#art fight is supposed to be fun afterall

[ghoul--doodle]

Did you know Dex adores tiny lil trinkets of any kind? Now you do :}

[funtimebunnyblog]

Always remember Pillarmen-lovers and followers alike, no matter what you like to wear or what you like to put on your body; you are absolutely stunning! 😍😍😍 You rock those tattoos, piercings, whatever you wear; wear them with your head held high! 😇🥰😘 Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

The Pillarmen with a Female s/o with tattoos (who also gets unwanted comments about them)...

(Under the cut for length!)

Kars:

• At first, Kars doesn't quite understand the exact appeal of tattoos.

• Sure, some of them admittedly looked nice and they were art in their own respect, but they were also known to be quite painful for Humans not to mention they were something very permanent to put on the body...

• He doesn't really understand why someone would go out of their way to get something so gaudy imprinted on their skin.

• You'll have to forgive him because when you're first getting to know him as he openly looks down on you for having some of your own; especially since you're a Woman.

• He states that you should treat your body like a temple and not "graffiti" it with something so "manish" and "distasteful" which you of course simply shrug off.

• You've heard this enough times to not care.

• However, after you give him some time and he's heard any stories you happen to have behind your tats or perhaps once he sees how truly harmless it all is, he comes around.

• Kars comes to realize that they're just another piece of what made you "you" and he supposed that you could be into far worse things than just simple pictures drawn on your skin...

• Besides... he has to admit you look very beautiful with them.

• From that moment on, if anyone happens to say anything negative about your ink, he puts haters and nay-sayers alike in their place.

• "You know, it's not very ladylike to have tattoos." You could feel the sneer of the Woman behind you as she let her poisonous words drip off her tongue but you didn't turn around.

• This wasn't the first time this happened and it was better to pretend you didn't hear.

• Kars, on the other hand, didn't miss a beat. "It's also not very ladylike to make bitchy comments but it appears that would just be your whole personality." He commented, cocking an eyebrow at the now gawking Woman from over his shoulder.

• You couldn't contain the snort of laughter that burst forth, Kars smiled softly as you clung to his arm with a wheeze. The offending Woman didn't make anymore comments.

• Kars was sure that if he could open his mind to see the beauty of tattoos and learn to accept them, others should do the same.

Esidisi:

• Hands down, Esidisi absolutely ADORES your tattoos!

• He thinks they're a beautiful form of art to display on the body and that they are something definitely to be admired.

• Most especially since they're on you!

• Even from the first time you two met, he wanted to see every single one you had and hear any stories you happened to have behind them.

• Even if the stories happened to go along the lines of "I got really drunk with some friends and--"

• For quite a while he's wanted to get tattoos of his own but never really found the time, not to mention something worthwhile to get.

• Millennium ago, tattoos were in fact quite time consuming to get done (they required not only a steady hand but the patience of a Saint as well) and he couldn't waste much time when on the hunt for the Aja afterall.

• However, once introduced to the modern tattooing art and with lots of time to spare, you were what inspired him to step up and finally get a few of his own done!

• What he really wants is to get his arms covered in intricate patterns and pictures.

• In fact, Esidisi is the kind of person to want to get a matching tattoo with you or at least one with your name somewhere on his body.

• Of course, he does not stand for anyone saying anything hurtful or negative about your own tats.

• "Hey!" The yelling of the guy calling out to you from his truck as you walked down the street instinctively made you freeze for only half-a-second. "I'd fuck you if you didn't have so many tattoos, bitch!"

• His words made an ickyness swirl up from your gut to your throat. Though disgusted, you kept your face carefully neutral and tried to keep walking.

• Those kinds of deragatory comments just weren't worth the effort of fighting back.

• Esidisi, however, wasn't one to stand back and let someone disrespect you like that.

• "Yeah? And maybe somebody would actually fuck you if you had some, dickhead!" He called back, grinning as the guys mouth immediately snapped shut.

• The Pillarman's quick clap-back was enough to make a huge smile stretch across your face; only fueled by the massive hand wrapping around yours as you both kept walking.

• With Esidisi around, you would never have to waste time or energy on derogatory comments ever again.

Wamuu:

• Wamuu had only seen these "tattoos" a handful of times in his life.

• He was well aware of the art and the practice took to create them but never had them done on himself or seen the action up close.

• The very few times he had seen tattoos on someone, it was for battle purposes.

• Most often worn by great Warriors who had fought many fights and had them done to commemorate victories won or even lives lost.

• Upon meeting you and spotting your ink, Wamuu was immediately under the impression that you were a Female Warrior (a rarity) and wanted to know everything about the tapestry of "victories" on your skin.

• "This tattoo, what is its symbolism? Was this to commemorate a fight? Battle, perhaps?" He questioned, a calloused finger poking you softly in your flesh as he spoke.

• You could only blink stupidly, not quite sure what he was going on about. "Wamuu... that's Hello Kitty."

• When you explain to him that your tattoos hold no great "symbolism" or "battle tributes" it takes a while for him to wrap his head around it.

• People nowadays did this... for fun? Simply "because"? Sometimes they did it to show love or appreciation to something?

• It was a strange phenomenon but he eventually finds himself nodding his head in understanding.

• If anything, even if it isn't for a Warriors devices, he finds all tattoos unique and something to behold.

• He even starts thinking about getting one of his own simply "for fun".

• What he still doesn't understand is why there are so many people who were so closed minded concerning these things, especially towards Women like yourself.

• He doesn't appreciate it when people are rude or disrespectful to the things you like; this being no exception.

• "Ugh! You should really cover those up!" You turned your head to find another Woman pointing accusingly at one of your tattoos, an ugly scowl etched into her face. "I shouldn't have to see something so distasteful!"

• You opened your mouth, prepared to tell her to mind her business and keep going about your own when suddenly Wamuu appeared right behind her. The massive man sternly pulled a bag right over her head, completely covering her face.

• "If you do not like the look of them, then perhaps you should simply cover your eyes, Human!" He growled, leaving the rude lady to try and pull the bag off her head as he took your hand and proudly walked off with you.

• Now if only everyone could live that philosophy, life would truly be peaceful for you. Until then, you were just happy you had Wamuu to spread those words of wisdom for you.

Santana:

• Upon first meeting you, your tattoos intrigued Santana more than anything.

• He had never really seen anything of the like before encountering you.

• At first, he thought that they were simply a born pigmentation to your skin. Perhaps you were a different kind of Human alltogether? Did this hold some sort of direct link to your kind attracting a Mate?

• If the latter by chance, he had to say it was working.

• You couldn't help but laugh, watching as he traced his fingers along the shapes and pictures of your ink; he was absolutely mesmerized by the artwork stretching across the canvas of your skin.

• This was definitely MUCH more preferable than someone looking down their nose at you for having them.

• However, once you explained to him that you had them physically drawn onto your skin with ink and needles it only intrigued him more.

• He wanted to know everything about these "tattoos" including just how they were done and why exactly some people took time to get them.

• This resulted you dragging him along to a tattoo parlor so he could watch and learn first hand; which then lead to Santana getting his first tattoo shortly after on his thigh.

• "Aww, now what's a pretty girl like you doing with something so ugly like that on her skin?" The lady behind the counter who was ringing up your items smiled almost sickeningly sweet as she spoke, making you only want to roll your eyes even more.

• Oh boy, here it comes. You just couldn't walk to the store to get a bag of chips and a drink without someone making a comment, could you?

• "You know, not a lot of men like those on a pretty girl, sweetie." She continued, as if unable to see you had no interest in what she had to say what-so-ever. "Maybe you should think about that if you ever want to find someone decent, hmm?"

• Santana's wild head of hair appeared out from behind the chip rack as she spoke, lips twisting as his eyebrows narrowed. He approached the counter with a huff, snatching the bag from it as he full on glared at the cashier.

• His eyes fell onto your bare skin, to the lovely shapes and colours that sparked all these unwanted comments. "Her skin is beautiful." He said, before his eyes fell onto the cashiers bare skin, his lips only pushing further downwards. "Your skin is boring, primitive."

• The look on the cashiers face after he said that only made your snacks taste even sweeter as you sat cuddled into the Pillarmans side back at Home.

[my-spiritualweapon-is-a-lollipop]

Holding Hands

Synopsis: Essek tours the tower for the first time and he and Caleb have some honest talks. A little bit of angst and a little bit of fluff. Just how I like my wizards. 

It had been a long day in Eiselcross. The Mighty Nein were all weary on their feet, many of them hurt from their various encounters along the way and everyone could probably use the rapport boost of a warm bed and good food. Still Caleb was leary of using the tower when Lucien had proven he could easily dispel it.

“But Caleb” Jester pleaded while grabbing onto his arm with her charming little mittens. “If Lucien’s not nearby yet then we wasted a night of good, safe rest. Wouldn’t it be better to fight him with a good night of sleep before? And besides, the tower is harder to find than the dome.” and she blinked up at him with that particular Jester pout that Caleb found particularly difficult to resist.

“Ja… we could…” He left room for Fjord or Beau to interject with a discussion of the best tactical decision, but they were surprisingly quiet. He glanced at them and saw that Beau was leaning hard against the wall, favouring the leg that hadn’t been hurt in their last run in and trying to play it off. Fjord’s face was etched with exhaustion. That settled it for Caleb. It was worth the boost in moral that an evening in the tower would provide… even if it served to be only a temporary situation. “Ja. We could” He repeated more firmly and began his preparations for the tower.

It was a challenging spell and Caleb had plenty of experience tuning out his companions when doing this work, but Beau and Caduceus couldn’t help but notice the almost imperceptible pause and tensing of Caleb’s shoulders that accompanied Jester grabbing Essek and delightedly declaring:

“Oh, Essek you are going to love the tower! And not just because it’s all wizardy and stuff but Caleb made it so nice. There are lots of cats, and everyone has a special nice room - I bet he’ll make one special for you” she pumped her eyebrows “- and the cats make like WHATEVER food you want! It’s amazing!”

Essek responded in the slightly shaken way he did whenever he encountered the full force of Jester’s jovial attentions:

“I-I-’m certain that it is. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a talented wizard.” and Essek looked hard at Caleb’s back for a moment and then looked away with a perceptible sadness in his eyes but Jester pushed on as was her way:

“Pro-tip: call all of the cats to come snuggle you. You will never. Sleep. Better.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” Essek said nodding at her and trying to extricate himself from where she had her arms wrapped around his. He floated over to the wall to drift near Beau where he expected he would be left to sit in sullen silence, which was what he wanted. He wanted to observe everything about how Caleb cast this spell. This was the kind of magic he wasn’t particularly familiar with and it was endlessly fascinating. To his surprise he was interrupted by Beau leaning close to him and whispering savagely under her breath:

“If you talk shit about Caleb’s tower, I will fucking kill you. I know you’re a supposed to be amazing and all but it’s clear your opinion matters to him, so you better play nice got it?” Essek visibly deflated in response but whispered back with a surprising intensity.

“I understand that I have not given you much to trust Beauregard, but if there is one thing you can, please trust in my respect for all of your abilities. Even if you believe me to be arrogant, foolish or any other of the myriad of likely accurate and unflattering descriptions you may have in your mind, please know that you have each earned my respect time and time again and Caleb more so than anyone. If anything, I wish to prove my capabilities as an ally to you... not judge yours.” Before Beau could respond, Caduceus (who hears just about everything) put an arm around Essek and spoke.

“That’s nice.” and looked at Essek with a natural sense of hope that Essek couldn’t tolerate so he stared hard into the ground.

“Ready” Caleb said to the group. Those who knew him well picked up on the slight nerves in his voice. It would have been easy to attribute it to the long day of difficult travel, but they were all inclined to think that it was more likely to do with the wizard floating a few feet behind the rest of the group with a curious light filling his eyes. They began to file in and Jester paused at the back of the group to whisper to Caleb conspiratorially:

“Don’t worry. He’s going to like it.” and as she stepped inside, she threw her voice out to obviously and loudly proclaim:

“Oh, Caleb it is as beautiful as always! You are so talented! So amazing! So…” as she paused to look for the next description Veth cut in:

“Truly powerful. One might say a prodigy” She said making eye contact with Essek in a less than kind way before beginning to float upwards.

“Yes!” Jester began as she too started drifting upwards “an absolute prodigy! The best ever!” she feigned swooning and Beau cut her off.

“Yeah, yeah Caleb’s great. We get it. What’s for supper?”

“Uh ja” Caleb started, and he summoned a cat nearby “please prepare a good-sized roast and several -uh- vegetable dishes for our pink friend here and also some black moss cupcakes please.”

“Thank you” Caduceus said and began drifting upwards following the rest of the group. Essek looked like he was about to say something until Fjord shouted:

“UP!” right next to him and nearly caused him to leap out of his skin though he quickly recovered his unflappable mask. Everyone drifted up whilst chatting until it was just Caleb and Essek left on the platform.

“Ah I see.” Essek said as he began drifting up off the platform. “A clever design.”

“I thought that scaling many staircases seemed less than enjoyable after a day of adventuring.” Caleb put in, clearly trying to keep the pleasure at the compliment out of his voice.

“Actually, I was rather inspired by a time we found ourselves in the astral sea briefly.”

“Indeed” Essek said having some experience with the nature of that space. “I don’t believe I have heard that story yet.” He continued.

“Probably you will, some day” Caleb said and Essek could sense that this meant the tale of that particular adventure contained sensitive information, information that Caleb did not trust Essek with and he looked at his floating feet once more, unable to make eye contact with the closest friend he had had in years who was saying in no uncertain terms that he was still not to be trusted completely.

“Ah I see… someday then”.

Caleb didn’t want to leave the mood too low for too long. Afterall, he wanted to tell Essek every detail about those halls and their experiences there, but the happy fun ball seemed like it would probably be more of a temptation than was necessarily a good idea, especially if the two of them could work on it together. So, he began floating on ahead and offered Essek his hand.

“Would you like the tour then?” Essek briefly looked up at Caleb floating above him, stretching his hand down to carry him up to his level and couldn’t help but feel the weight of the visual representation of their situation. Caleb looking down, wreathed in light from above while Essek looked up at him and reached for his hand. It was almost like an art piece and he hated to give in to the symbolism.

Still, he grabbed Caleb’s hand and thought “up” to himself until they were level. Much to his surprise Caleb kept their hands intertwined as they floated up to the first floor and it was almost enough to distract Essek from the beautiful library they found themselves in next. Almost. He was a wizard after all. He couldn’t resist the sight of any good collection of books. Essek quickly moved over to the nearest shelf and began scanning title after title and slowly came to a realization.

“You create this space anew every time, correct? It’s not permanently established?”

“Ja, I create it new every time, though I try to keep it close to the same for the most part.”

“So, all of these… these only exist here meaning that these are simply books that you have memorized?” He said with audible admiration.

“Ja. I have a good mind for storing facts.” and he watched as Essek pulled a book from the shelves and began thumbing through pages and couldn’t help but feel to a certain degree as if he was being tested. Essek saw that these books were not just visual representations or the spines of Caleb’s favourite books but complete volumes, written exactly as they were. He found himself feeling that odd mix of jealousy, admiration and something else that he hadn’t quite pinned down that often-accompanied Caleb’s displays of mental prowess. He looked back at Caleb, and though he had had trouble meeting the fellow wizard’s eyes for days - he did not want to see Caleb’s disappointment - he felt compelled to make strong eye contact now to drive home his point.

“I am considered excellent at what I do. I have a keen mind. But this… this is astounding even to me.” Caleb felt the weight of his eyes on him and felt himself flushing somewhat.  

“Well… this is available to you if you wish to read, though I must let you know that many of them are in my original tongue and plenty of these are repeated. Though I have a great love of reading, I have found that I cannot fill an entire library with only my own knowledge just yet.” Essek waved his hand dismissively and Caleb saw just a small hint of the old, confident Essek peek thorough.

“I have arcane means at my disposal to translate. That is not a problem. I thank you.” He bowed his head slightly and stashed a book under his arm.

“But this is only the first floor? Though I would be happy to remain here in the library if that were your wish, I would gladly see more if you would show me?” Though he masked it well from his voice, Caleb could sense the hunger, the eagerness to see more that was familiar to him. Not for the first time, Caleb longed for simpler times in the other wizard’s tower when there was no betrayal hanging between them, simply peers enjoying the pursuit of knowledge and each other's company. Now even the memory of their victory that day felt tainted with the cost of how Essek had acquired much of his knowledge. Caleb pulled himself out of the spiral and offered:

“There is more to seen to be sure. Come. I’ll show you” and he proffered his hand once again. He knew Essek was perfectly capable of following but there was a small part of Caleb that couldn’t resist the small bit of pleasant contact between them that felt safe and distant enough, at least until he could make up his mind about what to do about Essek. Essek for his part noted the texture of Caleb’s hand, memorizing it and studying his internal reaction for future reference- when he had time to unpack all that was causing him to feel. He also noticed the scars just visible at the bottom of the arm of Caleb’s coat but chose not to interrupt this small precious moment of goodwill with a question that may bring up pain for Caleb.

And so, Caleb showed him the majority of the lower levels, going from place-to-place hand in hand, to a point where both hands were clammy and almost asleep but neither wizard was willing to give up their tenuous bond just yet. Essek thought the summoning space in the hall was “quite a brilliant solution” and Caleb informed Essek that he had had to install tiny locking doors on his cat travel system after Jester’s first polymorph escapade and thank goodness he had for Jester decided to provide Lucien with that little tidbit of advice upon first arriving. This caused Essek to actually laugh out loud which took Caleb by surprise.

“Yes, I am unsurprised by this. Jester is a talented person in her own right, but I would not describe her as pragmatic in any sense of the word.” Essek chuckled again. Caleb stopped and looked down at their joined hands a moment.

“Herr Theylyss, may I ask you something? It may be personal” Essek felt a pit of concern begin turning in his stomach but responded:

“Uh- why yes. I thought you were aware that I have made the decision to be fully -uh honest with you ever since… yes you may.” Caleb noted that Essek was fidgeting with his other hand.

“I had wondered why you seem more comfortable around Jester when it is clear that you still struggle to be at ease around … the rest of us at times? I understand that Jester is very talented at - uh-bringing out the best in people shall we say but… I had wondered…” Essek thought for a moment.

“I believe the answer is twofold. Firstly, Jester was the voice of your group to me for many months. It was through her that I was first annoyed with you all, then simply exasperated and then, I will admit, excited to hear from you. In my perspective she was the voice of my...my first friends. I believe to some degree I still expect her intrusions” He looked away at this “Secondly, I know I disappointed her as I disappointed each of you when I… when my decisions came to light but I can tell that Jester wants to forgive me and believes in the good she sees in me, just as Caduceus has hoped for me but I suppose, with the rest of you, in many ways I know that the damage is done and that the days of eating and drinking in that ridiculous hot tub are well over and I-” he paused to collect his thoughts “though I know I deserve it, it can be difficult to face that our bonds will never be what I was hoping they would be.” Essek hadn’t met Caleb’s eyes through this whole speech but a visible dark purple flush was creeping across his features.

“Ah I see.” Caleb began, “yes Jester’s capacity for seeing the positives in life is an admirable quality but” Caleb touched Essek’s chin feather light and turned his face towards him. “You do us a disservice if you think that each of us does not hold hope that you will redeem yourself or see the best in you. You would not be here if we didn’t but I have already told you… it takes time.” Both of them thought back to the moment of his discovery when Caleb managed to stop an oncoming panic attack in its tracks with a kiss on the forehead and his stalwart belief in Essek’s capacity to redeem himself. Looking into his eyes now, Essek saw something almost worse than his worst fear and the reason he been avoiding Caleb’s gaze. He had expected to see disappointment, sadness or even derision in Caleb’s eyes but instead he saw a warmth and a genuine affection that he felt undeserving of. It was never something he had seen before from anyone else; not in the eyes of his parents or siblings, the bright queen, or even his students that viewed him with adoration. Caleb had looked at him that way a few times before but Essek had not dared to hope that look remained after his deceptions were revealed. He felt a wetness swelling in his eyes, but he couldn't pull his gaze away, desperately catching every last second of affection that he could. Caleb was glad to see behind Essek’s carefully laid mask to know that he was being heard and heard truly. He ran his thumb over the soft purple skin along Essek’s jaw.

“Time.” He reiterated. Then he pulled his gaze away and broke them both out of the moment. He dropped Essek’s hand, afraid he’d clench too tightly if he didn’t, taken by a swarm of his own emotions of hurt, betrayal, and still warm caring and concern “I better leave you a little time before supper to clean up ja? Come. I will show you your room.” Essek didn’t say anything but simply nodded, hoping to clamber his mask of semi-indifference back into place.

They got to the landing with all of the doors to the individual bedrooms and both caught a glance into Yasha’s bedroom where Jester could be seen to be braiding Yasha’s hair in a particularly spectacular updo.

“Do you think Beau will like it?” Yasha wondered while looking in the mirror.

“Oh Yasha! She will love it!” Jester started a whole torrent of compliments before Caleb opened the door to the guest bedroom and both of them were distracted by the reveal.

Caleb had a tense knot in his stomach as Essek cautiously stepped, or floated rather, forward. He had hoped that this room could act as a small kind of gift, to show Essek that he still held space for him.

It was a chamber much like the rest of the bedrooms with its bathtub and fireplace, but Caleb had modified the architecture to be more reminiscent of Xhorhos, more specifically the design Caleb had seen in Essek’s tower. The furniture was inspired by that as well, though in different arrangements to accommodate the layout. Fine silver instruments laid upon the desk. Wall hangings precisely as they had appeared in Essek’s tower. There was space for mucking about and chalkboards for scribbling out theories. There was a small library space that was empty save for the books Caleb placed in every room and the large comfortable reading chair in the deep blue velvet that Caleb remembered, with the important distinction that this reading nook had two reading chairs as opposed to the one in Essek’s original study. Caleb watched as Essek floated from place to place taking in the details.

“Uh-ja” he interjected as Essek moved toward the desk. “I only included instruments I could recall from the limited view of your tower I had but if you require more, I have a study and lab that I share with Veth that you are welcome to share with us if you should have anything you wish to work on.” Essek moved over to touch one of the velvet chairs and Caleb cut in again:

“I have – that is- I know what it is like to be far from a patriot but to still miss home so I thought I could include a few familiar touches” Essek nodded silently, and Caleb worried he may have missed the mark.  Essek finally spoke near the bed:

“I haven’t used a bed in many years. I typically just trance at the desk in my study.”

“I was worried you’d say that” Caleb said rushing forward in a fervor that he only acquired when he’d had a particularly exciting idea “thus I have innovated something for wizards everywhere. This will save our necks and shoulders” He tugged on a cord by the bed and revealed on the roof of the four poster was a chalkboard with a floating bit of chalk. He laid down excitedly and pointed up and continued “it works much like transit throughout the space. Simply think what you wish, and the chalk will begin to draw” and the chalk began drawing the figures related to fortunes favor from Caleb’s notes. “This way you may think and rest your body at the same time.” Essek was craning to look up at the chalk board with a small look of amusement glowing in his eyes. It truly was a good idea but far better was the excitement in his friend that accompanied it.

“Truly inspired” he affirmed and began peering around the rest of the space when his eyes landed on the stained glass above the fireplace. Essek floated over to peer at it and Caleb sat up to watch him. The stained glass depicted the Xorhaus as the nein affectionately called the home Essek’s Den had gifted them during their time in Xorhos, with the tree growing up out of it with it’s glittering branches. And in the house could be seen 8 colourful figures sitting around a hot tub. All of the mighty nein were silhouetted in their signature colours and in the very centre were two male silhouettes looking at one another. One purple and one orange. They seemed to be laughing in their pose. Below this there was a scroll that read “Welcome to the Mighty Nein!”.

Essek’s feet hit the floor with a loud thud as he stared at this stained-glass piece. Caleb had never seen Essek lose concentration in his levitating outside of a fight before and instinctually stood up. Essek looked over and then down at his feet somewhat embarrassed.

“My apologies, uh, I just didn’t expect…” and he moved to begin the spell again.

“You have nothing to prove to me Essek.” Caleb cut him off and essek let the spell die, looking back up to the stained glass.

“I had hoped to provide you a sense of home here, but I apologize if I misjudged or over stepped. I had already designed that stained glass before our discussion earlier and I see now that it may be more harmful than helpful. Tomorrow night I can-

“It is perfect.” Essek said quietly as he stepped, actually stepped, towards Caleb, looking as if he was searching for the right thing to say before landing on:

“Thank you. I am humbled by your insight and your skill.” Caleb looked uncomfortable at such high praise and stood, uncertain what to do with himself for several moments before he began moving toward the door.

“Supper in the dining room in fifteen minutes” he said, fleeing all of the feelings that Essek’s presence had caused.

Essek spent the next fifteen minutes in quiet contemplation about the feeling of one hand in another until he heard Caleb shouting as he descended from his room:

“Supper is ready. Please come down everyone.”

Essek opened his door as the other’s spilled onto the landing as well. He heard a massive noise from upstairs roughly the direction Caleb had specified for the lab and everyone paused to look up until Veth leaned out the door with ash covering her face and said:

“I’ll be down in 5 minutes!”

“Is everything alright?” Fjord asked semi-suspiciously.

“Absolutely! Everything is fine. Perfectly and absolutely fine.” smoke was billowing out of the door and dissipating. “I just need five minutes for um...lady stuff. BE RIGHT DOWN!” she shouted as she slammed the door closed again. The rest of the mighty nein seemed to shrug somewhat to Essek’s dismay:

“Should we help her?” he enquired.

“She’s more likely to bite than accept help she hasn’t asked for” Fjord chuckled. “She does this from time to time. I’m sure it’s fine. Besides, I’m starving”. Fjord wrapped an arm around Jester and hopped off the landing and said “Down!” and they began descending. Essek could hear Jester going:

“Oh Oskar! You are so strong” and the beginnings of Fjord’s protest at the jibe.

Meanwhile Beau and Yasha were squaring off and Essek wasn’t certain if they were likely to kiss or fight or both.

“You look...really good Yasha.”

“You like it? I had never tried this style in my hair before.”

“Essek, tell Caleb we’re skipping dinner.” Beau said with some fervor

“What-” Essek began before his question was answered by Beau pulling Yasha into her room and slamming the door. “Ah… I see”. A sudden thud could be heard from the otherside of the door and Essek did not wish to question what had caused it. Suddenly a large hand was patting him on the shoulder.

“You get used to it” Caduceus said.

“What is that?”

“Being a part of something.” Caduceus finished with another pat on the shoulder, then he began to descend for supper as if he hadn’t said something that hit Essek at his very core.

They had a pleasant supper all together and planned some tactics for the next day before everyone adjourned to their various places of rest for the night. Essek went over to the library and collected an armful of books. Frumkin appeared through a little gap in the wall and Essek leaned down to him.

“Do you have a message from your master?” he said hopefully. Frumkin just butted up against him looking to be pet.

“Do you require something?” Frumkin flopped at Essek’s feet. In this moment alone, he smiled a small smile for the cat that contained none of his usual bravado. He crouched down to pet Frumkin exceedingly gently. After a few moments Frumkin was purring loudly.

“I’m glad we are still good friends at least” Essek sighed. “Do you wish to enjoy some reading with me?” Frumkin gave a slight meow that seemed like a yes and Essek picked him up and placed him on his shoulder giving him a little nuzzle on the way. They began to ascend to Essek’s room and Caleb watched them go. He felt somewhat disappointed in himself for this scheme, particularly after seeing Essek’s sweet nature with his cat, but he would not be fooled twice.

Once safely in his room Caleb watched Essek through frumkin’s eyes. He watched and waited and expected some sort of betrayal though he did not hope for one. He waited until everyone else had gone to bed and Essek was the only one remaining awake. He had expected Essek may message someone, scry or even perhaps begin taking notes of the tower. In that whole time Essek had done nothing but read and cast comprehend languages. Eventually Caleb realized he wasn’t going to do anything else. He wasn’t going to betray them. He then spent the better part of an hour wrestling with himself and doing a good amount of internal reflection before coming to a decision. He went down to knock quietly on Essek’s door.

“Yes?” Essek asked, coming to the door in the least precisely put together look Caleb had ever seen from the wizard. His hair was amuck in places, his robe was gone and the shirt beneath was half untucked and he had the slight dark purple imprint on his cheek where he had been leaning his hand. It made him look more approachable than his typical visage as the “Shadowhand”. Perhaps more endearing too.Caleb also noted he wasn’t floating and wondered if that was to do with his earlier comment.

“Have you happened to have seen my cat?” Caleb enquired. Essek was not fooled by the pretense, knowing that Caleb could summon Frumkin at will, but played along.

“Ah my apologies, I have been detaining him to keep me company while I read.” At this Frumkin ran out of the door and began weaving between Caleb’s legs.

“So, this is where you were?” Caleb enquired of him in mock surprise.

“Yes, well it seemed fitting to have him around while reading my first empire fairy tales about such a one.” Essek said brandishing the book.

“You read der katzenprinz?” Caleb asked, legitimately surprised. He had assumed that Essek would have immediately gravitated towards the arcane books.

“I started with another regarding transmutation but this one seemed a bit of an odd one out in the collection so I assumed it must be of some importance to you…” Essek paused getting slightly embarrassed and then noticing how long they had been standing in the doorway.

“Would you like to come in?”

“Actually, I had a thought, if you are too tired, we don’t have to but,” he looked almost pained and rubbed his hand across his mouth and he seemed to make a decision or resolve himself “but we had not quite finished our tour I think.”

“Oh” Essek was somewhat surprised but still eager. “Yes absolutely. Lead the way.” He placed the book on a nearby table while Frumkin ran to his exit in a hole in the wall. As they began to ascend. Essek spoke up softly:

“Is there a reason that Fjord always declares his direction?”

“Other than showmanship? Absolutely not.” Caleb replied.  At this Essek grinned while Caleb opened up the next level.

“I ask that you never come up here without me please Herr Theylyss. Please” he repeated while making pointed eye contact.

“Of course. Whatever it is your wish.” Essek responded genuinely but somewhat surprised as they came to a room full of doors. “What is this place?”

Caleb did not reply but instead said:

“I have only shown the others of the mighty nein this place.” and he opened the door labelled 1. Caleb closed the door behind them as Essek stepped into the humble space and began looking around.

“What is the significance of this house?” He asked before noting the far off look in Caleb’s face.

“Well, I wanted you to know why I found your choices so challenging to ignore. I wanted you to know why it is that I seem to understand so deeply the challenges you face in learning to forgive yourself for what you have done for it is still something I struggle with myself. Deeply.” Essek could sense the gravity of the space for Caleb and came closer.

“I wish you  for to know, as I know your greatest transgression, but you do not know mine and it seems there is an unfair imbalance between us  of late that I  hope to dispel.” Essek was surprised that Caleb thought there was anything comparable to his “transgression” as he put it but thought back to some of the sadness in Caleb and some of the truth in his eyes whenever he talked about the path ahead of Essek and knew there must be something  substantial coming.

“This was my home. I am sure it may be challenging for you to imagine ,coming from such a high-ranking family, but we were happy here.”

“Wealth does not inherently create happy families. In fact, I think it is likely the opposite” Essek put in softly. Caleb nodded and pointed to the small kitchen counter:

“My mother used to make bread here. She used to allow me to take small portions of the dough while she was kneading it and I would make little figures. I would -uh- use them as puppets and tell her stories of magnificent wizards who saved all of the empire from the evil creatures that threatened it. She would turn them into small buns when I was finished and told me that if I ate them, it was like making a wish, and that one day I might become that powerful wizard.” Caleb touched the surface of the table and closed his eyes for a long moment. Essek tentatively put a hand on his shoulder which remained until Caleb went over to the hearth.

“This is where I learned to love fire. My father would feed the flames and show me how to keep it well. He’d tell me that fire could hurt and burn but it could also sustain life. Once I became old enough to manage without harming myself, he let me create the fire every night to practice. Later I practiced control flames here, the first spell I ever learned from a spell book.” Caleb turned to Essek and held his gaze. Essek saw the shame and pain that was written in Caleb’s features.

“You have killed many good people in your thirst for knowledge and power. I … I am no different. I killed good, loving people who only wished that I could have been the powerful wizard who saved the empire… “Caleb swallowed and realization sunk in for Essek. “I killed my family and destroyed this home as a result of Trent Ikathon’s teaching methods. It was seen as a ‘required step in becoming the capable wizards we needed to be to protect our nation’. Still to this day he attests that it is what my family would have wanted though I don’t think our stories in the kitchen could have ever prepared them for their end.” Caleb paused attempting to collect himself. His hands were shaking a great deal, but he pushed forward “I have only just begun the journey to forgiving myself. I keep this room here, not to torture myself but to ensure that this happy home is never forgotten, never lost. Each room on this floor is a moment to be captured and preserved. I will show you another.” A few tears had fallen on Caleb’s face, but he did not seem to notice. Essek didn’t have feel he had an adequate response, but he did not want to leave this space without saying anything.

“You have performed your own dunemancy here. You fixed this in time. It is beautiful. Thank you for showing it to me.” Essek said, hoping he did not say the wrong thing. He had very limited experience with people he would consider loved ones and he had never lost one. Caleb didn’t say anything, but he nodded a thank you and pulled Essek across the hall to another room. It was Caleb’s bedroom in the xorhaus. Essek recognized it immediately by the charming cat figurines on the shelf.

“This was the space where you first entrusted me with dunamancy but I did not preserve it for this reason… I did so because it was the first time we worked together, and I realized you were very much someone I wished to know more. I saw a like mind in you...Essek, I understand exactly what the cost of knowledge and power can be and the folly of chasing them, you have seen this now, but I also understand that draw, that pull of power in a way almost no one else will. I know how easy it is to slip off the path and become a tool for destruction once more, and this is why I find it difficult to fully trust you as you have proven to me that we are too similar, and I do not trust myself even with that.” He had finally said it out loud. Essek had been hanging on the word trust ever since Caleb had said he was more trusted than Trent Ikathon, but here it was. More did not mean much at all. And how could Essek blame him when he was correct? They were very much alike, that was one of the things that had drawn Essek in and convinced Essek to teach Caleb dunamancy against his better judgement. Essek looked and stared at a cat figurine, willing his breath to slow, his eyes to focus. He did not understand what it was particularly that hurt him so much about Caleb having a perfectly, reasonably low opinion of him.

Caleb saw Essek beginning to have difficulty containing his emotions and he closed the space between them to once again place a small kiss on Essek’s forehead before placing his own against it. He put a hand around Essek’s neck gently pulling them together.  

“I have said it takes time and I believe that. My path out of the pit did not move straight forward and I had many setbacks, but I have begun the journey. I did so by taking small steps -and sometimes large ones - every day to leave the world slightly better than I found it.  I will never expunge my past crimes, but I can hope to maybe outweigh them in my overall impact on this world. I see you at the beginning of this journey and I know that one of the most important things in the path to redemption was having companions who walked alongside me on my way to finding it. Having the mighty nein who cared for me and loved me unconditionally, despite these terrible pieces of my past was so...essential… in my ability to begin to overcome them.” His whole body seemed to be sagging with the weight of the world and he pulled away to look in into his eyes “Essek, I know it is easy to see only our faults and everything we have done wrong, but I also know that I am still worthy of forgiveness by some, I am still worthy of friendship and chances to redeem myself and even still worthy of love. And I do not believe this myself many days but Veth and the rest of the nein refuse to allow me to forget it and on days when my belief is not enough, theirs is. And that makes me wish to strive to continue to be worthy of their belief in me. You see?”

Essek was nodding but Caleb could see he was drowning in all of his thoughts.

“Come. I have one more room to show you.” He said gently and walked out of this room. Essek blinked and felt the suddenly jarring distance between them and followed Caleb out of the room. His mind was a swarm.

Caleb placed his hands out for Essek who looked at him somewhat quizzically but took them, nonetheless. They floated up while facing one another to the final floor and Caleb revealed it to him. The floor inspired by dunamancy. Essek’s jaw dropped, and his head swivelled as he took in the room.

“It is no secret that I have a great interest in your craft, but I bring you up here not to remind you of all the power to be gained or lost but to show you of what you already have. You have unlocked so many secrets of the world, but you were never given the chance to study the most important lesson. One that also eluded me for many years. All of this “Caleb gestured out” feels so important, the stretching endless expanse of time and the motes of possibility that we can affect. But” he said firmly “It is not nearly as important as the moment we are living right now, and the people that we share that with.” Essek peeled his eyes off the expanse around them and turned his attention back to Caleb who was looking at him with an expression that he had only seen once before as they unlocked the key to the transmogrification spell. It was a mix of adrenaline, elation, apprehension and excitement. Caleb was building up to something and all Essek could do was be shocked that he was floating in this space of utter beauty and being looked at like that, as if he were the most important thing in the room, as if he was a great spell Caleb was trying to learn the inner workings of.

He began to understand the lesson Caleb was trying to impart as he could not pull his eyes away, despite being surrounded by a veritable playground for his mind, his focus was solely affixed to Caleb and what he would say next. He understood what Caleb meant to say with this room about what really mattered in a way that surprised even Essek himself. Caleb tightened his grasp on Essek’s hands and continued.

“If you will allow me to, herr Theylyss, I wish to do for you what has been done for me. I wish to be the person that reminds you that you can and will find your way back to the light. I wish to be the person who believes in you when you cannot believe in yourself, though I suspect I already have Jester’s help with that.” he quirked a small smile “ I wish to be the one who keeps you in the moment and moving forward. I wish to hold your hand” and he looked down at their joined hands “through your journey to finding yourself.” He squeezed their hands together tightly and then he looked back up with nerves clattering “Essek, you are important to me and I have felt a bond with you since the first time we studied together.  That has not gone or broken the way you seem to believe. You have hurt me, yes, but I am still here to hold your hand and hoping that you will prove that my forgiveness is not for nothing. Hoping that you will find a way to be prove that all of this love that I feel for you is not unjustified... for I do not wish for it go to waste.” He searched Essek’s expression and found it unreadable.

Years of practice freezing his face in moments of panic had caused Essek to almost completely shut down while he attempted to process a response. He pulled away from Caleb slightly and sought to pull his hands into a robe he realized he wasn’t wearing. He wished he could hide how his hands were inclined to fidget.

“I uh-” He began “This is much to process.” Essek stammered out. Caleb was already feeling disappointment seep in. He knew that he had thrown a lot of uncomfortable feelings at Essek in a short amount of time, but he had hoped that there would be at least a degree of enthusiasm for his final declaration. Still, he did not want to pressure Essek.

“Of course.” Caleb said failing to hide his disappointment. “I will leave you to your thoughts Herr Theylyss” he said nodding in a formal way.

Essek was still simply busy processing the word love. He was turning it over in his mind and examining it as it was a fully novel concept to him. He tested out how it felt as a description of that odd feeling of warmth in his chest and stomach when he saw Caleb get excited, or smile, or that small tug at an invisible rope in his chest that could be felt when he saw Caleb being good at, well, almost anything. He considered if that had been why Caleb’s opinion had mattered so much more than most. And here he was, standing before Essek and telling him that he could have that love returned. That he felt that way about him. That he was somehow deserving despite all of the things that he had done.

He thought then how he had felt nothing but sympathy and sorrow for Caleb as he heard of what he had done to his parents. He did not blame him for his foolishness in trusting and believing in the things Trent Ikathon had said. Could Essek really be given the same grace?

Around the time that Caleb was just beginning to descend out of the room, Essek’s mind finally caught up with what he had said.

“No!” Essek shouted. “No. No. I did not mean it this way. I just-“ Essek took a breath and felt the mask slipping away and for once he allowed himself to be laid bare in front of someone. Caleb rose back up to his level. “I don’t know if I have ever been loved in the way that you have described. It simply took me a moment to understand. You spoke of loving parents, but I have never been more than a means to end for my family. I was a product of incredible amounts of pressure but never loving care or attention. I was to be useful. Then I became the shadowhand and I had to be distant from the rest. It was my duty to be useful to the bright queen, but it only alienated me further from my peers. It made it easy to betray them when the chance was offered because I had never been close with any of them. I regret so much of what I have done, all the pain that I have caused” Essek grabbed at his own hair and Caleb was surprised to see him allowing himself to be this expressive “but it is made far worse now knowing what friendship and love can be like. To think that I caused people to go off and fight in a war that did not matter and worse that both sides felt losses comparable to what I would feel if you were to be harmed. It feels almost unbearable to know that I could have caused that much pain” Essek began sputtering, tears streaming down his face. “And still, you stand before me and say that I am worthy of redemption and that I am worthy of love?” Essek was ranting now but it was as if so many of the feelings he had always held down couldn’t help but burst forth now that they were given a small bit of freedom. Caleb wrapped his arms around him and held him close, with one hand stroking his hair. Essek rambled on “you had it right when you said I had missed an essential lesson along the way. How could I have been so blinded by my research and studies to never see that the people they would benefit were the point, not knowledge for knowledge’s own sake? And still, you hold me as if I am something precious rather than wretched. It is a kindness greater than I deserve for truthfully, I can tell that you know the weight of what you have done, but until today, until now, I still had never comprehended the depths of the pain my actions caused… to so many.”

At this Essek dissolved into sobs and Caleb held him through them. He kept stroking Essek’s hair and gave him small soft kisses on the top of his hair and waited for the sobbing to peter out. He did everything he wished someone could have done for him when he was going through this. Eventually it seemed Essek had cried himself out. He was still shaking and there were tear lines stained into his purple skin, but he pulled himself back a little to look at Caleb. Before Essek could apologize again Caleb said again:

“It takes time.” Essek nodded sadly and put his hand out for Caleb who clasped it and kissed it his knuckles lightly. “But.” Caleb continued “that does not mean you must spend it alone. I meant what I said. If you wish to be loved and reminded of all the things you are worth and what makes the moment worth living in, I am happy to offer that to you. And perhaps together we can work to make the world a little bit better than when we found it ja? So no other young people go unloved or get led astray?”

Essek was still feeling a whole spectrum of emotions but was able to centre himself enough to unabashedly meet Caleb’s eyes and spoke.

“Yes, I think I would very much like to do that, but with one stipulation.” Caleb smiled at the return of some of Essek’s former, confident demeanor “I know you have many in your life with more experience in affection than I, but I would like to offer my love, as … untested as it imay be, in trade. Together we can hypothesize,experiment and test its bounds until you believe it is up to your standards? Do these conditions seem fair to you?” Caleb was smiling in a way that made Essek pleased, and caused him to consider being reckless once more.

“Ja I think that is accepta-” and before Caleb could finish, Essek pulled him into a kiss. He wrapped his arms around Caleb’s waist and Caleb’s hands found their way into Essek’s hair. They kissed deeply and with the release of the many conflicting emotions both of them had felt over the past weeks.

Essek found the texture of Caleb’s lips and stubble to be a bit surprising but planned on savouring every bit of the feeling. He approached this kiss almost like learning a new spell from Caleb, and followed his lead through the unfamiliar, for though Essek had kissed before, never with much feeling behind it, and this was an entirely different experience. His heart was pounding in his ears, his chest felt full of fireworks and there was something that felt hooked inside of both of them, drawing them closer. It was a startling powerful sensation.

Caleb was surprised not only by the kiss but by the intensity it quickly developed. He felt Essek’s hands pushing into his back and keeping him close, and the soft strands of essek’s hair moving beneath his fingers and the warmth of Essek’s lips and was intoxicated, drinking in every last bit of the experience that he could.

Finally, they broke apart, both flushed and breathing heavily. Essek found himself smoothing down the front of Caleb’s shirt for something to do and pulling a few pieces of cat hair off of it as he asked:

“May I ask something of your path to redemption?” He continued to try to compose his features but couldn’t resist the smile that kept making itself known on his face. It was a broader smile than Caleb had ever seen on Essek and it made his chest squeeze. He thought it would be a new mission of his to procure that smile more often.

“Yes Essek?”

“If we do not have to be alone, are we also allowed happiness? For I must admit that I think this is the happiest I have been in… sometime, perhaps ever.” Caleb thought and looked serious.

“I think so yes. I have to believe that is so.”

“In that case, I think we should kiss more often.” And at that Caleb laughed a full and genuine laugh and kissed Essek on the cheek following by cupping his face in his hands, allowing his thumb draw over the spot that was just kissed.

“Ja. That can certainly be arranged.” and he pulled Essek’s face down for another kiss on the forehead. “But for tonight I think it best if we both get some rest.” He grabbed Essek’s hand once more and descended into the tower, closing doorways behind them until they stopped at Essek’s room.

“I think I may need some time to wind down after all of that” Essek admitted.

“I think I shall be similar.” Caleb agreed.

“In that case, do you wish to read a while with me? Only I had noticed someone had placed 2 chairs in my reading nook.” Essek said with a conspiratorial smile. Caleb seemed to debate with himself a moment before coming in.

“But if I do not recover my spells, I will have to blame you Theylyss.”

“These terms are acceptable to me” Essek replied with a smile that belied his serious tone. And they each took an armchair and began reading, with their hands held between them.

Eventually Essek awoke from a trance he hadn’t even noticed he’d fallen into. His book had fallen into his lap and his hand had drifted out of Caleb’s somewhere in the night. He only required a short trance to be rested but Caleb would need more sleep and was currently snoring lightly from his armchair. Essek cautiously placed both of their books aside and used his levitation spell to float Caleb gently over to the bed. He tucked Caleb in and gave him the gentlest kiss on the forehead and then used the chalkboard above the bed to scrawl I was worried about your neck and shoulders which he felt had just the right amount of cheeky touch.

Essek pondered getting into the bed as well but felt it may be too presumptuous, so instead he sat at the desk at his study and began writing out the events of the night, hoping to capture it’s every detail. Though he had a good memory, he hoped to preserve this turning point for himself the way Caleb preserved history in his rooms upstairs. So, he wrote while Caleb slept.

When the hustle and bustle of the others moving about the tower finally awoke Caleb, he had the moment of concern that arises when waking in a different spot than where you fell asleep, until he saw the message above the bed and smiled to himself.

“The world better watch out if one kiss is all it takes to get Essek Theylyss to start writing jokes” Caleb called out to the room.

Essek came over, looking somehow more perfect than ever this morning (Caleb being unaware that Essek had fussed by the mirror for 20 minutes for the perfectly tousled look…) and handed Caleb a coffee that he had summoned via the cat system. Caleb took it gratefully as he sat up in bed and Essek came to sit next to him on the edge of the bed.

“Imagine what will happen after 2,3 or even 100 kisses?” Caleb continued his jibe. Essek simply raised an eyebrow at him:

“I suppose we will have to test it to find out.”  

“I suppose we will” Caleb replied with a grin.

[k7l4d4]

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 6

Once more, we delve into the world of Midnight Striga! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

Eda roared, leaping toward the man, the monster, who had just casually murdered a child right in front of her!! Whipping her staff down to crush his skull, she was caught dumb when he casually leaned out of the way, a frost clad fist slamming into her face as she fell forward. A gasp of pain burst out as she was sent sprawling. Luckily, Eda had been in plenty of brawls. Gathering her wits, she tucked into a roll, coming up flat on her feet.

“If you think I’ll go easy on you ‘cause you’re human, you’ve got another thing coming!!” She shouted, eyes glancing at Lily, still prone against the wall. What was up with her, this was an emergency!! She growled, shifting herself to spring between Lily and the goons following that monster.

“Go... easy... on me? Pfft HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!” The bastard laughed, actually laughed!, at Eda’s claim, as if the idea that she could beat him was so utterly ridiculous it deserved nothing but ridicule. The fact that his goons echoed him was like rubbing salt in the wound. “That- That was truly amusing!! In exchange for that wonderful jest, allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed, a mocking leer stretched across his face. “I am Rudolph Cranwin, practitioner of the most noble art of Frost Magic, not that I ever really cared about the alleged nobility of it; twas but another tool for me to kill with, nothing more. I look forward to seeing how long I can drag out your demise!!” He said cheerfully, as if her death would be the highlight of his day.

‘To this piece of shit, it might very well be.’ Eda bitterly thought to herself. Her thoughts were cut off by his next words.

“However,” Rudolph mused, “This crowd truly is far too large. Better to thin it out a bit before I let my precious brethren have their fun.” He raised his hand, a cold wind building into a ball in his palm. Eyes widening in shocked comprehension, Eda lunged forward, a massive ball of flames building along Owlbert. She had to get there in time, she needed to! If she didn’t… Rudolph gave her a mocking smile. “Too late, Owl Lady. Winter Spite.” With those two words, the ball exploded in all directions. A huge burst of extreme cold, so deep that it effortlessly extinguished Eda’s building spell, ripped through the stadium. In an instant, the entire place was coated in frost. Just from what she could see on the ground, Eda saw several Demons and Witches in the crowd frozen in place, ice and frost coating their bodies; from the few she could clearly see, at minimum twenty had died, a quarter of which were children. The smallest she could see looked to be about five. As if some signal had gone off, the hoard of Mages lurking behind Rudolph burst forth, screaming in bloody rage, sickening grins coating their faces, spells primed to rip and tear.

“Tree Shot!” “Big Head Blast!” “Sword Beam!” “Wind Cleave!”

Eda braced herself for the attacks; a tree root tore out of the ground, ripping across Eda’s ribs, a spell shaped like a giant head rocketed past her, a beam of light shaped like a blade cut into the stadium, and slashes of winds tore at the bystanders. And more. So many more. They weren’t all incredibly powerful, but they all had something in common; the palpable desire to hurt leaked out of each and every one. Bearing her fangs, Eda whirled around, launching a wave of magic upwards, cutting off as many spells as she could. Her quick timing was used against her, however, when a blast of cold smashed against her back, sending her flying.

“Ah, ah, ah! No interfering with the games, Owl Lady!” Rudolph mockingly chided. She turned her head towards him, eyes burning with hate. He merely grinned. “If the crowd wishes to live, they must defend themselves, or have one of their own act as a champion! You, and your sister I suppose, are my prey.” Rushing into her guard, his palm glowed. “Winter Punt.” A burst of frigid air formed underneath her gut, angled upward, and as it released, Eda choked on her own air as it drove her into the sky.

What was with this guy!? She had decimated Lily earlier, and while she was feeling some of the effects of pushing herself that hard, that quickly, she shouldn’t be this hampered. She sighed, freezing up as she saw her breath, as if she was in the middle of winter. She looked down, and saw her limbs coated in patches of frost, weighing her down, slowing her reactions, and who knows what else. She genuinely didn’t even feel the cold, not really, but her body was acting as if she was naked in a blizzard!!

Rudolph smirked. “I see you’ve noticed.” He chuckled, slowly stalking towards the Witch and her prone sibling. “Yes, a fun little aspect of my magic is that it clings to the body of those it hits, slowing them, filling them with cold, stilling the flow of magic. The longer our fight goes on, the slower, weaker, and more feeble you will become.” He cocked his head, a look of mockingly fake sympathy playing across his features. “Oh, how tragic, to be cut down so short.” He cackled, an uproarious sound that resounded through the arena.

“Bastard.” Eda bit out, trying and failing to flake the frost off her limbs. “If I wasn’t dealing with this, he’d be flatter than paper!!” She glanced back at her sister, still stuck in that pose from where she had dropped, dead to the world, tears pooling at her feet. ‘What’s up with you, Lily? We don’t have time for this! ...Please, whatever’s going on, I’ll help you, but you have to snap out of it!’

Luz growled as she and the others passed by yet another corpse, this one bearing the distinctive signs of Retic’s harvesting; the chest ripped open, organs carefully partitioned and severed from the surrounding tissue, and the corpse tossed aside like a rag doll, whatever body parts he didn’t take flopping uselessly. The others stoically pointed forward, steadfastly ignoring the gore and death surrounding them; they knew that if they stopped, they wouldn’t continue. But with each corpse, each tragedy they passed, the burning rage built up within them.

“So…” Willow drawled, trying to distract them from the horrors surrounding them. “You mentioned you were a member of this group. What was that like?” She instantly felt like kicking herself, but it was the only thing she could think of off the top of her head.

Luz snorted, but decided to answer; it would come out eventually. “I wasn’t a member of the Black Dog Squad specifically, but I often got saddled to them; they provided a big, bloody distraction, I completed the objective, whether it was stealing a priceless relic, assassinating an enemy, or just setting the pieces for something bigger in motion, I got it done. I hated every second of it.” It was truly the most painful chapter of her life, bar nothing.

“If you hated it, why did you join?” Amity stated more than asked. Truthfully, Amity cringed at the accusatory note in her voice; all of this pain was like nothing she had experienced before. The fact that the girl in front of her, that snarky, selfless, free-spirited girl had been in any way connected to a group capable of this? It was jarring. She had to know why.

Luz gave a small chuckle, the kind of empty, hollow ache that only came from someone trying to humor the most tragic and heartbreaking of requests. “I didn’t exactly want to join. Suffice to say, I entered Oroboros’ field of vision when I interfered in a few of their operations, not that I knew it at the time. They ended up deciding to pay me a visit. The reason? Join them, or someone will die.”

Gus cocked his head in perplexedness, deciding to ask what he felt they all were thinking. “Well, you didn’t seem to have a problem sacrificing yourself earlier.” He hoped he didn’t sound accusing, but it really was confusing to him.

Luz snorted, morbidly amused. “I never said I was the one being threatened with death.” She calmly replied, causing the others to pause for a second. Luz continued, nonchalant. “Yeah, whenever Oroboros decides it wants someone in its ranks, but they have a few too many morals, they take a hostage, someone that person cares about dearly.” The others felt a sinking feeling at Luz’s words, as she rambled on. “Whenever the recruit talks back, their hostage gets beaten. Whenever they fail, their hostage has a limb broken. Whenever they succeed, the hostage gets a wonderful meal, after having been deprived of all but the bare minimum of food and water needed to keep them alive during the extent of the mission of course. Every aspect of an Objectionary Recruit’s time with Oroboros, someone like myself, is intertwined with the health and safety of their hostage. If the Recruit dies, so does the hostage.” She finished, walking on.

The others exchanged alarmed glances, before Willow spoke up, voice loaded with uncertainty. “Then… did you leave your hostage behind?” She didn’t think Luz had, none of them did, but the only other alternative…

“HAHA!!” Luz cackled, as if what she asked was funny. “No. No I didn’t. They begged me to leave, to save myself, to do the right thing. But I didn’t! I stayed. I killed, and stole, and ruined countless lives, for the life of someone dear to me. But, ultimately, it was for nothing. A guard, one who would’ve been a perfect fit for the Black Dogs if it weren’t for his lack of magical training, decided he wanted to have some fun. My hostage took exception to that. An hour later, their bodies were found. The guard had been strangled with his own belt… my hostage had a knife slid into her liver.” She turned her head towards the others, an almost beatific look on her face. “It’s hard to threaten someone with a hostage when they’re dead, afterall.” And then, Luz laughed, the broken, empty laugh of someone who didn’t know how to find any other way to make it stop hurting.

And so the group moved onward in silence, the Witchlings carefully ignoring the splotches of tears that followed behind them; they didn’t want to tell Luz she’d been crying ever since she started talking.

Boscha growled, hastily ducking under another clumsy swing from the disgusting pile of fat in front of her. With a roar, she leapt into the air, an axe kick launched for the fat thing’s head, a curved blade of bloody flames trailing in its wake. She yelped when he caught her kick, slamming her into the ground with a painful Crack! Cursing, she bobbed under another lunge, slamming a burning fist into his stomach, something that prompted a horrific squeal from the disgusting beast.

His smile dimmed, Fatso charged Boscha with a roar, his mouth distending into the massive chasm of flesh he used to swallow his foes. Screaming in challenge, Boscha belted out a burst of flames, gushing from her mouth; it was an honestly surreal experience to be literally breathing fire!! Fatso squealed, flailing back from the flames that avoided his colossal mouth. Boscha smirked. ‘So I just have to keep him from eating my attacks, eh?’

“Try and eat this, you fat fuck!” She shouted, unleashing a wave of flames. Even if he ate some of it, the rest would scorch him badly, something Fatso was apparently smart enough to realize. With a shocking level of agility and strength, he hurled himself into the air, beaming in childish delight. Out of the line of fire, he opened his maw, inhaling with all he had; the massive wave of flames was sucked into his gut. Boscha cursed. Why wasn’t this working!? Her flames, her damnable flames, the one thing she could reliably use, were worthless against this creep!! Whispers started creeping in, the sound of screams building in her head. She shook it off as best she could; she knew trying to fend it off was temporary, but she couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“Oooooohhh you’re a funny one! IIiiiiiiii’llll have lots of fun tenderizing you!” Fatso cheered, rushing up to Boscha, slamming his corpulent fists into her legs, a scream of agony ripping out of her throat; he had definitely snapped a bone or two. Before she could move, he gripped her by the skull, violently slamming her against the stone. “Iiiiii’mmmm gonna have so much fun with you, and when you get all nice and tender, I’ll get to eat you all up! Wooooonnnnn’ttttt that be fun!?” He kicked her in the stomach, her lunch spilling out in response. “Aaaaaawwwww, you lost all that food! Tttthhhhaaaaattt’ssss no good! Nooooowwwwww you won’t taste as yummy when you get in my tummy!” He whined, hurling her away in annoyance. He pursed his lips, placing a pudgy finger on them. “HHHhhhmmmmm maybe I’ll have better luck if I try finding that scarf girl?”

Boscha’s eyes snapped open. Shakily rising to her feet, she screamed. “YOU KEEP AWAY FROM HER!!” With a roar, she rushed him, only for him to dismissively backhand her away, not even bothering to look at her.

“YYyyyoooouuu’rrrrrreee no fun anymore.” He said without a glance, waddling off. “Aaaaaaalllllll you can do is throw that stupid fire. Nnnnoooooo fun, no fun at all eating the same stupid trick.”

“Fun?” Boscha whispered, eyes widening in incredulousness. “You think this is supposed to be FUN!?” She half-screamed. Tears started building in her eyes. “HOW IS KILLING US, ATTACKING US WHEN WE’VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU, SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!?!?!?”

“Hhhuuuuuuuhhhh? Wwwwwhhhhaaatttt kinda stupid question is that? IIiiiiiittttt’ssss fun because I’m strong, and you’re weak.” He said, as if saying that the sky was red, or that plants were purple. “Tttthhhheeee boss said that, because I’m part of Oroboros, I can do whatever I want, eat anything I want, anyone I want, because I’m strong and they can’t stop me, so whatever I do is fun, because I say it’s fun!!” He cheerfully explained. “Eeeeaaaaatttttiiinnnnnggg is so much fun, I could eat forever!!!! BBbbuuuuuuttttt when I eat people-meat, it’s even more fun, because they give the bestest screams when they go in my tummy!!” He patted his gut for emphasis.

Boscha’s blood pounded in her ears. Strong? This… fat piece of TRASH thought he was strong!? No… he didn’t know the meaning of the word. She had seen real strength. He might’ve been powerful, but he wasn’t strong. If he faced someone with real strength, he’d be crying like a bitch. Boscha pulled herself to her feet, utterly indifferent to her previous pain, nothing but burning rage flowing through her veins at the moment. Flames sparked, sputtered… and raged. Boscha wasn’t sure if she was fully conscious at the moment, but she didn’t care. This bastard had threatened one of the few things in this life she actually cared about still, and he had the balls to pretend he knew what strength was, and that he was strong?

Flames pooled at her feet. In a burst of heat, Boscha zipped to Fatso’s side, fist cocked back. With a roar filled with the rage of a wild animal, Boscha slammed her fist so hard against his gelatinous face, she would swear later that she felt his bones bend around her fist. “You think you’re strong?” She asked, the deathly calm doing nothing to hide the burning hate hidden within.

As Fatso rocketed back, eyes snapped wide open in disbelief, Boscha rushed in, flame-clad knee slamming into his gut, watching in grim amusement as he coughed up a mix of blood and miscellaneous bits, whether the blood was his own or not was up for debate. “You don’t know anything about strength.” She ducked under his clumsy swing, landing a clean blow to the throat, prompting him to choke. “Strength isn’t about lording what power you have above someone else.” She slammed across his face, knuckles landing a solid hit to his eyes. “It isn’t acting as if you’re above the same rules and laws everyone has to follow.”

He grunted, and roared, swinging both arms down towards her skull. She leaned back, letting the attack whiff by, slamming home a kick to his chin. “It’s about making a difference.” She caught his next punch, her eyes narrowing at the panic in his gaze. “It’s about looking after what’s precious to you.” She twisted his arm to the side, prompting a squeal of pain. His eyes furrowed, before he lunged forth, attempting to swallow her, only for her to catch his face with her free hand, fingers covering his eyes and digging into his temples, arresting his movement. “It’s what happens when you stop standing on the sidelines to cruelty, or acting to further cruelty yourself.” Flames started licking up her arm, prompting Fatso to start struggling.

“I don’t think you’ve ever seen real strength before.” She casually continued, ignoring his screams as the flames scorched his face. “I wonder, if I had never seen real strength, would I have turned out as something like you?” She pondered, even as Fatso begged and pleaded for her to let go. “Even so…” She murmured, glaring at Fatso, even as his skin blackened and peeled under her grip. “How can you call yourself strong… when you’re losing to someone AS WEAK AS ME!?!?!?!?” She screamed, wetness pouring down her face. She screamed and screamed and screamed, all while the skin, fat, flesh, and what little muscle remained of his body all turned to ash, tears pouring down her face all the while. When all that was left was his scorched, pitted, blackened skeleton, Boscha fell to her knees, tears falling in pools. “I’m so sorry I’m weak. Maybe if I was stronger… you wouldn’t have had to die so slowly.” And with those words, Boscha fell, her strength spent.

[why-i-ask]

I've been wanting to do things with these prompts for ages but I don't have art skills. So, >-< writing. Big long. 

-Star Guardian AU -

It’s the sound of the old school clock striking three that draws Ezreal’s attention away from blankly staring at the pages of an old chemistry book. It’s hard to think of school when you have an alter ego living in a galaxy above saving the world every night. He Exhales and closes the book finding it pointless to pretend any longer. 

“Something wrong?” Chipped the soft voice of the pink haired mage besides him.

He flinched he’d almost forgotten he invited Lux to study with him. 

“No just, can’t focus.”

“I get that, why don’t we get coffee?”

“This place has a coffee shop?” Ezreal mused, he’d never really looked around outside of their shared accommodation. He wanted to explore the stars not the streets. 

“Yea, It’s really cute. Also is hiring-” Lux smiled, tapping his shoulder as she strutted past him.

“I think I’ve got enough work to do.” He rolled his eyes, standing up and tucking the books back into his bag. 

Ezreal would be lying if he said Lux was wrong. The place was adorable. A small shop on the corner, with little ivory tables and chairs set about it’s front protected by a brown fence decked in vines, the open sign was a soft lavender, shimmering in the window. As they opened the door, the old chimes range overhead. The inside was an array of pastels, the walls in a soft lemon, with the tables and chairs were in a checked mint. The counter was a baby blue, he stared at the array of cakes in their display trays at one side, as they approached the cashier straighten. He was a young male, perhaps the same age as them working some part time for extra cash. He looked tired though, the dark shades under his eyes even visible with his dark chocolate skin. 

“Hey, Can I take your order?”

“Yea- Do you guys still do that amazing strawberry cheesecake?” Lux chimed. 

“That was last weeks special, this time is raspberry it rotates every week.”

“Hm, shame. Then just two super choco brownies and a strawberry smoothie for me- What do you want Ez?” She turned to look at him, drawing the cashier’s attention to him as well. 

Ezreal bit his lip he hadn’t payed enough attention to the menu; he scrunched his face up in thought, the Cashier rolled his eyes messing with a lose strand of his white hair that had escape the taming of a messy bun. 

“Take your time, there’s not a queue yet.” He hummed, “before turning round to the kitchen outlet, “Tal, can you start fix up the order on screen..”

Ezreal sighed, glancing back across the small menu on the desk, his eyes glancing across the sweets. “uhm, Can I have a latte and a caramel slice?”

The cashier smiled slightly, “Sure, got a name for that?”

“uh, Ezreal-”

“Great. You tow paying separately or together?”

“I’m paying,” Lux smiled, “It’s my treat afterall, long day.”

Ezreal was about to protest but lux elbowed him and he decided against it. There wasn’t much point in arguing she could be stubborn she got that from Jinx. 

“Your total is 28.50. You can sit down if you like. we’ll bring it to your table. ” 

Lux grinned fishing around her purse for a few notes handing them over, before turning and grabbing Ezreal arm, pulling him to one of the corner tables. 

“What do you think?” She hummed, nudging the table décor to the side. 

“It’s nice..”

“No, I know that- I mean him.”

Ezreal blinked, she was really trying to set him up like that? She really wanted him to move on. “No.”

“C’mon, why not? Star guardian too busy for love? You weren’t to busy to run after me-”

“That was different. I don’t have to keep anything secret from you.”

Lux sighed and shook her head, the spacebuns she had decided to sport seemed to lag in their movements. “Not everything has to be about saving the universe.” 

Ezreal huffed, She was right and he didn’t like that. He wanted to pretend it could entirely be about fighting monsters; saving the world being a hero. mysterious, adored. Yet she was right he had a real life too. They were sat in silence for only a few minutes, watching other guests enter, sit down to chat or walk away with a small coffee. Then the server approached, she must’ve also been a part time hire; though she was much more lively than the cashier. Her short brown hair tied in spacebuns almost twinning lux’s current hairstyle, which caused a grin to spread across her face. Her bright chestnut eyes glittered with excitement as she set the tray down on the table. 

“Hey, sorry for the wait. Brownies and a strawberry smoothie.” she hummed, setting down the plate and glass before lux. 

“Thank you! it’s not a problem!”

“and a caramel slice and coffee for....Asreal?” Her face scrunched slightly as she glanced at the cup to read before placing it down with the plate before Ezreal. 

“Thanks-” He hummed, though his attention was drawn to the bad spelling of his name on the cup. He didn’t think it was that hard to spell. 

She picked up the empty tray, “Enjoy! If you want anything else feel free to ask!”

“We will, Thank you...Taliyah? I love the hair by the way.” Lux grinned, leaning over slightly to look at the name tag on the waitress’ pastel red uniform. 

Taliyah practically glowed at the compliment, 

“Next-” It was the fairly loud shout from the Cashier that drew her attention and caused her to hurry back to behind the counter.

Lux giggled picking up a brownie and biting into it. “What about her?”

“Lux! I’m not that pathetic to have a crush on just anyone who’s nice to me!” 

She laughed, “of course not~ I’m teasing.”

Ezreal huffed, sipping from the latte. It was bittersweet and hot- perhaps he should’ve specified the sugar addition and waited- He place it back down trying not to wince at the slight burn. 

“but I do mean it, you need to get out more. In the real world.”

He sighed, taking a bit from the caramel square. “I know.”

 Lux was quick to pick up on the irritation in his tone and turned the conversation swiftly to the subjects of school; English to be precise. some of play by a dead guy Ezreal had since forgotten the name of. She was quite happy to chatter on allowing him brief moments to interrupt with his own thoughts. They remained in the shop for perhaps thirty minutes, the snacks gone and drinks drunk before lux’s finally finished her rant. 

“oh my, is that the time? We should head back and meet up with the other’s.”

Ezreal nodded standing up, he piled the plats and cups up before they took their leave. 

                                                            ~~~ 

It was Saturday evening, sitting board in the longue watching Soraka and lulu  playing chess on the old coffee table. When Lux, swung round again, “Hey guys.. before we have our movie night why do we go out?”

“where? Y’know those restaurants are just so pricey and not worth it-”

“What about the cafe?”

“that lil shop on the corner near school?” Lulu tilted her head. “It always smells so nice.”

“Yeah. It’s got pretty good prices.”

So they made the walk off to the corner shop, the dwindling light of the day fading into the sunset as the approached the familiar ivory décor though it was now glowing in a soft umber from the fading light. 

They entered the shop to the familiar jingle of the chimes, This time the cashier was their server; Taliyah. Her hair still tied in it’s space buns, She smiled upon seeing them enter. 

“Hello! What can i get you today?”

Lulu giggled, standing on her tippy toes to peer over the counter, “a menu if you wouldn’t mind-”

“Ah-” Taliyah quickly picked up the sheet on the counter and handed it to her. 

“I’ll have lemon meringue pie, and a J20?” Lux hummed, “never tried the pie before..”

“That sounds great- oh they have apple pies too- I’d like one of those.” Soraka said, glancing back to Ezreal and lulu. 

“Uhm, A latte I suppose with just two sugars- and...a chocolate sundae.”

“ooh! Oh! chocolate sundae with waffles!” Lulu piped up placing the menu down. 

“Do you have a name for your latte?” Taliyah smiled, stifling a laugh at lulu’s reaction as she tapped it into the register again.

“Uhm, Ezreal- But it’s spell with an E.” 

Taliyah shrugged. “Alright...And you’re paying with?” 

“Oh i’’ll paying, You guys can just pay me back later makes everything easier.” Soraka said interupting lux’s offer to just pay the whole thing again. 

“Thanks roka!” 

“Great, your total is 42.69.” Taliyah hummed, “Feel free to sit down and we’ll bring it out...”

Soraka paid and they returned to one of the booths in the side. 

“She’s very nice.”

“Yeah, I wonder if she’s the only one on today, He’s not here today- oh what was his name tag?”

Ezreal shrugged, he hadn’t payed too much mind to the cashier beyond how tired he seemed and the jokes lux had made. 

“Well their not too busy now so they probably don’t need that many people on.” Lulu grinned, before turning to Soraka and pulling out some playing cards. “go fish?”

“You know you always lose...”

“This time i’ll win! I’ve been practicing!”

Soraka laughed softly and took the cards to deal out, Ezreal declined the offer to play. It was more fun to watch than participate in with the way the two could get aggressive. 

A few minutes passed before the counter door swung open and the male from yesterday stepped over carrying a tray brimmed with their order. 

“Evening...” He hummed, a slight grin twisting on his face as he set down each of the treats before each of them. 

He looked at least somewhat happier than last time, though he still seemed tired, Ezreal wondered why, it couldn’t be that hard. Just sitting in the quiet shop all day serving food. Not even everyday of the week? Maybe with school work a little tough. But it shouldn’t be difficult. He hardly notice the other say his name as he handed him the latte. 

“Careful it’s hot.” 

“Thanks..” He hummed, forcing a smile as he flicked his gaze down to see the name tag. “...Ekko.”

“Enjoy guys.” The server;  Ekko hummed as he turned away, this time his hair wasn’t perfectly in it’s high bun but instead it was tied in a mix between a bun and a ponytail as if done up in a hurry. 

“So? Still no?” 

He turned back to face lux and scowled. “Come off it..”

“you’re staring though..”

“He looks tired, don’t know what he has to be tired about he’s not the one saving the world-.” He huffed, brushing off the hint she was giving him. He glanced down to his latte and blinked. Ah. 

‘Ezreel’ He guess he did say with an E. Another misspelling. He shrugged it off, and moved on to pick up the spoon and take a scoop of ice cream. 

Another pleasant night of laughs as lux and Soraka gushed over their favourite movies. Lulu chiming in with her own takes on each film. 

Ezreal didn’t though he listened intently his thoughts were more about how he could get them to spell his name right. That and considering if perhaps Ekko had some secret double life of action that could give him a reason to be so tired; though that was more down to his own bias. Once again they left after forty minutes, placing the empty dishes neatly piled together for ease of collecting. 

Returning back home in time to find Ahri and jinx had picked the movie for them. 

                                                        ~~~

He returned to the coffee shop a few times over the course of the next few weeks. Sometimes accompanied by Lux or lulu other times alone, Yet every time. Regardless of who was one till, he ordered a latte; he’d catch Ekko stifle a laugh at his order, or drop a smirk as he handed him his drink and with out fail there would be a misspelling; Ezrel, Izreel, Aseraphel, Esral, Ezrela. 

He huffed, stubborn and determined as he strolled through the door listening to the chimes ringing once more. He approached the counter, to see the white haired male restocking the display. He glanced up and smiled, 

“What can i get you?”

“Usual a Latte...”

“Got a name for it?” 

“Ezreal. That’s E-Z-”

“I know.” He laughed waving his hand to dismiss him. “Anything else?”

“uhm- no-”

“Wait a second then-”

He watched the other twirl away to the coffee machine, standing awkwardly as he waited; perhaps trying to distract himself with the décor yet his interest was piqued he never really watched them make it. It seemed to make the other happy, humming- he still looked tired that never seemed to change. Though he was used to it now, maybe it was endearing he’d like to know why but it’d be rude to ask. He must’ve zoned out as the next thing he knew the other was back in front of him. 

“That’s 4.99, thanks.”

He nodded, handing over a fiver as he took the coffee 

“Careful it’s-..” Hummed the other, passing the change and receipt. 

“hot I know, like same.” Ezreal mused, a grin spreading across his lips at the other’s slightly surprised expression.

He recovered quickly and nodded, looking over to the next customer. 

Ezreal stepped aside turning to leave he glanced at his drink. 

‘Easy.’ Oh haha. 

He rolled his eyes fumbling with the receipt when something else caught his eye. on the back of the receipt. He flattened it out, a sequence of digit- and a smiley face- 

Weird almost looks like a- Oh. OH. 

He paused and glanced back towards the counter, Briefly catching the other’s gaze watching the smirk tug at his lips as he wrote down the next order. 

He folded it, placing the number into his pocket. Maybe he’d use it.  Maybe he’d get an answer to his question after all. Maybe lux was right all along- Maybe.  Just maybe. 

[chiagappy]

*shrugs* age swap// Cop Josuke and Student Rohan (when he debuted).

Imagine Josuke being a failure of a police officer, being too hot-headed and impulsive to wanting to catch criminals that he gets suspended for a few days after letting a local thief escape. This was the second time it happened and he feared that if he kept this streak going his rank might be lowered to work at a police box, not freedom, no fun just helping old ladies and folks with directions. Then his grandfather tells him he was given one more chance to work at the precinct if he finished this next job successfully: to be an undercover cop for an awards ceremony down at the opera theater. With Josuke's quick response and keen eyesight, he'll be able to spot out any trouble if it ever arises. Hopefully he'll be able to redeem himself after the latest screwup.

So Josuke takes on the job, and there he was waiting near the entrance of the opera theater nonchalantly as he pretends to be a pedestrian looking over his phone through his dark shades and casual wear with a leather jacket, his pins neatly in place as he observes the guests as they entered. He couldn't understand why anyone would cause trouble here but still he prioritize their safety and kept an eye out for the emergency exits. The evening was gone through without much disturbances, so decided to go on break early when the next officer arrived to relieve him.

He'd figure he can probably smoke a cigarette by the the stairs or something, maybe call Okuyasu about he bored he was if he wasn't working over at Tonio's, until something caught his attention not so far from him. He notices a young man being harassed by a couple thugs. Even if he was off-duty then, he knew it would have been wrong to leave after watching them so he decides intervene. Unsurprisingly the thugs were trying to extort money from him, claiming how their 'friend' owes them an amount but the younger man doesn't speak against it. Upon closer inspection, this young man looked like a student, wearing a school uniform and carrying a camera and sketchpad. There was no way this kid would have anything to do with them.

So he basically blew his cover protecting this kid, but not completely unscathed, as a dark bruised swelled up in his face and recieves minor lacerations to his arms trying to defend himself against a pocket knife one of the thugs had. Before Josuke was able to question him, he catches a glimpse of them disappearing up the stairs and into the opera house. He must have been in a hurry because Josuke notices he dropped a photograph on the ground. Josuke inspects it and sees a scene where the kid is offering a small smile away from the camera while a girl with pink hair was holding said camera, an infectious kind of smile bloomed on her face as she leaned against him. He flips the photo over and reads the words 'For Ro-chan, see I told you I can get you to smile :p." It was endearing, you can definitely tell that they had been awfully close friends for photos, yet he couldn't place his finger on it - she looked awfully familiar. He quickly brushes it off.

He'd figure he should return the photo to the kid, so he makes his way back to the opera house until he hears a horrifying scream with the cacophony of panic following shortly. He headed in immediately only to see the pink haired girl in the photo taken hostage on the stage by a lanky man threatening to blow her brains out if they didn't hand over the money from the award. The officers on duty had their guns pointed at the two, it was a stalemate as he sees the head officer overseeing this event trying to defuse the situation. In the middle of the chaos, Josuke manages to sneak closer to the stage prepared to use his gun out of his jacket to shoot the man down but someone beats him to it, and he notices the student running across the stage and struggling against the lunatic over the gun. Without thinking, Josuke quickly ran into the stage too, trying to help the student until the man's gun went off.

It all happened so fast as the cop sees the girl shielding the student, her back and dress soaked with blood while the man was sitting on the floor, shakened by the turn of events that he loses his grip on the gun. She whispers something in Rohan's ear before she died as the officers rushed to seperate them. The rest of the night becomes a blur with him arresting the criminal, investigations and evacuations proceeding, but the only thing that was on his mind was the student. He was the only lead they had on this case, yet he felt sorry for him. Apparently the winner of this award ceremony was going to a Reimi Sugimoto, age 17 for her extraordinary talent in opera singing and was going to win a check of ten grand along with a golden trophy. What was supposed to be a crowning achievement turned into a night of terror for not only the teenage girl but also for her friend who tried to save her. His name was Rohan Kishibe, a student in ---------- high school, the same age as Reimi.

Josuke hadn't seen him since the opera house, until he returned to the precinct, his grandfather asking him various questions regarding Reimi's death in one of the vacant interrogation rooms. He refused to answer them all, so Ryohei offered to give him some space before leaving the room. He asks Josuke to handle him since he'd probably relate more to someone his age ("Is 20 still being young?" "Maybe not but you sure act a brat like it sometimes so try to get him to talk. And make sure you take him something to drink!")

Confronting the teen was the last thing Josuke wanted to do, especially after what he went through (how can I relate to someone who had their friend die in their arms?) but he also knew that if he can get Rohan to talk then this will bring them one step closer to finding the other criminals who were involved. He had a hunch that the criminal hadn't planned this alone given the background check for robbery and use of illicit drugs, he seemed inexperienced to this and judging how easily he managed to slip pass the security meant he had to have accomplices. As far as suspects went, the ones involved would had been those present at the opera house that evening. It could have been anyone. He also felt there was more to this crime, especially after witnessing how Rohan's expression changed the moment Reimi whispered in his ear. Was her death predetermined? He wanted to get to the bottom of it.

He kept all this in mind, as he casually walks inside and takes the seat across to Rohan who was looking down at his hands, his anger evident yet he remained silent. Josuke asked if he wanted some water and Rohan quickly recognized that he was the officer who saved him earlier that evening. He takes the drink. He never got to thank him for it since he was in a rush to attend the award ceremony, and wouldn't plan on doing so given how the cop couldn't stop the criminal from taking Reimi away. So he was also given the silence treatment for while before Josuke returns the photo he found. That was when Rohan had spoken up about his relation to Reimi. He discovered that Rohan had in fact attended the same school as Reimi had and they were both enlisted in the same creative and performing arts program, however to attend these activities you had to have more than just talent, you needed money and connections to which they both lacked in some part. Fortunately enough, for Rohan he had his parent's support as they noticed his potential, however Reimi wasn't so fortunate. With a broken household struggling with finances, she had to juggle school and her activities with her late night job at some exclusive club downtown. She assured to him it was safe and it guaranteed large amounts of money fast- she said it was a better pay then babysitting and could help her pay for the program. So Rohan thought it was okay, but what he hadn't known was that she was fighting off a debt in addition to this that her father owed recently and had gotten involved with suspicious characters. She only ever mentioned such details vaguely but would alway carry a happy demeanor everyday not to worry her friend. Rohan never suspected of the pressure she was under and had told Rohan to "search for the black box in my school locker. You'll be able to find the one who are responsible for this," before passing away in his arms. He knew something was wrong, and he wanted to answers too.

By the time Rohan was finished telling his story, his hands were shaking with anger, mostly in lament and disappointment with himself that he couldn't protect her when she needed him, as tears threatened to fall from his eyes. Josuke reached out his hand over Rohan's reassuringly, giving it a squeeze and tells him that they will do everything in their power to bring these criminal to justice, but of course Rohan wouldn't give in that easily and joins the investigation.

(So I would like to think of teen Rohan being one cheeky bastard who seems distant and cold at first but very intelligent and will not hesitate to do or say what is on his mind in the face of danger like Josuke, but he's still quite vulnerable to losing close attachments such as Reimi. Josuke calls him a "weirdo kid" or "Ro-chan" to rile him up but he means it as a joke, while Rohan calls him "old man" or "punk officer"

As for Josuke, he's still the same caring person that jumps into action when it calls for it, really popular and truthworthy with everyone but can be playful and clever when he wants to be. He doesn't think things through sometimes and relies on sheer gut feelings and instincts when it comes down to tough choices. He would often voice out his worries over Rohan at the start trying to take the "responsible adult" approach but the more time he spends with him he realizes that he's way more mature than any teenagers he dealt with and lets him lead the investigation. He deserved the right to avenge his best friend afterall, and knew more about her than most people claimed.

And after they handle the Reimi case, Rohan was offered an internship at the police station with Josuke as his mentor. They have a rough start at first but eventually Rohan warms up to the cop and learns to trust him as they continued to solve more cases. Also Josuke is the one of the first people to push Rohan into writing Pink Dark Boy after looking through his sketchbook when it was left on Josuke's desk one day. I feel like it would be similar to Nanase in TSKR with Rohan lacking some confidence in his work and Josuke just overall praising his art skills and telling him to have a passion is a gift and gives his own story of why he became a cop. Naturally Rohan is embarrassed and defensive about at first but overall felt grateful to have met Josuke. And eventually their relationship changes into something more than just detective partners.

// This is random but think Rohan would freak out internally when he sees Josuke with five o' clock shadow, he would have pulled all nighters for several days beforehand and Rohan finds him snoozing on his desk and gets the urge to draw him with his facial hair.)

[cofffeeekinks]

Katsune no Hanayome Ch. 2

Hey, everyone. :D

This is a commission multi-chapter fic, for @eggyboi13, who has been so patient with me in regards to how long I’ve been taking to get this out. I’m hoping to get a new chapter out every Friday and here is the second one. I’ll work on putting these on A03.

If you want to show me your support, consider asking for a commission (only for art though) or leaving a tip in my ko-fi.

—-

Katsune no Hanayome Chapter 2

Rated: Mature (18+)

Trans!Bakugou Trans!Todoroki Trans!Kirishima

Later chapters will contain things such as: s e x , lots of it. Heavily pregnant s e x.

[Chapter 1]

A year certainly passes quickly, regardless of how much fun you’re having. For Shoto, Eijirou, and Katsuki, that year of courting began rather slowly but as their fondness and affection for Izuku began to heat up, and well, time did seem to slip.

Every morning the men would open their doors to see flowers waiting for them. Sometimes it would be one or two, and other times it’d be a stunning bouquet. These flowers never wilted and would always smell lovely. Eijirou loved the little surprise every morning, as far as anyone was concerned it was obvious that Izuku had won his heart only a week into their stay. The red haired warrior, despite his unbreakable nature, could be quickly smitten by the kitsune’s sweet affection.  

Especially when he realized that maybe life in the spirit world might actually be better for him than the land of the living. At first, he wasn’t so sure, but emotionally bonding with Izuku was enough for him to make the decision to stay early on. Although he didn’t tell Izuku right away, he knew that this was what he wanted.  

About three months into their year, Izuku caught Eijirou acting strange in the bathroom. The door wasn’t shut all the way, so the kitsune peeked in. Eijirou was staring at his reflection, pulling on his hair and complaining about his black roots.

Izuku knocked, and asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Hm?” Eijirou looked over at Izuku, “Oh, um, so I don’t suppose you have any hair dye, do you?” 

Izuku shook his head. 

Eijirou let out a sigh, “Well then I guess I’ll --,” 

“Wait.” Izuku reached forward, he clasped Eijirou’s hands and smiled brightly, “Come to the potion room with me, I think I might have something that might work.”

Izuku’s hands were soft and warm against Eijirou’s toughened, thick skin. He didn’t hear a word Izuku said, no, not over the sound of blood rushing in his ears and god damn, why was this man so beautiful??

Eijirou nodded, and allowed Izuku to pull him into the hall. 

Their hands firmly woven together. 

Eventually Eijirou found himself in a large room, with shelves of bottles lining the walls. Each bottle contained a different liquid, and probably performed a different magical feat. 

“My clan makes potions.” Izuku explained, as he grabbed a few bottles off the shelves and placed them onto a table in the middle, “Let me make you something special for your hair.” 

Eijirou nodded and he watched Izuku begin to work. 

Izuku took each bottle and poured a varying amount of its contents into a small wooden bowl. Then with a finger, he mixed the contents thoroughly and held the bowl out toward Eijirou, “Here, drink this.”

Eijirou held the bowl in his hands and he stared down at the liquid inside it. It was watery, but a rose color, and it smelled sweet. After a few short seconds of deliberating on if he should drink the potion or not, he decided for it. 

And the effects were instantaneous. 

“Did it work?” Eijirou asked.

“Sure did.” Izuku reached into his kimono and pulled out a little round mirror. 

Eijirou saw his reflection and smiled. 

His roots were gone. 

Eijirou was completely won over. 

This was a fact. 

He would spend hours and hours in the library with Izuku, talking about the different myths. Eijirou’s mothers had told him countless stories about this topic and he’d discuss them with the kitsune. 

Sometimes Izuku would correct him on a little detail about an event or explain further about something else. It was truly amazing to hear and converse with someone who had been around such a mythical -- wait, it wasn’t mythical anymore, was it? No. It was real. 

Every time they’d talk Eijirou could feel his heart flutter and his body heat up.

Yeah. 

He was staying.

--------

Shoto was indifferent to the flowers. He wasn’t really sure what to do with them. Yeah, they smelled nice but he didn’t really need them. Regardless, Izuku still sent them every morning. It was quite a thoughtful action.

What Shoto did enjoy was the candles and soaps that would occasionally be gifted to him. He valued these objects, especially during the first few weeks. He was more anxious than Eijriou and Katsuki about this situation, even though he didn’t really let them or anyone know. The calming scents of the soaps and candles would relax him.

The lavender would relax him.

The mint and eucalyptus would ease the soreness of his chest that would often come with long periods of binding. 

It was thoughtful of Izuku.

One of the gifts that Shoto valued the most was the homemade soba. It was amazing. He’d eat it every day if he could, but he knew if he did he might gain some weight. He did plan on rejecting Izuku’s advances afterall, he didn’t want to come back home out of shape. 

Of course, that was his first opinion, but such things do change. 

Especially after months of courting.

“Do you have a father?” Shoto asked Izuku as they watched the koi fish swim in their pond on a warm night.

Izuku looked over at Shoto and smiled, “Yes, all spirits have to be born somehow and it's done very similar to humans.” he explained, “My father never treated my mother well, and when I became of age to take over the clan I challenged him. It was a tough fight, let me tell you. It’s never easy fighting family, but I did what needed to be done and banished him from ever stepping foot in my territory.”

Shoto nodded, he reached over across the foot of grass in between them and took Izuku’s hand in understanding, “I wish I was strong enough to challenge my father and protect my mother.” he admitted. 

“You’ll have your time to, I know it.” Izuku encouraged, flashing a sweet smile. He then lifted Shoto’s hand and kissed it, “And I would also like you to know, if you choose to stay here with me, I will never treat you badly.”

A blush began to form on Shoto’s cheeks, he smiled and allowed himself to be smitten.

------

Of the three men, Katsuki was the hardest to win over. 

Any flowers given to him were instantly lit ablaze. Soaps and candles were melted or crushed. Silk robes were dirtied and ripped to shreds. If Izuku was ever going to win Katsuki over, he was going to have to do more than just give him cute, little things. 

Although, he did love the scrolls. Izuku had given him scrolls filled with ancient fighting techniques and styles that were so old they were long forgotten by mankind. Katsuki would spend hours and hours of his days reading these scrolls and learning from them. 

“Hey, fox boy!” Katsuki called from an open area in front of the house, “How about we have a little sparring match?” 

“You want to fight me?” Izuku inquired. 

“Hell yes, I wanna fight you.” Katsuki confirmed, “And listen, if I win, you're going to let me go. You got that?”

Izuku appeared to consider the proposal, he knew there was literally no way a human could win against him. Katsuki could study all those books and learn every fighting technique to perfect and he’d still lose. He knew Katsuki would lose, but was it wise of him to entertain the request and fight the man whose heart he was trying to win over?

“And if you win....” Katsuki continued, “Not only will I be a good little captive for you, for the remaining months at least, but I’ll even give you a kiss.”

“Deal.”

There was no way Izuku was going to lose. 

Shoto and Eijirou watched from a window on a higher floor, “Looks like they’re going to spar.” Shoto described. 

Eijirou glanced down and smirked, “Oh, well no offense to Katsuki but this is a fight he isn’t going to win.”

“Agreed.”

Katsuki would argue and say the only reason he lost was because he was distracted by the beauty that radiated from Izuku. But, even though he did lose, it was worth it in the long run. His blasts would tear away chunks of Izuku’s robe until he set fire a little too close to the kitsune’s genitals. 

It looked like a human’s dick. At first, Katsuki had figured a yokai spirit or whatever the hell he was, would have like, a dick with eyes and seventeen testicals or something like that. Maybe it was the magic of the place, or maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t had any action in too long but, damn.

Katsuki felt himself crumble, and in this moment of distraction Izuku pounced on him and pinned him to the ground. Katsuki could feel Izuku’s penis touch his inner thigh and a heat began to radiate from within his pelvis but he ignored it.

“Well, it looks like I’ve won.” Izuku declared. 

“Y-yeah, it does.” Katsuki pushed himself upward on his elbows and gave Izuku the promised kiss.

[winteriron-trash]

(I Am) A Little Wicked [Chapter 6]

A/N: Fuuuck. I’m still a hot mess, and so is this chapter. Thank you lovelies for sticking with me through this whole mess. I’m just all over the place right now. Hopefully, the chapter doesn’t suck as much as I think it does. It picks up right where the last one left off. Once again, thank you all for the kind messages and patience you’ve had with me. It means the world. Much love to @lovinthepizzalife for helping to talk me through this chapter and put up with me in general.

Masterlist |  Playlist | Summary/Warnings | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

James. The name felt foreign in the Asset’s head. There was something distinct about it, yet unattainable in the back of his mind. He didn’t know how he felt about being called it. The Asset wasn’t supposed to feel. He was a weapon.

The Asset was undoubtedly malfunctioning.

The Asset looked around the small enclosure he was in for the seventh time during the thirty-two minutes Tony had been gone. If pressed, the Asset could probably find some sort of escape route. But… he wasn’t. It wasn’t the pressing concern right now. For now, the Asset could gather information about his surroundings.

There were footsteps and cheerful humming, then the doorway swung open. “Miss me?” Tony flashed a bright grin. He was balancing a flat box in one hand, with a large bottle of liquid on top if it.

Tony was small, short. He wore ripped denim pants with no shoes, and a red hoodie that hung several sizes too large on his dwarfed frame. He had an easy swagger to him, seeming to have not a care in the world. His smile was too cocky. All in all, he should’ve been a low threat level, at best.

He wasn’t.

The easy look in his eyes never seemed quite… genuine. There were always quick pauses between his sentences, where his gaze went sharp and analytical. It was impossible to tell just what Tony was capable of with such limited information.

“Here.” Tony took a few pieces of pizza out of the box, then slid the rest of the box into the Asset’s enclosure. He did the same with the soda, pouring a little less than half for himself, then giving the rest to the Asset.

The Asset looked at the food then back up at Tony expectantly.

Tony made a face. “Lemme guess you need permission to eat too.”

The Asset arched an eyebrow.

“You can eat. And drink,” Tony said with a groan. “Just don’t gorge yourself.”

The Asset nodded, carefully opening the box. He briefly watched Tony eat a piece of the pizza, folding it in half and biting off the end tip of it. The Asset copied that motion, taking a large bite to chew and swallow.

It had more flavour than the food usually given to him by HYDRA. But the flavour was a luxury a weapon was not allowed. Food, in general, was a luxury. If the Asset needed subsistence, he was usually given nutrients injections directly to the bloodstream. Actual food was only used when absolutely necessary.

Tony ate his own food but still watched the Asset out of the corner of his eye. The Asset ate half of the food given to him, as well as about two-thirds of the drink given. When he finished he looked back up at Tony expectantly.

“What?” Tony arched an eyebrow, wiping his hands free of grease. “I’ve got work to do. You can just… hang out, I guess.”

The Asset sat back, tilting his head to the side. He was being observed, clearly. Oh well. He could observe Tony just as well. Learn more about the man -well, if Tony could even be considered that, he was young- holding him.

Tony picked up the Asset’s metal arm, staring at it with a disapproving him. He ran his fingers over it, starting to take pieces apart, setting them aside.

“An absolute piece of shit,” Tony muttered, to himself, the Asset assumed. “I can’t believe HYDRA thinks this is halfway decent. I could’ve built something better when I was still in diapers.” He glanced at the Asset. “If you end up sticking around, I’m so building you a new and better arm. It’ll be a damned work of art, just you wait.”

The Asset studied Tony, mentally going over what information he knew about him.

Tony clearly had extensive mechanical knowledge, with the way he took the arm apart with ease. Smarter than the HYDRA technicians, at least. He likely had some sort of relation to Maria Stark, the Asset’s failed mission. Judging by the facial structure and general mannerisms, he was likely to be her son.

He was young, if the Asset had to guess, he would place Tony at about eighteen years. His easy swagger and bright smile made it clear he had decent social skills and could probably easily assimilate himself into whatever situation he needed.

Even despite his loose walk, he was clearly trained. To what extent the Asset couldn’t quite tell, he’d need to see Tony actually fighting to quite know that. But he was trained nonetheless.

Above all else, the Asset knew one thing.

Tony was dangerous.

-

“So how are things going with our new friend?” Maria asked when Tony came bounding up the stairs.

Tony smiled. “Better than I thought. He ate without question. Doesn’t seem to be able to get out.”

Maria tilted her head to the side, setting her book down. “And how long do you think that’s going to last?”

“Don’t know yet. Hard to tell if he’s staying because he wants to or because he has to,” Tony admitted. “He’s still not all there. I don’t know how exactly to break him out of whatever HYDRA did to him.

“I’m researching a bit up on Bucky Barnes, maybe if I show him who he was, something in him will snap,” Tony said, shrugging. “After that, I don’t think it’ll take much to sweeten him up. Afterall, you saved him from HYDRA, didn’t you? That’s something to be grateful of.”

Maria nodded. “Just remember to be nice to him. There’s no use in painting yourself as a villain in his eyes.”

“I know, madre.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“Don’t sass me, figlio.” Maria chided. “I have a meeting with the boys tonight. Someone’s scamming money from the rest of us. I think I know who, but I need to confirm my suspicions.”

Tony kissed her cheek. “Stay safe, madre.”

Maria chuckled. “What’s the fun in that, ‘Tonio?”

-

Maria folded her hands over her lap, studying Martinique as he spoke.

“If the individual responsible doesn’t come forward,” Martinique was saying, “then there will be consequences for all parties, which no one wants. If they come forward, I’m sure we can all decide on fair actions to be taken as reparation.”

He looked around. There was silence.

Martinique leaned back in his chair. “I see. Might I remind everyone, liars are not tolerated in this line of business. And a lie by omission is still a lie.”

“Well I don’t see how that would be relevant,” Maria spoke up. All heads turned sharply. Maria studied her nails. “As the one openly lying is you.” Maria looked up, making direct. eye contact with Martinique.

Martinique’s eyes widened. “And what makes you make such an accusation, Ms Carbonell? Might I remind you, you’re still the fresh blood around here. If anyone would step out of line, it’d be you.”

“Deflecting blame,” Smitty said with a harsh laugh. “Has that ever worked for you before? Maria has only ever had honest business here.”

“And I haven’t?” Martinique asked, fingers clenched in a controlled rage.

“Have you?” Maria tilted her head to the side.

Martinique glowered at her. “Yes.”

“Have you?” Smitty repeated, tone firmer.

Martinique didn’t say anything.

“I thought so.” Maria smiled a bit. She turned to the rest of the table, surveying the shocked and angry looks. “So how do you boys suppose we go about this?”

“You know, Maria Carbonell,” Martinique growled. “You’ve been overstepping since the day you walked into this room.”

Maria arched an eyebrow, fiddling with her pearls. “Oh?”

Martinique stood up. “Yes. And especially as a woman in your place, that’s a dangerous thing to do.” He narrowed his eyes. “With such a young son, Anthony is it? You should watch your back. And Anthony’s. Your actions could have consequences for him.”

“Are you threatening my son?” Maria asked, eyes narrowing.

“Yes.” Martinique’s voice was dangerously arrogant.

Maria stood up as well, chair sliding back with an awful screech. “You’re threatening my son. My ‘Tonio.” She tilted her chin up. “Leave. Everyone. But Martinique. We need to have a… discussion.”

There were grunts of complaint and protests, but Smitty moved to clear everyone out, pushing even the most resistant out the door and shutting it behind himself.

“You know,” Maria flipped her skirt up, grabbing the two knives she had holstered to her thighs. “The last person to hurt my ‘Tonio was Howard. I’m sure you know the price he paid for it.” She took a few steps forward. “And he was my husband. Now imagine what I’d do to a man who I didn’t even like.”

Martinique took a step back, going just a shade whiter. “My death would upset the entire balance of things.”

“Would it?” Maria twirled her knife between her fingers. “Or would I just take your place, hm? I honestly can’t say that anyone would miss you. You never were very good at your job anyway.”

Martinique took another step back. “Maria…”

Maria tilted her head to the side and flashed a vicious smile, showing all her teeth. “I hope Il Diavolo keeps you warm in hell.”

-

Almost ten minutes later, Maria walked out of the room, drenched head to toe in blood. She slid her knives back into their holsters. Maria glanced around and couldn’t help but smile at the looks she got.

“I need to go wash up a bit,” Maria hummed. “Would one of you be a dear and clean up the mess in there? That would be lovely. Thank you.”

Maria walked away, heels clicking and leaving bloody tracks with each step.

-

@justjessica131   @smittenkitten143@crazy4thewinbros @madieorally@lazilymysticalzombie@journeythroughtherain @i-dont-know-just-where-im-going@ibreathebooks-42@shiroukun@sonofabitch150@daughter-of-infinity@king-stony@cdragontogacotar@creepycrazyshipper@justaboringlurker @sun-at-midnight @bash-it-all @i-dont-know-anything-and-i-worry@shipeveryonetogether @jampottr@itsall-taken @shadowrayven@cdragontogacotar @shittymoonglasses  @theastraywolf @kahowl-knight @yashaamor  @hufflepuffandcorgi

[miss-zei]

for the fic ask: insert Léonie into ranma 1/2 or inuyasha

ALRIGHT HERE WE ARE, it was a lot of fun to write for  Léonie. Even more fun to have her interact with Kagome! I feel I’ve learned a lot about this OC by doing this, even if I didn’t write that much~ I hope you enjoy!

I wish you would write a fic where…

Send me an anymous (or not) summary of the fic you wish I would write. (maybe I will write a tidbit)

Seven years. That was how long it had been since the well was sealed. How long Kagome had been apart from her friends; her family in the feudal era.

It had been very difficult, especially the first few years. For a long time Kagome would search crowds for familiar the familiar faces of her friends who were gifted with a longer lifespan than humans. What she would give to see even the face of the elderly Tōtōsai. Though five-hundred years was a long time, even in the eyes of most demons.

One of the things Kagome wished more than anything was that she had learned more about demons while she’d had so much access to them. That she had more than simply the best ways to kill them. In her time, the entire concept of demons had been nearly completely wipped off of  the board. She couldn’t find evidence that they had truly existed anywhere. It was odd, especially considering how big an issue they all had been, and it wasn’t as though documentation wasn’t a thing back then.

Kagome simply didn’t understand it. How was it possible for there to be so little evidence?

Eventually, Kagome managed to accept that the past should be left where it should be. In the past. As difficult as it had been for her at the time, so the girl began to believe that the well being sealed off was what was for the best. Afterall, Kagome was in her proper time now. With all of the free time she had once she could no longer travel back in time and hunt demons, Kagome made sure to focus on school. She barely managed to get through high school. She likely wouldn’t have been able to do it if it weren’t for Ayumi, Eri, Yuka, and Kagome’s childhood friend who had transferred back to Tokyo during the last few months of highschool…Léonie.

Kagome hadn’t seen Léonie since the end of middle school when the other girl had been taken to America by her elder brother for reasons Kagome hadn’t been entirely aware of. So after losing all of her friends in the feudal era, it had been very nice to see Léonie  once more.

As Kagome grew apart from her other high school friends, Kagome and Léonie were accepted into the same university. They were even both interested in pursuing the same thing, becoming a doctor. So the two took all of the same classes and did just about everything together.

Léonie was a constant that Kagome had desperately needed at that point in her life, and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she would have taken being cut off from the feudal era a lot more roughly had Léonie not returned from America.

By their sixth year in university, both girls were well on their way to their doctorate degrees.

“Where are you thinking about practicing medicine?” Kagome asked as she grabbed her knit hat and scarf off of the rack near the wall, “I was thinking about Ukiyoe Town maybe myself.” Kagome hummed softly as she realized that her favorite hat was beginning to show signs of wear, she supposed that sooner rather than later she was going to have to go about making herself a new hat. Which she didn’t really mind, Kagome had found that she quite enjoyed knitting. It was very meditative.

“Kagome, I think we should skip going to the store for now.” Léonie sounded distracted, though Kagome shook her head.

“No way, we’ve only got a couple things of yogurt in the fridge. We’re going to starve if we don’t go and get some stuff.

“Kagome…”

“Besides, there is a really great sale going on right now down at Hana’s. At least, I think it is still going on…I can’t remember if I saw that ad yesterday or the day before…I think it was just a two-day sale…”

“I’m a demon.”

“And even if it wasn’t, Hana’s is very–” Kagome cut herself off as the meaning of Léonie’s words sunk in and slowly, she turned to face the other girl. A look of confusion evident on the young priestess’ face. Never once had Kagome confided in Léonie about the adventures she had in the feudal era. About the demons. In fact, Kagome was positive that she had never before mentioned demons at any point in her life to anybody other than her own family.

“What was that?” Kagome nearly gave herself whiplash as she turned to face her friend fully, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you properly Léonie. I could have sworn you just told me that you were a–” The priestess cut herself off as the image of her longtime friend almost seemed to ripple and shift into an almost entirely different form.

In place of the short, fair skinned, dark-eyed, raven-haired girl that Kagome had known since she could remember…stood a tall inhumanly beautiful woman. She had lightly browned skin and hair the color of the purest snow. Her eyes were a brilliant olive green that Kagome had never before seen on another person.

The freckles that peppered Léonie’s skin were as white as her hair, which would have seemed odd if the priestess hadn’t been too busy focusing on the tattoo-like marking on her friends face that most certainly hadn’t been there mere moments prior.

“Whoa, wait…I’ve known you since I was just a kid! How is this even possible?” Kagome knew exactly how easily demons made the seemingly impossible possible, so truly, she had no idea why she felt so completely shocked. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was still fairly early in the morning? Kagome had never been a morning person after all.

“I understand your confusion, Kagome.” Léonie said softly as she gently placed a hand on the priestess’ shoulder, “I think you should sit, you look a bit pale.”

Doing as her friend suggested, Kagome shakily lowered herself to the ground and sat down sloppily. She watched as Léonie followed suit, only instead she’d taken to kneeling instead.

“Do you need anything to drink? Perhaps some water or orange juice?”

“No, Léonie…what is going on?”

Léonie searched Kagome’s blue eyes for a long moment before sighing softly and nodding her head, “I apologize for the sudden revelation, I understand how strange this must be for you. If possible, I would have liked to go about this a little bit less…strongly.” Léonie’s facial expression was much less easy to read in this form, Kagome noticed. A decidedly frustrating trait for the other woman to have in that moment. “However, I’m afraid time is of the essence.” The white-haired woman tentatively rested her hands on her lap before continuing, “The well has been reactivated.”

The words spoken made complete sense to Kagome, though the fact they were coming from Léonie made them somewhat difficult to comprehend. “You must return to your friends, Kagome. You are needed in the past, if there is to be a future.”

“How is the well suddenly working again? How do you know about the well? How were you able to hide…this from me? I may not be the best around but I am a priestess, I’ve always been able to sense when there were demons around…”

“Kagome, demons have become masters in the art of hiding over the past several hundred years. We had to be, humans became very good at exterminating us. Largely due to the fact that not long after you were sent to the present for the final time, there was an illness that spread through the world. A plague that only affected demons. Many of our great lords were taken from us within the first few years as well as the vast majority of the non-intelligent demons. Those of us who remained…well, we had to fight hard in order to simply survive.

When the demons seemed to disappear almost overnight, the humans gradually began to forget that we had been an issue to them at all. They stopped writing about us. Some even believed after some time passed, that all the stories of demons were myth…legend. Merely the kinds of things adults told children in order to get them to behave. The majority of those who remained thought of this as a blessing in disguise. While many of us loathed how our histories could be so completely forgotten, we were thankful for a reprieve. Hiding became easier when there were few who thought to look for us. I myself was young back then, a mere child barely reaching twenty. Most of my family were killed by the spread of disease and it was actually lord Sesshōmaru who took me under his wing. If he hadn’t…I don’t doubt that I eventually would have succumbed as well.

Kagome was having a very hard time believing all that she was hearing. Though…she supposed it had to be true, considering the fact that it was blatantly obvious that Léonie was telling the truth. Even still…

“What did you mean by what you said earlier? About how I am needed in the past?” Kagome’s voice shook as she spoke.

Many unreadable emotions swam in Léonie’s green eyes as she looked away, “Your great-great-great grandson,” she explained softly. “He is vital to this time’s underground society of demons. I…we all need him here, lord Sesshōmaru has been working very hard on repairing the damage to the well. Over the years it was learned that when you made the wish, the sacred jewel merely damaged the well. It wasn’t as though you weren’t meant to continue traveling through time.”

Kagome’s breath hitched in her throat and she felt hope begin to bubble up from deep within her breast. “I…I get to go back…” she had to bite her lip in order to keep from getting too excited. “But wait, who…who do I wind up having kids with? Who is my great-great-great grandson?”

“I can’t tell you that, I’ve already clued you in on much much more than I ever should have…but you deserved answers, Kagome.” Léonie almost looked sad as she placed a hand on Kagome’s shoulder, “What I can tell you, is that Ryōta is a very very good man. He is loyal, kind, compassionate…he cares for everybody who follows him. Also…I can tell you that I am going to miss you deeply, Kagome.”

Tears began to form in Kagome’s own eyes as the weight of it all began to hit her, “I…what now?”

Léonie smiled softly before she stood up and offered a hand to help Kagome up from off the ground, “Now, I take you home.”

–

Thank you for asking anon!! I really loved doing this so much

[sanchoyowrites]

Ah fantastic This is just me trying to figure out a different way of seeing hawks. Im sorry if i come off as rude And sorry for the amount of Qs aha. You mentioned the narrative condemning hawks saying that it was wrong of him to do that Could I ask where it does that? You mentioned the cover, How do you interpret it? Do you see hawks as a victim as well or no? What do you make of hawks’ expressions in that scene with twice, they show regret and he offers Twice a way out, how do you see it?

OKKAAAY this is going to get very long, and picture heavy, so I’m going to try my best to answer all of these under the cut? Hope these help. Feel free to ask for more if anything was unclear, I know sometimes I’m not the best at articulating myself...

1. The narrative is condemning not just Hawks’ actions, but the heroes society completely. A good place to start with this, (even if we’re talking about Hawks!) is Shigaraki’s monologue. 

(note how it specifically shows Endeavor, lol. Way to make a point. Endeavor's arc was...well, okay, not my favorite, but it tried to condemn him in..ways...like him saying he kept dreaming of his family, happy, without him? Endeavor is a great point of what Hawks’, and most heroes do. I’ll get back to this in a second--)

Heroes solve problems by punching the problem. They do ‘sweep the “”filth””” of society under the rug! People with bad quirks- or no quirks- are bullied or made to feel like ‘villains’! (Shinso, anyone? Deku at the start of the series? Spinner saying he was bullied for his quirk? Twice being mentally ill and not getting the help he needed at 16??? SHIGARAKI BEING 5 OR SO AND NO ONE STOPPING TO HELP??) All of these things are bad! The viewer is supposed to feel bad for Shinso! These things aren’t mentioned offhandedly-

He’s right and he should say it! Deku’s face! He’s hopefully listening- because directly after this, when he’s LITERALLY TRYING TO EXPLAIN THE PROBLEM TO THE HEROES- ENDEAVOR GOES IN TO ATTACK. Writes it off as a monologue. But on a meta level- you can’t waste time or panels, esp on a weekly comic, for nothing. The entire lov arc- the entire story, has been building in a way to say this hero society DOES have flaws- and if Deku is going to be the greatest hero, that’s going to be because he starts listening and addresses those issues. Like, the panel of him, a bloody and scared child wandering- that’s not being shown for no reason!!!

Gran Torino is at least considering himself to be in the wrong before-- well. yeah. 

Look at Tokoyami’s expression. He can’t believe it- heroes, in the kid’s minds- don’t kill people!

None of these are throwaway lines. Nothing in this arc or the lov arc has been! 

If Dabi’s words had no impact, Tokoyami wouldn’t be trying so hard to refute them. He’s clearly upset and emotional in the moment, ‘everyone does’? At this point he hasn’t talked to anyone else LOL he’s still trying to get him to safety. He’s hoping that’s the case- he’s been following Hawks and believing in him, afterall, of course he doesn’t want to believe it. 

“Our efforts, they weren’t actually wrong, were they? Just like the heroes’ actions...” *shows Hawks* While I hate this line had to come from Mineta, he’s...right. This isn’t my opinion, this. This literally happens. It really doesn’t get more explicit that this, to say, the heroes actions were wrong, then, to show Hawks.

And then, the scene itself...

Twice is sobbing. Hawks’ face is shadowed and the way he’s speaking up until now is very calloused and cold. Which one do you think the reader is supposed to feel for, exactly? Not hard to figure out...

Especially when Twice is crying on the ground, calling him a friend, feeling super guilty right now, and Hawks’ is drawn like. An absolute demon here.

I could go more into detail but I’ve already said a lot on this. The manga itself is saying he was wrong. Other people have written meta on it, too! I can’t find any atm, but yeah!

2. THE COVER:

Not to get all art-analyst-y, but like. God this cover. Twice, desperately reaching up, trying to keep a hold on Hawks and pull him down. Hawks, rearing back with that single long feather emphasized by the colors. Both of their expressions...

Someone else pointed out it’s a bit reminiscent of the other bnha covers:

This one specifically is really similar, composition-wise! Normally when you have one character above the other, looming, and one struggling below, it’s clear the hero is struggling and the villain is usually on top. Just in a meta, art-observational way. :) Here’s a more in depth post written by someone more articulate than me that goes into it:

https://cutiesableye.tumblr.com/post/621742931119833088/i-am-not-an-art-historian

3. Do you see hawks as a victim as well or no? What do you make of hawks’ expressions in that scene with twice, they show regret and he offers Twice a way out, how do you see it?

Okay, let’s look at the scene.

“““IS THAT WHAT A HERO IS?”“““ again with the narrative bringing into question heroes!!! Good lord!

Why did Hawks’ offering to try and redeem him piss Twice off so much? Because Twice has constantly been shoved down by the system he thought Hawks was trying to escape! Twice was given a criminal record at a young age by the police who refused to listen to him, for something that wasn’t his fault at the time, when he was already a struggling orphan who’d lost his job aka his source of housing money and food. From there he spiraled into worsening mental illness and felt SO isolated. He finally found people who care about him and he cares about them- I believe Hawks’ does believe what he’s saying. I just don’t think he took into account the fact that:

The lov is a family. Jin sees them as his, at least, he wants more than anything to give back to the people who gave him that sense of belonging he was chasing since he was 16.

Hawks DOES believe Jin is a good person. And he seriously, really, didn’t want to fight him. That’s what I think.

They spent roughly 2-4 months together, hanging out!

Twice was the most welcoming, and the easiest to manipulate because of that. Hawks is very much a greater good over one single life kinda guy, and that’s his Huge Big Flaw imo (unless it was some kind of accident-- but I don’t know. it feels weird that he’d slip up and accidentally kill him-)

Again, with calling him a good person. He says it multiple times, and people still have a hard time believing he was being sincere? Hawks did believe his offer was a good one, because he’s been in the system since he was a kid, the same way Jin’s been a victim of the system since he was a teen. Of course Hawks would believe in it. Of course Jin wouldn’t. His way out would never work for Jin! Do you really think the commission or any other heroes would want Jin “redeemed”? Do you think Jin himself would, in the sense that it’d mean leaving his friends behind? No.  Absolutely not. 

But you can’t spend so much time with someone as welcoming and fun as Jin and not think he’s a good person, or start to have regrets. Look at that surprise on his face- I think that’s real. Because he doesn’t see himself as a good person. At the end of the day he knew he might ‘have’ to kill Jin. 

he KNEW he had to watch out for Jin. he saw him as a threat- which is curious, because the ‘good person’ panel comes right after this one. he’s conflicted. He believes in Jin, because he’s kind. He was remorseful. He’s only human no matter how many masks he puts up, his own personal hero Endeavor is so flawed (and I do wonder, if he got to find that out more in depth before this, would he have done things differently? It’d crush him of course, but maybe he’d start questioning the system that lets abusive individuals be on top, valuing results over how they are as people. Or like Shigaraki would say, a system that lets heroes hurt their families, quietly sweeping that under the rug for the greater good, supposedly...) 

Hawks is a victim of the system, in a different way than the lov members are. He got indoctrinated as a child, and that’s really tragic. 

But he was 100% in the wrong for killing Twice. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. 

And it won’t surprise me at all when this arc ends if we get a shot of Hawks in the hospital healing up, regretting his actions. Or telling Tokoyami he shouldn’t look up to him, at the least. 

...Hope this answered your questions. When I said it was going to get long, I meant it LOL.

[bublp0pr]

Roletale Sans & Paps

Now the struggle of who to swap first…. the pressure is crazy. Hmmmm. HMMMMmMmmm. Let’s start with the obvious characters you think of in UnderSwap: Sans and Papyrus.

(I don’t know how I’m formatting these or whatever so don’t expect structure that makes complete sense haha. Also i got too lazy to capitalise their names or spell out Papyrus’s full name all the time so i’ll just call him paps)

Main differences to UnderSwap

Normal US

In normal underswap, papyrus becomes the chill laid back one and sans becomes the obsessive one that wants to be a member of the royal guard. Sans chases down papyrus a lot for slacking off but it’s papyrus who’s actually more observant and ends up looking after him. Paps drinks mustard where sans drank ketchup. And for some reason they made sans like tacos. I’m guessing it’s the AU equivalent of pasta for pap? Sans is considered one of the most adorable versions of himself within the multiverse: hyperactive and demonstrating beliefs and understanding similar to a child in some cases, though has been shown to be capable of being more serious in other instances like Errortale.

(askError!Sans, my one true love… will your hiatus ever end??? Error’s ORIGINAL universe-destroying emotionally complex character (not that fan art inkxerror fluff and smut) has imprinted on me for life ;_; Atleast i have Fatal!Error plot to sustain me)

From what I understand of the webcomics, papyrus becomes the one to watch out for in a genocide run, having their own megalovania sequence in the judgement hall. Papyrus is also considered to be the one with a science background. Whether or not he is aware of the timelines isn’t something the webcomics I’ve seen dwell into. Judgement hall would usually imply that he is the character with some awareness of the implications of determination. On the other hand though, it’s swap sans that ends up in multiverse shenanigans more frequently than paps.

Because of how these characters were swapped, it’s like inserting a papyrus straight into sans body and a sans straight into papyrus. Which is pretty impressive. But not the goal of my AU. I want sans to still be sans an paps to still be paps in their own way.

RT

Take puns as a simple example, sans will still love puns and paps will still hate them… you know what? Sentence form of this will take ages. How about I just make this a list of things I’m keeping from UT?

Sans:

likes puns

likes science (this is canon to undertale. Papyrus says so in one of his calls)

cares for his brother deeply

has an awareness of at least the scientific implications and likeliness of resets

won’t fight you unless you give them no other choice because they realise the futility of trying

one day stopped being a scientist probably due to either losing WD or learning about resets

knows an old lady from the other side of a door who shares puns

Paps:

likes making spaghetti

hates puns

will always respond to your calls

fights you in Snowdin

will believe in you when no one else will. Has a a lot of faith in people and trusts that you can do better. To a fault… = )

is capable of being a royal guard but doesn’t have the value set for it (because of previous point)

How, you may ask, can I make this a swap universe when so many things are the not swapped? Well that’s the fun part.

Backstories etc.

Sans

It wouldn’t be swap if sans didn’t aspire to be in the royal guard… and be slightly pathetic at it despite all of his highly motivated efforts. But i have a solution.

What if before the CORE, sans was a scientist who loved puns but didn’t really have any friends and was always focussed on his work? (Remember papyrus didn’t have friends before in UT either so it’s reasonable to impose this scenario on him. Puns aren’t always popular with crowds afterall) He worked with Gaster and then after the… incident, sans had vague recollections of WD and studied determination in an effort to figure out why he can’t remember him properly. With a certain someone playing around with time, this study leads to the reports that show timelines starting and stopping until suddenly, everything just ends.

This comes as a huge blow to him. But not in the way it does in UT, where he finds it harder and harder to care about things because of how powerless he is. Quite the opposite, he starts to realise that if his life doesn’t matter he wants to spend it doing what he wants to do rather than what he’s good at, because there’s no point anyway. He wants friends. He knows paps used to be a royal guard and he’s popular so sans makes it his lifelong dream to become a member of the royal guard and receive a little love and recognition, to bathe in a shower of kisses every morning etc. etc.

Kinda tragic really considering how good he was at science and how terrible he is at his duties. I mean, he only has 1 HP and 1 AT. This is the main reason they haven’t let him in the guard yet, because if he entered a fight he’d just die.

With motivations like that, you can sorta see how a normal sans might show papyrus behaviour, right? No need to just swap the personality entirely.

I will concede to say that in this universe sans has passion for making the puzzles (a normally papyrus trait that i really shouldn’t be adding but it just simplifies things). He tends to make them overly complicated and convoluted in reference to his science background but he always misses the obvious point in their design.

Papyrus

Did you notice I said pap used to be royal guard? Yep. This is one of those I’m-tweaking-with-the-plot-in-a-big-way things. So papyrus in US has a bit more of a level head than UT. Which is sorta hard to bring out in our normal loveable skeleton. 

Let’s say that in this universe he somehow became a royal guard without the struggle he faces in UT. In fact, let’s say that he became a royal guard a long time ago. His vigour and commitment made him a good candidate and they hired him a thought. So, without having to be desperate about getting people’s approval like in UT, he found he didn’t need to try so hard to make friends which actually made him more popular and likeable. 

He was a capable royal guard really. I mean, Undyne admits in UT itself that he’s actually pretty strong. But what stops him from fulfilling his duties is exactly what Undyne notices in him with UT, he’s too morally good for the job.

*queue the weird screen wobble of a backstory*

I’m not sure on the details but in my head, papyrus learns his fault in a serious way. Maybe facing one of the past humans or another monster (I might use this loose end to tie up some other plot point later..). 

Anyway, at some point in the past he confronts an assailant one on one. He knows what he must do: kill them. He’s been in FIGHTs before of course, dealt damage and captured badguys, but he’s never actually turned a living thing into dust. Facing his enemy, he faces a moral conflict at the core of his being. Papyrus can’t kill. Because despite everything, no matter how heinous the crime or horrible the person, he can’t help himself from believing in the potential of others. From hoping that people can do a little better. And as long as he thinks like this he knows he will never be able to rob someone from an opportunity to improve themselves. To give them that chance at change. There, facing this villain just waiting for him to strike, he realises that he will never be able to be a true royal guard.

They stand for what feels like hours but may as well be just moments of real time in a standstill waiting for papyrus to FIGHT, or atleast even ACT. Finally, papyrus relents and shows mercy, giving into his true nature. It’s at this point that Alphys arrives and intervenes, fighting and capturing the assailant. But papyrus has already learnt a lesson about himself that cannot be forgotten.

Despondent, realising what this means for his job, papyrus begins to care less and less about his work. A stigma grows around him. The guard who won’t FIGHT. The laziest member of the force. It’s around this time he starts frequenting Grillby’s. He eventually quits the guard entirely and embraces what people assume he is. Laziness becomes his escape from the blame he places on himself for all the things he HAD done as a guard and the one thing he couldn’t that fateful day.

Years pass and his time in the guard is all but forgotten. Paps is popular, easy-going and doesn’t care to do much of anything. That is until the one thing he does care about intervenes.

Sans and papyrus always had a strong relationship while younger. Paps is one of the only ones who stuck by sans through his awkward scientist days. Before, sans hadn’t cared much for gossip or other people in general and didn’t really bother to learn about why pap left the guard. What he did know was that somehow being on the guard had left him popular all this time later (which motivated his need to be in the royal guard like I said). Because he was concerned about how lazy paps was getting, he encouraged paps to join him as a sentry. 

It’s an offer papyrus couldn’t refuse, knowing how vulnerable sans truly was. Someone needed to keep an eye on him. And really, the dynamic works both ways with sans being there to stop paps from giving up on life entirely some days just by being his perky self.

Dynamic

There’s still that adorable by-play between the bros.

Sans gets frustrated at papyrus for being lazy.

Papyrus silently cringes at the puns sans makes (but he doesn’t react to it like he does in UT)

Despite being the laziest monster in the underground sans still considers him ‘the coolest’

Papyrus somehow always manages to have access to spaghetti 24/7 which drives sans crazy. Sans refuses to eat the spaghetti because of how ridiculous it is. This is supposed to replace the pun thing in UT. I keep thinking of a twist on something in the game: “Papyrus! You need to stop making spaghetti all the time! It’s getting out of hand!” “come on bro, your stomach is grumbling just looking at it.” “I know and i hate it!” 

Instead of a hotdog stand, papyrus has a full-on spaghetti kitchen concealed in his sentry station.

Sans is the one that has all the extra sentry jobs around the underground though that he impossibly manages. Most people don’t question it because he’s always putting 110% into everything he does (but how can he possibly be in so many places at once i wonder... *audible wink* )

Papyrus will give Frisk their phone number and answer their calls whenever for each room but I’ll explain how and why that works in another post (I’ve let this one drag long enough)

To be continued i guess?

Ok... That’s not EVERYTHING. But that’s the basics. I still want to go into how frisk encountering the skelebros would work (like i mentioned with the phone calls), the whole lady behind the door thing (but i’ll probably cover that in the Asgore/Toriel swap), who you fight in the blizzard exiting snowdin, who you date in a true pacifist route and how the whole genocide drama would run down. Not to mention i still need to elaborate on the separate friendships they have with alphys, undyne, hapstablook etc. but i’ll them bring up with their own swaps rather than this one because the skeletons are too integrated with everything and everyone to explain it all here.