Da kam ein Polizist -zist -zist Der schrieb mich auf die List List List

The game was repetitive, to say the least, every line requiring the same set of movements. First, Caleb clapped his own hands together, then his right one against Anna's, then his own again, then his left hand against Anna's left. And every line ended with both meeting in the middle three times.

Die Liste die fiel in Dreck Dreck Dreck Da war mein Name weg weg weg Da lief ich schnell nach Haus Haus Haus Zu meinem Onkel Klaus Klaus Klaus

And at this point Caleb would have thought the game to be over, since these were all the lyrics he remembered. But Anna continued, her widening grin hinting at a glee that Caleb didn't quite understand yet. Until her lines got more and more absurd.

Der Klaus der lag im Bett Bett Bett Mit seiner Frau Elisabeth Elisabeth die lachte Der Busenhalter krachte

The girl was outright giggling at this point, barely getting through the lines. Caleb was surprised she'd even managed to get the word Busenhalter over her lips.

Der Bauch der explodierte Ein Baby rausmarschierte Das Baby war ein Mädchen Und zeigte seine Zähnchen

They finally finished, and Caleb gave her an amused look. “Das ist nicht unbedingt die Version die ich als Kind gelernt habe. Wer hat dir das beigebracht, huh?”

“Gregor,” she told him quietly, before laying a finger over her lips. “Aber nicht Mama sagen.”

He smiled back at her and zipped his mouth shut, sending her into another giggle fit. Just then, Nott came back outside, giving the two a fond look. “Seems like you were able to hold yourself after all.”

“Well, she sure knows some interesting words for a five year old,” Caleb joked. “But yes, I think we did okay. How's it looking inside?”

“Better. Come on, maybe we can find something to eat, too.”

Caleb agreed, relying their plans to Anna as she slowly calmed down again. Instead of walking inside by herself though, she insisted on being carried again. Caleb obliged.

“You know, if we're still looking to kill some time,” Nott offered, “I could teach her a few clapping games in Common, too.”

“But she won't understand them?”

“The words aren't too hard, and you can always tell her what it means,” she replied with a shrug. “It would be fun, come on.”

“Hmm. Anna, willst du Klatschspiele in Common lernen?” Caleb asked, and when he got an enthusiastic nod, he finally agreed with it as well.

“Great, I'll teach her “A half-orc went to sea”, first,” Nott said with a grin.

“Are you... are you sure that's how it goes?”

“Absolutely. Oh, and by the way, I'm not gonna tell anyone that you're a big softy if you agree to play with Luc the next time we're in Nicodranas.”

“Hmm. Deal,” he told her, thinking that was a very small price to pay for something he wouldn't have minded too much in the first place. But in order to keep it a secret, the others would first need to return anyway. Hopefully, with the rest of Anna's family in tow.

#critical role #cr2 #mighty nein #caleb widogast #nott the brave #zemnian #critical role fanfiction #fanfic #writing #mine

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nxgmaus · 5 years

Note

"Love won't shield us from loneliness." (From Oswald)

@mxdxmeguillotine

‘ … no. ’ edward responded after a moment of quiet groaning in the coach, sitting out the soreness from his recent tussle with the batgirl. ‘ —- men like us, love will always be only a distant illusion and the source of DISCONTENT . i’ve tried my hand at it, even found it in my grasp. but every time it ended in unsatisfactory answers. ’

despite the histrionics of his words, the riddler pouted almost childishly, rubbing his jaw where batgirl had slammed the green tape recorder containing his riddles into his face. ‘ i really thought she’d be THE ONE though. she solved all my riddles in record times, and rescued all the hostages. she even beat echo and query — speaking of which, i need to send the girls my regards and get them to un-quit before the next job — it was going so well until the last moment, when she cheated. ’

he sat up, removing the pack of frozen peas from his neck ( his fingers bruised from holding the headphone cord tight around batgirl’s neck ) and smiled at his friend, ‘ — i’ll just have to stump her another day. ’

#tHIS TOOK ME LONG EN OUGH #and then i read the wedding batgirl vs. riddler ---#mxdxmeguillotine #( answer )

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sesquipunzel · 6 years

Text

Act 2 (Backtrack through 251-264)

(I am better understanding the appeal of reading Homestuck liveblogs because now I really wanna go read how other people dealt with this lil reveal.)

So...one thing that didn't occur to me in my many previous Thoughts was that the Vagabond might not be here accidentally — I may have been unduly influenced by knowing them by the name "Wayward Vagabond." They might have been searching for the SBURB bunker precisely so they could interact with the kids/the past; they might even have arrived or been summoned here on this specific day so they can do so. Or they might be the Skaia-survivor I hypothesized, who was out of the bunker running errands, and we joined them as they were coming 'home'. Though the impression that the Vagabond was curious and wary and exploratory and Not At Home was pretty strong, so I dunno. (Also, I would think if they were in on the plot, they'd understand more about John/the game/the lingo.)

But the Vagabond DOES recognize that they can communicate with the boy on the screen, DOES know how to operate the console (simple as it appears to be), DOES know how to read and write and type (although not to turn off the Caps Lock). Which perhaps adds weight to the notion that they were alive/educated in the Before Times?

Also, this console is clearly designed to let someone communicate with those on screen — but Skaianet also clearly had the technology to allow even more extensive interaction, à la John's magic chest on the roof of his house. So why is the connection only via the command line, why not a full suite of SBURB-style fixit tools? It could be an inherent limitation related to: a) the time disjunct, if "years in the future" is true; or b) a place disjunct cos we have no idea where either John or the Vagabond are; or c) an internet disjunct cos we have no friggin clue how their computers are communicating with each other at all (especially since John's house shouldn't even have power). Obvi, the command-line could simply be the default function, and the console is capable of other things that we and the Vagabond don't know about yet, but we shall see.

Because the arrival of the "BOY" Voice coincided with the division of the Kernelsprite and creation of the the Harmesperm, I made an assumption that the Voice was the Sperm's voice (and I imagine I ain't the first). I do speculate that the coinciding wasn't completely coincidental, though.

The first image the Vagabond sees is just after John took the bite of the apple and got his house ozzed to wherever he is now. So I wonder if that's where this mysterious connection between their computers starts — maybe the Vagabond couldn't have watched any of the pre-Meteor stuff in John's house, or interacted with him before then?

As to HOW the connection started, or whether the ability for them to interact has anything to do with the KERNEL or the SPRITE? On that I have no guesses yet.

One curious thing is why the Vagabond's commands are reaching John as a "voice in his head." John is reporting this to Rose as new and troubling, so he didn't experience the previous reader commands in the same way, even if his "free will" occasionally argued with those commands. I've been told Hussie doesn't use dialogue in his comics, that all information is conveyed through Pesterlogs, command lines, narration, etc. So why did he choose to have the Vagabond's words manifest differently than the other reader commands, and differently from any other form of communication we’ve seen? I think the most important part is probably John saying “i feel compelled to do these weird things i don't really want to do,” that commands coming from that particular console/place are ones he can’t disobey?

If those commands had been communicated in a different way (like appearing on John’s devices) it wouldn’t have allowed for confusing the Vagabond's Voice with the SPRITE's, I suppose, and would invite more questioning from John as to who was 'on the other end' of the computer, but still interesting distinctions.

So — going to re-read from that first "BOY" on page 251, and capture any deeper/revised thoughts along the way.

Firstly, "the two halves go their separate ways, leaving behind the SPRITE portion" — I see that I misread that the KERNEL was the dual clown-silhouette things and the SPRITE was the mandala-thing left hovering in midair. But I see now the KERNEL was the circular "container" for the clown, i.e, the portion that existed before it was prototyped, and the SPRITE was the now-spermy clown-bit left after the seed-potential-power parts split off to go fulfill whatever that potential is. (dum dum DOOM!)

On to the weird interactions within the Flash…

Calling John "BOY" reinforced the impression that the Voice didn't know who he was, or much of anything else yet, which made sense if it was a newborn SPRITE. But now it means the Vagabond also doesn't know who John is — just a boy on a screen. So why are they so imperious in the way they talk to John, so sure that John needs to listen and obey? (How much does Vagga know about why this boy is on this screen at this moment? What do they know about what happened before, or what could/should happen next, for Earth's survivors? And are they friendly or foely to our heroes? Or to Skaianet?)

And who exactly is talking back (in the Green Boxes in the Flash version, or in plain text between black+orange Command Boxes in the non-Flash), calling the Voice a "nincompoop" and "sophomoric?" It seems to be our narrator, the one who used second person to start the story with "Your name is JOHN. As was previously mentioned it is your BIRTHDAY", addressing the character of John for the most part, but also the reader/player in some ways. But to have that narrative voice talking directly to another character is quite strange. (Although much of the response to the rest of the Voice's "EXAMINE"-type commands is back to our familiar narration style.)

"TIER PROTO TYPE THE SPRITE, OR THE THING YOU SAID. DO IT." Again, Vagga seems pretty sure about this being important to do, when they don’t even know the right words to describe it, or know that John can't do it himself.

Weird inconsistencies like not having enough Earth-context to call it a "towel", but enough to call it a "small Persian rug"? Familiar with "sewing machine" and how big it should be, but not with "totem lathe."

It's not the SPRITE that loathes clowns and harlequins, but the Vagabond.

(Housetrapped is still funny.)

"On the other hand, you would probably benefit from [NANNA's] elderly wisdom now…"

“UGH, NO.”

“So coy. So mysterious."

Twas an odd enough interchange when poking around the Flash the first time, thinking it was the SPRITE talking. But is there an implication here that Vagga knows (and dislikes) NANNA somehow, or the idea of John talking to her?

"A YOUNG STUPID BOY." On what grounds is Vagga judging John stupid?

Regarding the clowns in dad's study, the Voice says "IT HAS A KNIFE. BE ALARMED BY THIS." and "I SEE TREACHERY IN HIS EYES." — rather paranoid, aren't they? Worrisome in a newborn SPRITE, leaning towards interpreting it as inherently suspicious and violent, if not evil. Not really surprising, though, in a post-apocalyptic/post-traumatic wanderer (although it certainly doesn't rule out violent or evil).

Back to the main stream of the story, at 256: “NOW JOHN. RESPOND TO YOUR FRIEND UNIT.” Again, Vagga knows the word ‘friend', but not how to use it in a sentence. (is it because they've never had a friend?? are they a poor lonely, suspicious, violent cinnamon roll…???)

My curiosity about the Voice knowing the contents of the Pesterlog remain — is Vagga actually reading Homestuck, as it were, viewing John's screen/Pesterlog "over his shoulder" the same way we are? Or does the Skaia-built interface allow for more ‘camera angles’ than we have, or other direct access to the content this screen is meant (but by whom?) to show?

The narration on 257 that says "Oh well, you're the boss." has so many implications, doesn't it? But still notes that the commands are "awkwardly worded."

The Vagabond doesn't understand the difference between what John can do and what Rose can do.

(I just caught up to the fact that when John was fucking around with the Alchemiter, he could only create Perfectly Generic Objects because the dowel he had was Perfectly un-Lathed, with no distinguishing data points. You know how it is, it was all so new and confusing then… cause yeah, I'm WAY less confused now, right?)

But they get a platform built, and again the Narrator and the Voice tussle over commanding John and considering his feelings — the Narrator now seems protective of John, rather than objective. (That is, it has generally seemed objective before now, except in matters of taste and humor.)

The double "==>==>" commands that the Narrator was getting salty about make a lot more sense, imagining the Vagabond flailing at their keyboard.

John sensibly wants to go back inside, away from the aching and windy void, but Vagga says, "NO DON'T DO THAT. HOP OFF THIS LEDGE ON TO THAT CAR." This is the first time they've really suggested an action they came up with themselves, rather than responding to John mentioning prototyping, or encouraging him to follow Rose's instructions. (I'm not counting all the EXAMINE THIS and DESTROY THAT that helped us explore the Flash-House — those were still essentially passive responses to John's environment.) So I’m thinking that the mail in the car is really important in some way (I mean, I didn’t think it had been placed there as a time-wasting whim — it was the only real plot point of John’s excursion outside the house), which probably means the SBURB host software John can presumably use to rescue others the way Rose-as-host rescued him. (GG’s green gift might be important too but harder to guess how.) But that brings us back to the question of how the Vagabond knows about the software and its significance if they don’t seem to understand the game itself, or even how they know the software’s location in the car.

"==>==>==>==>==>" — and I thought two was impatient!

[hee, the Vagabond's keyboard does have the CAPS LOCK key lit!]

Right-Eo… long post, but more because I had a lot more musings to capture than because there was significant re-interpretation to do over whose Voice it was. Still worth the trip in my book. My blog, I mean.

The Kernelsprite has only actually attempted to communicate twice, right? Once with strange square textury symbols, and then after Harmequin-typing, with assorted Mardi-Grahdy fleurs-de-lis? (Floor Da Lease? Flurry d'Elise? Lorida Fleas? Flour Day Lilies? Stopping now.)

Gonna bet someone in HS fandom tried some pre-empty-ve code-breaking on the comparison between the two, but Ima keep on keepin on, trust that we'll discover what the Sprite is tryin' to say sooner or later in the story.)

Left-Eo then, backtrack completed and Yawnward Ho!

#homestuck liveblog #sesquipunzel reads homestuck #hs act 2 #homestuck #hs week 004

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sky-scribbles · 6 years

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The Shape of the Soul

Dragon Age Daemon AU, featuring the Origins and Awakening companions. Inspired by this amazing post by @piedpica (who tumblr won’t let me @ for some reason? but go check out their daemon headcanons, they’re amazing). Not included are Leliana, because I can’t top the idea from the above post, Anders, because he’ll be addressed in the DA2 instalment, and the dwarves, because I've adopted the idea from other Daemon AU makers that dwarves wouldn’t have daemons.)

Alistair

You wouldn’t think to look at Cara that she was the daemon of a King’s son. And that’s just how Alistair likes it.

He’s never asked anyone what Maric’s daemon was, and honestly, he doesn’t care. No doubt it was something very heroic and glorious, an eagle or a stag, fit to stand alongside his father in portraits, fit to be sung of in tales. But Alistair grew up sleeping in a kennel, and Cara was always going to settle as a dog.

She doesn’t stay as a dog all the time, of course, no child’s daemon can ever stay still. After he’s sent to the Chantry, after he hurls his mother’s amulet at the wall, they both go out of their way to cause as much trouble as possible. When the sisters gather them to pray, Cara pads in quietly as a cat or a little terrier. Then, halfway through the Canticle of Exaltations, she transforms into a great snorting druffalo or an ugly-faced wyvern or even a ridiculous nuggalope, and the drone of voices transforms into yelps of shock and shouts of anger. Alistair doubles up laughing, and keeps grinning even during the chores he’s given as punishment. ‘Worth it,’ Cara whispers, and he has to agree.

But for all the jokes she plays with her changing, she always seems to come back to dogs. Perhaps she's simply trying to be as un-King-like as is physically possible, perhaps she's just being a true Fereldan. It doesn't matter. There's a comfort in it that he finds nowhere else, in having her curled against him at night, warm fur against his skin to remind him that he is not quite alone.

He doesn’t even notice that she’s settled for days, the form she takes is so very like her. It takes him some time to realise she's stopped shifting, that she's taken on the shape of those Storm Coast retriever dogs. One of those none-too-smart looking ones, with the folded-over, floppy ears and the big brown eyes. ‘I wanted a mabari,’ he mock-moans, and Cara opens her mouth and hangs out her tongue in a dog’s way of laughing. ‘I wanted someone with brains,’ she sniggers, and Alistair pounces on her and wrestles her to the ground and they tussle like puppies, letting out breathless gasps of laughter.

It’s Cara that Alistair looks to for reassurance every time the insults fly his way, every time he hears a voice sneer idiot or sees the curl of a lip betray the thought of worthless. Cara is a creature bred on the wild seas, to drag in nets from icy waters and to retrieve hunters’ kills from tangled undergrowth. She rolls around with her eyes laughing and her legs waving in the air, a jester of a dog, but there’s a soldier underneath the creamy pelt. There's strength and endurance there, things that no one sees in him until the Templars press a sword into his hand and the weapon somehow feels like a perfect, natural extension of his arm, things that no one respects until Duncan passes him his Joining chalice. And Cara's pelt is thick, to hold out the cold of a frosted sea. Over the years, Alistair’s skin has grown just as thick against the whispers of bastard and fool.

Loghain betrays them, and Alistair feels like he’ll be snarling inside forever. Never betray a Fereldan, never betray someone with a dog-daemon, never incur the wrath of a man to whom loyalty comes before all else. The murmurs start, that the crown might fall to him, and he wants the earth to swallow him. His daemon is a dog, and dogs don't rule nations. They follow and they serve. ‘We’re not leaders,’ he whispers to Cara.

She rests her head on his knee. ‘We could be.’

And Alistair looks at her, and knows she's right. For all their games, for all their playful tail-wagging and soft fur, her breed are only jokers on the surface. At their core, they are workers, hunters - even guides to the blind. Dogs are made to serve, and surely that's what a king does, just as much as a Warden? Perhaps there’s more to him than he thinks. He already knows there’s more to him than people say. No one with a dog-daemon is a fool.

Morrigan

Gwydion settles as the mirror breaks.

He was always changing his shape, just as Morrigan did. She pities the children who can only watch the shifting of their daemons and envy them, the children who have never known what it is to feel flesh meld into fur, to spread wings against the sky or run on velvet paws through midnight forests. She and Gwydion have run together as wolves, flitted through the woods as bats, stalked the verges of villages on cats’ silent feet. They pride themselves on their closeness, and watch the outside world with scorn. None of these poor fools can be so close to their daemons, when they have never taken on their shapes, never seen the world through any eyes but their own.

When Flemeth’s hands cast the mirror down, everything changes. The glass shatters, and Morrigan’s world solidifies. Gwydion, cowering as a rat among the shards of the mirror, twists and flickers one last time, and then flies to her shoulder like a shadow, the dark beads of his eyes glittering at Flemeth across the fragments of her bond with her daughter. Morrigan watches her mother turn her back and leave her, then rises to her feet. She would like to cry, but she knows no one will come, and so she shifts her form into the one that her daemon has taken.

Together, the two ravens lift away into the night.

He could only ever have been a bird, for so it is with all mages. And perhaps he could only ever have been a raven, for Morrigan knows the old superstitions about them. Birds of the night, birds of magic, birds of wisdom and secrets, birds of death. They are not the brazen crows or showy magpies who strut around the cities – they are birds of wild places, birds of the untamed. And Morrigan is a child of the wilds.

Ravens have an eye, too, for precious things, things that shine. Morrigan clasps a thread of polished stones around her neck and weaves glossy feathers into her hair, but a part of her still hungers for the golden mirror that Flemeth dashed on the ground. And another part of her yearns to go beyond the trees, to find something beyond, something more, because birds were made for freedom and because a creature like Gwydion screams power in his every breath, because no one could look at the shadow-black feathers and vast wings and dagger beak and think that this is a bird that could live in a cage.

It is only after she meets the Warden that Morrigan discovers that Gwydion is a dancer.

The campfire is lit, and the wilds lie far behind them. Morrigan has a new mirror in a corner of her tent, a gift from the Warden, this strange wandering hero who has become, impossibly, a friend. Morrigan knows what happiness is – it is touching the sky on an eagle’s wings and slipping through the night as a fox, it is a spell cast to perfection, it is watching a moon rise in silver light while Gwydion perches on her shoulder. But what she feels as she and the Warden sit fireside together is something different, a kind of contentment that fills her and warms her, until she feels frighteningly comfortable and safe, until her mission and her task seem distant, even unimportant.

And as she wonders at this strange happiness, Gwydion leaps from her shoulder, shoots upwards, and starts to twist and roll in the darkening sky. He twirls wing over wing, diving and soaring and revelling in his mastery of the air.

Her daemon is an acrobat, a creature of joy, as well as a dark omen. And maybe she is more than a witch’s daughter.

Sten

She has no name, of course. She is the Sten, just as he is, one part of a greater whole.

The Tamassrans judge much on what shape your asala takes. The snakes and wildcats become Ben-Hassrath, the horses and oxen are clearly born for labour. He was always going to be a soldier, so he felt no great pride that day, long before he was the Sten, when he awoke to see his asala lying beside him in her true form. The golden fur, the heavy paws, the hooked talons – none of it was a surprise. ‘As it should be,’ he said, and the lioness inclined her head.

A lion is a soldier, but a lion is no brute – it is a strategist. It knows that to walk alone is death, that the one is never as strong as the many. It knows that ignorance is a disease, that only knowledge of the bush and the plains, knowledge of how prey thinks and how a hunter should act, will keep it from starving. And Sten, too, is a hunter of knowledge, learning to speak the bas tongue and asking about their world. Someday, the Qunari will rise to bring these people to the Qun, and he will stand in the front ranks of the charge. As a lion must know its prey to hunt it, so he must know his enemy to fight them.

The Arishok asks a question, and the Sten is sent to answer it, because his asala is a hunter and who better than a hunter to go on a search for truth? But then they learn the answer in the harshest way. What is the Blight? the Arishok asks, and Sten learns the answer: the Blight is the darkspawn, and the darkspawn are hunters too.

The Karashok’s buffalo blinks into nothingness as her other half’s head is torn from his body. Ashaad slumps motionless as an axe sinks into the side of his ape. Sten’s asala crouches over him long after he falls, curls over his wounds to keep the blood in, and when she sees the humans she runs to them, straining to the very edge of her bond with Sten, until they follow her and find him. He lives, yet he awakens incomplete. There is his asala, but not Asala.

Sten is a man in three parts – in his body, in his asala, and in his sword. Your weapon is your asala made metal, their strength given shape. He has lost his sword, and with it, the right to his glorious lion-soul. He is no longer a hunter who can track down the Arishok’s answer. He is worth only to be thrown in a cage to await death, and he cannot meet his asala’s eyes as they huddle inside the bars.

But then the Warden brings him into a kith, a new pride, and he no longer walks alone. His sword is returned to him, and he is complete, he is whole. On the road to Haven, he issues his challenge, the way any lion worth its claws will challenge an unworthy leader, for no pride can survive with weakness at the head. But the Warden’s words are enough for him to know that there is no weakness in his new kadan.

He always welcomed knowledge that would make him a better hunter, but now he welcomes knowledge of the Warden’s world for different reasons, because the Warden’s world has made them strong, and he wishes to understand that strength. For long nights by the fire, he and his asala listen to the Warden’s words, and they learn.

They are strange beasts, lions. They are cats like any other – proud, strong of will, free. And yet they know loyalty, and follow a leader who proves worthy.

The Warden is worthy, and Sten and his asala have a great deal of loyalty to give.

Wynne

Sometimes, Wynne wonders if it’s right. Daemons settle so early in life, before anyone can truly be who they will become, before anyone can truly know who they are.

She certainly didn’t, and when she looks at her daemon now, she sees something very different to what she saw back when Solomon settled. She was young, then, full of pride in herself and in her magic, in how her daemon settled so long before her Harrowing. She was proudest of all of what he became. So many of her fellows had to wait until they were thrown to the demons before they could know the shape of their souls, and so often they came back with ragged, nervous sparrows and terrified little wrens, scarred forever by what they’d seen.

But Solomon found his shape years before she was Harrowed, and it was a good shape for a girl so full of pride. Talons, and a little hook-bill, and great piercing black eyes. Mages have birds, it’s a rule of the world, and so Solomon became the newest addition to the Circle’s aviary, a beautiful tawny owl.

Wynne is rather ashamed to remember what she thought of him, back then. She saw only power and cunning, the marks of a predator. And so she snapped at Aneirin as she pushed him harder and harder still, while Solomon added screeches to her complaints. Only after Aneirin ran, and the Templars marched after him with steel glistening in their fists, did she remember those old superstitions about the wisdom of owls. Only then did she have the courage to feel ashamed.

She was not born with wisdom. There was so little wisdom in her the day that Solomon settled. Wisdom comes only from experience, from knowing that your fierceness has driven away an apprentice into the blades of the Templars, from having a son taken from your arms and into gauntleted hands, from decades of teaching pupils and coming to understand that it is not an owl’s sharp senses and cunning that she needs, but its patience. Owls can sit and watch for hours, so silent and still that you might not see them even if you walk right past them. And Wynne has learned to do the same, to sit back and watch, to perceive, to not judge the people around her but to know them.

Solomon is gone now, of course. When that demon fell upon her back in the Circle, she saw him reach feebly for her with one wing, then flicker out of sight and into nothingness.

It was the last thing she ever saw. And then a spirit embraced her, and she woke.

‘It’s a good shape for you,’ she says to Faith, who sits beside her in Solomon’s form. The Warden and the others mill about the fire, talking and laughing, utterly unaware that one of their companions is only alive because a spirit replaced her dead daemon an instant before the Maker could claim her.

Faith turns and looks at her. The spirit rarely speaks, but Wynne knows it’s waiting for an explanation, the way she so often knows what it’s thinking. It has become her soul, after all.

‘An owl is a creature of patience,’ Wynne says softly. ‘And faith is all about patience.’

Together, they sit in silence and watch.

Zevran Arainai

Elves are vermin, and their daemons prove it. Zevran has seen plenty of them in his time – ragged city elves with patch-furred rats clinging to their clothes, scruff-feathered pigeons on their shoulders, mangy cats slinking at their heels. His mother, with her fallow deer, was different. That’s the way it is with the Dalish. Their souls take the shape of forest creatures, creatures that can never be tamed.

Aeno both breaks the rules and keeps them. Dalish elves are forest creatures; city elves are vermin. Zevran is a city elf with Dalish blood, and Aeno becomes both.

An assassin can’t have some lumbering beast following them. As his peers’ daemons settle, the ones whose souls become clumsy dogs and horses are the first to go. Those who remain have sharp-taloned birds, venom-fanged snakes, cats that see in the dark. And then there’s Aeno, who switches one day into a sinuous little creature, creamy-white underbelly and dark russet back, tail-tip black as coal. She winds around his neck and bares her tiny dagger-fangs, and Zevran chuckles. Stoat is not a pretty name, but she’s a pretty creature, and more importantly, she is dangerous.

Weasels are vermin, that’s true for Aeno as it is for Rinna’s silky mink. But Aeno was not made to rummage through refuse or slink through street corners. Her place is the forest and the fields, where her wild kin hide among the long grass, waiting for prey. She’s a perfect companion for an assassin – small enough to meld with darkness, to scurry ahead through shadows to listen and watch, to carry a vial of poison in her teeth and slip the contents into a waiting cup. And those little teeth… they may not be long enough to tear open a throat, but just try fending off Zevran’s dagger when a stoat’s fangs are buried in your hand. And a stoat is really a lion, shrunk down to be pocket-size, all the ferocity and power crammed into the sleek little form. The meadows are its savanna, the fat rabbits its antelopes. But the stoat does not simply spring from cover and give chase. It bounds in twisting leaps in full view of its prey, not chasing them, but hypnotising them, entrancing them until the fangs are near enough to strike. A rabbit is twice a stoat’s size, and only wit brings them down. It’s the same with princes and noblemen, men and women who think their wealth and influence gives them armour. The stoat is a dancer, and so is Zevran. He knows that a word is as deadly as a dagger, a kiss as fatal as a knife. And so he and Aeno master all those things, he and his tiny little murderous soul forging a life for themselves in blood, until -

Until Rinna's mink twists away and drifts apart into nothingness, and even while Zevran laughs, Aeno is frozen and silent on his shoulder. And then they learn the truth. Death would be easier than life with the guilt, but Warden spares him, saves him, and makes him look at Aeno with new eyes. Without the eyes of the Crows upon him, she seems different. Less of the vermin, more of the beast of the wilds. A beast of freedom. The word is strange to him, almost foreign, something that sits uncomfortably on his tongue and yet is so very, very sweet to taste. When Taliesen falls still in the alleyway, the word becomes stronger, nearer, truer. And he and Aeno are facing new prey, very different prey to pompous nobles and former comrades.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Aeno says, and shows her teeth in a grin. ‘An archdemon will die like a prince.’

For the Warden’s sake, Zevran is willing to see if she’s right.

Nathaniel Howe

When a man grows up in a cage, no one should be surprised when he grows wings. Or talons.

Diana always favoured the shapes of hunting birds. The servants whisper behind their hands and his family brazenly speak the words aloud, he may be a mage, and the thought doesn't frighten him as much as it should. What would change, if he were taken to the Circle, if he swapped one prison for another? But as he grows older he sees that they’re wrong, that it’s not the spark of magic that gives Diana her wings, but a longing for freedom. He grows up crushed by his father’s glare, trapped by the resentment that hangs in the air between his parents. He sits in the trophy room, gazing at the prizes won by his ancestors and longing to share in their glory, and Diana perches beside him as a hawk, a kite, an eagle. And he thinks, this is the glory I am capable of. Look at my soul, look at the shapes she takes. Nothing can hold me back.

As soon as he’s old enough that people no longer suspect him of magic, it gets a little easier. The killers of the sky are good daemons for nobles, souls that mirror the falconry birds they carry on their gloves. His father tells him that Diana should become a gyrfalcon, the bird of the nobility, the glorious white-and-grey hunter kept by kings, and Diana tries, she does, she takes that shape again and again as if trying to force her body to stay in it. When she settles at last, though, her back is the dark blue-grey of slate, her form small and sleek, her eyes piercing yellow. His father purses his lips and turns away, because the peregrine falcon is a commoner's bird.

Despite all his father's disapproval - or maybe because of it - when Nathaniel is sent away to the Free Marches, he doesn’t learn a nobleman’s trades, doesn’t pick up the sword, the shield, the lance. He learns how to set a snare and follow a trail and make an infusion of herbs that will spell death for whoever drinks it – and he learns to fire an arrow, to place it so precisely that he can kill a dragonfly on the wing.

Diana is the soul of a man who is both nobleman and assassin. Something in him always wells up with joy when he sees her rising in the sky, sees her fold in her wings and drop, slamming towards the earth like a thunderbolt, the deadly stooping strike of the fastest animal in Thedas. She never falters, never slows. Never misses.

And yet their wings are still clipped, their freedom kept at bay by his father’s name.

The Warden comes and, impossibly, offers him forgiveness and a future. And for the first time, Nathaniel sees his daemon as she was meant to be, hunting free against truly dangerous prey. And the name Howe is no longer a shackle, because with every darkspawn he slays, every fragment of the truth he learns, every moment he spends in the Warden’s company, he purifies the name. And so at last he is free, and he knows that he doesn’t have to cast off his name to stay free, nor to be a good man.

‘I didn’t need to be a gyrfalcon,’ Diana tells him quietly, and he nods.

‘Nobility,’ he says, ‘has another meaning.’

Velanna

Again and again as they grow, Velanna and Nanlen hear the words, spoken and sighed and tutted by their clansmen. You never listen.

Which is true, and they are unashamed of it. What reason do they have to listen, when no one around seems to have anything to say to them? When no one has anything worth saying? The other children shun them, turn their backs because Velanna has no idea how to take part in their purposeless games, and so they stand apart and alone. They stand in silence, where they feel most comfortable, and they study the histories, hunting down knowledge and lost lore. Their solitude is met with rolling eyes and scornful glances, and none of them seem to care enough to realise how much it hurts. Pain hurts to live with, and it's easier to turn it into anger. And so they bristle and snap and insist that they know best, and Nanlen changes to show it, so that any other Dalish who tries to quarrel with them will be met with a snarling fox or hissing wildcat or a kestrel with glaring eyes. Even his very name burns. Nanlen, child of vengeance, a name that makes the hahrens swap glances and murmur their misgivings. Only Seranni can ever soften them, persuade them to stop a moment and think. They listen to Seranni, because Seranni cares enough to listen to them.

Nanlen settles not long after Velanna comes into her magic. The Clan seems to think that Velanna doesn’t hear the things they whisper to each other. ‘Keeper Ilshae’s got a struggle on her hands,’ she overhears one of the hahrens say. ‘Even the shems barely ever train goshawks. They never listen.’

But Velanna can be nothing but proud of her magnificent daemon, his feathers the colours of stormclouds and silver and snow. The goshawk is exactly what she is: the living embodiment of the wildest and most dangerous parts of the forest. Its talons are fierce as the thorns of the sylvans, the thorns that Velanna summons to her side in battle. And how can she not be proud of having a daemon who cannot be tamed or trained? The shemlen come and burn the forest, force her clan away with smoke and flames. Velanna aches to punish them, something within her crying out to tear and rend, and when the Keeper cowers away from dealing out justice she feels her rage erupt.

‘We’re Dalish,’ she snaps at the Keeper. ‘We are the last of the Elvhenan. Never again shall we submit.’

Nanlen throws out his wings and lets out a screech, and while Ilshae sighs, Velanna smiles. She pities the fool who thinks anyone could make a goshawk submit.

But then their pride kills their brothers and sisters, and Nanlen seems to change. ‘Velanna,’ he says, ‘we led them to death because we would not listen.’ But Velanna closes her ears to him, just as she always has to everyone. She doesn’t want to hear it, and she unleashes a hawk’s rage on the shemlen who made it happen, shreds them with her thorns the way Nanlen's wild cousins rip apart their kills in their claws, until –

Until she is made to see that she was wrong.

Ilshae was right. She was not ready to be Keeper. Because a Keeper’s task isn’t about being right. It’s about listening. Listening to the lessons of their ancestors, and listening to her fellows among the clan. Listening in the way that Velanna can never do, the way that a goshawk can only do if you show them patience and a reward.

The Warden offers her both.

‘It is not submitting to admit that we were wrong,’ Nanlen murmurs to her. ‘You can follow another without submitting to them.’

And so Velanna follows the Warden, and drains her Joining chalice, and marches out with the others against the darkspawn. To find Seranni, to avenge her kinsmen. To learn, at last, how to listen.

Justice

He knows much of demons. But these daemons – these strange, speaking, shifting creatures that the mortals call their souls - they are far, far beyond his understanding.

At first, when the Warden tells him what they are, he almost reaches for his weapon. ‘They’re not demons, they’re our daemons,’ the Warden tries to explain, tells him that they’re not the Fade’s dark entities masquerading as animals, that the spelling’s different, as if that matters – but in the end, it’s Kristoff’s memories that make him understand.

The dead Warden’s mind is full of images of his living soul, a dark-furred Orlesian shepherd dog. Her name was Mariette, and he adored her. It’s a love of a very different kind to that he felt for his wife, somehow less complicated, but no less intense. In every memory, in every vague glimmer of Kristoff’s childhood and in every vivid recollection of a battle fought, the daemon is there. A constant. Unchanging, like a Fade spirit.

From Kristoff’s memories, and from what the Warden tells him, he learns that no is quite sure what daemons are or where they come from, only that they are bound to the Fade, which is why Sigrun and Oghren walk alone, with no companion beside them or on their shoulder. These creatures are somehow linked to the Fade, to his home - but they are not demons, he realises. They are not spirits, either. They are exactly what his newfound mortal allies claim they are: souls.

Justice watches, and so he learns to respect them. For he sees how so very often they represent the better parts of his friends’ natures. He sees, for instance, how Velanna’s silvery hawk sometimes gives her a long, patient stare when her jaw clenches with anger, as if reminding her to be calm. And he sees how, when Anders tries to cast off his responsibility for his fellow mages – people suffering under an injustice that makes fury stir in Justice’s heart – the dark-eyed magpie on his shoulder turns to him and gives him a sharp, reprimanding peck.

And one night, as they travel across Amaranthine to their newest task, he sees how his friends’ daemons curl up against them, and he feels something that terrifies him. He envies them. He envies the completeness they seem to have, the closeness. Jealousy is for demons, and he tries to banish the thought, because it makes him fear what he could become, but it stays and it stays and it stays.

None of them are sure what will become of Themis, when Anders offers himself to Justice. ‘I’m willing to take the risk,’ she says. ‘Perhaps it won’t affect me at all.’ But it does, of course it does, because Themis is a part of Anders, and Justice becomes Anders, and so he becomes Themis too, and so he sees the suffering that has been wrought upon the mages, and the Templars will pay, and the Circle will be ripped apart, and he will tear down every last enemy until the mages are free, and the magpie screams like a mad thing as veins of blue flare beneath her feathers –

As they struggle through their life in Kirkwall, Justice looks at her through Anders’s eyes, and feels a terrible wrenching guilt. ‘I’ve changed you,’ Anders says, his face tear-streaked and flushed, after the night they lose control and attack the mage girl. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ And Justice wishes he could reply, I have changed you too. You are not the man you were when your daemon settled. I have made a distance between you, I have brought you farther from your own soul, and for that I am sorry.

And as if she knows his thoughts, Themis raises her head and looks sharply into his eyes – and yes, they are Anders’s eyes, but the part of Anders that is Justice knows she looks at him.

‘We are all one now,’ she says.

And Justice feels, despite everything, a faint pulse of pleasure. Because he no longer needs to feel the envy that he harboured, when he thought of Kristoff’s love for his breathing soul. Because Themis is his daemon now, just as much as she is Anders’s.

Perhaps I am not only becoming more demon, he thinks. Perhaps I am becoming more mortal.

Once the thought would have frightened him. But now, when he sees Themis, it gives him comfort.

#i'll post the next one soon #dragon age #daemon au #dragon age origins #dragon age awakening #alistair theirin #morrigan #sten #wynne #zevran arainai #nathaniel howe #velanna #justice #sky's writing

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imhereforbvcky · 7 years

Text

Make Me Believe - Part 1

Freshman Year: Making More Than Friends

Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Part 2

Summary: You keep meeting Bucky Barnes in unexpected places and he keeps acting like you know each other, like you’re dating. (tropes abound! college AND fake dating au. I’m a mess.)

Prompt(s): First day of college

Warnings: Drinking and silliness

Word Count: 2811

Author’s Note: This for @buckthegrump’s writing challenge because I love to push things to the very last minute. This will be a mini series.

Standing in line at the Starbucks at the center of campus was perhaps not your best laid plan. It was crowded and you were anxious to get moving. It was move-in day. You’d gotten your keys from Admissions and had left your car in a loading zone while you dashed in for what you hoped to be a quick coffee run. Now you could only hope you hadn’t been towed yet.

Finally, finally you were at the front of the line, about to place your order when a hand on your shoulder and a large, tall student slid to your side. He was cute, real cute. But if he thought you were going to give up your space in line for a handsome face, he was dead wrong.

“Hey sweetie, sorry I’m late.” He smiled warmly at you and winked at your confused stare. Your mouth had fallen slightly open, like a fish out of water, unsure what to say, not even sure you could breathe.

He turned to the girl behind the counter with an equally charming smile and began to place his order before adding a casual, “...and whatever my girl here wants.”

His smirk was so fluid, so infuriatingly natural as he nodded his head in your direction. It was all you could do to close your mouth as you glared at this precocious stranger and his antics for skipping the line.

“What do you want, gorgeous? We’re holding up the line.”

You glanced behind you at the impatient customers behind you. He was right. Damn it. What the hell could you do? He’d already ordered, it was either cause a scene and seperate yourself from his order or play along and get this over with.

“Um, sorry,” you smiled at the barista. “Vanilla latte please, with an extra shot.”

Before you could think your handsome intruder had handed over a 20 and stepped to the side, waiting for his drink.

“Thanks,” he murmured as he leaned close to your ear. Too close for strangers. “I’m running late and did not have time for that line.”

“Yeah, you’re a jerk,” you grumbled, folding your arms over your chest. “Everybody had to wait, I had to wait! I have somewhere to be too, you know.”

“You still got your coffee,” he argued, “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Thanks,” you spat, with all the sarcasm you could muster.

He only laughed, smirking as your drinks were called out. With his drink in hand he backed out of the cafe. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Not interested!” you snapped. But you couldn’t help the small smile pulling across your face.

His laugh was a soft rumble that only made it worse. “See you ‘round, gorgeous.”

“Hey! Let me help you with that!” You turned to see a handsome smiling face, reaching for the small microwave in your arms. Temporarily frozen, you could only gape at him. He was so tall and broad with a tussle of soft blonde hair and shining blue eyes. They definitely didn’t make guys like this in your little hometown. Hell you didn’t know they made them like this outside of photoshop.

“Uhm thanks,” you finally managed, with a matching smile. “But that box of books is a lot heavier and you look more uh… equipped to handle that than I am.”

You offered a shy and slightly embarrassed smile that was met with a hearty laugh as he reached for the box you’d indicated. He stacked it on top of your last suitcase and turned to you with another bright smile. “Alright, where to?”

“Uh D Hall, 3150.”

As you waited for the elevator, he tried for small talk. You were never great at small talk; it always felt so tedious and pointless that it came awkward and stunted. The obligatory follow up questions never come naturally to you like they seemed to others and more often than not you wound up blurting out un-interesting facts about books or asking abrupt questions.

True to form, you set in on your unintentional interrogation. “So what is this? Are giant good-looking samaritans just a thing around here? If that’s the case I’m in trouble. I look like a sea urchin next to people like you.”

He laughed again, softer this time as he looked at his feet. You could tell he was used to this. He had the sort of confidence that comes easy to those who have never had to compensate for anything, but the grace to look slightly embarrassed by compliments, flattered, without ever really acknowledging it. Eventually he looked back up to you with a lopsided smile that seemed to make your stomach flip.

“You’re cute,” he said it like it was just a fact, a statement, no more no less. “No, it’s through the University.” The smile in his voice was nearly as warm as the one he turned on you in that tight space. “I volunteered to help new students move in, give ‘em a run down of the building and in return I got access to campus early and I get extra points on my meal plan until everyone’s moved in.”

“But moving sucks. That’s like being the buddy with the pick-up truck to 2,000 students. That sounds miserable.”

He laughed again, it seemed like the only reaction in his arsenal, but somehow it was still warm and sincere. “I’m never one to turn down free food.”

“Yeah, you look like it. What’re you, like, 8% body fat?” you rolled your eyes, the sarcasm thick before you both snorted in laughter.

“Soon! You’ll learn how valuable free food is to we poor college kids. Where are you from anyway?” he asked as you held your dorm room door open for him with your foot.

“Small town, you haven’t heard of it.”

“A small town huh? This your first time living away from home?” he asked as he set your things down.

“Mhmm. First time out of the state, if you can believe it.”

“I can,” he nodded with a poorly concealed smirk.

“Hey!” you shoved his shoulder playfully. “It’s not that obvious.”

“Little bit,” he nodded with a shrug. “You’re like an adorable little hillbilly lost in the big city campus.”

“What?! I’m not lost--”

“But we can fix that. What are you doing tonight?”

You stared at him for a moment, debating whether you should protest this unsolicited nickname or see where this line of questions lead. Finally you looked purposefully around the room full of boxes to be unpacked and shrugged. “You’re lookin’ at it.”

“No. It’s your first night as a free and independent adult, your first night at college, this needs to be memorable.” He reached for a pen from your roommate’s desk and scribbled an address onto the side of one of the cardboard boxes. It was somewhere on the south side of campus. “Come to this address later tonight. Ask for Cap or Bucky.”

“Bucky as in Buckwheat, the only girl allowed in the He-Man-Woman-Haters Club?” you asked with a judgemental snort.

“As in James Buchanan Barnes doesn’t like to be called Jimmy.”

“Got it, Bucky or Cap.”

“See you there.”

You giggled as he turned out of the room with an easy smile. Flutters had begun to kick off in your stomach as you flopped backwards onto your vinyl University-supplied mattress. You were far too caught up in replaying every second of the past 20 minutes to consider that you really should clean that mattress first.

The deeper you wound into the maze of streets south of campus, the thicker the parties grew. Every 5th house had brightly colored lights flashing through living room windows with thumping dance music to greet passersby in waves from within. You smiled as you walked to your destination, enjoying the last of the warm air in early fall and relishing in the newness and freedom of the world in which you now found yourself.

Your small town was far behind with its sleepy farmhouses and crumbling bungalows. Its nosy neighbors would gasp in a mix of horror and delight at the fodder for Sunday morning gossip to be found here. All the while the smile brimming to your lips was uncontainable as the freedom of anonymity took hold. No one knew you here, and no one cared. You could slip into any one of these parties and in minutes have a drink in hand and a new crowd.

The world lay at your feet and you needed only choose who to become.

When you finally approached your destination your excitement waned. It was an enormous stone house, absolutely crawling with people. You paused at the end of the lawn, taking in the scene. It was fresh out of a bad teen movie. Red solo cups seemed like permanent appendages, bawdy shouts clamored from a game of beer pong on the long open porch, clumsily wrapped white bed sheets barely managed to cling onto half of the attendees. Worst of all, there, in illuminated blocks over the door stood the unmistakable shape of the greek letters.

A frat. You’d been lured to a frat party on your very first day here.

With a determined sigh through gritted teeth you began the walk down the stone pathway toward the front door. As you approached the party a brick wall of a man stumbled backwards through the door nearly bowling you over.

In a moment he’d swung his arms around your back to steady you both, his long blonde hair falling in tangles and tickling your cheek as he leaned over you.

“‘M terribly sorry, m’lady!” he slurred followed by an excited smile that was so broad his eyes wrinkled to thin blue winks. You thought he might burst into laughter as he pulled back, setting you both to rights.

“May I offer you a cold beverage as recompense for nearly uh… running you over?”

You stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed and unsure before glancing behind him to his friend who shrugged and rolled her eyes. “This is Thor. He does accents when he’s drunk. I don’t know.” You laughed in relief. The pressure of pretending this was normal seemed too much and for someone else to acknowledge the insanity was a welcome sight. “I’m Valkyrie.” She offered you her hand and you took it. Before you could offer your own name Thor was bellowing again.

“That one was my father!” Thor volunteered with a deep hearty laugh. “It’s a good imitation. But you wouldn’t know, since you’ve never met him. He’s an Earl of Asguard or Ashworth or something...” He scowled in concentration.

Before he’d finished his speech he was trying to shove an icy can of beer into your hand. You held your hands up in what you hoped to be polite refusal.

“No, I’m… I’m not sure I’m in the right place. I’m looking for Bucky? Or Cap?” you recited the names you’d been given, hoping they’d act like some magic passcode into something less horrifying.

“Cap!!!” Thor shouted, throwing his arms into the air.

“Heeey!” came a laughing shout of a reply from a corner of the porch. The raised hand of yet another brick wall of a blonde man waved back. You could see his smile from your current position half way down the stairs, the soft crop of blonde hair.

“He’s right there,” Thor smiled down at you.

“Thanks,” you laughed, the sarcasm thick but unnoticed by the deliriously happy drunk.

You made your way through the throng of clumsy party-goers, shifting to shuffle sideways past narrow openings in the crowd until you reached ‘Cap’ in the corner of the porch, leaning against the old stone railing.

As you approached the table, Steve shouted in triumph as the white ping pong ball sunk into one of the cups on the opposite end of the table with a light thunk. You smiled and continued to shift closer. Right up until he turned to his beer pong partner and grabbed her face, two large hands cupping her cheeks.

“Okay, you can do this! You can end the game right now!”

You heard her giggle and nod. As she turned to the table he released her, his hand sliding down her back and hooking around her waist as she made the shot. The cacophony of cheers and squealing delight were simply infuriating. She leapt into his arms happily and he held her there, feet off the ground, arms around his neck.

You had no idea if they were together, or just a one-night event, but it didn’t matter either way. The sinking dread that you were a complete idiot for accepting this invitation crept over you, through the knot in your stomach and up your throat.

Refusing to waste another thought on it, you dove deeper into the party, seeking out the keg.

When you made it to the kitchen, however, an infuriatingly familiar face turned on yours. The most chilling grin catching your eye as he eased over toward you, all arrogance and mirth. Like the cat who got the cream. Like you were back in your home town again; like you hadn’t escaped at all.

You spun on your heel to make a quick escape from what was clearly the worst decision you’d made all day. But he called out loud and demanding and it had you frozen for a moment.

“Bonnie?! What a small world!”

You took in a deep breath, grinding your teeth against the urge to scream at him. The unbidden nickname struck you with greater force than ever. This was meant to be a fresh start, a new beginning.

“Not that small, Jack, there are forty thousand students here. Why don’t you pick someone else to torture?”

“Oh come on,” he simpered, stepping forward. “You like Bonnie. Found a Clyde yet?”

An irritated sigh rushed past your lips. Jack was the last person you wanted to see. Anyone from home fell pretty low on the list, but he made perpetually came in dead last.

“No. And I’d like to be called by my name, not some stupid nickname the argyle brigade bestowed on me in high school,” you snarled.

“It’s not really behind your back if you know about it,” he grinned. “C’mon I’m kidding!” he groaned as you turned to walk away. His fingers curled around your wrist, pulling you back.

All you could manage was to glare at his hand gripping you. If only a look could be actual daggers.

Before you’d calmed down enough to speak, an arm slid over your shoulder and a familiar voice called your attention.

“Hey gorgeous, I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Coffee shop guy.

You managed a tight smile as you turned to him. He was grinning down at you, just as comfortably as he had this morning. You wondered vaguely how often he’d pulled this move.

“Hi sweetie,” you grinned, narrowing your eyes only slightly.

“We can’t find the stereo remote, I thought you had it earlier…”

“Yeah! Yeah, let me help you find it,” you beamed up at him before turning to leave. He grinned back at you, his hand snaking into yours as you stepped out from under his arm.

With a glance over his shoulder he gave a short nod to Jack; the sort of nod that men offer to say ‘I see you, but we don’t need to talk.’ A smirk drew across his face as he turned back to you, as you wandered off to another corner of the party.

A laugh burst from your lips as you spun on your heel, leaning toward coffee shop guy.

“That was entirely too satisfying. Thank you.”

“Any time,” he grinned.

“Evidently!” you bawked. “So is this your thing? The fake boyfriend bit?”

“It’s 2 for 2 today.” He shrugged and took a sip of his beer. “So can I get your name now?”

With a rueful smile you offered your name and he nodded.

“Bucky,” he returned, gesturing toward himself with his drink. His gaze roved over you quickly. “This isn’t your thing, is it?”

It wasn’t a question.

“That obvious?” you laughed. “No, I uh… Some guy helped me move into my dorm and invited me. But I realized when I got here that he probably helped a lot of idiots like me move. Can I have some of that?” you asked, pointing to his drink.

He smiled and handed it to you. His gaze remained steadily on you as you took a long sip. He chewed on his lip for a moment.

“D’you want to get out of here?”

You sputtered into the cup and handed it back to him. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

A big laugh burst quickly from his lips. “I wasn’t offering.”

You rolled your eyes and frowned. Somehow it was both a relief and a disappointment.

“C’mon.”

Next Chapter >>

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