#at least cliff could recognize that dying was the best thing he ever did for his daughter

[gonkaccino]

I'm really trying to enjoy Agatha All Along, but...it's just making me miss Doom Patrol. More specifically, it's making me miss whatever the fuck Rita and Laura had going on, and the anticipation of finding out which new and exciting way room patrol was going to rip my heart out and smash it to bits this week.

I could rewatch it at any time. It's still on Max, and even if it wasn't, I own the DVDs. The only barrier between me and another happy rewatch of my favorite show is the memory of how much it fucking HURT the last time.

[luimagines]

Hey, could we get the boys kissing the reader please?

Masterlist

Absolutely!

If the reader gets to give the boys kisses, it's only fair that they get kisses in return!

Fair warning, these are more or less platonic.

Content under the cut!

Twilight

“Twilight I think I died.” You blurt out one day.

Twilight stops what he was doing and tilts his head on your direction. “Run that by me again?”

“This is all a dream isn’t it?” You gulp and pull your hair a bit to feel something. “Did I die? Am I dying? How do I know you’re real?”

Twilight pauses and puts his things down. He walks toward you and puts his hands on your shoulders. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Before I met you, I got hurt...bad... And I had a dream.” You say.

Twilight then bends down and kisses you nose.

The action stuns you and you blink in an attempt to process the absurdity of it.

“Did that ever happen in your dream?” Twilight bites his lip to keep himself from smiling. This was supposed to be serious- you might have been having a crisis.

“No?” You answer with a small child like shake to your head.

“Then you’re not dreaming.” Twilight answers simply.

“Is that how that would work?” You reply.

“Do you want it to?”

“Yes.” You nod and walk with Twilight to help him out with his earlier chores. “I don’t like thinking of the alternative.”

“It’s you’re dreaming I’m sure our group is more than wiling to find ways to induce your awakening.”

“Like what?”

“Throw you off a cliff? Set you on fire? Get the cuccos nice and angry-”

“I’ll take your method over that thank you very much.”

Wind

“It can’t be that bad.” You roll your eyes and put your hand son your hips. “Why do you hate it so much?”

“It’s the principle of the thing.” Wind explained. “If I went back home and they found out I did this, I would never be able to live it down.”

“Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?” You ask instead with a teasing grin on your lips.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Please don’t make me.” Wind whines. “I’d do anything.”

“If it’s any consolation, it’s not my idea either.” You sigh and cross your arms instead. “But the faster we do it the faster we can get it over with. It’s not like we have to talk about it ever again.”

“No please-” Wind gets onto his knee, saying your name and crawling to you that way. “-You’re my last hope. Don’t let this be the end of it.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Wind grabs your hands places a clumsy kiss on your fingers as he pleads. “Can’t it be anyone else? Please! Please, please please please please!”

“Oh my goodness! OK! I’ll go talk to Time and Twilight and see if we can get Legend to do it or something.”

“Yeeees.”

Hyrule

“My everything hurts.” You whined and rolled over, grasping your side in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure there. “Was I stabbed? I feel like I was stabbed.”

“You were, in fact, not stabbed.” Hyrule kneels by your side and lifts your hand to access the wounded area a bit better. “But you did land really harshly on the rock below us. So try to take it easy for a minute, ok? We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

“Who is this we you speak of?” You sigh as the pain lessens and take a deep breath, trying to sit yourself up. “I just see you.”

“Yeah, Wild is on his way over, so it’s about to be we.” Hyrule snickers.

“I see... Thank you ‘Rulie.” You smile a bit and loosen up your muscles. “How did I even fall to begin with?”

“Bad bomb placement.”

“Ah.” You say, as if that answers your question. “Well that explains everything then.”

Hyrule looks up at you and sees your face. “You’ll be ok.”

“I mean I hope so.” You shrug and Hyrule leans in to place a small kiss on your forehead.

“Wha-”

“Magic enhancer. Good for one extra minute of healing time.”

“You’re a dork.”

“You love it.”

Warrior

“I hate this.” You groaned as you walked through the dungeon. “Why are we here again?”

“Because we have a mission to clear the darkness and this is a hotspot. We clear this area and then we can move on to the next until we’re all done.” Warrior shrugs, fully understanding the sentiment but not wanting to ruin his reputation.

“This suuuuucks.”

“I knoooow.” He snickers.

“You’re making fun of me but I know you feel the same way.” You tilt your head back and look at him by shifting your eyes.

“Yeah but you don’t see me complaining.”

You groan louder in response, purely out of spite at this point and shove him slightly by the shoulder.

“Is there anything I can do to make it better?” Warrior asked teasingly.

“I want a sick prize at the end.”

“I can wager in a kiss.”

“Not from you.”

“No?” Warrior laughs louder and spin on his heel, walking backwards as he talks to you just a little ways ahead from where you are. “Am I not worth enough?”

“I have only the highest of standards.” You deadpan. 

“I’ll have you know that my kisses are completely worth it.” Warrior twirls his hand upwards for fan fair.

“Doubt it.”

“I’ll prove it.”

“Doubt it.” You grin.

Warrior rolls his eyes but lets you catch up to him before leaning over suddenly and kissing on your hair line.

“Cheap shot.” You snort and push him away. “You’ll have to do harder than that. I bet the prize at the end is cooler anyway.”

“Tough crowd.”

Time

“Time, would you be a dear and help me out with one little thing?” You called out, fighting one of the knots that kept your bag to Epona’s side but Twilight was no where to be found so it’s not like he could help you.

Time looked up and saw you struggling with the bag and the rope that held it in place. An amused smile crossed his face and he got up to make his way over to you.

You huff and stomp your foot when it refuses to let go just in time as the man himself makes it to your side. “What seems to be the problem?”

 “I can’t get my bag out!” You whine. “Twilight does such ridiculous knots and I can’t figure it out.”

“Let me see.” Time rolls his eye and steps into your space, checking at the problem in front of him.

It was way more complicated than Time would think Twilight would purposefully do. It looked staged.

Luckily he knows his pup well and managed to get it untangled with seconds.

“How?” You frown and pout. “How did you do that? I thought I would have needed to get my knife or Legend to get rid of the spell.”

“Twilight doesn’t like spells or magic in general.” Time smirks and sees the opportunity in front of him.

You reach out your hand to take the bag with a sigh. “Yeah, yeah I know. Thank you, I was getting frustrated.”

Time grabs your hand with his free hand, bringing it up his lips and places a kiss on your knuckles. “A hero’s work is never done.”

“A-ah.” You blush with wide eyes. “Right.”

Wild

“I have no idea where to go from here.” Wild sighs and places his hands on his hip, keeping the wooden spoon angled away from his clothes.

“What’s up? Need help?” You stand up and walk toward him.

“The stew needs something. But I don’t know what.” Wild huffs and chews on his lips as he thinks.

“Salt?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” He picks up his slate and takes the rock out, chipping small pieces off before stirring to dissolve it.

He brings the wooden spoon to his lips to taste it but he doesn’t seem satisfied with the result. “It’s better but not enough.”

“Can I try?” You offer and move closer to the pot.

He sighs and gives you the spoon with a bit of the broth. It’s delicious as expected but he’s right. A bit lackluster.

You smack your lips together and move it around on your tongue and try to figure it out. “Maybe Goron spice? Not enough to feel obviously but anything spicy tends to heighten existing flavors.”

Wild thinks about it before going through with your suggestion. He stirs for a hot minute before his eyes light up at the taste.

He spin to you with enough force to startle you, but before you can move away he grab your face with his hands and brings you forward giving you a whopping kiss onto your forehead. “That’s just what it needed. Thank you!”

You wobble for a moment when he pushy you away but you smile regardless. “You’re welcome.”

Legend

“And here we have the best of the rest, Mr. Fancyprance Mcfickle Bottom.” Legend knelt to the ground after speaking and place a kiss on the back of your hand.

“I take it back. We’re doomed. We’re never going to be able to sneak into the gala.” You lament and take your hand out of his gasp.

“How dare you doubt my acting skills.”

“Can you at least try to take this seriously?” You stress. “This is a big moment for the kingdom, if one thing goes wrong tonight, we’re all going to pay the price.”

“It’s not like any one going to die if we don’t do well toni-”

“Did you not read the note?” Your stare widens. “I can’t believe you. There’s going to be an assassination attempt. It’s why we’re even going to begin with!”

Legend pauses as he considers your words before sobering up and standing taller. “Alright. From the top. This is what we have to do.”

“Thank you.”

Four

“Ok, I have no idea where you’re taking me, but it better be good because I’m a lot less graceful when I’m blindfolded.” Four said over his shoulder as you guided him through the underbrush.

“Just trust me.” You grin. “You’re going to love it.”

“I hope so.”

You giggle and continue to push him ahead. “Ok, wait here I’ll be right back. Don’t take it off just yet.”

“You are so lucky I trust you.”

“Good.” You dash off and grab a small parcel that was hidden in a hollow tree truck.

You run back to him and pull his hand in front of him, placing it gently on top of his palms. “There. Open your eyes and open the box.”

Four grips the wrapping and takes the blindfold off with one hand. “What is it?”

“A gift silly!”

“Ok, yeah, but what’s inside?”

“Open it and find out!”

He smiles and gently rips the paper that covering the little box, eyes widening as he recognizes the design within. “How did you get this?”

“I save up for it. It’s a thank you.” You bite you lip and take a small step back. You’re beginning to feel a little flustered by his reaction even if you think you have no reason to be.

Four drops the paper wrapping and opens the box. “You got me this?”

“Yes. I thought we established this.”

Four beams and doesn’t even open the box all the way before he runs at you and practically tackles you over. “Thank you!”

“You’re wel-”

Four take the breath to plant a big ol’ smooth on your cheek, silencing anything else you were going to say.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” 

It’s the happiest you’ve seen him.

You can’t even get your thoughts together before he give you another hug and dashes away from you to enjoy his gift.

Or brag about it to the others.

You wanted to avoid that, which is why you brought him all the way out here beyond the camp...but you can never really tell what he’s going to do next.

You smile regardless and touch the spot on your cheek.

At least he likes it.

Sky

“I have no idea how you do this Sky.” You gulp and lean over marginally over the edge. “I hate free falling. How is this a fun thing to do?”

“It’s not so bad when you can trust your loftwing to catch you.”

“I don’t have a loftwing. You keep using that word and I have no idea what you mean.”

“You’ll be fine anyway. The water will catch you.”

“That’s not remotely as reassuring as you think it is.”

“You’re over thinking it. Stop thinking.” Sky laughs a little as he gets closer to you.

“Easier said than done.”

“Trick yourself then.”

“How?”

“A distraction would be a good start.” Sky hums.

“And how to suppose I distract myself?” You deadpan.

Sky shrugs before leaning over and giving you a kiss on the cheek. It stuns you enough that freeze on your spot and Sky takes the opportunity to spin you around by your shoulders and promptly shoves you off of the cliff side.

He dives in right after you when he sees your head pop out of the surface, laughing as he goes.

[burnedbyshoto]

a nurses job

— Bakugou breaks his arms and as a nurse, you have the responsibility to make sure that he is comfortable, even when he needs to use the bathroom.

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pairing: pro hero!bakugou katsuki x nurse fem!reader

warnings: smut, 18+, prohero!bakugou, golden showers/water sports/piss kink, degradation (giving), dirty talk, lusting/pining, handjobs

word count: 5,050

a/n: so, I was going to make this a piss in ur mouth and pussy type of fic, but I kept seeing all those beautiful bakugou piss arts where he’s with a nurse.... so this is inspired and brought upon by all the water sports bakugou x nurse art ive seen for three months.

kinktober day 21 main kink: piss | kinktober masterlist

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You’re not quite sure what persuaded you into wanting to become a nurse as a child.

Maybe it was because your quirk (when you hum at an A flat, everyone within 5 meters experiences accelerated healing properties) was useless for Pro Hero work, so you realized early on that being a Pro Hero was a distant dream. Maybe it was because medical staff were still hailed as everyday heroes despite being in a world with people who could perform extraordinary achievements. It started as a small obsession to prove to the soon to be jobless, dream broken, and graduated failures of the hero course high schools that you had done more than them. That you, unlike them, were recognized as a hero. 

You were decent with math and science, so you strove for medical school. But with the horrendous costs of schooling, your then living situation, and your dislike of unneeded and unwanted competitive stress, you deterred toward the nursing pathway. It was a pathway where you really found yourself, or at least, you thought so.

Empathy, emotion, and the need to see people come out of a hospital better than when they entered was something that grew on you quickly and obviously. Your earliest clinical rounds often left you with swollen, tired feet from walking around for restless hours, but with a smile on your face that was irreplicable. With every semester in school, you got better, connected better with your patients. Your feet still ache after long shifts, and sometimes your smile is hollow and broken, and if you look closely, you could see dried tears and puffy eyelids, but you wouldn’t ever regret this decision to become a nurse.

At twenty-five, newly graduated from nursing school, already working full time at the best hospital in Japan, while studying for your degree to eventually become a nurse practitioner. You loved your job quite a lot. They had placed you immediately within their Post-OP, ICU, and recovery wings, and even though you were somewhat new, you were celebrating a year of working in a few weeks, you already had some… more than familiar faces.

“Well, Ground Zero-san, I guess you owe me a drink because unless my eyes are deceiving me, it looks like both your arms are broken, no?” you hum, your grin bright and wide, not even attempting to hide it’s glee as your high profile patient sat seething on the hospital bed. “It’s been, what? Two weeks since you last showed up here? You getting old?”

“Oh, would you shut the fuck up, you shitty ass nurse?!” Bakugou snarled, his arms obviously trying to tense and move against the large casts that envelope him. “The fuck would you expect to happen when facing off with a quirk that’s specifically meant to break people’s arms?!”

“Deku didn’t break any arms,” you point out with a soft laugh, eyes still scanning and reading through his charts to check his medical needs and medicine prescribed by the attending and when he should be taking them. “A bit weird that only half of the Wonder Duo was indescribably injured, no?”

A loud snarl ripped from Bakugou’s throat, and you stifled your own laughter as you raised your eyesight to look him straight in his raging eyes.

“I took that damn nerds hits because he’s broken his arms so many fucking times he’ll be forced to amputate them if he breaks them again!” Bakugou’s eyes were near white in his anger, but the intensity of his emotions was heavily diminished by the fact that his arms were strapped to his chest in thick, round bandages.

“You can admit you care for him,” you chide, ignoring his ‘like hell I do!’ Placing the chart down and walking to his IV drip, you checked to see if anything he was hooked to required any changes or whatnot. “Besides, this is not the first time I’ve seen you in here! It was quite surprising to see Ground Zero on bedrest on my first ever shift here.”

That much was true.

You had been working at Tokyo Hospital for nearly nine months now. Within the nine months, you saw a lot of heroes; that much was true. Your quirk was versatile as a nurse, and you were bright, young, very good at your job, and definitely a beautiful individual. So, when you were assigned to be working most of your days healing heroes because they were the backbone of the country, it didn’t quite catch you by surprise. It was a common assignment you had as a nursing student too.

You just didn’t expect the head nurse of the floor to assign one of your five rooms to be holding none other than Ground Zero, a.k.a Bakugou Katsuki.

Of course, you weren’t an idiot. You had known about the explosion hero since high school! You had sat in front of your TV in high school, attempting to do your homework while watching the rather intensive first-year battles. He had done well in every stage, placing within the top three each time and even winning the game! You had cringed at the awards ceremony but had been horrified at the news of his kidnapping. 

But after that, with the rising tensions of the villain world upon the dying world left behind by All Might, you had forgotten him for a moment. As time went on, and finally, a new support system was brought forth, Ground Zero, much like his quirk entailed, exploded onto the scene alongside Deku and a few other young heroes.

So, sure, you expected to maybe one day run into the ash-blond hero, but you didn’t expect it to happen on day one.

All things considered, the two of you got along rather well.

His... strong personality did make you wary of him at first, taking his near verbal barrage until you, very flusteredly he will argue, told him to ‘shut up, you butthole!’

You were horrified at your lack of professionalism, and Bakugou had gone silent as he stared at you in silence.

“Did you just call me a butthole?” he echoed, his face full of emotions you could not read. You felt on the verge of panicking, unsure if he was going to potentially tell on you! The sounds of a barking laughter rang in your ear, and you looked up to see his grinning, much more relaxed form. “Are you some shitty preschooler?!”

Thus began a working relationship of sorts between you and Bakugou.

He was an asshole, and you tried your best to not let him talk you off a cliff. It didn’t take very long for you to find out what made him tick surprisingly enough, and you used that to your advantage. The best way to tease him right now was by reminding him that he had been hospitalized more times than Deku, who apparently had held the record for the number of hospitalizations between him and his friends.

“Are you going to mention that shit first meeting every time we talk?!” Bakugou barked, his eyes narrowed as he turned his head away from you.

“After you admit you care deeply for all your friends!” you chirp back, stepping away from his IV drip, satisfied by what you saw. “Well, you look good for now. I’ll be checking up on you every ten to fifteen minutes since you can’t press the button until we can get those casts off! Did ya need anything before I go check on my other patients?”

“Open the damn window; it’s stuffy in here,” Bakugou grumbled, his face finally facing you again. 

“Of course,” you smile cheekily, your eyes squinting with your broad grin. “It’s a nurse's job to make their patients comfortable and happy!”

Standing at the side of the bed, you stretched over Bakugou to grab the edge of the window and slide it open. Through your stance, you were entirely aware of how this looked, how this felt. Your breasts centimeters from Bakugou’s face, your eyes never once breaking from the window to feign your innocence as you finally pull away. Even with scrubs on, you could feel his hot, sharp breathes expelling through your clothes, his ears tinging just the smallest bit red as you smile.

“Anything else?” you asked sweetly, failing to hide your impish grin.

“Put the water cup close by,” he grunted, eyes staring at the liter of water at his side table. Well, he wouldn’t be able to use his arms until just before he was set to be discharged, so moving the water closer was a good idea.

Nodding, you grabbed a nearby cup, filling it three-quarters of a way full before placing it onto the feeding table and dragging it near his mouth, a bendy straw already secured into the cup. You watched as he shot forward, putting the plastic straw into his mouth and beginning to drink the cold water. His eyes were back on yours, deceivingly cold had you already not been an expert on his personality.

With one final soft chuckle, you waved at Bakugou as you headed out, a cheerful smile on your face as he continued to drink his water.

“See ya in a few!”

Well, you guess there was one more important detail about your relationship with Bakugou Katsuki. For the past five months, you have been doing everything in your power to seduce him — to get him to admit that he wanted you too.

You knew the ethics and the morals behind falling for a patient of yours, much less a high profile patient at that. You knew that if your little crush was ever found out, you would most definitely be moved from his room. You were also damningly aware that you should have brought up your initial feelings for the explosion hero to your admin the moment it arose. But the thought and the way you were always so happy to be around him eventually overruled your logic. Five months ago, you had stayed at the hospital until nearly three am, talking with a severely concussed Bakugou. You were stationed for an overnight round with the task of making sure that he didn’t fall asleep. And for the first time in your time knowing Bakugou, the two of you somehow clicked into place, and when he was discharged the next morning — the nurse who had a quirk to rid of concussions finally arriving — he had thanked you.

It was so benign, so incredibly simple, yet the way the golden sunshine illuminated his blond hair and made his red eyes shine like a ruby, you found your own tired body feeling heated and warm. He wasn’t such a lousy conversationalist, and you had already enjoyed all your interactions together, yet it still caught you off guard to feel your heart pounding in your throat as he pulled on his jacket and left.

So after coming to terms with your sudden infatuation for the stubborn hero, you began to express your desires and feelings for him without having to say it. For all that he was worth and all that he expressed himself to be extremely observant, Bakugou Katsuki still had no idea that you liked him.

Unfortunately, your scrub nurse uniform wasn’t precisely seductive. The light blue of the breathable, sterile uniform was about as unsexy as uniforms got. But that never stopped you from leaning in too close when doing what Bakugou demanded of you. It didn’t prevent you from accidentally dropping papers in front of him and bending over to show off the curves of your ass.

There had never been a time such as this one where you hated that the old, ‘sexy’ nurse outfits were no longer up to standard and banned from use. How you would have loved to be wearing gartered held stockings just to accidentally flash to Bakugou. But, you suppose that it’s alright. Even though your feelings and ambitions to get the Pro Hero to like you as much as you did him, you never tried to push it.

For now, you were just an asshole tease.

You carried out the rest of your rounds in peace, your pager sitting comfortably in your pocket, unused, unneeded for now. The rest of your four patients were doing well for now.

One was asleep, most likely due to the medicine coursing through his veins, but his vitals remained unchanged.

Another was in the process of getting ready to be discharged, her family there to help her in leaving.

The third was eating his dinner, eyes concentrated on a poker game on the TV as he asked you to help fluff his pillow.

The last was busy with a physical therapist, her forehead slick with sweat as she attempted to sit up from her chair.

All in all, they were all doing fine, and you were back to the beginning, back to Bakugou’s room.

You entered his closed room door to be greeted by an empty bed. Your eyes widened immediately, the initial wave of pure horror flashing through you that by some freak accident, some murderous villain had kidnapped the injured hero straight from the hospital bed. 

“Ground Zero-san?!” you called out, a pitched voice of concern frilling your voice as you stumbled through the room. Your eyes were frantically searching the room, fingers feeling the lingering warmth of his body on the bed and your eyes noticing the empty water cup on his table still. The sheets of his bed haphazardly thrown off as if in a struggle.

Your fingers wound around the panic button, your ears straining to hear any sort of sign of Bakugou still being here.

A gritted teeth snarl was muffled from the attached bathroom, and you froze, unable to move as you felt the untouched button in your hands turn as light as a feather. You approached the bathroom door with soft footsteps, the smile on your face, unable to be stopped as you pulled the door open.

The sight you happened upon was something that made your lips curl into a wider smirk as the hospital clothed-clad hero absolutely struggled with his lack of functioning hands and arms to pull down his pants. Something he couldn’t do himself because the socks and slippers on his feet kept him from even attempting to tug his pants off with his toes.

In his struggle, undoubtedly miserable attempt to get his pants and underwear off his waist, Bakugou seemed ignorant to your arrival. His back still towards you, his head tilted down in his struggle as he twisted and pulled at practically nothing.

And as you watched him struggle, you couldn’t help but let your eyes drink in his form that stood tall before you. Most occurrences where you found yourself face to face with Bakugou, he was always tucked in a bed (except that time you realized your feeling for him), whether it was because he needed to be or because he was forced to be. So seeing him in his full height, seeing how despite your size, you were still only at his shoulder, made your eyelashes flutter.

He was tall, so deliciously tall, you wanted to climb onto a chair to see if he would be taller even with that added height. And oh how the flimsy material of his hospital outfit was stretched then against the taut muscles of his back. They flexed and shifted with his aggravation, and the only thought on your mind was to rake your fingers against the tempting muscle and skin.

“Shitty. fucking. villain!” he hissed angrily, sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he still struggled to do what nature called him for. 

But you couldn’t help it; the flexing muscles of his back, the lower tenor of his voice, and the way he seemed ridiculously larger than life at the moment tipped your restraint over. Your ability to hold back crashing through you like a tsunami wave, drowning you until you found your hand tethered to the tight spot at the center of his spine, your hushed words drifting to his ear like sweet, warm honey.

“You need any help here, Ground Zero-san?” you asked, your voice just loud enough to have your hot breath fanning against his sweaty exposed neck. You could feel him twitch in your hold, his body stiffening as he whipped his head around to look at you, red eyes wild, wide, and dark.

“Don’t ya know how to fucking knock?!” he snapped, his body flushed at being caught in the bathroom, unable to shed his clothes. He doesn’t move from your touch, and that small detail makes you warm, knowing that he wasn’t entirely repulsed by your touch. 

“You were missing from your bed, and I called your name,” you smile despite his angry glare. “I know you are susceptible to hear loss, but I thought you were still in the clear.”

“I ain’t fucking deaf,” Bakugou growled, his face twisted with a frown. “And that still doesn’t explain why the hell you’re here!”

“Oh, were you not just completely struggling earlier?” you feign shock, the grin on your face unstoppable at the embarrassed scowl that sets on his face. You step even closer to him so that your torso is perpendicular to his side. Your hand still gently touching his muscled back, and your free hand gently pressing to his own abdomen, the feeling of his flexed muscles, making you dizzy as you peer down at the white toilet. “Is there a villain in the toilet? I didn’t think that was possible!”

“Of fucking course not, there’s not a shitty villain in the toilet.” Bakugou flushed, his body entirely trapped by you, but he made no play to escape.

“Oh, so did you need help?”

Bakugou stares at you, his mind whirling a kilometer a second as he contemplates his next course of action. The both of you know he needs help, and still, the both of you are aware that his ability to ask of that from you is slim to none given he couldn’t even wait for you to return to his room.

“Tch,” he clicks his tongue angrily, annoyed, completely fed up. His eyes rolling to the ceiling, refusing to acknowledge you as his head nods once. “Help me, shitass nurse.”

“Of course!” you chirp, your eyes finding his hooded ones.

You give him one last warm, sweet smile before the hand on his torso lightly drags down his stomach, soft in its unashamed way of feeling him up. Your head tilted as your fingers hooked into the tight waistband of his pants and pulled it down, the heat of your palm accidentally dragging itself over the imprint of his cock behind his boxers.

The slight, flustered choking noise at the back of his throat didn’t go ignored by you, but rather but aside for later. Your eyes flashing up to see his red eyes wide, his cheeks so lightly dusted with pink as you managed to pull down his boxers too. 

“There!” you exclaim, your eyes closing in your grin before you turn your attention back down to his exposed dick. 

Immediately, you had to hold back a noise of pure want and lust at the sight of him. He was long, undoubtedly eight inches, definitely more. Although you couldn’t tell how thick, you knew his dick would fill your palm without a struggle. The trimmed, dark blond pubes and the protruding veins are what did it for you, your tongue poking out for a millisecond to wet your lips as you stared at his dark pink head.

“Stop staring at it!” Bakugou hissed, clearly embarrassed if the slight voice crack said anything about it. 

You looked back up at him, fake confusion swimming in your eyes as you tilted your head. “It’s only a penis. I see millions of these all the time.”

“Yeah, but it’s fucking weird!”

A soft laugh escaped your lips, your eyes rolling softly as you sighed in retreat, “Fine, fine, let's pee big boy and get you in bed.”

With your dominant hand, you grabbed his dick with a soft grip, pleasure simmering through you at the confirmation of the thick dick in your palm. But it seemed you weren’t the only one who thought that for the moment you tried to steer his dick toward the toilet to assist in aim, Bakugou hissed loudly. His flesh twitching to life in your warm, soft hand as it began to grow upward.

You didn’t say anything; your jaw remained as tight and closed as your vocal box despite the egging need to tease him and celebrate his apparent approval of your touch. So, eventually, in a voice that defied the nervous energy coursing through your veins, you asked: “Didn’t you need to pee?”

Bakugou let out a throaty, guttural groan, his anger hissing between his teeth as his dick twitched again in your hold, growing longer and harder still.

“I can’t take a damn piss with a hard-on, you idiot!” he roared despite the strawberry red blush on his cheeks. You admired the way he was still fighting for control of an upper hand here despite — clearly — not having any.

“Oh, haha! Silly me!” you laugh, your hand shifting against his length, your warm palm getting closer to the base of his cock.

“W-What are you doing?!” Bakugou spluttered, your soft butterfly touches sending him through a loop he clearly wasn’t expecting. “You could just wait for it to die!” 

“It’s a nurse's job to make their patients comfortable and happy,” you repeat your words, your hold on his dick growing firmer and harder just as his cock continued to do. “You clearly need to pee, and there’s no telling when your cock will go down.”

“I’LL MAKE IT GO DOWN!” Bakugou yells, but the usual sharpness to his tone has deflated, diminished to nothing but whining embarrassed yell. You look up at his clenched jaw and how a pretty pink glows on his cheeks, and you’re mesmerized.

Looking back down at his growing cock that warms your hand immensely, you hum, slightly twisting your hand around his length. Bakugou shudders, a whine hidden in his throat as you open your own mouth.

“Do you want me to stop?” you question, your eyes fluttering up to look at his clouded red ones. “Do you not need or want me?”

That was a double-headed question if Bakugou ever heard one. He looked at your glossy lips, the way they were pouted, so ready to be kissed, to be claimed, and that delirious look of want and need in your eyes. And he knows better; he knows that this is not the place, not the time to act on emotions like this. The need to pee sits heavily on his lower belly, just like the need to cum makes him twitch and pace uncomfortably. God fucking damn his broken to smithereens arms.

But you already know this, of course, you do. But you also know how stubborn he can be, how anal he can be about the littlest thing. So with no answer, you weaken your grip, making him think that you’re ready to leave, and he falls right into the trap.

“Make it fucking q-quick,” his voice cracks, the embarrassment nearly tangible as you nod your head firmly, your fist tightening around his cock.

Your warm fingers pressed onto his length, beginning at a slow leisurely pace, your eyes glued onto his face, detailing how he reacts to every small flick of your wrist, every little difference of grip in his hands. Your strokes began to grow larger, your fingertips tracing the bulging veins on his cock, your eyes hypnotized by the way his face pinches in his pleasure, the blush on his cheeks, the way the hot pants expelling from his mouth curl warmly in your lower belly.

“Y-You do this with all your shitty patients?” Bakugou growls, but it sounds weak, too blurred and slurred with his increasing pleasure.

Your fingernails drag against the underneath of his cock, tracing the incredibly sensitive skin until he’s slowly thrusting his hips into your fist. “Only the hot ones,” you tease, your thumb pressing against the tip of his beading tip, the warm pre-cum slick and spreading quickly against his flushed tip.

“You’re fucking disgusting,” Bakugou continues, his head tipping backward, exposing the slenderness of his neck that begs for your teeth to sink into. “Just needed to take a fucking piss.”

“Nervous, you’ll pee all over me, and I won’t want to suck your dick?” you ask, your fingers brushing near his scrotum, eyes blazing dangerously at the sight of his gasping, jaw-dropping face. His hips rut forward, leaking cock dripping with his pre-cum, and you giggle softly, fisting him faster, spreading the pre-cum against his heated sex.

Your fingers run against his throbbing length, your palm tight and hot against his cock, the veins you drag across searing against your flesh, ingraining itself onto your skin and memory forever. Despite it all, the obvious near tangible horror Bakugou has on the thought of pissing on you, he continues to fuck into your fist. 

“Damn bitch like you would probably l-like it if I pissed on you,” Bakugou pants, his casted arms twitching at his chest. His head tilted away from you, but his eyes burning into you, the red eyes hot as fire against your skin. “You want me to piss on you? Make you my bitch.”

The words burn against your skin, your teeth biting onto your lower lip as you meet his gaze. You’ve never considered it before, never thought you’d be into it. As a nurse, you’ve been around piss, shit, and vomit, and while you had grown unfazed by it, you never considered the prospect of a man pissing on you. But you thought of it, of Bakugou standing above you, free from his casts, hands on his cock as he smirks down at you with golden liquid spraying from his cock, soaking you where you lay. 

You shudder, pleasant chills running down your spine as you stare into his eyes yet again. 

“And if I do?” you ask, fingers rolling the head of his cock between your forefinger and thumb, relishing in the way that he snarls low in his throat. “What’re you gonna do about that, Ground Zero-san? You gonna piss all over your bitch after you get out of here.”

“You want me to piss on you here?” he asks, his voice snappish, strained, his hips drilling harder into your hand that was quickly speeding up. A battle of power and speed between the both of you as he looms over you, face flushed, pink, and lips demanding to be kissed. “Wouldn’t be surprised if you do.”

“Why’s that?” you breathe, his lips tantalizingly close to yours, a breath away as your hand grips and tightens even more around the base of his cock, causing a pained-pleasured hiss to rip from behind his teeth as he looks at you.

“Don’t act like your shitty ass hasn’t been trying to seduce me every time I show up,” Bakugou gruffs, his hips continuing a drilling rhythm into your fist, his body no longer shy or embarrassed.

“So you noticed but never said anything?” you counter, your fingers shifting over to his swollen, hot balls. You fondle them, tugging at their weight gently, taking in the way his eyes roll to the back of his head and the way his teeth tear into his lip. “Coward.”

“Hah?! Who the fuck—”

You can’t help yourself anymore, your mouth coming to slam against his in a piercing, searing kiss. He moans into the kiss, and you gasp back, tongues clashing together, teeth knocking into each other as awkward, nearing uncomfortable kisses are exchanged. His sweet scent of caramel wafts into your nose, and his grunts and groans are addicting, entirely enthusiastic noises that send your own thighs clenching shut to quiet the heated need in between your thighs.

Your hand increases in its speed, his whines and groans so pretty and piercing into you. 

“How fucking gross,” you laugh into his mouth, the slicked heat of his precum lathering your palm until soft noises of your fisting hand begin to fill the sterile bathroom. “You’re a child, wanting to piss on things that you shouldn’t. You came to the bathroom and got a hard-on instead of pissing, Bakugou, aren’t you embarrassed.”

“Y-Y/l/n,” he hissed, his jaw falling slack against your mouth. His hips are drilling into you faster and faster, the throbbing of his cock, the growing, thick scent of his caramel sweat filling the room and your senses. “F-Fuck!”

“Such a dirty, childish pro hero,” you smile your tongue curling into his mouth and dragging against the roof of his mouth as he shudders helplessly against you. “Cum already, Bakugou, cum and piss over yourself like some small brat.”

He shudders, and you find your mouth leaving his own as you stare down, spurting white ropes of cum pour from his tip, completely covering the toilet seat with his sticky white cum. And you watch as soon as his body collapses onto you, entirely spent from the orgasm, yellow piss streaming from his tip.

The toilet fills with his cum and piss, and you grin once his balls and bladder are completely drained. His cock limp and weak in your hand as you hum, your quirk activating and causing the exhausted Pro Hero to recompose himself so that he wasn’t entirely weak against you. 

“Such a good patient,” you coo, pulling up Bakugou’s boxers and hospital pants without a second's thought. Patting his butt gently, you watched as his still exhausted red eyes stared at you. You walked over to the sink, washing your hands so that you could continue to finish the rest of your shift.

“Don’t think this is over, shitty nurse.”

You look at him over your shoulder, your fingers curling under the warm water as you grin.

“I expect to be fucked and pissed on next time,” you counter, your smirk devastating and sending a fire right back to Bakugou’s groin. “No freebies anymore.”

[cdroloisms]

Dream thought that he can bring server together, he thought that they can be one big family... Well at least he really bond them, even if they bonded to fight against him. Even if that mean he's not part of this server anymore.

right,, the one big happy family thing always destroys me

bc it’s really the driving force behind everything he’s done, the reason why he’s cut off everything he’s ever loved, moved forwards despite everything he’s ever lost. it doesn’t make what he does right, by any means, but c!dream’s longing for a better past, his clinging to a family he loved and lost - it’s so desperately, painfully human and is very much the cherry on top of his whole tragic story. it’s something that tugs at my heart every time i think about it - especially how in the end, pretty much nobody knew what drove him to the lengths he went to, and how everyone still sees him as being motiveless, or doing it all for personal gain and power. it’s reasonable, with their limited povs, but oh man does it hurt when we know his real reasoning.

this,, ended up weirdly long haha but oh man was it fun. have some dream team angst as i cry abt c!dream for the millionth time 

tws: death, grief, off-screen murder, implied mental deterioration

Two weeks after Dream dies, Sapnap asks George if he wants to come to the vault.

He almost says no. It’d be an early journey if they want to get out without anyone seeing, and he’s just- tired. He’s been tired for months even though he spends most of his time sleeping, usually can’t even find the energy to pull himself out of bed. The weird dreams hadn’t helped in the slightest, though they’ve been gone for a few weeks, and he’s not seen XD in a long time, save for a few minutes after he first heard the news. In all honesty, he doesn’t want to deal with the mental strain of anything to do with Dream at all.

But- Sapnap is still his best friend, even if they’ve grown apart ever since that fateful night with Dream, and he still knows the Netherborn better than nearly- well, everyone, now, with Dream gone. As much as Sapnap tried to put on a strong front, Dream’s death had taken its toll.

Killing Dream had taken its toll.

He’d been asleep (again) when it all went down, but he knows that somehow, Dream had escaped prison. Somehow, it ended with Sapnap’s sword stabbed hilt-deep in Dream’s chest, an unmarked grave in the forest behind the Community House that he knows Sapnap visits when he thinks nobody’s watching.

So when Sapnap asks, dark bags under his red-rimmed eyes, if he wants to come with him to see what belongings they can find in Dream’s old blackstone-brick vault- he says yes.

“There,” Sapnap gestures over the crest of a netherrack cliff above a bubbling lava lake, and George strains to look at what the other is pointing at. There, settled over a small outcrop of netherrack and gravel, a messy bridge of various blocks leading from it, lies the signature black and purple silhouette of a nether portal. “It’s just across that.”

George hums in acknowledgement, and they clamber down in sync. It’s been a while since he’s spent time one-on-one with Sapnap like this; George had half-forgotten what it feels like, to work with someone so different and yet know them so well. Years and years of teamwork means they fall in step almost without thinking, Sapnap easily sliding forward to block a skeleton’s arrow while George nocks one of his own to shoot it through the skull. It is a partnership built on years of bickering and banter and deep-set trust, of having to face a stronger, more agile opponent together through wind and rain and snow.

He missed it, though he’ll never admit that to anyone but himself.

He hesitates in front of the nether portal, pulling Sapnap back automatically by his sweater sleeve. “You sure the other side is safe?”

“Yeah, yeah- it should be,” Sapnap pulls his arm away, lets him enter the portal first before stepping into the frame himself. “Not a manhunt.”

“Mm,” George laughs, tired. “Just checking.”

The portal hums, purple creeping into the corners of George’s vision and filling it until it’s all he can see, and he rubs at his eyes to clear his vision as he stumbles out the other side. Sapnap walks out, seeming unfazed - it’s always been something that George has envied in the other, how unaffected he is by portals, but he’s also always had worse portal sickness than most- “We’re here.”

The place is - put lightly, a wreck, wooden planks scattered all over the floor and inch-deep water sloshing around his shoes. “What’s with the water?”

“I don’t know, someone must’ve come here after for something,” Sapnap frowns, points across the room to a chute leading upwards, filled with a crude spiral staircase of oak. “We’re going up there.”

George nods, letting him take the lead. The staircase is rickety, the bottom steps waterlogged; Sapnap grimaces the whole way up, makes some comment under his breath about how unsafe it all is, but they continue without much issue. The top of it is surprisingly unassuming - there’s really nothing around, just a small hollowed out space carpeted by savannah grass, shorn short. Sapnap tosses him a pickaxe.

“He respawned up here, that day - he’s gotta have a bed up here somewhere.” He gestures at the plain stone walls surrounding them, “My guess is that it’s just behind one of these walls. Just mine two or three blocks in all the way across, I’ll start from this side.”

“Whatever, Snapnap,” George takes the pickaxe anyway, walking over to the other side of the room and ignoring the protests Sapnap throws at his back. Mining the stone is simple, methodical; it’s a steady rhythm of the pick hitting stone and blocks falling into his inventory; if he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that they’re in the middle of a manhunt, and Dream has holed himself into the wall as he always does for them to find him. He doesn’t, because thinking about manhunt does nothing but make something cold and choking claw up his throat, almost like guilt, almost like regret, and he doesn’t have the energy for that in the slightest.

His next swing rings oddly hollow, and when the block drops neatly away the wall opens to a narrow corridor. He calls Sapnap over.

“Here.” Sapnap moves with large, heavy strides, face tightening into a foreign expression of grim determination when he catches the darkness behind the one-block hole George mined, “I found it.”

“Well, obviously,” he rolls his eyes as he takes out the bottom block, looking at George from the corner of his eye. “Nice observation, genius.”

“Hey! You told me to find it, and I did, unlike you- you should be thanking me, Sapnap.”

“Whatever, Gogy,” Sapnap sighs, looking into the corridor, feet settling against the ground into a wide stance that George recognizes as the one he’d usually use in a fight. It makes something long-forgotten ache in his chest, joining the dull ball of hurt that has been there for what feels like months, “You ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, hurry up, will you?” The retort rings hollow, dying on his lips even as he says it, and George watches as Sapnap turns his head away and pretends not to notice.

“Let’s go.”

The hallway is dark, dusty, a hastily made thing as shown by the rough gouges made on either side by a quickly working pickaxe. It opens into a tiny room, similarly carved into the mountain with roughhewn walls of stone; George’s lips thin and press against each other as he takes a closer look at the room, stepping in behind Sapnap.

“This place is a mess,” he states drily, scuffing his foot against the floor and cringing at the trail it leaves in the dust. There’s a bed left in the corner, a thin little thing with the covers thrown off, lying halfway on the floor, and a few chests and furnaces scattered aimlessly against the walls and making the whole thing look more cramped. There are papers strewn over the floor and chests, piles of coal and wood left to collect dust in the corners. It looks like a whirlwind swept through the place, and it’s almost eerie to see this room, completely untouched since the twentieth, a snapshot in time of Dream in the middle of his spiral into madness.

Sapnap kicks at one such pile with a humorless scoff, “That’s an understatement.”

“You looking for anything in particular?” George jabs his thumb at the mess in front of them, “Because I’m not cleaning all of that up.”

“I guess- just look through the chests?” Sapnap’s face darkens visibly even despite the dim lighting, and George stifles the urge to poke fun at how the younger clearly didn’t plan this far ahead, per usual. “Just look for anything useful, worth taking back I guess.”

“Mmhm.” He moves to the left-most chest as Sapnap moves to the right, watching from the corner of his eye as the other strikes up a torch to place in the middle of the room. The lid creaks open, and he rummages through the contents, vaguely surprised when his hand meets row after row of glass bottles. He pulls one out, squints at the contents. “Hey Sapnap, is this a regen?”

Sapnap looks over. “Yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes when George pockets it. “Seriously- you know Sam literally has an automatic potion brewer, right. You can just steal from that instead.”

“Or I could just steal from here,” he closes the lid, moving to the next chest. “That’s just his pots chest. He really stacked up, didn’t he?”

“Well, you know Dream. Always had to plan for the end of the world.” Sapnap closes the chest that he was hunched over, tossing over something in a flash of gold, “Was just his food chest. Don’t know why someone needs eight stacks of gapples, but whatever. We can split the god apples later.”

“Sure,” George nods, distracted as he fiddles with clasp of the next chest. This one, unlike the last, seems more worn over the bottom edge of the lid, the wood almost seeming to bear dents where fingers had pressed into the areas right by the clasp again and again. The lid eases open, and he frowns at the chest’s contents; there’s no rhyme or reason to them at first glance. There’s a half-stack of stone in the top left, a couple pieces of leather thrown in the bottom corner, a low-durability crossbow, unenchanted, that he briefly runs his hands over before throwing it back into the chest. He rummages through it for another second, about to dismiss it as a junk chest, when a well-worn book near the back of the chest catches his eye.

He pulls it towards him with careful hands, breath having caught in his throat. The cover is leather, scuffed and scratched in several places, not bearing the dull shine of a book that’s been signed and preserved magically. It doesn’t seem to be titled, no ink against the usual places on the front cover or spine, but the whole thing looks well-loved, the thread of the spine slightly frayed the leather heavily creased from where the cover had been eased open again and again.

He opens the front cover, and sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“Sapnap? I think I found something.”

There, nestled between the front cover and the first page, lays a pile of photographs. Unlike everything else in the room, these are clearly well-loved, well-cared for, the corners are sharp, the surfaces shiny, despite how often they must have been thumbed through and looked at. He plucks the first one off the top of the pile - it’s one that was taken from the inside of the old community house before the floor was replaced with crafting tables, string lights hanging from the ceiling in an impromptu party, Alyssa’s legs dangling from where she’s sitting at the edge of the spiral staircase, Callahan leaning against the wall with a slice of cake held between his hands. Sapnap’s sitting in the middle of the floor across from himself, both of their faces glowing softly in the flickering light - his own face is caught in a grimace, Sapnap bent over himself in laughter- Sapnap walks up behind him, gasps at the sight.

“What are-”

George passes over the photo wordlessly as he moves to the next; there’s Sam, grinning at the camera with a newly tamed Fran by his side, tail a white blur against the green of the grass; Bad, hands clutched around a bucket as he yells at someone off the frame, a salmon head poking slightly out the top; Ponk, sitting proudly in the top branches of his first lemon tree.

His breath catches at the next; it’s dim, the sky a pretty blend of purple-pink from the last remaining dregs of light of a sunset, hovering over the dark edge of the ocean stretching out towards the horizon. They’re sitting in boats, the bottom edges lit softly from the coral sitting in the shallow waters below them, brilliant halos of reds and pinks and yellows and oranges and blues dotted with the soft lights of sea pickles painting the wood in muted rainbows. Sapnap’s smiling from one in the back, head tipped to the side cheekily, right hand lifted in a cocky two-fingered salute. George is sitting in the back of a boat in the foreground, glasses lifted to his forehead, eyes mid-roll even as he grins obligingly at the camera-

And then, in the front, there’s Dream.

His mask is pulled to the side of his face, exposing his freckled skin and brilliant green eyes; he’s smiling widely, all teeth, hair wet and sticking up in a ring of untamed swirls and spikes. His eyes are crinkled at the corners, cheeks red, arm stretched forward off-frame from where he’d held the camera in front of them to take the selfie. George’s thumb brushes over the photo, pressing lightly against the dusty mess of hair framing Dream’s face, pausing at the sight of his pure, unadulterated joy.

What had happened to them?

A soft, choked sound comes from behind him, and George tucks the photos away, pressing them between two random pages in the book. His eyes flicker to the book’s contents, finally, finding Dream’s familiar, looping scrawl written on the first page. The words are big and messy, all capitalized and underlined several times, the last four circled roughly.

REMEMBER WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS: ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY.

He snaps the book shut.

“George-”

“Let’s go home, Sapnap.” He throws one last look at the room, at the messy, desperate edges, the remnants of a man lost in his own reckless belief that he could build something beautiful out of blood and ash. He swallows, blinks back the image of a brilliant smile, freckled cheeks ruddy with laughter, at the golden glow of memories long-forgotten that threaten now to burn him with their warmth. He can imagine Dream, settled in the middle of this mess, pressing himself closer to the fire contained in these photographs, these memories, and not realizing how he’s being burned, can nearly see a ghost of him tucked in these shadowed corners, haunting the hopes that he had clung to against all reason with the promise that it could all be worth it.

Sapnap frowns at him tiredly, photos pressed against his own chest. “George,” he says, cautious, and George’s shoulders hunch defensively.

“Let’s go home,” he stands up, hearing more than seeing as Sapnap does the same. “Whatever closure you’re looking for- you’re not finding it here.”

[sapphire-innit]

DRISTAAAAA TIMEEE

VOD: TommyInnit Speaks To Dream’s Sister AGAIN

(rp): Drista!! I love this chaotic child and am looking forward to seeing the children bully each other lmao. I especially love the mythos around Creative mode, and that the most benevolent god on the Dream SMP is just as likely to ban you as hand you a shulker box lol.

I do wonder how in character cc!Tommy is going to be able to stay during this stream: on one hand he’s a master at staying in character even during lh moments, and on the other Exile arc is some Dark Shit and Dristas like what, 14?? Overall I expect this to be one of the lighter streams, with a smattering of moments where we remember that, oh right, Tommy’s pretty actively suicidal at this point and he sees this as one of his last hurrahs.

Speaking of our boy Tommy: it's very clear we are getting closer and closer to the infamous pillar. He switches rapidly between Fight and Fawn reflexes and has mostly internalized Dream’s treatment and conditions at this point. The one stand out moment being him calling out Dream killing Mexican Dream last stream, and pointing out he was changing his story even when Dream tried to lie and say he died of “a drug overdose [...] or natural causes”. I’m curious if Tommy is going to bring it up again, and even more curious if he eventually believes Dream about it; something to watch out for, for sure. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this moment of rebellion happened right after he had someone both stand up for him and spend time with him that wasn’t actively hostile or going to end (supposedly, at least by intention)

Hey we didn’t start off drowning for once!! cc!Tommy was also singing, though that could have been mostly out of character as well. Still, remarkably in a better mood, he even mentions having an appetite! You love to see it, and it's clearly because he’s looking forward to Drista’s visit

He’s building a log tower and on one hand, Tommy building Towers is a natural state of being, and on the other…. I know the pillar is coming and I am scared

A mention of the Anti-Dream hole… I still worry about when exactly and how Dream is going to find it. Still, I’m glad it exists, both for Tommy having a space for things important to him, as well as what it represents about his mental state re:not giving over completely to Dream

DRISTA!!!! LOL she was already online we didn't even see her join LOL. CHAOS GREMLIN she just flew over in creative mode and started wrecking shit, as is her right lmaoooo

“You massive jer--, (quieter) whats a nicer way…, YOU MASSIVE DICKHEAD” oh, Tommy..

I like how he tries to punch her even when shes CLEARLY IN CREATIVE MODE ADSADASD

The violence inherent in fourteen year olds,,,, adsfsadfsdfds

I hate this conversation why is this the conversation asdffdsfsd TEENAGERS

DREAM YOUR NOT EVEN A TEENAGER WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE SAME LOGIC

Well SHE can destroy the obsidian asdfsdfds She just Spleefs

“What would Dream do” Probably worse lets be honest

Is he actually gonna go back to L’manburg?? I don’t believe it but I also want :(

Again with the stabbing

AND DOWN HE GOEEEESSSS

“I have the fork, but I'm also killing you” afsafsdfdsf Tommy why are you wearing your good shit omg

Lol cc!Dream trying to defend his character for mocking Tommy’s accent adsfsdfds “I would NEVER” in the totally not believable tone lmaoooo

DID SHE REALLY GO AT HIM WITH A FORK I'M FUCKING DYING DSAFDADSFDS

“I will take it from you and I’ll kill him”... I have so many thoughts about how this works in lore. Is Drista possessing Dream? He can kick her out clearly, but she still has God Powers…

Lol and now SHES mocking his accent lmaoooo (... is it bad she sounded pretty close to me? lol)

Adsfdsfswd casual chaos Drista just broke the Nether Portal

Asking Drista to stop destroying things is a big ask to be honest lmaoo. Also she seems to be at least somewhat informed that ‘Dream is not supposed to be nice to Tommy’ or at least seemed hesitant to do /weather clear

GOD THE LAVA BUCKETS AND THE POTION OF HARMING adsfsdfsdf

“Tommy [beheaded him] actually… and killed Mexican Dream” Dream you motherfucker

“How to Sex 3” THE PANIK!!!!!! From Both cc!Dream and Tommy!!! This server is Not Child Friendly lol (Doesn’t…. That not even include sex things…. afasfsd)

Honestly I can’t stop smiling this is so wholesome somehow even with all the cursing and violence

Pigstep IS a bop, Tommy is right

“Just let him, just let him this one time” :(

“Tommy I still have the Fork” Drista totally willing to stab her brother to visit L’manburg

HE TOOK THE FORK ASDASDAS

Yes, closing your eyes will totally protect you from Forks lol

“I don’t need school, I dropped out” Is this Lore Crumbs, is this Lore

HEYYYY ITS THE BEDROCK, the one piece of bedrock he has lol, I think he still has that in current day right?

Drista is writing her name in BEDROCK adsfsdfds “I’m not going to be able to get rid of that actually” “That's the Point”

LOL SHe also recognized the burrito as from Mos lmaooo

Somehow “I really want to go to the other place.. I don’t know why he won’t let you” hit hard… it was def ooc, and she doesn’t have the full context, but still… its just someone else wanting and asking for Tommy to be able see L’manburg…

Afsdfsd the Small Gasp when she spleefs herself omgg

HES THERE!!! HES THERE!!!!!! L’MANBURG!!!!!!

Punz!!! WHY!!!! Were you there bc Drista might let Tommy through, was this a safeguard for the LORE. Also he’s currently working for Dream directly right, as a merc?

Drista trying to save Tommy!!!! Punz why are you winning a fight with someone in creative adfsadfsd He’s too good lol

They have negotiated a visit… I’m so emotional I wasn’t expecting this…. No one told me we got a real L’manburg visit !

BIG Q SHES FOURTEEN!!! Omg they didn’t tell him it was Drista. BIG Q!!! BIG Q DON’T SELL HER DRUGS

“He was Naked” good for you Drista, good for you. There’s something so hilarious about Drista just stabbing Quackity over and over again cause she’s uncomfortable lol (as is her right)

LOL THE FINAL KILL WITH MAGIC WHEN HE’S ALREADY DROWNING IM

Wha --- what video was it????? What is this Tommy picture on the Technoganda???

….”are you sure I’m allowed here” Dream’s conditioning is strong :(

“At many minute I could get mugged” To be Fair Tommy, that was true before

Did Tommy just suggest spawning in a Wither asdfsdfds

DRISTA DOG ARMY!!!! Aww and Tommy has one too~

THE BENCH!! THE HOUSE!!! Aaaaaaaaa He’s sitting on the bench nature is HEALING

AAAAAAAA A BLAZE!!!! Pfffft

…. Who destroyed the front of Tommys house?

,,,,Drista what are you doing with that soULSAND

“OK we'll turn on him” adsfsdfsd

OH HEY TECHNO!!! Lol “Oh god he meant me” fucking mood big man

……. Tubbo hallucination……… fuck

LOL HE COMBAT LOGGED “YOU CALL THAT COMBAT” I'M

To be fair, logging against a /kill is probably the only way to get away lmao

…...F

“Getting thrown off a cliff is literally how Theseus died!!” lol its also hilarious to me that Tommy def does not remember being called that. Personally I don't think it fits him super well anyway, but I do like it as something Techno calls Tommy, that shows how much he misjudges Tommy's character and intentions. No heroes here, just a kid trying to do good by their friends and what they care about

Techno actually looking up how to kill someone in creative mode

…. :( I just want my actual clingyduo content this is meeeeannn

OH HEY TECHNO …. You fucker he would and it would be HILARIOUS (get mad if Drista opped Techno that is lol)

….

….

IS THIS WHY THEY’RE BEDROCK BROS????? BECAUSE THEY BOTH HAVE DRISTA BEDROCK??????????????????????????

HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS ???

LOL TRUE DUO SUPREMACY TUBBO’S GOT TECHNO'S BEDROCK

Oh F Techno got him with the Obliterator lmaoooo

“I have 114 levels PLEASE” asdfdasfsdf

LOL Tubbo with the TNT there's our nuke boy, I'll take my crumbs where I can get them

THE SHULKER HOLY SHIT

“Don't let someone get it!!”” ADSFDSAFSDFDS they all tuRN CC REAL QUICK WHEN THE SHULKER BOXES COME OUT

Awesamdudes like: MORE PLEASE AFDASFDSF

Techno immediately snitching about Elytra and dRISTA GETTING THE ACHIEVEMENT

EVERYONE SNITCHING IN CHAT I'M!!!! DREAMS REACTION ASDFSDFDSF

Drista being the chaotic giver of illegal gifts is so fucking good I'M THRIVING

THE RUN ON PUNZ !!!! omg

Also can we just take a minute to appreciate Tommy being allowed around people <3 <3 This is so wholesome and good and chaotic as all hell

“I thought I was Tom Cruz for like a whole week” ...TOMMY??

LOL SHE BANNED TECHNO OMG

Dristas on a banning Rampage afsdfsdf

BAN GOGGY OMGGG

Omg shes actually making a wITHER DASDASDFAS

Oh no poor Tubbo I didn’t know he was liVE

319k viewers jeezus

Awwwww Techno hyping up Wilbur's song :) that's so sweet actually

…………….Fuck you Dream :( saw the chance to Twist the Knife in c! And TOOK IT

LOL THE FUCKING FORK IS THE BEST BIT LOLLLL

Lol ironically the Bedrock bros song is the oNE COPYRIGHTED ONE, god why did Minecraft ever copyright Pigstep what a shit move honestlyyy

Pigstep fucking goING TO TECHNO LOLLLLLL “this is the most powerful item on the server since it DMCA’s people”

LOL PUNZ TRYING TO STEAL ANOTHER SHULKER

Poor Sam he actually has to BUILD give this man a SHULKER

Lol Everyone wants a shulker so much

….aww he tried to toss the pigstep disc lmaooo DRISTAS LITERALLY HOLDING IT Scaaaaaammmmed

Drista “I NEED IT ON HAND” So committed to violence !!!

The fucking creepers on the way out omg fuckign PERFECT

LOL TOMMY WASN’T READY FOR THE TURN AROUND ON CURSING LMAO You can tell he's always been the youngest who people aren't sure how much they can curse around lmao He's so soft honestly he talks such a big game and then CRUMBLES when called on it lol

Asfdsfs she fell through the same hole again afsdfsdfsd

Drista has been introduced to a Weapon and she’s gotten ATTACHED lmaooo

Wait HOLD THE PHONE Dream has multiple sisters??? Lol

“Yeah I like Shit” Dream: “whAT???”

Bye Drista it’s been nice!!! I hope she had a good time, she seems like a good kid (who is definitely not a content creator lol though she keeps up admirably)

Drista’s one of the few people who can make Tommy speechless lmaooo he looks actually shocked lol

Also first mention of GhostInnit…. cc!Tommy…..

Keep preparing…. Was his original plan to rush Dream even if (maybe especially if…) he died? Fuck man

Also holy shit was this stream right before Quackitys? ? amazing

This was honestly such a BLAST and a really good time, and I can see why its viewed as one of the few breaks we get during Exile :) I feel so refreshed and it was so so nice to have Tommy hanging out in L’manburg having fun with his friends (even if Tubbo was stuck being a Hallucination and Also Banned lol) No deeper insight, I just haven’t stopped smiling for an hour and a half <3

[chidoroki]

Norman - 22194

March 21st is here and it’s time for yet another birthday post. I already rambled on about Emma and Ray on their special days, so now it’s finally time to complete this full-score tradition with Norman. It might not be as detailed or long as the other two, since he was absent for a good chunk of the story, but it doesn’t make him any less important! I’ll be honest now, the boy isn’t my favorite character (he doesn’t place anywhere in my top ten for this series either) so I probably missed some moments worth mentioning but I did my best to praise this child anyway!

(spoilers for the entirety of The Promised Neverland, so if you haven’t read/completed the manga yet, consider this your first warning, because I’m once again going from start to finish with this.)

Since I want to stay consistent with the other two posts, this will focus on the manga timeline, as season 2 is, well.. it’s own thing. I’ll mention some things but don’t count on much. With that, let’s go.

- He achieves a perfect score on Grace Field’s daily tests, alongside Emma and Ray.

- He is, without a doubt, the smartest kid the house has ever seen, as he passes each test flawlessly and has maintained a 300 average.

- He’s a complete strategist who is capable of achieving victory (even in something simple as tag) by observing his opponents moves and analyzing their weaknesses in order to counter.

- Knows how to pick locks. The scene from ch1 was left out but we see him doing so later on in ep02.

- Stays relatively positive and calm after learning about the truth of the farm.

- Even going as far as giving Emma a reassuring smile, which I think is impressive given the literal nightmare fuel they’ve just witnessed. 

- I’m giving him half credit for suggesting the idea of there being tracking devices, since anime has him reveal this possibility while in manga it’s Emma.

- Both of them realize what determines the shipping order and that the demons favor their brains.

- This silly panel that I love dearly.

- Made sure to do a sweep of the entire house beforehand to make sure their escape planning doesn’t get pick up on.

- Figures out that Isabella only knows the children’s locations when she checks the tracker and that it can’t identify who is who.

- Has the nerve to lie right to Isabella’s face.. not that she believes it, but still gutsy nonetheless.

- Knowing the house probably wouldn’t have any rope, it was his idea to use the spare tablecloths.

- Had a feeling that Ray would reveal the harsh reality of how dangerous it would be to escape with all the children, which turns out to be correct.

- His laugh in ep02 is so precious.

- This statement being 100% accurate.

- Manages to convince the logical Ray, who we know now has spent many years coming up with a solid, safer escape plan, to join in and assist with their crazy and reckless plan instead. Having Ray on their side also grants them many advantages.

- Absolutely hates to lose, which is a good mentality to have in a world where your life is a stake and your time is limited, which eventually leads him to consider every possible opportunity to stay ahead of his enemies throughout the remainder of the story.

- Realizes that the trackers must only send out a signal upon being broken, which we found out to be true in Ray’s one-shot chapter.

- - Him looking completely terrified in this panel.

- He managed to catch all the Grace Field kids in a game of tag even after they received advice from Ray about how to survive longer.

- The goddamn intimidating energy he gives off here is fantastic.

- Despite his body being physically weak, he manages to survive and win against Krone during their game of tag.

- Just like Ray some couple chapters ago, Norman is completely serious about this idea.

- Suspects there’s a traitor among the kids and swiftly comes up with a plan to lure them out.

- This panel of him “dead” from the first side story.

- He has a feeling the spy is Ray, so he moves up the day of the escape to catch him off guard and send him into a panic.

- Even though the anime didn’t include it, he managed to throw off Krone as well with some fake footprints to keep her off their backs.

- Was honestly considering on leaving the spy behind while the rest of them escaped, though he doesn’t seem real happy about the idea, considering the traitor is Ray.

- His plan on fishing out the spy was flawless as he finally calls Ray out by revealing that the information he gave about the ropes and where he hid them were fake locations.

- Not only was Ray the first one Norman suspected, but he caught onto him way back when Krone first came to the house. All the information Ray was feeding them helped Norman come to this conclusion as well.

- Along with Emma’s words about believing that no one in their family is truly bad, Norman refrains from cutting Ray off to allow him to become their trump card. This was a risky move itself, knowing Ray could sell both him & Emma out at any time. Norman tends to prioritize victory, so while staying alive is absolutely necessary and that could’ve been achieved without Ray (as he could’ve just used Ray then ditch him later), he still decides to make the offer as realizes that in order defeat Isabella, Ray’s full cooperation is essential.

- Realizes that it was Ray who hid Little Bunny in the first place and lead Norman and Emma to investigate the gate that night, which leads him to believe that Ray isn’t really an enemy.

- He’s also left handed. Yes, that’s important. Not only for later in the story but because we’re superior. I’m sorry y’all had to find out this way. 

- This stupid, little face he makes.

- Suspects that Ray doesn’t actually plan on escaping at all and intends to kill himself.

- Just like Emma and Ray, Norman also recognizes and understands morse code.

- Look at this precious child, not even angry after getting punched and knocked over. (because i certainly would be)

- Finds Ray’s hidden supply of oil which confirms the method for his future suicide. This also helps Norman later on when he comes up with a refined escape plan by using the fire Ray plans to start.

- Figures out Krone’s true intention about why she wants to join forces with the kids in the first place. 

- He ends up accepting Krone’s offer anyway, because despite the large risk, any information that can snag out of her would benefit them.

- You mad lad, look at you, taunting the bringer of death yet again while a smile on your face.

- And he still manages to find some strength to smile while upon death’s door.

- Not for long though, as once he’s given the chance to be alone, he finally breaks down. Having the cup overflow with water really helps demonstrate how impactful the thought of dying hit him as Norman was overcome with so many emotions that he didn’t even have the strength to hold onto the cup or his facade. It’s then he starts to feel scared and sorry for himself but away from Emma and Ray’s eyes as to not worry them.

- His entire internal monologue as he comes to terms with his unfortunate situation and flips back to his determined “I can’t lose” attitude to help everyone else escape. Also, his theme ‘22194’ hits especially hard.

- For someone with weak, physical abilities, he manages to climb the wall on his own.

- Though the cliff stopped his escape, he used that opportunity to survey the surrounding area of the entire farm to rely his findings to the duo and provide them a safer escape route.

- Completely adamant about his decision to accept his shipment in order to give the rest of his family a chance to escape. (hell, id’ be terrified right now)

- This hug that is sure to break everyone’s hearts.

- Quick to react to Emma’s last ditch effort and prevented her from slamming her already busted up leg into the ground.

- Not only did he predict that Ray would start a fire to distract Isabella and on which day, he also left behind the pen and key he received from Krone along with a new, detailed plan (which he managed to come up with in only a few hours by the way) that would allow the kids to cross over the cliff.

(post season one spoilers below. again, focusing on the manga timeline, so any new season 2 events will be mentioned sparingly.)

- Like Ray, Norman was able to figure out how the pen worked well enough to see Minerva’s message regarding B06-32.

- Since he doesn’t show up again for quite some time post-escape, there isn’t much to talk about.. but at least I can make fun of him thanks to extra pages, like how he wouldn’t have enough strength to use a bow.

- But hey, props to s2ep10 for actually giving us Norman shooting an arrow. He was pretty decent with it too, as he hit his target on the first try behind a darn smokescreen. The manga did show him holding a bow in ch161, but that’s it.

- Not relevant to the actual story at all, but his smarts certainly make anything possible.

- I’m sorry but these tiny failures of his bring me great joy.

- Though the tests at Lambda are harder than those at Grace Field, Norman still managed to get every question correct. Every single day he was there. Even when the facility manages to increase the difficulty of the tests, he continues to pass each one with flying colors.

- Since he noticed someone who’s right handed also takes the same tests he does, he makes an attempt to communicate with them via a Rubik’s cube. He waits patiently for five months until he finally gets a response from Vincent around Christmas 2046. 

- Dealt with the experiments/drugs that were forced onto him and the seizures that resulted from them.

- Even with the tight security and surveillance, he somehow acquired explosives and successfully blow up Lambda and escapes with the survivors.

- Again, not significant to the story, but seriously dude? You just fainted and yet you still get this crazy question right effortlessly?

(post time-skip)

- Contacts Lucas moments before the B06-32 shelter gets blown up and gives him the numeric code that eventually leads Emma’s group to the “Jaw of Lion.”

- Destroyed numerous mass production farms since his escape from Lambda.

- As well as save countless children from other farms and used the Paradise shelter found by Smee’s network to give them a sense of safety and taste of a normal life.

- The darn glow-up he receives, like sweet lord child, are you sure you’re still 13??

- - His cute, squishy cheeks though!

- He may look like he’s in his thirties, but still has the strength of a child. (see anime? this is how strong ray’s slap should have been!)

- Learned a great deal of demon history and gave that lengthy lesson about the demon’s genetics and how they inherit the characteristics of whatever they eat and evolve accordingly. 

- With Emma’s wish about saving everyone and lively happily still on his mind, he thought of a safe and certain method in order to create such a future for all the children raised as food.. which ends up being complete extermination of all the demons caused by a civil war. His plan also includes ending the Ratri clan as well. How cheerful.

- Are you surprised to learn that Norman getting tackled by the younger kids is my favorite panel of him?

- You weak, little bean, I’m sorry I enjoy making fun of you so much.

- Successfully forms an alliance with Lord Geelan and his clan by offering revenge on the royal family, the five regent houses, as well as the Ratri clan, thus putting Geelan in full control. In return, it would grant Norman the full release of farm children, permission to self-govern and some much needed power in terms of demon strength.

- He knows full well that the entire alliance is a lie and both parties are only using each other, though in works in his favor, as it will send the demons to destroy each other without the lose of any human lives.

- This absolute powerful panel that the anime decided “nah, we’re gonna change this too” because they’re cowards.

- Narrowed down possible locations on where to find Sonju and Mujika. Sure it was with the intention of killing our demon friends but his map was accurate.

- Survived who knows long with his seizures at level 4, and because of his severe condition, he’s completely set on following through his plan and succeeding before his time runs out.

- Seems to enjoy blowing stuff up, such as the imperial city’s bridges to send the place into a panic and trap all the citizens.

- Advised the Lambda crew on how to effectively fight against the queen by attacking relentlessly.

- Let loose a poison that causes not only normal demons to degenerate, but the royal family as well, such as the five regent heads and the queen who’s name is too long and complicated for me to ever remember, who all have the cursed blood. (at least that’s how effective it was in manga, in anime it did absolutely nothing to vylk)

- He somehow managed to learn, speak and understand the demon language, which, according to Shirai (vol16 author notes), is actually an uncommon language nowadays. (and we’ll unfortunately never know how this language actually sounds, thank anime..)

- Do I even praise him for killing a demon and well.. all this? Sure in the anime he tried killing Vylk, but old demon was fair more innocent compared to the royal family, so I have no idea.

- I will give season 2 some credit and say I prefer their take on the “right now you look like a small child, shaking with fear” panel.

- But not too much credit, as they didn’t give us the full trio hug as the manga did!

- Then again the anime did have him about to apologize to Vylk and Demon Emma for his actions, which is something, I suppose? since in ch154 he says he didn’t regret killing the queen and royals, which I guess is justified because they were the bigger problem, but oh well.

- Might have apologized to Ayshe for killing her father? Can’t be sure but that’s the unanimous consensus in the fandom right?

- Instantly comes up with counter moves and directions for the entire group upon hearing the enemies locations from Vincent during the GF raid.

- I honestly can’t look at this panel anymore and not laugh about it.. because reasons.

- He just keeps on winning. (also he looks real good here, i’ll give him that.)

- He and everyone else are skeptical about there being no “reward,” and for rightfully so.

- Upon learning that Emma is missing after everyone crossed over to the human world, they all adopt her optimistic attitude and swear to find her no matter where she might be.

- After a stressful two year search, the kids finally find Emma and Norman is so overcome with emotion that he busts out into tears of joy, despite finding out that she lost her memories due to the reward. All that matters to him is that Emma was safe and happy and he accepts her just the way she is.

And I guess.. that’s it. I’m sorry again, I know this is truly the weakest post out of the trio and I have no doubt I glanced over a whole bunch of great moments but it still had to be done! Making fun of him probably wasn’t the best thing to do on his special day either, but I assure you this child is very powerful. Who else do you know that is capable of sending an entire fandom into a panic and rage furiously by just simply showing up?

Ah ha okay, now I’m done. In all seriousness though, this lad is great and through everything he has endured, he definitely deserves to be celebrated today, so happy birthday to our boy Norman!

[runrundoyourstuff]

Seasons

(A Steven Universe Fic, 2632 words)

Written with love for a holiday exchange with the wonderful @mimik-u !

Prompt: Steven teaches one of the Diamonds about something beautifully mundane (a la Peridot learning about rain.)

--

It’s almost comical how the Dondai pales in size when compared to the Arm Ship—and the magnitude of the difference only grows as Steven descends the ridge. There are some items, both of human and Gem origin, that seemed larger when he was smaller—when he was younger—when everything mysterious in the world, every new thing he learned about himself, filled him with wonder. The Diamond ships, however, are not among these items. They’re as large now as they always seemed to him, if not quite as foreboding. As are the Diamonds themselves, and he is reminded of this, as Yellow disembarks from her spacecraft.

She doesn’t see him right away. Or if she does notice the car, she doesn’t have the frame of reference to recognize it as his, and even after he parks it beside the ship and gets out, it’s several moments before she turns around and acknowledges him standing there.

“Steven!”

“Hey, Yellow.”

“When I called, I hadn’t realized…” She sputters. “Your...your family returned my message to inform me that you were leaving on a conquest—”

“A conquest?”

“Yes, they said that you were going to travel—”

“Yeah, but not on a conquest!”

“Of course, of course, a scouting mission, then—”

“No! Nothing like that! Just a trip! I just...needed to hit the road for a while. Figure out what’s next.”

“I...right, of course. Your—I mean, the Pearl said that you would be taking a hiatus from your Diamond duties…”

At this, Steven chuckles. “Pearl wants me to.” But then he becomes serious. “I shouldn’t laugh. She’s trying to make sure that I take care of myself. She—all of them really, want to make sure I know that I don’t have to be involved in any Gem stuff if I don’t want to. That it’s my choice. And ya know, it’s true that I don’t want it to be my whole life, not like it was when I was a kid. And because there’s no hierarchy anymore, I do want to give other Gems a chance to manage things on Earth if they want to—to show them it doesn’t always have to be a Diamond, and I’m not a Diamond anyway—but I do want to be involved, ya know? Or at least know what’s going on! I put so much work into everything, and not all of it was bad. I was really proud of a lot of what we did, and the Gems are my family…” A pause. “Anyway, that’s all to say that I routed some of the messages from the Base to my phone.”

“I see. I…” She pauses. “I didn’t intend...You did not need to come. I merely called because I didn’t want to catch you off guard. Give your...our...Given my history, I thought if I showed up on your planet unannounced—”

“It’s not my planet.”

“No, of course not. I meant the planet on which you reside. I’ve already...I did not intend to make you feel that…that you needed to come fix—”

Steven raises a hand. “I know. I just happened to be in the area, so I thought I’d stop by. Say hi.”

“Ah. Alright.” The silence resounds. Yellow’s eyes flit away.

“So,” Steven says after a moment—looking for something, anything, to cut through the quiet. “Why Zona?”

“Is that what this place is called?” Yellow glances around. “I needed an area of the Earth where I would cause the least disruptions, where I could dig a sufficiently large hole such that I could access the Cluster. I initially planned on going to one of the Kindergartens, as we’d already irrevocably destroyed all hope of organic life thriving there—I thought I could minimize the destruction. But each already has a fairly extensive subterranean framework that makes it impossible for me to dig deep enough.” She sighs. “I realize this place isn’t perfect. My digging will certainly disrupt some of the plant life. But it appeared at least that there were few humans in the vicinity…”

“Mm.” Steven leads against the hood of his car. “I’m surprised you brought your ship out here and didn’t just Warp. We’re not that far from the Beta Kindergarten, and there’s a Warp there...”

“Those Warps weren’t built for us. We’re much too large.”

“I guess that’s true, but you could always shapeshift.”

“Hmm. I suppose. But there was also the equipment to bring.”

“Equipment?”

“Yes, I...There are...billions of shards in the Cluster. I figured...if I am going to dismantle it and reconstruct each of the Gems whose shards it conatiend, it would likely be easier for me to do it on Earth, rather than bringing all the Shards back to Homeworld. I don’t want to risk losing any of them or damaging any of them even further in transit…And while I may need to ultimately to transport some of them back to Homeworld to locate all the pieces, and though it may be disconcerting for the other Gems to reform on Earth...I…” She leaves the syllable hanging in the air, turns her head away. Steven can just barely make out her tense jaw as though she is gritting her teeth. Sparks radiate from her skin.

“Yellow? Are you...okay?”

“I’m fine!” But then she bows her head, inhales and releases, murmurs: “I apologize, Steven. I am not angry with you. I simply…It has been difficult enough for me to face each of the Gems I have reconstructed on Homeworld. Once they recover from the shock and the terror, they have each looked at me with such disdain. And those Fusion experiments, while they were certainly terrible, pale in comparison to the Cluster. I can only imagine what each of the Gem’s contained within it will feel. And I will deserve it. I hurt so many Gems in the service of the Empire.”

Steven opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, Yellow continues, speaking ever rapidly, ever louder, as though desperate to expel the words. “Do not try to assuage my guilty conscience! That...is not your responsibility. I shouldn’t have just put you in a position to think that it was.”

Another tentative backpedaling, Steven thinks. A walking on eggshells moment, like he’s witnessed with the Gems and Dad over the past several months. And difficult though it is for him to sometimes believe, it’s not as though Yellow is wrong, at least not if he trusts his therapist. But there is a distant look in her eye, a panicked tension in her cheeks, which, when coupled with the fact that this is the first time he’s seen her since his breakdown, makes Steven wonder if she is remembering that day on the beach.

His own memories of it are fuzzy-to-nonexistant; he remembers the pain, and the panic, and the anger he’d held despite knowing that he shouldn't. Then, he has a vague impression of multiple embraces, of Connie kissing his forehead, of crying hot, cathartic tears...And then he’d woken up in the Cluster’s hand, with the eyes of most of the people he loved and almost everyone he’d ever fought all on him.

Despite his own lack of recollection, however, Connie assures him that she’d given everyone—the Diamonds included—something of a blunt talking to that day, a rallying speech, but she won’t elaborate on the specifics of what exactly she’d said. Might that—whatever its contents— be behind Yellow’s hasty assurances now?

“Okay,” Steven responds finally. “I won’t try to make you feel less guilty. But can I show you something?”

Yellow furrows her eyebrows. “Very well.”

“It’s just on the top of the canyon.”

They deliberate for a few moments on the details. Yellow offers to carry him, but even if she’s not White, Steven declines being held in a Diamond’s hand, and while she could shapeshift to fit in the passenger seat of the Dondai, she ultimately elects to simply follow behind the car as Steven slowly drives it up the cliff.

They reach the plateau just as the sun begins to dip in the horizon, casting a golden glow over the grass, over the Autumn leaves, just starting to paint themselves with the vibrant shades that return year after year.

Steven opens the door and steps out. “You never spent much time on Earth, did you?”

Yellow considers. “No.”

“Do you know what I think my mom fell in love with about this planet?”

“Organic life, of course. Humans.” She gestures to Steven. “Obviously.”

“Well, yeah, but not just them. Us. I think it was this stuff too.”

Yellow squints. “These weeds?! These...dying outgrowths?!”

“With things that change. Things that grow. There’s so much of it here.”

“Hm.”

Steven paces over to the grass, then sinks down onto it so that it brushes against his bare calves. It’s mostly soft on his skin but there are dryer patches too, scratchier places on the ground as some of the longer areas start to dry out for the season. The sun dips lower in the sky, and it leaks hues of pink and orange onto the daytime canvas of darkening blue. Yellow looms behind him.

“Feel this.” He pats the ground next to him, and tries not to wince as Yellow’s gargantuan hand settles down on the grass. “You might not be able to tell, but it’s growing. Even right now. By the time the snow—frozen water that falls from the sky—starts to cover it in a few months, it’ll probably be a few inches taller than it is right now. And then it’ll take a break for a while, but when Spring comes next year—when the weather gets warmer again—it’ll start again.

“The trees too. Look out there—they grow taller every year, and every year the leaves change into those beautiful colors you can see. And the shades are similar every year, but never exactly the same. Then the leaves fall off, and then bud again and come back. And the trees keep getting taller. And every time the leaves return, the whole tree is a little bit different too.”

Yellow hesitates. “These are familiar to me. Someone, I believe a Peridot—your Peridot—”

“She’s not my Peridot, but I know who you mean.”

“Yes...Well, she brought some of these...trees...from Earth to Homeworld, and determined how best to make them grow there. I’ve been gazing at them through the windows of the palace ever since, but I hadn’t realized how elaborate, how ever-present, their growth cycles were…”

“I’ve lived on Earth my whole life, and I only just started thinking about it recently. It’s easy to take for granted, but it’s really incredible when you stop to think about it.” He angles his head upward. “And it’s not just the plants. Look at the sky. It changes like this every day.” A pause. “Well, it’s really not the sky that’s changing—Connie told me that it’s an effect of how the planet moves around our sun. But from down here on Earth, it looks like it’s always changing. In a different way every day. I don’t think it’s like that on Homeworld.”

Yellow settles next to him at last, squatting, and then kneeling. “It isn’t. Things are constructed on Homeworld—not grown. We have a sun, but our sky does not transform like this.”

“Exactly. And I think that’s why my mom fell in love with the Earth so much. She was so in awe of how everything naturally grew and changed here.” Steven sighs, clenches him gemstone beneath his hand. “I’m still angry at her a lot of the time, but, like, I get it. She saw herself as this monster.” Here Steven pauses, glances away for a moment before finally letting the words return. “And she didn’t think that she was capable of growth or change. All she thought she could do was pretend to be someone else. And then she found herself on this planet where all anything did was grow for real, and she wanted to be a part of that even in some small way, so she made me.”

“Steven…”

“But the point is, she was wrong. She could have grown as herself. I think she did, even if she couldn’t see it. And she and I aren't the only Gems that grew. All of my friends and family have. None of us is the same as we were when I was a kid. Maybe it just took coming to Earth to see that, ya know? Gems can grow and change, just like the trees can, and the grass, and the sky.

“So yeah,” Steven continues. “White hurt you, and you hurt Mom, and Mom hurt Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst and Spinel and you, and everyone she hurt hurt me, and I hurt Jasper and Dad and a lot of people and could have hurt a lot more, and you hurt all the Gems who were corrupted, and who became the Fusion experiments and the Cluster...and that’s all true, and we all have to deal with that and make the things we did wrong right the best that we can. And it’s hard, and it sucks. But the ways we’ve been hurt and hurt other people aren’t all we are. We can grow and change too. As ourselves. I think the Earth is just one big reminder of that.”

Yellow’s brows are once again furrowed, her jaw agape. “I…”

“So, yeah, it’s going to be hard to face all the Gems in the Cluster as you put them all back together. But it’s the right thing to do. And if it ever becomes too much, you can always come up here, and watch the world change and grow to remind yourself that you’re growing too. You’re better than you were, and if you keep working at it, you’ll keep getting better.”

Then, without waiting for Yellow to respond, Steven stands, walks back over to the Dondai. “Now, I gotta hit the road. I want to get to Vegas by tomorrow. It was nice to see you, Yellow.”

“You as well, Steven.” Yellow rises to her feet.

“Good luck,” he calls out the window as he pulls away, and glancing in the rearview mirror, he sees Yellow’s arm raised in farewell, something like a small, apprehensive smile on her lips.

Six months later, after a sojourn up and down the West Coast, Steven returns to the ridge en route back to Beach City for a visit. He pulls up just as the sun is rising over the canyon, glinting off Yellow’s arm ship, and off of the chest and arms and backs of the little gaggle of Gems gathered next to the ship and the adjacent hole. Yellow is not among them, though. She stands on the crest of the cliff, gazing at the trees, at the little buds beginning to spring into being on each branch.

“Steven.” She turns to him in greeting as he gets out of the car.

“You’ve been busy!”

“Yes, we’re progressing nicely.”

“We?”

Yellow nods. “Some of the Gems I reconstructed from the Cluster decided to remain here to help. Then others in Little Homeworld—and even a few on Homeworld itself—learned about what we were doing, and traveled here to volunteer.” She pauses. “They’re here for the sake of the Gems inside the Cluster, not for me. Still, it is nice not to be alone.”

“Mm.”

Yellow turns from the trees to the canyon, in the direction of the rising sun. The growing orange light catches her Gemstone too, and it glimmers in it. “It’s a beautiful morning.”

“Yeah,” Steven says. “It is.”

[ao3]

[splat-dragon]

don't leave me here alone ~Safe and Sound, Taylor Swift

Whumptober 2020, #5: Where Did Everybody Go?: "Don't Say Goodbye"

“You’re my brother,”

and when had they stopped being brothers?

“I know,” Arthur didn’t even pause, just leaned against the side of the cliff face for the briefest moment to catch his breath, looked back at him and said it with a nod of his head as though it were a given, as though he’d said the sky was blue and water’s wet, then again, “I know.” before continuing on his way.

@whumptober2020

“Come on, Arthur… keep pushin’!”

 Arthur had always been the one to keep him going. When he was younger and everything seemed so hard he’d be there, insisting ‘naw, it ain’t so hard, is it?’ and try his hand at it. Was always right there, supporting him even if he seemed like he was just being a dick at the time.

  “Let’s go, come on!”

 But now… now Arthur was giving up. Crumpling slowly in front of him - he’d thought he was going to lose him back in Beaver Hollow, hearing him gurgling his breaths as he struggled through the cave and up the ladder, seeing him struggle to get to his feet after soothing his horse in its death. A few times after that, when he’d seen Arthur struggling, coughing so loud it seemed to drown out the gunfire, staggering as his shots went wide.

 Arthur… Arthur was dying. Had been dying for quite some time, though he hadn’t realized it. Hadn’t wanted to realize it - it was impossible to miss, his coughing fits kept them up late into the night, and he’d changed so much in the time it took Arthur to save him from Sisika he hadn’t recognized him for a moment, had felt his stomach churn and drop, his face as white as stone and… god, it seemed so obvious now, but then they’d ridden into Beaver Hollow and he’d seen Abigail and Jack and Dutch had been furious and everything was different and Arthur had fallen onto the back-burner and he’d been left to suffer it alone but no, he hadn’t been alone, had he? He’d had Charles, if only for a short time, and thank god for Charles they’d all have been lost without him.

 Arthur cracked a shot off over his shoulder, stopped to let him stumble by and shit his shoulder hurt he couldn’t believe Dutch had left him to die. Had looked him in the goddamn eye and ridden away, had grabbed Old Boy and left him to bleed to death.

 God, Dutch, what had happened?

 He hadn’t known much else in his life except for Hosea and Dutch and Arthur and god Hosea he’d never even gotten to mourn him, had watched him die then been arrested, abandoned by Dutch then, too. They’d taken him in when he was only twelve or so (he didn’t rightly know how old he was but that was Hosea’s best guess and to them it had seemed reasonable enough) and he’d known no other life. Had known orphanages for a few years before them, a dead mother and a sad father that had turned into a drunk-dead father.

 He wanted nothing more than to think that Dutch had always cared for him. That he really had viewed him as his son, as his friend, that it had all been real and that half his life hadn’t been a lie. He could have been a perfectly good little soldier without knowing how to read or write - would have been a better one, perhaps, without such distractions, but it had been Dutch that decided to teach him, Dutch who plopped a book down in front of him one day and refused to walk away even after he’d grown frustrated enough to bite him.

  “Keep pushin’, Arthur!”

 But Hosea would have insisted on it too, he knew. All three of them had known how to read and to write, so how would it be fair if he didn’t? And besides, it wouldn’t have fit Dutch’s little image to have just one of their number at such a disadvantage.

 And all the times he’d been cruel. Maybe not obviously so, but there had been times even when it had been good, when it was just them four and Susan, Bessie and Annabel, when he’d felt as though he had to walk on eggshells for fear of Dutch snapping at him. Remembered all the times he’d been made to feel like utter shit for not picking something up quick enough, was starting to realize far too late just how much he and Arthur had been pitted against each other - remembered how much he’d resented Arthur when he was new, as Dutch had always lamented ‘Oh, Arthur learned this so easily’, remembered Dutch going on for hours around the campfire about how well he was doing which, at the time, had confused him because wasn't he just frustrated with me?' and had a sinking feeling he knew just where the cracks that had formed between he and Arthur had started - somewhere far, far earlier than he’d ever thought, before they’d even gotten close and had a relationship to break.

“Come on, we need to get goin’!”

 God, Arthur sounded like he was suffocating behind him and

 Arthur’s footsteps stopped.

 John half expected to find him collapsing, feared finding him shot through, feared that his lungs had given out because god how could he breathe like that? it hadn’t sounded like breathing at all but he was only catching his breath and John felt like a true monster but they had the rest of their lives to catch their breaths - however long that might be.

 “Alright Arthur come on, let’s go!”

 And Arthur didn’t stand, didn’t try to move, only brought his hand up and waved at him as though he were some pesky gnat, 

 “You go…”

 No, not this shit again.

 He could see the exhaustion that lined his bones, could hear him fighting for each breath. But they’d made it this far already, had escaped so many Pinkertons, they were so close and he had already lost Hosea, had already lost the man he used to call Pa, he refused to lose Arthur too.

 “Keep…” and he hadn’t realized just out of breath he himself was, “pushin’, Arthur.”

 He staggered forward, clutching his shoulder - he’d drag Arthur down the mountain himself if he had to, but

 “No.”

 and Arthur was straightening up, coughing and John’s blood turned to ice when he saw the blood that sprayed through the air, though Arthur didn’t react at all, didn’t flinch, his eyes didn’t widen even in that minuscule way of his, and it spoke volumes - and again, “no…” he wiped the blood from his mouth as though it were some common occurrence and, with a sinking feeling, John thought it might just be, “I think I’ve pushed all I can.”

  ‘No.’

 “Come on.” Arthur had never let him down before. When he’d been on that mountain, freezing and bleeding to death, he’d come for him. He’d disobeyed Dutch to break him out of one of the world's highest security prisons. Arthur never let him down.

 “You go.”

 and he was saying it as though it were some simple thing. As though it would be easy for John to just turn around and walk away, to leave him behind to die.

 “We ain’t got time for this, not now!”

 and then that grin. Damn that grin, that one that said ‘I know what I’m doing, I have a plan. And it’s a good one.’ All bared bloody teeth, open and sad and god, don’t, he was removing his hat, shaking his head.

 “We ain’t both gonna make it.”

 The worst part of it was, John knew he was right. His arm, at least, had clotted up as he dragged himself back to camp and, though it hurt, was an infection risk, it was no great danger. But Arthur… god, Arthur looked half a corpse. His skin already waxy, half-translucent, John could count the veins in his face, the burst blood vessels in his eyes, and already his lips were tinged blue.

 “Go…”

  No.

 “Now.”

 John’s voice stuck in his throat.

 “I’ll hold them off.”

 And then Arthur was placing his hat on his head.

  “Hey Arthur?”

“What.”

“Your hat, why you always wear that hat?”

“Well… it means a lot to me.”

“Why?”

“...”

“Why?”

“Jesus. Belonged to my Daddy. Reminds me not to become him, I suppose.”

 “It would mean a lot to me.”

 His throat shut tight - he could hardly breathe.

  No.

 “Please.”

  Don’t say goodbye.

 “There ain’t no more time for talk.” and god, Arthur sounded like he could hardly get the words out himself as he removed his satchel.

  “John!”

“Hosea!”

“Give the man his hat back, John.”

For years, John’s life mission had been to steal that hat.

 He fumbled, reached for words that, somehow, could convince Arthur to stay. But the leather of his hat, when he reached up to secure it safer on his head - god, he’d never forgive himself if it got so much as scuffed - was all too real beneath his hand.

  “John? Where y’ goin’?”

“...out.”

“Out where?”

“Gonna take Old Girl for a walk, can’t sleep.”

He hadn’t come home for a year.

 Arthur nearly knocked him off his feet with how hard he shoved the satchel into his chest—

  “What’s this?”

“From Hosea, kid. Eat."

 —and seeing him holding only a single revolver and a handful of ammo, nothing against the army of Pinkertons that, even then, they could hear fighting what was left of the Van der Linde gang (insanely, for just a moment, John wondered if they were still alive - though Bill had turned a gun to him he wasn’t well, he could see that now, and he and Javier used to be the best of friends, and Javier hadn’t turned a gun on them, had been taken by surprise though he’d been horrible in the end - they’d all been brothers, once)—it sank in horribly, he was going to rush off to his death, try and do some horrible stand-off, one man against dozens of Pinkertons, maybe he could have done it once but that was when he’d been healthy, when he’d had long-arms and countless sidearms that were, at that moment, rotting with his horse, ammunition sitting on his belt to be quickly grabbed.

 “Go.”

 He shook his head - no, no! - and, as though it would, somehow, help gestured with his gun down the path “Arthur.”

 And he turned to him, “Go to your family,” tried to shoo him away, looking up at the mountain as though he could somehow climb it—

  “Careful kid,”

“Ain’t a kid,”

“Don’t put your hand there,”

“I know what I’m doin’!”

“John-”

“SHIT!”

“-told you so.”

 —“Arthur!” he gestured again, more sharply, ‘come with me!’ and when Arthur turned to him it was with a snarl, snapping to try and chase him away and he knew what he was doing,

 “Get the hell out of here and be a goddamn man.”—

  “Stop treatin’ me like a kid!”

  “Well I sure as hell ain’t gonna treat you like an adult!”

  “When the hell are you gonna get over it, huh? That was three years ago!”

  “A goddamn man doesn’t abandon his family!”

 —He knew when Arthur had made up his mind, truly made it up, even Dutch himself couldn’t get him to change it. And god, but he wanted to make him change his mind—

  “Son if you’d just please-”

“No.”

“Arthur-”

“No.”

“But-”

“The boy said no, Dutch,” (and he was pretty sure Hosea had been biting down a laugh)

 —but they were running out of time and he’d never gotten to apologize, not for all the shit he’d pulled, not for all the low blows and yeah Arthur owed him a hell of a lot of apologies too but

 “You’re my brother,”

 and when had they stopped being brothers?

 “I know,” Arthur didn’t even pause, just leaned against the side of the cliff face for the briefest moment to catch his breath, looked back at him and said it with a nod of his head as though it were a given, as though he’d said the sky was blue and water’s wet, then again, “I know.” before continuing on his way.

He wanted to stop him. Wanted to grab him by the boot and drag him down, haul him kicking and screaming to Copperhead Landing, find him a doctor and make him well again.

 But John was no fool. Thick, yes, but not a fool. Even sick and dying Arthur was stronger than him, and if he tried to haul him down they’d be overtaken by Pinkertons long before they made any true progress.

 God it hurt, but he knew he had no other choice—

  “We’re family, son. Family means never leaving anyone behind.”

 —took a long, final look at Arthur, watched as he slung himself over the ledge, then fled down the mountain, never letting go of his hat even as a sharp whistle pierced the air, a familiar snow white horse bolted passed him.

“You’re leaving.”

“What?”

“I heard you talkin’ to that Mary girl. She wants you to leave.”

“I… You heard that?”

“I did.”

“Well… don’t worry about it.”

“But… but you’re leaving!”

“No I’m not, John. I… I’m gonna talk to Hosea and Dutch about havin’ her come with us.”

“...What?”

“You didn’t really think I’d leave, did you?”

“...everyone leaves.”

“Nah, I don’t leave family behind.

And you, Dutch and Hosea?

You’re my family.”

[buttsonthebeach]

Lost Horizon, Pt. 3

Here we go again folks! @scharoux continues to blow me away with her faith in me as we take Rhaella on this journey!

This long fic picks up almost directly where The Last Game last left off - with Rhaella pregnant and alone in a world where Solas has removed the Veil, despite her attempts to stop him. Rhaella has now escaped Kirkwall (and Solas) with Merrill in tow.

My Ko-Fi || My Commissions

Part One of Lost Horizon can be found here

Part Two of Lost Horizon can be found here

Other pieces about Rhaella I have written include:

1. All Things Green and Growing

2. The Long Road Back

3. The Turning of the Year

3. The Same Kind of Scar (contains explicit content)

4. World Without End (contains explicit content)

5. The Last Game Pt. 1, the Last Game Pt. 2, and the Last Game Pt. 3 (contains explicit content), and the Last Game Pt. 4

Pairing: Rhaella Lavellan x Solas, post-Trespasser

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Other parts of the series contain directly referenced character death for a character from DAI, implied character death for characters from DA2, and general references to death and destruction.

This section contains depictions of childbirth.

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

At least they managed to get to the Emerald Graves without any problems.

Rhaella could count that as a blessing.

She cried herself to sleep more often than she didn’t, claimed she needed to take a break from riding because her back was sore when really she wanted to duck behind a tree and sob into her folded arms out of Merrill’s earshot - but at least they’d made it to the Emerald Graves. Beautiful, terrible, full of history. It was oddly soothing to be in a place that outwardly reflected what she inwardly felt, where past and present and heartbreak already collided.

It was not soothing to see so many spirits there.

These were not just the simple wisps that had followed them to Skyhold - these were fully matured spirits that could approach them and speak to them, or command them to go away, as did one spirit of Command as they entered the Graves. 

Spirits with fully formed personalities who might pass on word of two elven women, one of them heavily pregnant, making their way through the Emerald Graves.

“Maybe we shouldn’t stay here after all,” Merrill said as it became apparent that they were everywhere, and not just in one isolated part of the region.

Rhaella felt the tears well up all over again.

She was exhausted.

Exhausted in every way a person could be.

She had ridden hard and hoped hard and tried her best and she still had nothing to show for it but a plan that fell apart every time she tried to stitch it together. She just wanted to be safe. To have space to grieve. To prepare to welcome her son into the world. She couldn’t think of anywhere else they could go. The Exalted Plains were still a blasted wasteland and far too exposed by and large - nowhere really to hide, no safe warren to build her nest - who knew what any Dalish clan there would think of her - she couldn’t go further into the heart of Orlais - there was no time to cross the mountains back into Ferelden -

She was dimly aware that her breath was coming in shorter and faster, that the roaring in her ears had returned. Merrill’s hand was on her shoulder. None of that mattered, none of it could override the terror of how trapped she was.

Then, in a puff of purple smoke, there was Cole, eyes luminous, pale blond hair gleaming in the waning sun.

“Panicked, breaking but not broken - you have been here before and you will be here again and you will always pull through. Be still, friend. I am here to help.”

Cole’s hand went to her other shoulder. Rhaella’s panicked breath began to slow.

“What in the name of all of the Creators -” Merrill murmured. “Where did you come from? Who are you?”

“My brothers and sisters are worrying you,” Cole said, still looking only at Rhaella. “Do not be frightened. They will listen to me. I will tell them what a precious secret you carry, and they will keep it. I am here to help. I am always good at helping, aren’t I?”

Rhaella thought of the cheese and mint, the barrels full of daggers, the honey spilled on windowsills. A compassionate knife easing the pain of the dying. The tightness in her chest receded.

“Yes, Cole. You are.”

“Cole?” Merrill asked, bewildered. “Isn’t that a human name? Are you not a spirit?”

“Am I?” Cole asked, his voice laced with amusement. He had grown somehow since Rhaella saw him last. Perhaps he was more at home now that the Veil was gone, now that he was no longer torn between two worlds.

“Cole is a friend,” Rhaella said finally, rising, one hand on her belly, waiting to feel some movement from her child. When she felt it, the final bit of fear eased. “An old friend at this point, I suppose. He is also a spirit of Compassion.”

“And you knew him from before the Veil fell?” Merrill asked. She reached out and took hold of Cole’s hand. “And he has a body? But he can appear and disappear? I have never heard of such a thing. Are you like Anders and Justice, a spirit and a person sharing the same body?”

“No. I am only me. Only Cole.”

“Fascinating.” She dropped his hand and walked in a quick circle around the two of them.

Cole tilted his head, watching her progress. “Bright, buzzing, beautiful - your mind is full of shining gears. So much more clever than anyone ever gives you credit for. You and I will be friends.”

Merrill laughed - giggled, actually.

“Well, that’s settled then.”

A wave of exhaustion overcame Rhaella even as she smiled. “Cole, do you know somewhere safe for us? Somewhere we can settle in for a long time and remain undetected? We’ll need shelter, room to garden, fresh water…”

Cole nodded slowly. “I think so, yes. I will look, and tell the others not to speak of you.”

With another puff of smoke, he was gone.

“Do you think he can teach us how to do that?” Merrill asked, green eyes wide.

Rhaella snorted and shook her head. She did not have the energy to express it, not with her panic so recently gone and her belly so heavy and her back so sore, but she was grateful that Merrill was capable and intelligent and yet also innocent enough to still find wide-eyed joy in the broken world around them.

Cole returned a short while later and told them to follow him. He led them through the woods to a place where the land rose into two sharp cliffs on either side of them, drawing them down into a gorge. It opened up eventually into an elliptical clearing with trees and shrubs, flat grassy spaces, and a stream that poured through the rock face at the very end of it.

“It’s perfect,” Merrill said, pacing around. “Space enough for us to camp, to keep the animals, to start planting that garden.”

“Only one way in and one way out,” Rhaella said, eyeing the high sides of the cliffs around them. “If someone finds us, we’re trapped here.”

“We’ll set daily wards far enough away from the entrance that we’ll know if someone gets too close. A second layer behind that so we can be certain they’re headed in our direction. That will give us time to prepare to move on.”

Rhaella nodded. The exhaustion felt stronger now that the possibility of rest was so close. She nodded at most things that Merrill said from that point on - about the location of the garden, about the idea of making a small pen for their mounts, about making a lean-to to provide better shelter for them. She nodded and nodded until finally their bedrolls were set up and she could lie down and seek oblivion.

*

Rhaella woke from that oblivion in a flowering field - a clifftop, overlooking waterfalls. She recognized it at once. It was the place she had gone with Solas when he saved her from death in the Crossroads. When they made love for the first time. They had sat here together and talked. It was a beautiful place, if bittersweet now. Bitter because it was yet another place where he left her - sweet because it was the place where their child had been conceived.

She felt the warmth of the sun on her cheeks and tilted her head back and closed her eyes and let herself focus more on the sweetness than the bitterness for a moment. She was going to be a mother soon. Something she had wanted but feared would never happen. She would always have a piece of Solas - of the man she loved still, she could admit that here, surrounded by wildflowers and sunshine - and she was grateful for that. Grateful that it had happened. She breathed in deeply and let the warmth of the thought fill her, crown to toe. 

It spread, tingling all over her skin, warming her back - and then there were arms around her, and the warmth was coming from someone else’s body holding her close.

“Ma vhenan,” he whispered softly.

And that was when Rhaella realized what had happened.

She was in the Fade.

She had gone to sleep without taking Merrill’s draught, without setting her own mental wards through meditation.

The arms around her were Solas’s.

She stiffened in his embrace. She felt his arms loosen. She could stand, escape from his arms. Turn and scream at him. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to be held. To be safe in his embrace, to soak in his warmth, to turn and kiss him. She loved him. You couldn’t hide that kind of thing here in the Fade. It shimmered around you like the haze of a late summer afternoon.

She relaxed and felt him relax in turn, hold her closer. She breathed in the familiar smell of him, felt the beating of his heart, felt how her own ached and sped up at how much she longed for these moments with him still, after everything that happened. She heard him sigh, felt him nuzzle against her hair and breathe her in. She rested her hands on his forearms where they wrapped around her waist and felt tears rise in her eyes at the feeling of her palms on his bare skin, how good it felt. That simple connection that he had broken when he broke the sky open. 

They lingered there like that for a while - how long she could not say, because love and time both felt infinite here - and then he finally spoke.

“Come home.”

That broke the spell.

“No,” Rhaella said. She started gathering her strength so she could wake. Had he been trying to locate her while they held each other? Had he figured out where she was? She couldn’t risk another second longer in his company.

“Rhaella, please -”

She pulled free of his arms but then his hand was on her chin, thumb on her lips, not holding her, not grabbing her, but cupping her. Longing for her. 

She glanced back at Solas over her shoulder then, and it was like looking into the sun. His blue eyes, his freckles, the sharp angles of his face. His grief blinded her.

Ma vhenan, her heart sang back to him, but she did not let the words slip free.

“Come home,” he said again.

“No,” she said, and woke.

*

It was jarring to be back in the grotto with Merrill standing over her. Rhaella could still hear the roar of the waterfall in her ears. Could still smell the wildflowers. Could still smell him, feel him, at her side.

“Are you well?” Merrill asked. “I didn’t want to wake you but you were murmuring and twitching. Did you enter the Fade?”

Rhaella sat up and pressed the heels of her hands hard into her eyes, until her vision danced with spots of color. When she opened them again, and her eyes adjusted, she felt clear of the dream at last.

“Yes,” Rhaella said. “He was there. Solas.”

“Fenedhis. Did he figure out where we are?”

Rhaella thought about it a moment. She thought about the way he’d clung to her, the look on his face when she pulled away, how he kept asking for her to come home. Begging, really.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think he was really hoping that I would tell him. Or that I would just agree to come home. I didn’t get the sense that he was using his magic or trying anything covert.”

“He is the Dread Wolf,” Merrill said darkly. “The trickster. We can’t be certain. If you do really want to stay away from him, we have to assume that he would use an opportunity like that to track us. We can’t let you get so exhausted that you forget to take the draught or to guard yourself in the Fade.”

Rhaella imagined it again - the flowers and the water and the breeze and the sunshine and his arms around her. She ran her hands over her belly and imagined he was there with her, rejoicing in the new life they had created together. She imagined him being there when their son was born, the joy in his eyes when he held him.

Then she took all of those feelings and wrapped them carefully in a box and put them away.

“Yes,” she said to Merrill. “We will be more careful. I don’t want him to find us here.”

*

For two weeks, Rhaella and Merrill had space to breathe.

Not much space to breathe, of course - the opening they’d found in this ravine was not large, nor was the grotto in the shelter of the rock where they’d set up their shelter. But it was a sliver of peace in two lives that had not known much peace, especially not in the last several years.

They settled in at once with the practice of two Dalish women who’d been on the move many times before in their lives - arranging shelter while keeping an eye on the prevailing winds, designating latrine space well away from their fresh water supply, ensuring the animals had access to the water but likewise wouldn’t spoil it. And, of course, Rhaella’s favorite task - setting up a garden.

It was the garden that brought Rhaella the greatest peace in those two weeks, even more so than the fact that she no longer spent hours in a saddle, even more than the whisper of wind through the trees rather than the clamor of a city, even more than the fact that she could take a nap whenever she wanted to now. This had always been the thing that centered her, brought her peace. Her fingers in warm, dark earth, coaxing things to grow. It was how she and Solas had first begun to connect after all, wasn’t it? That gully in Crestwood, the blood lotus, their hands meeting in the rain.

Rhaella imagined connecting with her son over these same things. Showing him how to test the moisture in the soil, how to space the seedlings apart, which plants made good bedfellows and which ones didn’t. That was what brought her the most peace. The idea that she could build a life for her baby now, however small, however imperfect.

She was beginning to feel better about the idea of her son arriving soon. She and Merrill had no idea when it would be exactly, of course, but it had to be soon. Rhaella was big as a harvest moon in the autumn sky, heavy and tired every day now, working on the breathing exercises she’d once helped her Keeper teach other women in Clan Lavellan. She hadn’t yet reached the point of despair some women reached, where they became convinced the baby would never come, where the sheer weight of the waiting began to crush them. She didn’t think she would reach that point.

Your father made sure I was ready to wait for things with no idea of when they’d come. Thinking that they would never come.

Merrill was the only one who regularly ventured out of the grotto in those two weeks, mostly for the purposes of hunting. She reported hearing other elves nearby, though she never interacted with them. Some were Dalish, some Orlesian, and still others spoke Elvhen, the kind the two of them had only heard spoken by the likes of Abelas and Solas.

“I can mostly understand them at this point, and it didn’t sound like they were looking for anyone in particular,” Merrill reassured Rhaella. “I think they had just awoken from uthenera. They were trying to understand what happened, and find their way to civilization.”

That eased Rhaella’s tension. She had been vigilant about preventing exhaustion, about meditating before sleep, about taking Merrill’s herbal draughts. She had not entered the Fade since that night that Solas came to her, and she had not been using her magic either. She didn’t like the full feeling that gave her, like snaps of electricity might spring from her hands without her control the way they had when her magic first manifested, but it was a necessary evil for now. Eventually - someday - it would not be like this.

She was going to live forever now, after all. Wasn’t she?

When Rhaella was working in the garden one day and felt the staticky change in the air, she thought it was her overripe mana at first. Then she looked up at the sky, saw the high, billowing clouds in the distance. She took a deep breath and breathed in the metallic smell of oncoming rain.

“There’s going to be a storm,” she called back to Merrill, who was busy with something near their bedrolls, her back turned.

Merrill mimicked her at once - looking to the sky, smelling the air.

“You’re right. A good summer thunderstorm, and a strong one at that. I’ll work on blocking off the entrance to the ravine so the animals can’t escape if they are frightened by the thunder and lightning.”

Merrill tucked away whatever she’d been working on quickly enough that Rhaella felt a pang of confusion and curiosity. She didn’t pry further, though. Merrill had done more than Rhaella had any right to deserve since they escaped Kirkwall.

Then Rhaella felt another pang, not in her chest but lower down, in her belly and back. A tightening like a giant hand had come down and squeezed her whole midsection. The back of her neck prickled and her heart sped up.

Could it be - ?

It was better to just keep busy and keep moving. There was so much to do before the storm came. (Her belly tightened.) She wanted to check the trellises for the plants in the garden and ensure that they were secure. She wanted to wrap the baskets with their provisions in oiled cloth so that if water reached them they would not spoil. (Her belly tightened.) She wanted to move their bedrolls further back into the grotto, under the overhang of rock, and then cast a barrier so none of the elements could reach them. (Her belly tightened.) Could she sustain barriers over the garden and their animals, too? Barriers were simple spells and if she cast them without any particular flare, and cast them quickly, they would not attract anyone to them -

This time when her belly tightened, it stopped Rhaella in her tracks, locking up her breath within her chest. It came with a wave of pain bright and coppery as blood.

“Rhaella? Are you well?” Merrill’s voice broke through and Rhaella could breathe again.

“I am,” she said, even as nervous flutters filled her chest and stomach in the wake of the pain, as she considered what it probably meant.

“You can take a rest,” Merrill said. “I can finish the preparations for the storm.”

Rhaella had only gotten through half of her list. She couldn’t allow Merrill to take on everything else.

Her belly tightened hard when she started over towards their dry goods with the oiled cloth, and her steps slowed to a crawl, until she finally had to concede and stop moving. She felt Merrill watching her even through the pain that came with it, spiraling up her spine.

“Barriers,” Rhaella managed at last, after what felt like an eternity. “Could you help with some barriers? Just to keep the worst of the wind - ” The pain was lingering now, slinking through her body even when the tightness was gone. “Off of the plants and the animals and our provisions.”

“Of course,” Merrill said. “Are you certain you don’t want to rest?”

“Positive,” Rhaella said. If anything she felt the need to move and pace, however slowly she moved. Something was happening in her body, something she’d seen happen to dozens of women before her when she still lived with her clan, but something she still feared to name out loud.

So she did move, continuing over to the dry goods and kneeling down, wrapping each woven basket up in its cloth, pausing when another contraction hit her to rest her forehead on her arms. She could use the word now, she knew what was happening. Her child was on its way, and even just thinking the words filled her with twin tendrils of anxiety and excitement. She knew she should tell Merrill but the clouds were thickening and the chemical smell of rain was picking up and it would break soon, and sometimes this phase of labor went on for hours and hours anyway, and Merrill had already done so much for her -

Her belly squeezed tighter and tighter and pain burst behind her eyes in fractal patterns like lightning, and she leaned against another basket of dry goods and did her best to breathe through it, reminding herself to soften her jaw, to unclench her hands. Tried not to wonder what her baby would look like, if she would see Solas’s eyes looking back at her in a few hours. 

Tried not to think about what was now irrevocable, undeniable - Solas would not be there for the birth of his child.

The sky darkened and their mounts wickered nervously and the wind picked up and Rhaella had just made her way into their sleeping quarters and laid down when the storm burst above them with a crack of thunder and a cascade of rain. Merrill cast her final barrier, sealing them into the grotto with a shimmer of magic light. The rain hit the barrier and flowed over it, almost like a waterfall, so ethereal and lovely that for a moment Rhaella just watched it, heedless of anything else around or within her.

Then - another contraction, so sharp this time she cried out, and a rush of wet between her legs.

“Now then,” Merrill said calmly, appearing at her side. “Don’t you think we ought to discuss the fact that you are having a baby today?”

Rhaella could not help but laugh, however weakly, as the contraction ended. The next one came on quicker, though, and then she was not laughing.

Merrill hummed to herself, barely audible above the sound of the storm outside, as she set about making preparations. She poured water from one of their sealed jugs into the pot they used for cooking and summoned heat into her hands so she could warm it to boiling, even though they always purified it before they put it in the jugs. She laid a large clean cloth beneath Rhaella and neatly folded several others nearby, and unrolled a pack of surgical tools that was part of any good Keeper or First’s pack at all times. Rhaella tried not to look at those. She tried to focus more on the excitement than on the nerves. She was going to meet her child at the end of all of this.

Lightning flashed while Rhaella labored, illuminating the grotto and casting severe shadows everywhere she looked. There was little room to stand and walk but Merrill encouraged her to move through different positions, to sway and rock and do anything she could to distract herself from the pain as it grew, grew, grew. Merrill fed little whispers of magic into her belly, just enough to dull the pain, but every time it seemed to come back stronger. The wind roared outside and her world narrowed down to just how much it hurt, how each hurt was coming faster and faster and stronger and closer together and how there was nothing but pain and the sound of the rain and Merrill’s cool hands soothing her, soft encouraging words that Rhaella could not longer hear or understand. There was only the pain and the present and the feeling that both were neverending - and then, layered on top of it, a sudden terror - the realization that this was real and if the pain ever did end she would be a mother and she wasn’t going to be enough for her son, she knew that already -

“You can do this, Rhaella,” Merrill said over and over again. “You can do this.”

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I don’t know how to this on my own -”

“You’re going to be just fine, lethallan. You have everything you need within you.”

“But I don’t have him, I don’t have -” Even in the haze of her pain she cut off the thought. No. She didn’t need Solas here. She didn’t need him at all.

“You have made it this far on your own power. You have everything you need, lethallan. I believe in you. All of our ancestors are here with you in this moment, and they are giving you everything you need.”

The next sensation that overpowered her was a deep pressure, a need to push that overwrote the feeling of pain swarming every part of her. She had to, had to, had to push, had to push right now, had to push as hard as she could, had to push even if it was going to break her, and she feared it might, and Merrill wanted her to try sitting up or moving to all fours but she couldn’t do it, not without him -

“Solas!”

The name was torn from her lips, primal as the sound of the storm, and she wished in that moment that he was as powerful as everyone said he was, that he might appear at her side, summoned like a spirit, and take the pain away, tell her he was here, that she was going to be okay.

But he didn’t come, and that was what she really wanted anyway, wasn’t it?

There was no more thought after that, only the pain and the urge to make it stop - and then, finally, one last long hard push, and there was a tiny, squalling, red-haired infant in Merrill’s hands. The pain evaporated and there was only wonder.

“You have a daughter,” Merill said, smiling, exhausted.

A daughter.

Not what she had imagined, expected. But small and perfect and nestled against Rhaella’s bare chest now, squirming and crying and balling up her tiny little fists. Rhaella felt tears of a different sort streaming down her face as she held her there, skin to skin, close as close could be.

“Hello, little one,” she said again and again over the cries as they quieted. “Hello, hello, hello.”

Then her belly tightened again, hard, and the pain and the pressure were back.

“What’s happening?” Rhaella managed as she felt the urge to grit her teeth - to push again.

“The afterbirth, most likely,” Merrill said, though even she was frowning as she felt Rhaella’s belly.

“No, this feels - this feels like what just -” Rhaella’s breath began to quicken again. She held her daughter back out to Merrill. “Take her.”

And just like that, like a nightmare that would not end, like a dam breaking, the pain flooded her all over again, coursing through her body, tearing another scream from her throat. She had to push, push, push again, but her daughter was already here, she wanted to hold her, she wanted this to be done -

And then there was more crying - another infant in Merrill’s hands.

“Creators above,” Merrill murmured, and then looked up, smiling. “You have two daughters.”

Rhaella laid back against the pillows they had arranged behind her, and held out her arms.

Merrill nestled both babies into Rhaella’s arms, and she held them, and studied their fine copper hair, the scrunched red faces. She marveled at how they both curled against her instantly, as if soothed by her presence. Her daughters. She had two daughters. How was she going to feed and care for two babies?

The ‘how’ didn’t matter, actually. She was going to do it. She already loved them both so much that it paralyzed her and gave her wings. She had two daughters.

Merrill checked them over while they cuddled against Rhaella and pronounced that they were both healthy, and that Rhaella herself was in good shape - nothing a little healing magic wouldn’t repair, which Merrill performed quickly. Rhaella wanted to sleep but she didn’t know how she would take her eyes off the two perfect marvels that were now spreading out their limbs, turning their little heads, exploring, suckling at her breasts. She didn’t know how she would ever sleep again when she wanted to memorize the exact slant of their little pointed ears.

“Thank you,” she said to Merrill when she finally remembered that there was a world beyond her two tiny daughters. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for trusting me to be part of this moment,” Merrill said, smiling. She looked worn out too. The storm was still going, though not nearly as intense as before. Rhaella wondered how long she had labored for. “I did have one more gift for you - though in hindsight, it is not enough.”

Merrill went over towards her side of their grotto and rustled around. She returned carrying a small woven cradle. Rhaella thought back to all the times she’d seen her friend working secretively over the last two weeks, hiding things away, and her heart was so full of joy and gratitude that it broke open again, and tears welled out from her eyes.

“I will have to make a second one, but they should both fit for now,” Merrill said, considering.

“I do not deserve your kindness,” Rhaella managed, barely a whisper.

“Of course you do,” Merrill said. “Everyone deserves kindness. And you have done so much for our world. It is the least I can offer in return.”

Rhaella let the tears fall a little longer. One after the other, her daughters fell away from her breasts, calmer now.

“Would you like to hold them?” she offered.

“Always,” Merrill said, arms outstretched. “That’s the best part of helping, isn’t it?”

Merrill smiled and cooed at them and Rhaella watched her and tried to wrap her mind around it all. She’d done it. She’d had twin girls. She’d borne Solas’s children, and he was not there. She had a family now, so many years after the family she’d known had disappeared. It was not exactly how she’d imagined how it would happen - perhaps not even how she’d wanted it to happen - but she’d done it, and she was beginning a new chapter in her life now. A happier one, because these two girls were in it.

“What will you call them?” Merrill asked.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Rhaella laughed weakly. “I was convinced I would have a son.”

“That’s a decision for later, then,” Merrill said. “Rest now. I’d say you’ve earned it.”

They settled the girls into their bassinette, and as much as she’d thought she would stay awake forever watching them, Rhaella felt her eyelids growing instantly heavy, her whole body dropping like a stone into sleep, and then there was darkness.

*

When Rhaella woke she was in the field of wildflowers again - the high plateau overlooking the waterfalls. It was peaceful. Lovely. Quiet. Her shoulders and chest felt lighter than they had in years. She tipped her head back and felt the warmth of the sun on her face and let out a long, slow breath. She was going for a walk through this field. She had all the time in the world.

(There was, in the back of her mind, a small prickling, a little spike of doubt like a stubborn weed. But she knew that she deserved this moment. She knew this field was safe.)

The flowers and tall wild grass brushed soft against her fingers as she walked. She breathed in their scent - herbal and sweet and sharp and earthy. There was a river at the other end of the plateau. She’d walk there and let her feet dangle in the water. It had been such a very long time since she rested - really rested - and she had earned this.

(She knew, with all her arcane training, that something was off here - but she did not care.)

The river rushed over a bed of colorful rocks - tans, peaches, browns, creams, all rubbed smooth by eons of running water. Rhaella lifted her skirts and stepped into the river, feeling it pull at her ankles and cool her skin, enjoying the pressure and texture of the rocks against the soles of her feet. She’d been on a long journey, and this was her reprieve. She closed her eyes, and tipped her face up to the sun, and it felt warm enough to banish every winter to come. The sound of the wind through the field and trees filled her soul.

She opened her eyes, and the wolf was there on the other side of the river, looming large and black as the abyss of night.

He sat there on his haunches, and even without the six glowing eyes, she knew him.

Her reprieve was over.

“I’m not in the mood for parlor tricks. What do you want, Fen’Harel?” she said, words sharp as glass.

Smoke blurred the form of the wolf and when it cleared Solas was there, forehead creased with sadness, eyes so blue they pierced her like arrows. There was some pride left in the straightness of his spine - but his shoulders were slumped forward. Not enough that a casual observer would catch it, but enough that she did. She’d struck true and deep with her words.

“I wanted only to observe you for a while. To have the hope that you might look upon me as another part of this scene and not as something you hated.”

Vhenan, why? Why would you smash everything up and then sit and cry amongst the pieces?

“If you didn’t want me to hate you, you shouldn’t have done something so hateful.”

“Please -” he started forward, bare toes touching the river now. “You know it was not an act of hate. You know I wished there was some other way. You know I tried to find another way. But it is done now, and there will be no more secrets or lies between us. I lived a life wrapped up in secrets and I have torn them all away now. I only want you. Our life together. Please -”

Another step forward, and the river lapped around his ankles.

Rhaella did not move.

“You’ve spoken sweetly to me before and brought me only pain afterwards. This is just another one of those times.”

“Vhenan, that is not true. I have meant every sweet word I have ever spoken to you. I mean them now. I cannot keep you safe when you are apart from me like this.”

“You didn’t seem to care if I was safe or not the first time you left me. Why do you care about my safety now when I am the one who left you?”

“Rhaella, you do not know the stakes. The people who are out to find you now - the Evanuris - even you cannot stand before them unaided. And you must think of our child. Come back to me before they arrive, and let me protect you both - let me be the person I have always wanted to be, before all the lies - a man who loves and is loved. Let me be there for my child.”

Rhaella opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment a strong breeze whipped across the plateau, stripping flowers from their stems, bending the trees, bringing with it the scent of water and earth and new life -

And carrying the sound of a crying infant.

Solas went utterly still.

His jaw dropped slowly down.

“Rhaella -” he began, voice hoarse, pleading.

She woke.

*

“Rhaella. Rhaella.”

It wasn’t Solas’s voice that greeted her on waking, but Cole’s. He hovered over her, moon-pale eyes wide and unblinking. Rhaella came back to her body. She was sore and exhausted in ways she had never been, and her breasts were full and tingling, and she remembered it all abruptly.

My daughters. I had my daughters.

They were crying in their bassinette. Her heart leapt at the sound. Nothing on earth could have kept her from them in that moment. Not even the member of their father standing stock still in the river, eyes as wide as if he’d been dealt a killing blow.

Merrill was hovering over the bassinette, hushing them.

“I wanted to let you sleep a little while longer, but it seems they need you,” she said as Rhaella knelt beside her. Rhaella reached into the basket and touched her daughters, one after the other. Their warm full bellies and their soft rosy cheeks and their little balled fists. She reached for one of them, preparing to lift her. She was dimly aware that the storm had passed, that a thin, eerie mist had snaked its way into the grotto. That something felt wrong. But all that mattered was her two little girls, and she was going to care for them, and she wasn’t going to cry over the memory of their father standing there alone, betrayed.

“There is no time,” Cole said, his voice soft and urgent.

“What is it?” Rhaella asked, though her stomach had already dropped into her toes.

The air was too still. Then Merrill’s head jerked up suddenly, like a horse that had heard the snap of a twig. There was no sound - but Merrill was the one who’d placed the wards well outside the ravine. The one who would know if someone was approaching.

Cole straightened slowly, his gaze distant and unfocused, as he followed Merrill’s gaze.

“He is coming,” Cole said.

[wetalkinboutbooks]

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Summary:  Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire.

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:  

 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  

Overall: Sabaa Tahir manages to avoid the second book curse with A Torch Against the Night, she picks up where she left off in An Ember in the Ashes (our review). Laia and Elias have escaped Blackcliff, Helene and the rest of the Masks are after them, and Darrin has yet to be saved. Everything that could go wrong DOES go wrong, but then at the same time, we get some wholesome moments in this book and overall we LOVED IT!!!

~ Spoiler-full review below

The Good:

→ Laia

Kae: Laia. Our sweet little angel. She can never do anything wrong ever in life. We love her and we stan. She has broken Elias out of Blackcliff and now they’re on the run! It’s a hot ass mess. She and Elias escape through some catacombs or whatever, and they end up at an old Veturius warehouse where Keris, Elias’ evil ass mother is waiting for them. They battle it out! CLASH SLASH SLASH! Swords and scims are SWANGIN. They knock Keris out, tie her up, and get away. But… Keris done got a little slice in and cut Elias. Now he’s sick, seizing, and passed TF OUT. So while he and Laia are on this journey, taking care of him the whole way through. Things are getting worse and Elias is getting WORSE. So she takes a risk and goes to a sketchy town to find meds for him. The destination to find safety and also rescue her brother, Darrin is going to take a long longer than she anticipated. 

Geena: Kae got the start of the book really well, and like she mentioned we find out the Keris managed to cut Elias with a throwing star (lmao I THINK) which was poisoned. But Elias doesn't let Laia know that he’s been poisoned by a chemical that has no cure and that he’ll just end up slowly and painfully dying 😭 LAIA THO? She thinks of everything she can to help him, like going into a shady town full of mercenaries and killers to find him an antidote that she thinks might work. Does that backfire? Yes. But did she try her best? HELL YES. Laia makes a lot of mistakes in this book, but rather than wallowing in some sort of self-pity she takes shit into her own hands and learns from her screw-ups and I really loved how Sabaa handled her. A lot of people drag Laia down and compare her to Helene, and I think I mentioned this in our last review too that those comparisons aren’t right because: 

Helene is a trained soldier, and she got white feminists antics so please…

Laia literally has had no training but she (with Elias) manage to outsmart Helene and other Masks so like…..

Anyways, I love Laia and I’ll fight ANYONE who talks shit about her. Scratch that, Elias will manifest and beat the shit out of anyone that talks shit about Laia. Like even when she was hanging out with Keenan, Elias was like ‘If it weren’t for my love for Laia I would have murdered your ass’ just because he suspected Keenan of being a snake (and he was right…). But yea, in Book 2 Laia takes command of what happens and starts formulating her own plans along with help from her companions, and she doesn’t let any backfired plans stop her (even when Izzy died 😩). When Elias is captured and imprisoned she plans to break out both him and her brother, and through quick thinking, she and Elias are able to devise a plan which obviously goes to shit but still ends up working out... So Laia haters… how my ass taste?  

→ Ilyaas and the Tribes 

Kae: Geena summed up Laia perfectly! So now we’re going to talk about Ilyaas and the tribes. Elias, as we all know, was abandoned by his mother when he was a baby. She left him in the desert for the tribes people to find instead of just killing him, which she deeply regrets. SO!! Elias is not his birth name. His birth name is Ilyaas, which is the name given to him by the tribes people. They are who Elias considers to be his real family. He has siblings, a mother (Mamie Rila), friends, and more, who he grew up with before he was taken to go to Black Cliff. Here is where Ilyaas feels the most comfortable with himself and his surroundings. He feels his safest when he is with the tribes. He had kept in contact with them his whole life and continued to do so even after being on the run which is why they ended up back with the tribes. They took him in and consider him family and when they met Laia, they instantly loved her. Especially Mamie Rila, who thought she had “GOOD BIRTHING HIPS” LMAOOO SHE WILD FOR THAT ONE. Anyway, when Elias and Laia show up as fugitives, they know they have to hide them. So Mamie Rila and family keep them hidden. When the Martial’s come riding the camp and looking for them, they figure out a distraction. Mamie Rila calls a big meeting during a special ceremony in which she gives a speech. During the speech, she riles everyone up and shit talks to Martials and what they did to Elias and how they are ruining society. This gives the tribal people the motivation to cause a big enough riot for Elias and Laia to book it! Elias runs into Helene during their escape and they meet for the first time in weeks, possibly months. Helene is stunned, but Elias tells her he is sorry and he misses her. After a good fight, Elias gets the best of Helene. She ends up letting them get away. 

Geena: Kae really hit all the points! I really liked how Sabaa mentioned that Elias’ (Martial) grandpa changed his name from the given Ilyaas and anglicized it for Martial society (shoutout to Colonialism ha ha). But Ilyaas and his connection with his family is one of the things that sets him apart from other YA protagonists I’ve noticed, he’s genuinely a good person and it’s because he was raised in such a loving and caring environment and my hort 🥺 In this book he stays on the same trend of always getting into shit bc he’s a good guy, he’s vowed to help Laia break out Darrin but then shit goes down… The poison killing him sends him to the Waiting Place (essentially a purgatory) where he meets the Soul Catcher (Shaeva) who helps him come to terms with the fact he’s dying. Through Ilyaas we also learn about what lead to the creation of the Nightbringer (how the Shaeva helped some Scholars essentially destroy a thriving Jinn community r.i.p.). This is spread throughout the book and really enhances Sabaa’s worldbuilding and we loved it! Also, we can’t forget the rawest lines throughout the whole series which was said in this book:

 “You are my temple. You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release.” 

LIKE HELLO?????????????????????????????????????? When Elias realized he only had a month left to live and that he’d move faster without the tribal folk, he leaves Laia and whispers that to her while she’s asleep and SHE DOESN’T EVEN HEAR IT BRO?? Anyways, Elias leaves to bust Darrin out himself but things happen and he ends up imprisoned,  but still manages to get to Darrin and finds out that KEENAN’S BITCHASS ISN’T WHO HE SAYS HE IS. 

Kae: Also when Elias breaks into the prison he’s almost immediately caught by the Warden who experiments on the prisoners. These prisoners are mostly the scholars. So the Warden recognizes Elias from when he has to patrol the prison when he was younger. When the Warden recognizes Elias, he puts him in prison and it begins to torture him. But Elias ain’t no bitch so he handles that shit like a MAN!!! Whenever the Warden is done with Elias he sends in a little Scholar boy to clean him up. The boy continues to clean Elias up and be nice to him and Elias is like “I love this child as if he were my own. I will kill ANYONE who does him HARM and there will be MURDER.” And so like, Elias is a softie and once again, genuinely a good person that is out in bad situations. 

Geena: Elias engaged dad mode in the middle of a torture chamber, imagine what’ll happen if he and Laia ever have children…. 

Kae: Need me a man like Elias ngl asdfghjkl. BUT LIKE. HE’S LIKE “my new son… what is your name?” And the little boy is like “Puhpa.. I have no name*insert sad eyes here*” So Elias names him Tas.  Tas helps him break out of prison with Darrin. But Elias dies as they’re escaping and he goes to the Waiting Place and he makes a deal with Shaeva to take her place so she can move on to the next life, then BOOM. He’s alive again and wakes back up in the prison. 

Tas: Yo wtf wake yo big ass up. I, a six year old, have been carrying you. 

Elias: LMAOOO my bad I was dead. Let’s roll. 

And so they escape with Darrin and Laia and the rest of the Scholars. And Kauf burns down. 

The Bad:

→ Keris

Geena: Keris may not be a good person or a good mother but at least…………………………… I was trying to think of something good to say about her but this bitch really is all trash. Like she finds some sort of sick joy in killing her own son. Like, why let him live after you gave birth to him only to turn around and torture him. Anyways, we find out some interesting tidbits about how she’s in cahoots with the Nightbringer, who seems to be controlling everything she does. And we also find out that she’s planning a coup against Markus, who is the new and shitty emperor, but because the support behind him is weak Keris is like ‘This will be no biggie’. She finds some sort of sick joy in killing scholars, she wakes up and is like “I eat genocide for breakfast,” and I’m like *monkey side eye* bc who in the fuck... Like I don’t know what she was fed growing up but the concentration of hate and bitterness in this woman is too much… we also find out she had Helene’s torturer, Avitas Harper, spying on Helene throughout the whole book. Keris doesn’t just have eyes in the back of her head, she got eyes on every living surface. 

→ Harper

Kae: Harper! I didn’t like him when he was first introduced. I didn’t like the fact that he was beating the shit out of Helene even though I wasn’t exactly a fan of her either but I understood that she had to do what she had to do so she wasn’t a number one on my enemy list just yet. But I hated having to read Harper whoop her ass. I mean, Harper didn’t LIKE doing it. But ya kno… Keris made him do it. Harper started off as a spy for Keris. He was assigned to basically be Helene’s second, so he was to aid her in whatever mission she was sent on , while also reporting everything she did back to Keris. LITTLE DID WE KNOW THO!!! THAT OUR BOY AVITAS HARPER DIDNT FUCK WITH KERIS. He had his own personal motives that we don’t discover in this book. So after awhile he was like “....nah I’m done with that.” So he becomes loyal to Helene. He shows mild displays of not wanting to kill anyone that doesn’t need to be killed (the tribes after they helped Elias escape). He also goes out of his way to make sure Helene eats and gets sleep and has fresh clothes. I think little things like that is how he tries to show his loyalty. He also knows that Helene has a soft spot for Elias and that she doesn’t really want to hurt him. We learned that he has a soft heart and is a pretty cool dude. He really just wants to help Helene in any way that he can. He worries for her. 

Geena: Harper has always been a shady character for me, like I didn’t expect Sabaa to turn Helene’s torturer into her love interest… WHEN I TELL U I SCREAMED at all their moments I was LIKE WAT IS THIS but I sat back because I was like imma trust Sabaa. But it was interesting to read Harper be like “Yea, I’m a snake and?” and Helene just accepting it like “This is my life I guess”. But Harper wanting to emulate Elias and being like “Maybe I too will attempt to be a good human being now”... a very interesting development… Also, Im curious to see how Harper (and by extension, Helene’s) stories end… will Sabaa give the soldiers of the state a happy ending… DO they deserve a happy ending 🤔 Will they make up for their war crimes in the series finale? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z.

Kae: ALSO THO. WHEN HELENE TELLS HARPER HE’S A SNAKE, HARPER IS LIKE “Yeah and Snakes survive soooo…”

→ Markus

Kae: So now we have skankass Markus. Markus used to have a twin brother named Zacharias. Markus killed  Zacharias in the first book during the trials and now his twin brother haunts him and whispers in his ear. People claim that Markus talks to himself when it’s really him trying to get his brother out of his head. After the trials, Markus became Emperor. He is a tyrant and is killing whoever gets in his way. Markus is doing everything in his power to stay relevant because he is a very unliked by literally everyone in this society. He is a Plebeian and that is one of the lower ranking caste in this world. The Martials don’t like that someone of a lower rank is in charge of all of them so they want him off of the throne.  He also has a lust/hate thing for Helene and tries to belittle and make her uncomfortable as much as possible. He also absolutely hates Elias and has ordered Helene to kill him. Markus ALSO arranged to marry Helene’s sister, Hannah.  Hannah is kind of a bitch so she’s down with the shits to get back at Helene. Why she hates Helene? I seriously don’t know.  In the end, Markus is like “So you didn’t kill Elias? *evil laughter*  Well, since I can’t kill YOU, Helene, I’ll kill your family” so he slices the neck of Helene‘s parents and his fiancé, Hannah. He leaves Livia (Livvy) alive and married her instead. Ngl, that part made me so sad I got tears in my eyes. That was so fucked up dude. That’s when I KNEW Sabaa didn’t fuck around. I’m convinced she wants no survivors in the end lmaopleasedontdothatSabaa. 

Geena: Oh yea like Markus is nasty as Kae outlined, he could’ve been Keris. But unlike Keris, Markus is a dispshit with no braincells (bc they died with his brother). He’s a disgusting human being who assaulted Laia back in book one and has been implied to have done that to other scholar slaves 🤢 AND LIKE …….. HELENE KNEW THIS……. AND SHE KNEW HER SISTER WAS TOO GOOD FOR HIM…. So, imagine her horror when her favourite sister is forced to marry him….. I guess he was “smart” for marrying her favourite sister and realizing that was the only way to control Helene to get her to do what he wanted. bUt das it.  

The Ugly:  

→ Keenan’s Fugly Ass. Bitchass. Manipulating ass. 

Geena: Do you know…. Do you know how much denial I was in??? All through book 1 and majority of book 2, I was like FUCK KEENAN but seeing how Laia was into him I was like *angry pingu meme* LIke FINE FINE, I’ll like him because Laia likes him and I just want him to be happy. SO, I ACCEPTED THAT KEENAN AND LAIA WAS THE IT COUPLE… And like did I skim over the part where they got nasty? Kinda. But i was like okay fine, Laia loves him and he’s helping her. But then the big reveal…. THIS MANS WAS PLAYING HER THE WHOLE TIME??? HE WAS NEVER KEENAN, THE SCHOLAR REBEL, THIS HOE WAS THE NIGHTBRINGER THE WHOLE TIME??????? He’d played Laia into developing feelings for him, JUST SO that he could take the armlet that he mother had given her. Which, we find out, is an important part of some weapon that the Nightbringer needs to bring about the apocalypse or some shit. And, he can only take the weapon if it’s given out of love. This implies he was in love with Laia too, but I’d fight that bitch like hOW DARE YOU????

Kae:  You skipped the nasty scene!? LMAOOO I WAS SHOOK BUT ALSO MAD BUT ALSO LIKE OKAY WHATEVER. I WAS A HARDCORE LAIA X ELIAS SHIPPER FROM THE START! But like, same. I was like “If Laia is happy with Keenan, then I’ll be happy too.” But maaaaann… 

Geena: I WANTED TO GIVE KEENAN BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT OKAY, AND LIKE SABAA really subverted my expectations because usually in YA only the true love interests end up getting nasty so I was like… I guess this is it! But she was like “SIKE!!! YOU THOUGHT!!!” Anyways, I still don’t think this series should be YA but whatever...

Kae: GORL I WAS SEETHING WITH HATRED!!!!!!! AT THAT REVEAL!! I WAS SO FUCKING MAD. I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!! I LITERALLY HATE HIM. Def shouldn’t be YA. But, here we areeee! 

Kae: I just wanted to say that I hate Keenan/ The Nightbringer with a BURNING PASSION. I hate when guys trick women into trusting them so that they can sleep with them and get what they want. That pisses me off to the highest degree I think it is a scumbag move and he is just a dirty little fucker and I can’t stand him. There is nothing that can  represent all of the hatred that I have for Keenan. I absolutely loathe him/The Nightbringer. I hope he suffers. 

Geena: Fuck dude, that’s so valid. 

Conclusion

Kae: In conclusion, the Nightbringer is a bitch and I HATE HIM. 

Geena: SAME! We hate the Nightbringer as much as we love Laia and Elias so there’s that. Sabaa really shows out with the characters she’s crafted from An Ember in the Ashes, takes a baseball bat, and starts beating the shit out of our emotions and her characters at the same time. ANYWAYS, please read this series!

[rainbowwritesthings]

I Welcome My Sentence

Either they both fall and die because the root saving them snaps under the duress, or the proverbial dead weight be dropped and the mighty Witcher use his newly freed hand to climb up the rock.

Jaskier makes a choice, one that Geralt refuses to entertain. AO3

Jaskier rather enjoyed being alive and despite what a certain Witcher would say, he was in no inclination to change his status to deceased.

Yet as he clung on to Geralt’s arm with both hands, nails dug into the man’s skin in a desperate attempt for more stability, he began coming to grips with the situation. The panic that had consumed him from the moment they fell was quietly brushed away and replaced with resignation.

Looking down made his head spin at the sheer emptiness beneath him that ended with sharp rocks miles below his dangling feet. Up was hardly a better direction, jagged rock going on seemingly forever above them with the only thing marrying its simplicity a root that stuck out of the rock stubbornly.

That stubborn root just happened to be the thing keeping both Geralt and Jaskier alive after the dying monster had used the last of its life to push the pair over the edge with one final swing. As his legs dangled, the options he had floated through his mind.

More specifically the only two options there were, either they both fall and die because the root saving them snaps under the duress. Or the proverbial dead weight be dropped and the mighty Witcher use his newly freed hand to climb up the rock.

Really between the two options only one was viable but Jaskier knew that Geralt, for all his grumbling and glares for the bard, would rather shave his head than drop Jaskier purposefully. Not that Jaskier wanted to freefall and smash against the rocks mind you, but the only fate worse than that would be having Geralt falling with him.

Geralt was, without question or doubt, far more important in almost every way than Jaskier. Even without considering the whole destiny thing, if someone where to compare the jobs of a bard and a monster slayer one would clearly win. Yes, there was no doubt for Jaskier about which option was the best.

Mind made up and heart somewhere deep in his stomach, now the execution was to be dealt with. With a hitched sigh Jaskier fought down every instinct of self-preservation and let go of the arm.

He let gravity drag his left hand down to his side and his right hand let go of the arm it was clutching, fear spiking sharply as his body swayed after losing that small stability. Immediately the grip around his wrist tightened and Geralt of Rivia, the Butcher of Blaviken, and mighty White Wolf stared down at him with what could only be described as a crazed look.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Silver hair spun white with the sun shining through it, and golden eyes seemed alight with perceived desperation. As pitiful and sappy as it might sound, Jaskier could die happy if Geralt’s was the last face he saw.

Something must had shown on his own face because the grip on his wrist tightened and a scowl reaffirmed itself on Geralt, “hold on.”

Jaskier had had that type of growl directed to him only a few times before, it was a tone that demanded obedience and there was always an order attached to it. The last time Geralt had growled at him that way, it had been ordering him to get down moments before a Drowner tried to attack the bard. Somehow, disobeying the order was harder than letting go had been.

Geralt was glaring down at him and if it wasn’t for the way his jaw was tensed or the way the man’s chest was practically heaving despite the lack of activity, Jaskier would think it was anger in those eyes.

Instead, after all the years Jaskier has spent with the Witcher he had come to recognize the more subtle signs Geralt used to show of worry. Worry that was becoming more apparent the longer Jaskier let himself dangle, a low growl sounded and Geralt was looking back up.

Clearly looking for a new solution to their situation, calculating if he could throw the bard to the top of the cliff without him just hitting the side harshly and just falling once more.

Words needed to be said, Jaskier knew he needed to say something to the man he loved to convince him to do the smart thing. Swallowing down his own fear Jaskier looked below and tried not to vomit when the world tilted, fuck that really was a long way down.

“Don’t look down and for fucks sake, hold onto me.”

Jaskier obliged on one front and shut his eyes tightly, he took a shaky breath in and let it out in a quick huff.

“Well, at least it won’t hurt. Just a bit of falling and then-“

“Stop. Jaskier, just-stop.”

At any other time the defeated tone would have stunned Jaskier into silence, but his own growing desperation was drowning everything out. Once again, an odd hollowness covered the panic and Jaskier could speak again.

“Geralt, please listen to me. You have to let go, there’s no reason for both of us to die here and lets be honest you’re more-“

The grip on his wrist was sure to be cutting off circulation at this point Jaskier noted numbly, but what did that really matter if he was just going to fall to his death anyway?

The sun wasn’t directly in his eyes when he looked up again and Jaskier found himself wishing it was in order to spare him the sight. Geralt looked more pained than Jaskier had ever seen him look before; his chin touching his chest, eyes closed, and mouth pulled into a thin-lipped grimace.

“Geralt.”

The man took in a deep breath and shook his head, “no.”

Cold logic hadn’t worked before, but maybe going at it from a different angle would work better.

“Destiny has plans for you and I’ve obviously played my part in it, something that am thankful I was able to do. Because even though this is where my story ends, I’m so fucking happy that I was able to meet you, to really get to know you, and to love you more than I thought I was capable of.”

The confession hadn’t meant to slip out, a great deal of what he just said wasn’t planned, but that was Jaskier in a nutshell. Unable to keep his mouth shut in the best of times and fully capable of shoving his entire foot into it at any time.

Geralt had remained suspiciously silent during Jaskier’s speech but his grip had not faltered in the slightest. All Jaskier could hear was the quick pounding of his heart in his ears, it was deafening, and he wondered if Geralt could hear just how bad the bard’s heart was thrumming.

So caught up straining to hear past his own heartbeat he almost missed the deep grunt from the man above him. “Jaskier. I wouldn’t-“

Jaskier didn’t miss the way his voice broke, or how the Witcher took a sharp breath before continuing.

“I won’t let go.”

His tone was resolute and Jaskier was reminded of one of the many reasons he loved the man so much, his steadfast determination to do the right thing even if it screwed the man over tenfold. Which is why this was such a fucked-up situation, a true lose-lose for Geralt.

The new silence that stretched between them was shattered by rocks moving above them and Jaskier hoped that it was just normal rocks rolling around and not a precursor for an even worse situation.

Geralt tensed and looked up but didn’t say anything to Jaskier about more potential threats. Instead Jaskier was taken fully off guard by a human head poking over to look at them from the top, “you alright?”

Shock wrapped through Jaskier as Geralt yelled for rope and the bard felt that this whole rescue was that of a dream.

“I’m dead, you actually dropped me, and I am being escorted into the afterlife.”

A growl had him focusing back in time for a thick rope to be tossed next to him and he wasted no time in looping it around his left arm, trying not to notice the golden eyes watching his every move.

Once properly tangled he looked back to his wrist, still held in an iron grip and thought for a moment asking Geralt to let go. Deciding against it he instead looked back up to the mysterious savior, “ready!”

The head disappeared briefly, he heard scattered shouting before the rope jerked sharply and slowly, he was lifted higher. When he rose to Geralt’s level, his wrist was finally released, and the relief felt through it was immediate.

Looping his right arm around the rope Jaskier let sheer weight of what had happened, and what had almost happened, finally hit him. When he got to the ledge sets of hands were yanking him up and he laid on the mercifully solid ground, clutching his throbbing wrist to his chest and sucking in air.

A face entered his vision and he felt hands roaming over him before they started prodding at his arm, which he answered with a groan. Whatever they were saying to him was lost in a shrill ringing that had started, but Jaskier tried to focus on a face and express his gratitude.

He felt his mouth moving and hoped that he was saying something instead of just gaping at them like a fish. Jaskier felt someone new move next to him and white filled his vision as the world faded away.

[hiraeth-doux]

illusions of the sunlight

summary: “Revived here, he belongs to this island, Diana. He can never leave again.”

Hades returns Steve Trevor to Diana, but there is a catch - Steve is now bound to remain on Themyscira forever. 

... or is he? 

AO3

Veld, 1918

“So, this is what people do when there are no wars to fight,” Diana says as she tries to keep a serious face.

Sprawled on her stomach next to Steve amongst tangled sheets, she watches him in the dim light of the dying fire, and for a moment, she sees the man he had been before the war had left its mark on him, a mark that she fears will never be erased completely.

Steve blinks at her. It takes him a second to realize that she is teasing him, and then he laughs. It’s a beautiful sound, so joyous it makes her heart ache, and it strikes Diana then that in the brief time that they’ve known each other, she has never seen him so relaxed, so content, so unguarded. So oddly young.

He lifts his hand and traces his thumb along the ridge of her cheekbone.

“Among other things,” Steve notes, and this time, the smile springs across her face as well.

The snow is still falling outside the small window, thick flakes that make everything look surreal; the chilly wind rattles the glass in its frame and whistles under the roof. But the room above the inn is like a whole different world, and despite everything that has brought her here in the first place, there is nowhere else she’d rather be.

Her eyes find his, and for the first time since they have met, Diana wishes for so much more than just peace.

London, 1918

Grief manifests itself differently in different people.

All around Diana, people are celebrating and mourning, and she can no longer tell one from another. Standing in front of the commemoration wall in the centre of London, her eyes glued to the photograph of Steve and the easy smile on his face she barely recognizes, she allows the sounds of cheering and crying to wash over her until they fade into a background noise and she is left alone with her thoughts and the weight of loss heavy on her chest.

To the right from her, Etta stands with a handkerchief clenched tightly in her hands, her eyes red-rimmed and glistening with unshed tears. Every time she tries to speak, her lips tremble and her breath doesn’t seem to know where to find itself.

Sameer’s lips are pressed together but there is so much pain in his eyes that Diana can’t seem to look at him without being sucked into the ocean of sorrow. Ever the amiable one, he hasn’t said but two words in the past few days, and somehow it makes this alien world look even more unrecognizable to her.

Charlie is angry. All the rage he has carried within him through the war is bubbling up at the surface and spilling over the edge. He has the gentlest soul Diana has ever seen, but it is dripping with so much helpless fury and resentment toward everyone around him now that she fears he might never find the good parts of himself again.

Chief is quiet. Has been quiet since the night Steve died. Unlike Sameer who seems to have retreated into himself, Chief doesn’t try to mask his sadness. Yet there is resignation in his eyes, too; acceptance that the others have yet to find.

Diana wants to help them ease the burden of their loss, but the truth is that she can’t even help herself.

Themyscira, 1921

The island is smaller than she has remembered, and for a moment, Diana can’t help but wonder how this place used to encompass her entire world and feel like it was enough. She looks at it now and can barely imagine taking a few steps without falling off the edge of it and into the clear blue water.

It is, perhaps, that she knows now that there is more to the world than a piece of rock in the middle of the sea. She will never belong here the way she always thought she had, and the realization echoes with a pang of sadness in her chest. Yet, she doesn’t belong in men’s world either, and it makes her feel so lost that it is almost too much to bear.

Her mother meets her at the dock when she returns. Surrounded by half a dozen guards, she waits for Diana to step off the boat and move into her arms. She holds her tight and whispers a quiet Welcome back into her ear.

And something that simple brings tears to Diana’s eyes.

---

They never ask and she doesn’t volunteer more than she is willing to tell.

The pain of loss is still raw, her soul still aches for Steve more than she ever thought it could. It flares up in the moments when she least expects it and leaves her gasping, disoriented. She misses him desperately, to the dull throb deep in her bones, and she doesn’t understand how she can love someone she barely knew so fiercely.

The training ground is quiet and empty in the soft pre-dawn haze. Soon, the space will be filled with the best warriors she’s ever known. These days, Diana prefers the solitude of training on her own before everyone else is up and the wisps of morning fog still cling to the grass.

She swings her sword once, twice, deflecting an imaginary attack. Her muscles scream in exertion, her breathing heavy, and for a moment, all feels the way it used to—

“Diana!”

Her name carries across the vast stretch of the field, oddly loud in the early-morning stillness.

Diana snaps her head up, and there is Venelia standing on the cliff above her, her sword drawn and her expression troubled.

“Come. There is a man, down on the beach--”

Diana doesn’t hear the rest, the words swallowed by the wind.

With the pounding heart, she starts to walk, and then run, and then sprint so fast that it feels like she is flying.

---

They stand in a group that parts for her when Diana steps onto the sand, her chest heaving and her sword still clutched in her hand.

He lies on his back, half in the water, the waves lapping against his legs.

A strangled sob rises in Diana’s throat when she drops her sword and falls down to her knees beside him. Her hand hovers over his face, reaching forward and retreating for a few long moments before she brings herself to touch him, scared that he might disappear before her eyes if she does.

Steve’s skin is warm when her hand brushes against his cheek, his eyes closed, and her fingers tremble when they slide under his chin, searching for a pulse. For a moment, she can’t feel anything, and the sense of dread that settles over her makes her want to fold in on herself and cease to exist. But the moment passes, and then there it is, faint and weak, but real.

A shaky breath stutters out of her chest.

“Steve…”

His body jerks and convulses as he comes to with a coughing fit, spitting the water from his lungs and gasping hungrily for air.

There are a dozen women standing around them, their hands on the hilts of their swords, but when he opens his eyes and looks at her, they might as well be the only two people in the world.

“Steve,” she repeats, feeling like she is drowning in the blue of his eyes.

“Hey,” he croaks and offers her a weak smile that makes something snap within her. Something that has been holding her together all along. “Ow,” he winces when she grabs him and gathers him against her, stiffening in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs into the crook of his neck, but when she tries to ease her grip, he doesn’t let go.

---

Steve is alive.

Diana remembers the fire that took his life three years ago with startling accuracy, so bright in the ink-black sky that it hurt to look. The scream that ripped out of her throat still lives deep inside of her, the memory of the sound of her heart splitting in half.

She runs her hand through his hair as she watches him sleep, careful not to touch the cut just under his hairline so as not to disturb him. His chest is rising and falling slowly, his lips slightly parted. He looks exactly the way he did on the morning before he died, and for a split second, Diana is back in that small room, waiting for him to wake up and smile at her like he did at night.  

She doesn’t know what this means. Doesn’t know what has brought him back or how, but it doesn’t matter. Be it a miracle or the act of magic, she will take it and she will be grateful for it with everything that she is.

“Diana…”

She looks up to find Epione standing in the doorway.

“He will be alright. You should rest.”

Diana nods but doesn’t move, and after a moment, Epione leaves without another word.

When she turns to Steve, she finds him blinking sleepily at her, and she can’t tell if he even knows that he is awake. The thought makes her lips tug upwards at the corners.

His fingers brush against her hand, and she grabs it with both of hers and lifts it to her mouth to press a kiss to his chapped knuckles.

“Stay,” he asks, his voice nothing but a whoosh of breath.

She ends up sleeping next to him on a cot too small for two people, and for the first time in years, she doesn’t dream of his plane engulfed in flames.

---

Steve doesn’t remember dying but he does remember saying goodbye, which is an odd feeling when the woman he said it to is standing right before him, warm breeze tangled in her hair, her smile the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

Odder still is knowing that he is back in the place where the journey that had set him on the path that led him to his death had started both a week and several years ago.

It would feel like a dream, Steve thinks, if it hasn’t been for the bandage covering a gash on his forehead and a dull throb in his hip when he walks.

The sun is sinking into the ocean, and for a while, the quiet whisper of the waves hitting the sand is the only sound around them.

He turns to Diana. “So, Paradise island, huh?”

He knows that the war is over, that it has been over for a while. That Diana has put an end to it like she said she would, and looking at her now, Steve can’t imagine doubting her even for a moment. Where does that leave him, though, is another question altogether.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” he tells her honestly, although whether he is talking about his miraculous resurrection or about being madly in love with a goddess he doesn’t know. Either. Both. It all feels a little overwhelming.

Diana steps closer to him. She brushes his hair back from his forehead, careful not to touch the stripe of gauze, her eyes roaming over his features with the same endless wonder he first saw when she pulled him out of the water back in 1918.

“You’re alive, Steve,” she says. Her hand slips to rest on the back of his neck, and he instinctively ducks his head closer to hers until their foreheads rest together. “You’re alive because you deserve to live.”

It makes no sense to him; it goes against everything that he has ever known about the world and the rules it exists by, but that he would be brought right back to her doesn’t surprise him. Where else would he want to be?

His hands curl over her hips, drawing her closer. “I missed you,” he tells her, watching another smile break across her face, and when he kisses her, it feels like coming home.

---

The bright blue water stretches all the way to the horizon, brilliant in the sunlight. Somewhere out there is man’s world that is no more familiar to Hippolyta now than it was before it rejected the Amazons and pushed them into exile.

She has always known that the island would never be enough for Diana, but she also knew that her daughter would return sooner or later, drawn to it the way they all were. What she could never foresee was that Diana would bring a piece of that other world with her.

How odd, how unfathomable it is that she would give her heart so fully and so completely to a man. And how wonderful is the light that he brings to her daughter’s eyes that has never existed there before.

“Is he well?” Hippolyta asks when Diana walks over and pauses next to her, her eyes also trained on the expanse of the sea.

“He is healing,” Diana responds. “He doesn’t understand how, and neither do I.”

“Your patrons are indebted to you for defeating Ares,” the Queen says without turning. “And they always repay their debts.” There is no easy way to soften the blow of the words she says next, “Revived here, he belongs to this island, Diana. He can never leave again.”

“Will you allow him to stay?” Diana asks quietly after a moment.

This time, Hippolyta looks at her. “I wouldn’t for anyone else,” she says and they both know that she means it. Aside from the time when she chose to keep the story of Diana’s birth a secret, they have always been honest with one another. “But you have earned this. And he makes you happy.”

It’s not a question but a fact.

“He does,” Diana nods.

Hippolyta studies her for a long while, taking note of the girl she has raised and the woman Diana has become, and her chest constricts with fierce pride even though there is a bittersweet edge to it.

“Then it shall be enough.”

---

Hades.

Her mother doesn’t need to say the name for Diana to get the answer she’s been asking for. It’s only by the power of the God of the Underworld that the dead can come back to life.

She lays out the truth to Steve that night. The room is flooded with silver moonlight and her head rests on his chest while his fingers thread idly through her hair, and despite the twinge of uncertainty in her heart over how he will take her words, she feels content. He is quiet while she speaks, his heartbeat even and measured under her cheek.

“I understand that this is not a perfect resolution--” Diana starts.

Steve takes her hand that has been drawing idle patterns on his skin and winds his fingers through hers. “Do you want to be with me?” He asks.

She looks up, and the answer has never been more clear.

“Yes.”

He smiles at her. “Then it’s as perfect as it can be.”

She doesn’t know if he truly grasps the concept of forever and the full truth behind her words, but she has missed him so badly and if this is all they can get then she’ll take it.

A thousand times over.

Themyscira, 1940

The news of another war does not surprise Diana. Ares might be dead but his legacy, deeply rooted in the hearts of some people will live on for the rest of eternity.

It doesn’t surprise her that they would want to give in to hatred and greed and violence, but it feels like a blow that knocks the ground from beneath her feet anyway. The memory of the previous war is still fresh in her mind, and the anger rises inside of her in a tidal wave.

And for the first time in her life, Diana wonders if they deserve the help she can offer. If it is worth her effort when they will tear at each other again when their recollection of loss and blood and despair starts to fade.

She quells the thought, disgusted with herself for giving in to the burning in her blood that she has inherited from her father. The same one that had called to Ares to destroy mankind for simply being.

“You are going,” Steve says quietly, and she wishes she didn’t have to.

“I am.”

Diana moves to him and frames his face with her hands, her thumb stroking his cheekbone.

“I wish I could come with you,” he admits, and she knows that even after everything he’s been through, he means it.

“Me, too.” She brushes his hair back from his face and he leans into her touch. Nearly two decades later, and she still finds it hard to believe that she has got him back. “But I’m glad that you can’t,” she adds, and he laughs a little.

“You’ll have to be a hero for both of us then.”

Diana feels her lips curve into a smile. “Deal.”

 Themyscira, 1946

The second time she returns to the island, it is not her mother and the royal guards but Steve who appears from the early morning fog when her boat breaks through it.

Diana’s heart lurches at the sight of him waiting for her.

She refuses to think of it, least of all say it out loud, but the whole time she has been away, part of her feared that she wouldn’t find him here still when she came back.

The thought feels foolish when his arms close around her, and she never wants to let go.

“Good to have you back,” Steve whispers into her hair, and her smile grows so wide it threatens to split her face in half.

She has missed her mother dearly, she has missed her sisters, but she is grateful for this moment with him. Diana tucks her face into the hollow of his neck, and they stand at the end of the old dock as wisps of fog curl around their feet.  

Themyscira has never felt more like home.

Themyscira, 1918

Antiope’s blood soaking the sand is the brightest shade of red Diana has ever seen.

This is the first time she has faced death and the shock of it renders her paralyzed. The bodies of her sisters are covered with scars and painted with memories of battles that took place long before Diana came to exist. She used to admire and envy them, dreaming of her own victories.

Seeing the aftermath of the carnage that unravelled before her eyes only minutes ago is something else entirely and the enormity of it is unbearable.

“No!”

Menalippe’s scream breaks through the haze in Diana’s mind.

She looks up to watch the other woman race across the beach, but by the time Menalippe reaches them, she is too late.

Themyscira, 1967

Steve lands gracelessly on his back with an undignified gasp, and not even the soft grass of the training field softens his fall. The sun is beaming blindingly in the bright blue sky above him, a disadvantage that he knows will cost him the victory – not that there were many of those to speak of.

A shadow falls over him. He grabs onto the offered hand and lets Menalippe haul him up to his feet as he tries not to feel too sorry for himself.

For a moment, they merely look at each other, and he is acutely aware of the silence that has fallen around them. Her eyes are narrowed against the glare of the sun, and Steve knows that she hasn’t forgiven him for bringing death to the island the first time they met. Maybe never will.

He can’t blame her.

“You’re a good warrior, man,” she says at last, quietly, and for the first time in years, a small smile crosses her face. It is gone before Steve is sure he has even seen it, but it feels like a start.

“Thank you, General,” he says sincerely. “Coming from you, it means a lot.”

Diana walks over to him when Menalippe leaves to resume the training.

“You’re laughing at me,” he tells her accusingly when he catches a glimpse of a smile on her face.

“Am not,” she shakes her head, but her smile stretches out wider.

Steve huffs as he rubs his thigh, certain that he will have a limp for at least a week. Diana’s arm slides around his waist and she rests her chin on his shoulder, and the comfort of it is enough to soothe his bruised ego.

 Themyscira, 1990

She finds him in the caves under the infirmary one night, the sound of her footsteps echoing under the high ceiling as she descends the steps polished smooth over the centuries.

Steve is sitting in one of the pools, his face streaked with pale blue light looking eerie, almost translucent. The same light casts oddly shaped shadows on the uneven, sloped walls, and for a moment, it almost looks like they are moving in some sort of intricate dance.

He looks up when Diana steps into the light, and for a brief second, she is back in 1918 and it is not the man she loves that looks back at her, but a lost soldier who is trying desperately to find his way in this world again.

Steve watches her disrobe and leave her garments on top of his own pile stacked up on one of the rocks. The water is pleasantly warm when she steps into it, blue light swirling around her skin.

“Thought you’d be here,” Diana smiles.

There are questions on her tongue she knows not how to ask. He has been jittery and caged-in lately; she can see it in the way he carries himself, the nervous energy radiating off of him. It shouldn’t surprise her, perhaps, that he has grown restless of the world that is not truly his.

They stay quiet for a while, her body nestled against his chest, cradled in the circle of his arms.

“Are you happy here, Steve?” She asks eventually.

“I have you,” he responds, which is a good answer, one that makes something warm unfurl in her chest, but is also not an answer at all.

Diana knows that he means it, that being with her makes him happy, but for the first time, she wonders if maybe it is not enough.

London, 2001

Just once, just this one time, Diana begs and pleads, and at last, her pleading is heard.

Steve is allowed to leave, but only for a while, and only because she has done everything that Hades has asked for. Diana doesn’t regret the deal she has made, not for a moment.

London greets them with grey skies and torrential rain. She watches Steve pause in the middle of the sidewalk and tips his face up, the look on his face one of absolute delight, and she can’t help but laugh, ignoring the odd glances cast their way.

This is where it has all started, and standing in the middle of a busy street in the centre of London all these years later somehow feels like they have made it full circle.

She doesn’t argue when he makes an ice-cream shop their first stop, foul weather be damned.

Belgium, 1918

The fire burns bright high up in the black sky, and looking at it makes Diana hurt in places that she never knew existed.

Steve is dead, gone to a place where she can’t follow him, and the pain of it is so consuming that it nearly snaps her in half.

Diana screams until it’s the only sound she can hear, but it doesn’t make the ache of loss go away.

Paris, 2018

She dreams of that night sometimes still. Of the plane soaring into the sky before she can stop him and the fire of the explosion that shines brighter than the sun, making the darkness around her seem deeper when Diana wakes up in the dead of the night with her heart racing and her eyes stinging with tears.

Yet, unlike the first few years after Steve’s death, all she has to do now is roll over and reach for him, and there he is, by her side where he belongs. And even now, nearly a hundred years later, it still feels like a miracle beyond her wildest imagination.

She strokes his hair while he sleeps, her fingers tracing the lines of his face, careful so as not to wake him. He hasn’t changed much, frozen in time by the grace of old magic that she doesn’t understand, and she says a silent ‘thank you’ for the years they have had together, and those still to come.

I love you, she thinks. I will love you for as long as I live.

---

“How long do we have?” Steve asks her one night as they walk from the Louvre back to their apartment on the other side of the Seine and the first snow starts to fall.

His question is not unexpected, but it catches Diana off-guard, nonetheless, making her chest constrict momentarily. She can’t remember the last time he has brought this up, and it leaves her with a pang of sorrow in the pit of her stomach.

It won’t be long, but they are not there yet. Not quite, even though part of her can feel it already, and she wonders if he does, too. But the time moves differently for gods. It can be a month, or a decade, or much more than that. She will know when her deal with Hades is up, but for now—

“Enough,” Diana responds.

They are not there yet, she reminds herself. Not tonight.

She turns to Steve and reaches for his hand, weaving her fingers through his. Even after all those years, the way he looks at her still takes her breath away.

She smiles. “We have time.”

[starshollowgal]

The Last Flower

This is a short story I had written. I hope you like it.

Maple Tree Glade, Territory of Connecticut ~ 1761

The hunting moon had arisen. But for Alice Munro, it was commonly known as the month of September, and September implied two things: it was time to harvest the crops, and Uncas would shortly be leaving for the next six weeks. The time of year had come once more when, Uncas, would depart with his father and brother to collect their furs and pelts, and take them to the nearest trading post to sell. From there, they would purchase the much-needed supplies for the approaching winter before returning home. Over the course of the journey, they would traverse nearly a hundred and fifty miles on foot, mostly through hostile territory, and would be sleeping out in the open the entire time. Alice disliked the thought of being separated from Uncas for such a lengthy period. She had been permitted to accompany them once on such a trip, saying she could help to skin and clean the animals they trapped. However, after realizing her presence not only slowed them down, because she couldn't keep up, but also because they had to halt several times for her to rest, which put all of them in great danger. Therefore ever since, Alice had henceforth vowed she would never undertake such a journey again.

Well, at least Cora would come to stay with her while Uncas was away.

Standing on the wooden steps outside the small log cabin Uncas had built for her, Alice leaned against the oak post and looked to the forest, which Uncas had moments ago disappeared through. She admired the transition from vibrant greens to hues of beautiful red and orange, just like the color of the sun. She loved the beauty the season of fall exhibited. Uncas had long ago told her Autumn represented life and death. The old year dying with the falling of the leaves, and the new year being born with the gathering of the harvest. Alice considered his explanation to be beautiful and poetic.

The year was 1761. The four years which had passed would find Alice Munro much changed since her arrival to this strange land in August of 1757. She had transformed from the timid English rose into a true woman of the frontier. She cooked, cleaned, helped plow the fields and tended to her beloved garden. Alice was confident, daring, bold, and strong-willed. Yes, Alice had changed much in those four short years. Even her proud, fine English friends wouldn't recognize her - but Alice didn't care, she had no intentions of ever setting foot on English soil ever again. The frontier was her home now, and she was happy here, happier then she had ever been before.

Since the battle between Uncas and Magua on Promontory cliff four years ago, a fight Uncas thankfully won, Alice never left his side. Even when Cora returned to England, to settle their father's estate and then promptly return, she refused the invite to go with her, stating she wanted to remain with Uncas; and stay she did. Over the course of the following months, Alice could often be found sitting, with Uncas, under the maple tree in the same clearing where they eventually built their cabin. They would spend hours talking, sometimes even into the late hours of the night, sharing stories of their families and childhood. Hearing him tell of his first hunt, excited Alice in such a way that she couldn't describe. His stories were like the adventures she had spent so much of her childhood reading. They were simply thrilling. As the couple grew in their knowledge of the other, so did their love: and when Cora returned three months later, the couple married the following December.

Alice smiled to herself as she fingered the simple gold ring on her left hand. The exchanging of wedding rings was a practice commonly observed only among white people; but Uncas insisted she should have one as well, despite her objections that she didn't need one. The argument was of no avail, for Uncas had his way in the end, and bought her a gold wedding band soon after. Later he would lament for not having bought her a jeweled ring, to which Alice would answer she wouldn't want any other ring, then the one he had given her. To say they were deeply in love with each other was an understatement in Alice's mind. She loved Uncas with every part of her body and every fiber of her soul, as he loved her in the same manner. Truly, she never remembered a happier time in her life.

As dusk began to fall, Alice turned and went back into the house where Cora sat playing with her son and daughter. The young girl of twenty-one years smiled at the sight of her sister playing with the little boy of two. Edmund Michael Poe looked exactly like his father, long brown hair, sharp refined features and piercing green eyes. Edmund's twin sister, Margaret Ann, looked more like her mother with each passing day. The only feature separating them was her hair. Where Cora had raven black tresses, Margaret's seemed to take on more of a golden hue. A memento from Cora and Alice's mother no doubt. A slight sentiment of envy rang through Alice. She knew it was wrong of her, but she couldn't help it. Alice had been married for four years, nearly a year longer than her sister, and she still hadn't been blessed with a child. Whereas Cora had two beautiful children, with another on the way. She knew that Uncas wanted children, and so did she. The two pregnancies Alice had, sadly both ended in miscarriages, one of which nearly claimed her life. It broke both of their hearts, knowing their unborn children had died, but Uncas held onto the hope that they would one day, be blessed with a child of their own. However, since then, she had been unable to conceive. Alice had lost all hope of becoming a mother, and she knew Uncas was beginning to lose faith as well.

"Are you all right?" Cora asked, noticing her sister was unusually quiet.

Awareness dawned on Alice's face as she went over and sat on her rocking chair in front of the fire. "I am fine, Cora. Just a little tired, that is all." She answered. Picking up the dark blue calico dress she was making for herself, she began to work on the hem.

Cora watched her sister closely while she worked diligently on the article of clothing. She was surprised at how easily Alice had taken to making her own clothes - especially since she was accustomed to having all her dresses made for her, and of the finest materials as well. Silk, brocade, satin and velvet, were the fabrics which once lined their wardrobes, was now replaced with simple cotton, linen and calico. The two sisters no longer donned the fine clothes and jewels as they were so used too. In fact, Alice found that she quite enjoyed the liberty from the restrictive corsets she was made to wear. She preferred the simple dresses she had learned to make for herself over the years.

"The dress looks very nice," Cora said.

"Thank you! I have enough fabric left to make a matching shirt for Uncas. I think he will simply look dashing in dark blue. Don't you?"

"Yes, he certainly will," she answered gayly. Alice continued on with her work in silence. But Cora's keen senses could tell there was something troubling her deeply, and she knew Alice wouldn't tell her what it was of her own volition.

"What's troubling you, Alice? You forget I can tell when something is wrong." She didn't answer. "Please tell me, my dear. Perhaps I may be able to help."

Alice paused her work and expelled a deep sigh. "Oh Cora, it is not as simple as that. I fear you shan't be able to help remedy what ails me."

Rising from her place on the floor, Cora came over and rested a hand on Alice's knees. "Oh, sweet girl, tell me what's bothering you."

She set her work down on the nearby table and thought for a long moment. 'Would Cora truly be able to help? Would she truly understand? I doubt it,' Alice said to herself. If only it was a simple matter and not one of jealousy.

"The truth is, Cora," she began, "that I envy you."

"Envy me? Why do you envy me?" Cora asked with wide eyes at her sister's sudden confession. 'Why would Alice be jealous of me?' she thought.

Alice looked at her sister and felt guilty for having ever said what she did. She felt the guilt the moment her lips parted to speak. But now Cora presented her with a question and it would only be right to answer. "Because you have been so blessed, where I have not."

Cora came closer and sat next to her sister. She placed a loving arm around her shoulders and thought for a very long moment before speaking. "Dear sweet Alice. You too have been blessed. Do you not see all there is to be thankful for? You have a beautiful home, health, and a man who adores you with every breath in his body. What is it I possess that you don't?"

She looked to her sister, tears beginning to whale in her eyes. "Children," she said. "You have children, and I have yet to be so graced." Tears fell freely down her cheeks, each leaving a trail in their wake. Cora pulled her closer and hugged her tightly.

"Oh, Cora!" she cried, "what am I to do? Uncas wanted children so badly, and I am unable to give him any. I know his father wants him to carry on the Mohican bloodline, and if I'm unable to conceive, then he may leave me. I don't want to lose him, Cora. I can't."

Cora held her sister close, consoling her as best she could. She now understood why Alice always became silent and withdrawn when the twins were present. It wasn't she didn't love them, she adored them. But Alice felt a sharp sting of pain when reminded of her two miscarriages. The deaths of her babies had taken a great toll on her spirit, even though she carried it in her stride. Cora sincerely understood Alice's pain. To lose a loved one, especially a child, is heartbreaking. The innocents' deaths affected everyone, but none more so than Uncas and Alice.

"My dear girl, it'll be alright. It'll be alright." She said.

"No, it won't."

Cora shifted away and locked her eyes on Alice's. "Listen to me, Alice, I know you're heartbroken, and I know Uncas is too. But listen, hope is not lost, not yet. It never truly is. One day, you and Uncas will sit out there on the steps of your cabin, watching your little ones play and climb the maple tree that both of you so love. I promise."

Alice wanted to believe her. She really did. She wanted the hope, faith, the reassurance, but all of that just seemed lost. Cora said she understood, but she didn't know all that had transpired in the previous months. Alice blamed herself for everything. All of it. The miscarriages. The inability to conceive a child. The growing distance between her and Uncas. Alice ladened all of it onto herself. She was plagued by their ghosts day and night. If only she had listened to Uncas, maybe then things would have been different. But her stubborn nature to help Uncas on that hot summer day in June got the better of her. She wanted to be of use. Wanted to work side by side with her husband. If only she had listened...

- June 1760 -

She had awoken that day with sharp pains shooting up her back and legs, and an unspeakable pressure in her abdomen. But the pains subsided just as quickly as it had appeared, so Alice thought little of it when she got dressed that morning. It was going to be a long hot day, Uncas had said so the night before, and she never remembered him being wrong when it came to the weather. Not once.

Alice looked over to where her husband still lay asleep on his side of the bed and smiled. He always looked so peaceful when he slept. Alice made it a habit to get up before he did, just so she could cook his breakfast.

On impulse she went over and brushed a stray lock of hair from his face, letting the back of her fingers glide across his cheek as she did. She smiled again, thinking about how lucky she counted herself to have such a man as Uncas for her partner in life. He had done so much for her. Given her everything. Alice now looked around their bedroom. It was modest and humble but she didn't mind.

Spread out across the hard wooden floor was an Elks hide, which Uncas had shot the Spring following Promontory. In the corner to the right of the East window that looked towards the lake, mountains, and fields, was a fireplace, a true luxury for most. Beside the window, sat two rocking chairs, which Chingachgook and Nathaniel had carved for them as a wedding gift. There were many evenings when the couple would sit there in the glow of the warm fire, and look out upon the lake. Other times too, they would spend their nights reading a novel Uncas had bought for Alice from the traveling pedlar, Thomas Wright, or just Old Tom for short. He would pass by their farm every few weeks or so to trade and bring them the latest news from the surrounding settlements. Situated between the West facing windows, looking out to the maple tree, sat their bed with its simple feather mattress and quilted coverlet. The quilt previously mentioned, had been made by Alice's mother during her long confinement in bed with tuberculosis. Cora had brought it back from her final expedition to England and gave it to Alice, knowing she would want it as a memento from their late mother. And Alice treasured it, as though it were made the finest silk and not from old cotton patches.

True, it was not Portman Square. It was better.

Outside a lark sang it's morning tune far off in the maple tree. Drawn back from her thoughts, Alice leaned down and placed a feather-light kiss on Uncas's cheek before rising to leave. She felt a hand take hold of her wrist and stop her. Looking down, she saw Uncas smiling back to her, his eyes now wide open. "What did I tell you about waking at the crack of dawn?" He asked in a groggy voice.

Alice sat down on the edge of the bed as he rolled over and kissed her. "I know. But I wanted to prepare your breakfast. We have a long day ahead in store for us." She said, referring to the plowing they were going to do to prepare for planting the following week.

"No, I have a long day ahead of me. You must stay inside and rest." Uncas informed his wife firmly. His hands traveled to her extended belly where their child grew inside her. "You must rest, Alice. Remember what the doctor said?"

She huffed and crossed her arms, plastering a vexed expression on her face. "O pish posh! what does that doctor know? He's not a woman. He's a greedy arrogant fool, who looks down on you and is reluctant to attend to me. I believe he would turn me away from his door if it weren't for one thing. Money. Doctor Ashford is nothing more than a pompous old windbag!"

Uncas let out a soft laugh. "But he is a doctor none the less." He pecked her on the cheek before rising and pulling on his shirt and buckskin leggings. Alice remained sitting with her arms crossed. "Please pet, don't exert yourself. I will handle the work today. Hawkeye and nooch are coming to help, and so is Cora and the children."

"Well, I may not be allowed to help you plow, but I can at least work in the garden," she said stubbornly. "There's weeding to be done if we are to plant vegetables and fruit before August."

"No, I will tend to the garden as well."

Alice shot him an irritated look but gave in. There was no point arguing about it. "Alright!" she agreed, releasing an exaggerated sigh.

Uncas flashed her a smile as he finished fastening the wampum belt about his waist and tucked his knife and sheath into it. He came over to where she still sat and leaned down, gently pressing his lips against hers. He then asked with a wide grin: "Now, how about that breakfast?"

The day wore on slowly. By noon Uncas, with the assistance of Nathaniel, had plowed most of the south field. Despite the adventurous life he once led, Uncas took to being a farm owner quickly. It was easy to see that he enjoyed it immensely. As for Nathaniel and Cora, they lived just a little ways down the path and shared in the work and care of the farm. Both brothers worked the land together and shared the spoils they reaped each year. Chingachgook, after much consideration, settled into a peaceful life with Cora and Nathaniel, while also making frequent visits to his son and daughter-in-law. All in all, life seemed perfect for everyone. Everyone but Alice that was.

Alice watched the hard laborers from her bedroom window. She felt so useless, sitting indoors knitting a blanket for her baby, which would not be born for another four months. She wanted to help, and that made her angry. Angry at Uncas, angry at herself. Nathaniel, who was carrying his daughter on his back, urged the horses onward further up the field. Even Cora was out there being of use. With her son secured in a papoose on her back, she sauntered about the field gathering rocks and weeds and tossing them out of the way. Why couldn't Alice help as well? It wasn't fair in the girl's mind. None of it was. She looked back down at her near finished knitting project and tossed it into the basket on her lap.

"I'll be damned if I have to sit here another moment!" she said to herself. "I'm going out there and at least do something that is of use. Even if it is picking wild berries for supper!"

With that, she tossed the basket on the floor, got up from her seat, and walked out into the open air and down the path into the woods. Well, at least she would get some exercise in, as well as peace and quiet away from her doting family. Ever since the announcement was made that she was expecting, Alice had been barely allowed to pour herself a glass of water. Ever since she had this never ending feeling of slothfulness, and she hated it. So the chance to take a walk alone without the disturbance of others was a welcome change. Alice reveled in the peacefulness of nature. Her hand began to softly rub her protruding belly. She hummed an old Scottish lullaby her mother used to sing to her, and one she planned to sing to her baby when he or she was born. Alice longed for a son; a strong little Mohican, just like his father. But Uncas wanted a daughter with golden hair like her mother. If only he possessed Alice's keen motherly intuition. They would have a son, of that she was certain.

She had barely traversed a half mile when her eyes spotted their prize. There, down by the creek, was the biggest huckleberry bush she had ever seen, covered in thousands of juicy berries just waiting to be picked. Alice came closer and took in the aroma of the wildflowers surrounding the shrub covered in little nuggets of black gold. Reaching out she picked one of the juicy berries from among the thorns and ate it, savoring its sweetness. She filled her basket, filled it to the brim. She thought about how happy Uncas would be when she baked him a pie from her newly acquired treasure.

As she neared the house, a sudden, stabbing pain rang through Alice's slender frame, exactly like the one she experienced that morning. It felt like a white hot knife was being pushed into her belly. A cry stifled in her throat, tangling with her breath and causing her to reach for the nearest tree for support. When the ache subsided, she continued walking back to the glade. 'Just a few more steps,' she told herself nearing the border of the forest. 'Just a few more.'

Tightly she clung to a tree as another excruciating pain radiated through her body. Her eyes traveled downwards and saw blood beginning to pool on the soft earth. Alice's heart nearly stopped beating at the thought of her child in danger.

"Uncas!" she screamed out, falling to her knees as another stabbing sensation rang through her. "Uncas! Someone help! Help! Uncas!"

Halting his work, the young Mohican's warrior senses seemed to hear the call of distress before it was even sounded. Darting in the direction where the sound of his wife's voice had come, Uncas, followed by his brother and father, found Alice lying on the ground, her skirts drenched in blood. Uncas mirrored the look of terror on her face as he scooped her into his arms and ran back to the house...

Present day

Alice lost the baby. Stress. That's what the doctor said it was. Stress which brought on her sudden travail. But Alice knew that it wasn't so. Once again, Dr. Ashford was wrong. He had also said it was miraculous that Alice survived, considering the great amount of blood she lost. The girl's entire body was racked with pain and weakness. Yet none of that could be compared to the pain of her soul.

As she had predicted, it was a boy. She was allowed to see him before they wrapped him up to be buried. He was beautiful. Although only five months developed, Alice could see that he would've indeed taken after his father in appearance. Wisps of dark hair were on his head and his skin already bore a dark complexion. Alice held him and kissed him and cried for him. Her little boy would never see the faces of the parents who were so anxious to meet him. Never hear his mothers voice when she sang him the Scottish lullabies she had learned from her mother. Her little boy.

Fresh tears streaked Alice's face at the remembrance of her little son buried in the field of wildflowers by the creek. He didn't even have a name. Only a little wooden cross, on which a single feather was tied, marked the grave. She looked back to her sister still seated next to her. Alice realized there was no point telling her about the struggles between her and Uncas. It wouldn't be right to burden her with her problems. Instead, she smiled and rested her hand atop her sisters.

"Thank you, Cora! I hope you're right." The corner of her sister's lips curved upwards into a soft, reassuring smile. "I'm very tired. I think I'll retire. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight!" Cora said watching Alice's figure disappear down the hall and into her room.

Little did Alice know that her sister was indeed correct about her earlier prediction. Soon, she too would be sitting happily watching children play by the old maple tree.

The End

[bitletsanddrabbles]

If you’re still taking crack pairings: Thomas/William or Daisy/Lady Edith

Okay, I will do both ofthese! I will do them both for two reasons:

1) As a reward for followingthe instructions and submitting properly and

2) To make up for the factthe first one is going to be depressing af. …c'mon, you gave meWilliam. What did you expect?

So, still chewing on thesecond one, but here is the first:

It was not love at firstsight. It wasn’t even lust at first sight. When William first came toDownton Thomas thought he was awkward with a goofy face and oddlyshaped mouth. Proud as he was of his own appearance (largely becauseit was the only thing he’d ever been able to be genuinely proud of),he was honestly a little bit insulted to share the role of footmanwith him.

The insult was deepened bythe injury of Mr. Carson instructing him not to teach the boy any badhabits. Since Thomas didn’t have any bad habits as far as work wasconcerned, at least none that weren’t shared with the rest of thestaff, he knew what that meant. He could have told Mr. Carson he hadnothing to worry about. William Mason was not the sort to make hisheart skip beats.

Before he knew it, Williamwas everyone’s favorite, except Daisy’s. He didn’t need to ask why,much as it galled him. The boy was open, earnest, hard working, andabove all normal, everything the house hold valued. Thomas watchedhim go about his duties with a disdainful sneer and told himself theboy was too soft. He wouldn’t last a year.

It was that softness thatdid it in the end, Thomas decided. That puppyish eagerness thatworked its way through his armor and made him notice William’s large,dark eyes and the way his eyebrows quirked when something was going abit amiss. Made him wonder if that slightly odd shaped mouth was askissable as it looked.

He pulled his armor up moretightly, recognizing the danger. William was a lady’s man, that muchwas obvious from the way he followed Daisy around like some barelygrown kitchen goddess. Of course, Daisy followed Thomas. Heencouraged the attention out of jealousy. If he couldn’t haveWilliam, why should she?

Of course, everyone elsewanted her to have him. Everyone knew that Thomas had the besthearing in the house, yet Mrs. Patmore never lowered her volume whentalking about him. He knew she’d done her best to ween Daisy off ofhim, herding her in William’s direction instead.

Then Bates came and tookWilliam under his wing and things got worse. Thomas told himself itdidn’t matter, that he didn’t care, but he found himself unable tokeep from flaunting Daisy in William’s face or lashing out at theyounger man, anything to get those dark eyes looking his direction.Alright, he was making William hate him, he knew it, but Williamwould hate him anyway, if he knew the reason for all of it, so whatdid it matter?

It made him pay attention.

Then the war came. Thomas,of course, tried to flee. He wasn’t at all surprised that William,the naive idiot that he was, wanted to go running into the path ofthe guns like a sheep following the herd leader off a cliff. He toldhimself it was better that he left Downton, before the idiot managedit.

He wasn’t terribly surprisedwhen O'Brien wrote him, two years into the pit of hell, and told himWilliam had finally managed to join. Thomas lit one of his rationed cigarette and told himself that whatever happened, he wouldn’t be therewhen William got his head blown off.

He managed to make good onthat promise, at least. It was the Dowager Countess, of all people,who refused to let him off that easy. Not that he disagreed with thedecision to bring William home, back to Yorkshire, rather thanletting him die in some unfamiliar ward in London, but he wished hecould have gone to his father’s farm or at least the Downtonhospital.

Somewhere Thomas wasn’t.

As it was, as manager of the Convalescence Home, he got to oversee getting William settled in hisborrowed death bed. The nurses were in charge of seeing him fed andhis bed pan changed and such, for which Thomas was grateful. He toldhimself he could simply ignore his presence. Pretend he’d died in thetrenches.

Things were never that easythough. He managed to act unconcerned while the rest of the staff wasaround, more or less, although he might have slipped a bit withO'Brien. She certainly wound up giving him an odd look or two andmore than one sweetly venomous reminder of how little he’d cared forWilliam before the war.

(He’d never quite felt liketelling her the truth. He trusted her, of course, not to run blabbingto the world or hold it over him, but he didn’t quite trust her notto mock him for being a soppy idiot.)

The night before the weddinghe was up late, unable to sleep. A new batch of wounded soldiers hadeveryone working double time and if he closed his eyes, he wascertain the nightmares would come. He’d never woken anyone screaming,like the loony O'Brien had apparently been so fond of, but he’d lostenough sleep that even the long hours that came with house partiesbefore the war had started to look good. He decided to take a tour ofthe building, make the rounds as it were, make sure everything was inorder. He hadn’t quite intended to wind up in William’s room, but hedid.

William seemed to be asleep,for a few minutes he just watched his breathing. Then he shook hishead, muttered “Naive idiot” under his breath, and turnedto leave, deciding that maybe a smoke would be a better idea.

He stopped when he heard aquiet voice ask, “Why’re you here?”

Turning back he foundWilliam was, in fact, awake, watching him. He shrugged his shouldersand acted unconcerned. “Just doing my rounds. Making sure youwere still breathing. The Dowager’s working on getting your weddingset up with the vicar. Be a bit embarrassing if she goes through allof that work and you pop off before the ceremony.”

William grimaced. “Can’tyou even pretend to care?”

There was a brief staringcontest, pale eyes locked with dark, before Thomas shrugged andreplied, “Nah, I’m out of practice. Spent too long pretendingnot to care.” It was the honest truth, really, but he said it aslightly as possible, disguising it out of habit.

Those expressive eyebrowsdrew downward, confused. “Why on earth would you do that?”

Thomas paused again,debating. He should probably leave. Pull his armor up and walk out.On the other hand, William was dying, so why not? He gave a halfscoff of laughter. “Think about it, why don’t you? Everyone inthis house knows what sort of man I am.” He didn’t try to keepthe bitterness out of his voice. “Being jealous and a bullymight make people hate you, but it won’t get you arrested.”

“It won’t make youfriends either,” William pointed out. “And you aren’t theonly one on the planet who’s different. No one can love you back ifyou don’t let them.”

Thomas can’t help but laughat that one. “Easy enough for you to say. Everyone always lovedyou.”

“Except you.”

What was there to say tothat?

He was caught off guardwhen, rather than closing his eyes and going back to sleep, battlewon, William added, “I’d have loved you if you’d let me, youknow.”

“What?” he halflaughed at the words. “You’re must be going feverish. I’ll callthe nurse.”

“Do I feel feverish toyou?”

Refusing to walk over andlay his hand against the dying man’s skin, Thomas reasoned, “Eitheryou’re delusional or you don’t mean that the way it sounds. Or need Iremind you that you’re to marry Daisy tomorrow? Daisy, who you’vebeen sweet on since you first got here.”

“You can love more thanone person, you know. Daisy is sweet and sometimes silly, but she hasa good heart and a nice smile. You were tall and handsome and clever,even if you were nasty about it.” He managed a ghost of asmile. “I remember when I first came here, I was more eager toimpress you than Carson, even though I tried not to show it. Took meover a year to give up. More the fool me. But I would have loved you,if you’d let me.”

Thomas stared at him, yearsof jealousy and desperation playing through his mind. How was hesupposed to have noticed anything, with William following Daisyaround like a love struck puppy? Guilt and anger stuck in his throat,choking off his breath. Why would he have risked his heart and hisfreedom confessing anything to someone who so clearly wasn’tinterested? He turned and half stormed, half fled from the room.

Why was everything alwayssomehow his fault?

It took three cigarettesbefore he stopped shaking. It took five to convince himself thatWilliam had been feverish after all.

[princecharmingtobe]

Man it’s 7am and I haven’t slept and I’m trying to stay awake another hour so I can see about getting to the digestive care center today because I’m dying or something~ So instead of sleeping I made a playlist for my D&D character and their boyfriend and now I’m gonna like, go through why each song is there/what it means to me. Woo!

1. Beauty and the Beast - Well, Cordy, my character, is an emaciated-looking drow with mushrooms growing out of their body and is actually slowly becoming one with a sentient fungus infecting them, so... kind of beastly. And they certainly consider themself to be a monster even though they always deny it. And Paetyr, their human boyfriend, is very beautiful and kind. There are also actual lyrics in the song that suit them well. Really the whole song describes the start of their relationship very well. They knew each other for less than a week before getting together because they’re idiots.

2. About You Now - Cordy started their life as The Guardian with little to no emotion, and believed they were not supposed to have emotions. It’s apparently part of like, a curse or something placed on the Guardian power. So when they start feeling things for Paetyr they fiercely rejected it. But in the end they learned that they can and should have emotions and they decided they wanted to keep loving him (though they’ve never said the word) and see where it takes them.

3. Teach Me How To Be Loved - This one is good for both of them, because while Cordy has no experience with any kind of relationship at all because their memory only goes back a few months, Paetyr’s had a really hard life that left him mostly isolated and with shit self-esteem and probably some trust issues. So they’re both learning how to love and be loved. Also apparently Paetyr’s convinced that his partners will find someone better and realize he wasn’t worth their time so he’s learning to get over that idea. Hopefully.

4. Love Like You - More on Cordy learning how to have emotions and how to love, while dealing with feeling like deep down they’re just a monster, especially when compared to Paetyr, who seems so good and kind (though I don’t thinks that way about himself).

5. Your Guardian Angel - Well, what can I say? A Guardian’s gotta guard, be it the whole world or just the idiot boy they’re in love with. Before they loved him they still wanted to protect him. And he hates it. He hates when they talk about protecting him. But they insist on it, because it’s what they are. Part of it, I think, is they have different ideas of what protecting someone means...

6. I Found - Getting into the more somber sounding songs. Cordy’s honestly still not convinced they were ever meant to feel things, especially not love. And on top of everything, they learned about their own lifespan in relation to Paetyr’s. They didn’t know anything about elves, or humans, or anything really at the start of the game. So when they met Paetyr and the party they assumed they were all around the same age, and would live about the same amount of time. So yeah, learning that Paetyr would likely die centuries before them was devastating. But they’re trying to make the most of their time with him and learning as much from it as they can.

7. Spectrum - Yeah, as mentioned before, Cordy didn’t really have much in the way of emotions before meeting Paetyr. That’s pretty much all this one is here for.

8. I’ll Stand By You - Even when they’re not on the best of terms, when they see each other suffering from things not related to their relationship they tend to be very tender and supportive of each other. I can’t speak too much for Paetyr because he’s not my character, but Cordy is really good at putting their feelings aside to comfort Paetyr when he’s upset. Of course if he knew that’s what they were doing he wouldn’t have it lol

9. Die Young - Eyyyy we’re back on that lifespan angst! Being an elf in love with a human is hard, man!

10. Like I’m Gonna Lose You - And some more~

11. As Long As He Needs Me - Cordy has a really hard time seeing their own value vs Paetyr. He’s so much better, kinder, smarter, more important... And they’re too scared to tell him when he’s done something to hurt or upset them because they don’t want to hurt him, or else find out he doesn’t really care... if you’ve seen how he acts with them you’ll know their fears are pretty unfounded, but they fear anyway and so they keep hiding their feelings and acting ok and loyal to him.

12. No Light, No Light - Yeah the idiotic tendencies of the previous song are not without consequence. It hurts more and more but they become more and more desperate to keep him and think that in doing so means keeping their problems and desires to themself and it’s slowly killing them. Idiot.

13. Heavy In Your Arms - And it continues. This one does recognize though that Cordy’s behavior, keeping things to themself but enough leaking for Paetyr to notice... it’s hurting him too because he can tell something’s wrong, that they’re hurting and that it’s somehow because of them but they won’t talk to him about it, they won’t even acknowledge it to him. But there’s at least a somewhat happy note around the end. “I was a heavy heart to carry but he never let me down, when he held me in his arms, my feet never touched the ground” which I see as symbolizing him starting to get through to them and them realizing he’s been loving and caring for them this whole time and they’ve just been refusing to see it because of how scared they are.

14. Just Give Me A Reason - Very accurate to recent events. Cordy convinced themself that Paetyr didn’t really want to be with them and was only staying with them because he always puts others first. It doesn’t help that he has another partner whom he gets along with much easier, and who he is engaged to. So they figure “well, obviously he’d rather be with him than us” (they refer to themself in the plural because of reasons). Meanwhile Paetyr is practically begging them to talk to him about their feelings and they can’t see it.

15. I’m Not Calling You A Liar - Well, he did finally get through to them, at least a little bit, but they still have trouble believing everything he says to them. It’s partially his own fault, because he’s kept important things from them in the past to keep them from worrying, which of course only made them worry more because they could tell he was keeping something from them. So yeah, this is a two-way problem. But even though they feel like he’s always keeping something from them, they love him too much to do anything about it other than continue to fret and slowly kill themself -.-

16. Water Under The Bridge - Thought of this song when they had their recent blow up/screaming match in which Paetyr threatened to leave not just them but everyone and everything that makes him happy. Leaving them they could accept, they were practically waiting for it. But they couldn’t allow him to leave everything that made him happy. And in the end he didn’t leave them either, and they both want to keep trying because despite it all they both still love each other.

17. The Scientist - Well, he is an artificer... Thought this seemed like a good song for them coming down from the high emotions of the screaming match on the cliff and trying, once again, to make things work.

18. You Are The Moon - Funny thing about this song. I first thought of it when they first got together as being from Cordy to Paetyr, because he thought (and it seems still thinks) very poorly of himself. He doesn’t understand that he’s a very attractive man, fun, kind, and smart (and yet so dumb). Yeah his self-esteem is in the shitter for sure. But oddly, I think it has been improving. But then Cordy’s has been plummeting. Not because of him, just getting caught up in their own dumb thoughts. But Paetyr thinks they’re beautiful (and hot, his words) and loves them, so it has reversed, being more from Paetyr to Cordy.

And there it is, their playlist, explained in a totally incomprehensible way.

[jinterlude]

Our Second Chance (Ch.3)

↳Story Header © @softjeon (do not steal this header!)

➳ Pairing: Kim Seokjin x Female OC

➳ Genre(s): Modern!AU, Royalty!AU, Modern Royal Family!AU , Enemies turned Lovers, Friendship, Humor, Romance, & Angst

➳ Words: 5.3K

➳ Summary: Have you ever gotten that familiar feeling when you first see someone? That strange connection between yourselves even though you have no clue where that came from. Yeah…that was the sensation that Sumin felt on a daily basis ever since she has come face-to-face with the one and only Kim Seokjin. Despite being named after their ancestors, two people who were madly in love with each other, these two cannot stand to be in each other’s presence. However, that must change or else history will repeat itself. Sounds like an adventure, right?

※ Previously: ch.1 | ch.2

※ Next time: ch.4 | ch.5 | ch.6 | ch.7 | coming soon!

Chapter 3 – You Scratch My Back. I’ll Scratch Yours.

Previously

Seokjin watched her fleeing body with curiosity. He became incredibly confused as to why the stubborn princess suddenly ran away after he explained how he got the painting.

         “What a strange woman…” He thought with an amused yet faint smile.

Minutes later, he snapped back to reality and walked back to his desk. As he picked up the documents, he carelessly tossed onto his desk, and tried to focus on preparing for his meeting. The meeting that he had been over a few hours late. Thankfully, his meetings would never officially commence until he instructed his receptionist an official notice.

His eyes scanned the same line over and over. Why was his mind in jumbles still?

More importantly…

Why did his heart suddenly feel off? Like it felt empty the moment Sumin rushed out. It was if his mind was longing for her presence again.

Seokjin shook that thought away instantly and went back to work.

Yet the image of her beautiful face would forever be etched in his mind.

         “What an interesting day, Kim Seokjin…what an interesting day…”

Unfortunately, Sumin did not share the same sentiments. The moment she exited his office, her phone vibrated uncontrollably. She walked further along the corridor before digging out her smartphone. She held her index finger to the reader and unlocked the device.

Her eyes nearly popped out as she homed in on the 100+ notifications. Why were there so many messages? More importantly—why were a majority of them from her parents?

Wait…

Oh no…

Sumin ignored the messages and instantly dialed her mother’s number. A heavy sigh exited through her nostrils as she tried her best to calm down. The last thing she wanted was to blow up in front of Seokjin’s workers; thus, solidifying his suspicion on her being this easily-tempered princess.

The phone rang and rang until it eventually went to voicemail. Sumin puffed out her cheeks before pulling away the smartphone and locking it again. She then shoved it back in her purse and continued her tiny journey towards the entrance.

Her mother was going to hear a mouthful from her the next time she sees her…

Soft whispers of the wind brushed through the locks of hair. The familiar scent of salty air invaded the nostrils, creating this calming aura all around. Trillions of stars twinkled in the night sky as it surrounded the ever so luminescent full moon, acting as its bodyguard. The waves repeatedly crashed against the cliff as an unknown woman stared longingly out to the vast sea.

Sumin squinted her eyes, hoping to catch a better look at the woman.

         “Hello?” She called out, scrunching the hem of her dress and taking the first step towards the stranger.

Chilling sensations entered through the pads of her feet as Sumin was not prepared to handle the damp rocks, however, she strolled on, desperate to uncover the mystery that was the woman who simply gazed out to the ocean.

         “Excuse me!” Sumin shouted once more as the gap between them shrunk with each movement.  

         “Have you seen my love?” asked the woman; her voice laced with desperation and sadness.

Sumin stopped in her tracks, unprepared for her sudden question. Her brows knitted together as her muddled brain managed to recognize the familiar tone of voice. However, she decided to not say anything as her top most priority would always be to help the people in need.

She resumed her steps until she was practically right behind her. The unknown woman could feel Sumin’s breath on the back of her neck if she wanted. That’s how close Sumin was yet for some strange reason, Sumin could not move away. Something drew her in towards the woman.

         “I’m sorry?” Sumin questioned, wanting a more detailed question from the woman.

         “My love. It has been quite some time since I last saw him. Please. Tell me that you have seen my one true love lingering around the castle grounds… There is something that I must confess to him…” The woman said.

Sumin could not see her face, but she could tell the woman was on the verge of tears. Oh God… Sumin hoped that she would not become like her if she were to fall in love. Love was both a scary yet beautiful emotion.

As she was about to answer, the woman slowly turned, revealing bits of her face, and just as Sumin registered who the face was, she suddenly felt her body being touched. She felt something blanket over her, which was rather odd since she was standing and fully awake.

Unless…

         “You have to be quick. While my daughter is quite the heavy sleeper, she does have her moments where she wakes quickly if disturbed.” A voice warned, alarming Sumin and causing the foreign woman to vanish from her sight.

         “Wait come back!” Sumin shouted, jolting awake and causing the unknown piece of fabric to fall from her body.

Sumin’s mother eyed her with nothing but pure concern, forgetting that she had been measuring Sumin for her future wedding gown.

         “What’s wrong, Sumin?” The queen asked, placing a warm hand on top of hers.

Sumin shook her head and told her mother that it was nothing. She further added that it was just a questionable dream. As she talked her to her mother, her eyes trailed down, noticing a piece of ivory cloth covering her navy-blue comforter.

Sumin slowly grabbed the cloth, letting out an angry sigh. She stared at the fabric and demanded her mother to explain what she had been doing to her while she slumbered.

         “I was just getting a head start on your wedding dress, my precious daughter. Besides, the deadline that your father had stated is soon approaching, so I thought why not,” The queen smiled sweetly at Sumin, “There has been little to no progress between you and that Seokjin fella, and Namjoon is more than a suitable husband for you. You just need to accept it and learn to love him. After all, all great relationships start off with a wonderful friendship.” The queen finished her speech before exiting Sumin’s room with the seamstress trailing behind.

Sumin nearly gagged at the thought of marrying Namjoon. Yes, he had been nothing but a true friend to her, but again, that was it. He was only her dear friend, and there was no way in Hell that she would ever see him in a romantic light.

Letting out a strong huff, Sumin flopped back on her bed; her head lightly landed on the fluffy pillow. She then grabbed her comforter and covered her entire body, her face included.

She closed her eyes and hoped to drift back to dreamland. Sumin was dying to know who the face was, and why the woman looked so familiar to her. More importantly, why had she been having that recurring dream ever since her face-to-face meeting with Seokjin? Ever since that day, Sumin could not shake off this feeling of complete desire. The need for him to hold her nice and close against his broad chest. His hands firmly anchored on her hips; his touch ignited a strange sensation throughout her entire body as he stared at her with nothing but pure love. God, just the mere thought of his fingers softly grazing her delicate skin sent her mind into a frenzy.

It honestly did not help that she had the image of his handsome face, particularly his gorgeous mouth, etched in her brain. That mouth of his was the center of some fantasies that left Sumin satisfied at the end of her self-pleasuring…

As her body and mind slowly succumbed to thoughts of Seokjin ravishing her neck with his plump, addicting lips, a buzzing sound invaded her ears and interrupted the mood. At first, she ignored it but then it got too noticeable. She sighed yet again and uncovered her face. She reached for her phone, that’s currently attached to her charger cable, and detached it.

Unbothered to check the caller-id, Sumin answered the call. Her breath instantly hitched the moment she heard his irresistible, deep voice. Damn, this man had interesting timing.

She quickly cleared her throat, hoping to rid of the shakiness in her tone, before asking,

         “Seokjin? May I ask how you got my number?”

She heard Seokjin chuckle before replying,

         “Oh…that… Well, you see I may have obtained it from Jungkook, who obtained it from your friend, Sowon.”

A heavy sigh escaped her lips as Sumin took a mental note to choke her dear friend the next time she saw her.

         “Sumin? Are you okay?” asked Seokjin, trying to mask the worry in his voice.

Sumin snapped back to senses and replied,

         “Huh? Oh, yes. I’m fine. Sowon is an interesting character to say the least…”

She then heard his chuckles before adding that he knew all about interesting characters. His gang of friends were the prime example of that which caused Sumin to giggle in response. Wait, did she just giggle? Sumin never giggled in her life…what kind of spell did he cast on her? How did he manage to bring out new emotions that she had never felt before? What was wrong with her?

         “I don’t doubt that. I mean, Namjoon is a mutual friend of ours.”

         "Indeed, he is. Indeed, he is.”

Suddenly, a blanket of comforting silence covered them. For some reason, no words were needed right now. The sounds of soft breathing were sufficient. Seokjin thanked the stars that it was just indeed a phone call. If he were to ask a certain question in person, he would be a nervous mess.

Like Sumin, ever since that day in his office, he could not stop thinking about the fiery princess. The princess that had no shame in putting him in his place. The princess that had a rather colorful vocabulary during their loud argument. Something about her, he just could not forget even if he tried—but he knew that he didn’t. Her doe-like eyes that stared at him with pure annoyance. Her innocent smile that covered the snarl she had seconds before. It was a mystery to him how this one princess could radiate pureness yet became this ticking bomb with each passing moment.

Above all…it was a mystery to him on why he had planned numerous of ways to ask her out on a date.

The Gods of romance played a fascinating game with his love life, and Seokjin allowed it—he allowed it.

         “I’m sorry, but can you repeat that?” asked Seokjin the moment he heard her melodious voice speak.

On Sumin’s end, she chuckled softly and repeated her question.

         “I asked, what do I owe the pleasure of your phone call, Seokjin?”

Seokjin’s heart stopped briefly. Shit. All his rehearing went out the window. He practiced in the mirror of his bathroom. He practiced in the mirror of his office. He pretty much took every single chance to practice the perfect date proposal. Why? Well, Namjoon called him a fool.

         “You are acting like a lovesick fool dude…” Seokjin recalled Namjoon’s words. Words that he agreed with unfortunately…

         “Seokjin?” Seokjin heard Sumin say, pulling him away from his jumbled thoughts.

He cleared his throat, calming his mind. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, he heard a door open on Sumin’s end followed by her asking what the person wanted.

The rest of the conversation was muffled, and he could no longer make out the words. He would pick up bits and pieces; sadly, the words that were clear caused this sense of nervousness to surge through his veins. That feeling of anxiety that resulted in his heart speeding up and his breathing becoming sporadic.

The once happy and feeling of love soon became replaced with a foreign emotion. A strange sensation that created irrational thoughts and scenarios that only frustrated Seokjin.

It also didn’t help that the unknown person mentioned his close friend, Namjoon.

The same Namjoon that was engaged to the princess. The princess he had fallen smitten for and wanted to take out on a romantic date.

No…

He couldn’t do that to Namjoon. While, yes, it was an arranged marriage between the two of them. He could not, with a good conscious, take that potential chance of romance blossoming between them away.

Though it was rare for two people to fall in love during an arranged marriage, it was not unheard of. Knowing that, Seokjin could not do that to his dear friend. At the same time, while he was thinking that, he had forgotten that Namjoon expressed discomfort on the arranged marriage on numerous of occasions.

Seokjin was utter and completely confused, and his irrational thoughts were not helpful whatsoever.

Not wanting to hear Sumin’s rejection, Seokjin pulled the phone away from his ear and forced himself to hang up.

He locked his phone and then tossed it to the side before leaning on his office chair; his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling as he became alone with his thoughts.

         “What am I going to do with you, Princess Sumin? What am I going to do…?”

Meanwhile, with Sumin, she had grown tired of the conversation she had with her father. Once again, her father brought up the pending marriage to Namjoon and secretly rubbed the upcoming deadline in her face. She dismissed word after word and hurried her father out of the room as she wanted to go back to her pleasant conversation with Seokjin.

She faked a sweet smile as she watched her father retreat from her room. She waited for the sound of the door closing before rushing back to the phone call.

As she opened her mouth to resume the conversation, she noticed that her phone was back on the home screen. She furrowed her brows and opened the phone app. She clicked on Seokjin’s oncoming call and saw that the call had ended ten minutes ago.

A heavy sigh emitted from her lips as she flung her body back, however, the second she did that, a throbbing sensation entered the back of her head. Well, how embarrassing…

She rubbed the aching area as she contemplated calling Seokjin back, especially since she was even curiouser about what the purpose of his phone call was. Maybe, he was about to ask her out on a date?

Sumin’s eyes widened at the mere thought of him actually giving him a chance. A tiny smile formed while a pinkish tint painted her precious cheeks.

Oh wow…a date with Kim Seokjin.

Without a second thought, she tapped his number and proceeded to call him. Sadly, not even after the second ring, it went straight to voicemail.

Seokjin sent her straight to voicemail…

She didn’t understand why, but that small gesture pierced her heart. Confusion flooded her entire body and mind as she questioned every single thought and pondered her previous words towards the man. She had thought the conversation was going smoothly yet he had declined her call.

With pursed lips, she ended the call and hooked her phone back to the charger. As she did that, an idea appeared to her. Why dwell on this so-called rejection? If Seokjin wanted a date with her, then a date there shall be…

Unfortunately, there were minor setbacks while planning a date with the one and only Kim Seokjin. The first day, Sumin had planned an ideal date for the two of them, where it consisted a walk around the park and a nice picnic with food cooked by her. She had spent the entire weekend making sure every single thing was perfect. With a determined smile, she picked up her phone and dialed Seokjin’s number. Before the phone reached the fourth ring, she heard his voice. Sadly, his voice was less than friendly…

         “Uh…well, I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to the park! I hear that some of our trees are beautifully decorated with the Autumn colors and—” Before she could finish her sentence, Seokjin flat out rejected her date request and then rudely hung up on her.

Sumin’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor as she stared in disbelief at her phone. She clicked her tongue out of annoyance as she picked up her office phone and dialed the mainline to the royal housekeeper. With an apologetic tone, she sadly announced that Seokjin could not make it to their date and told them that they should take the food to the local homeless shelter. The main housekeeper said a quick, “Okay”, before hanging up.

Sumin attached the phone back to the base and sat in her office chair. She slightly swiveled the chair, feeling the slump of rejection. She stared absentmindedly at the ceiling until an idea landed on her like a ton of bricks. She scrambled for her phone and then dialed Namjoon’s number.

If she were going to land a date with Seokjin, then she would need the help of someone who had been nothing but a loyal friend to both her and Seokjin.

Good idea, right?

Yeah…

In the next few days, even with the help of Namjoon, it had been proven useless. No matter what Namjoon suggested, Seokjin would instantly reject her. His words became incredibly colorful each time.

Now, sheltered inside her office yet again, it had been a full-on week since her first attempt of asking out Seokjin, and she had been batting at an average of 0 hits. Every time she went up to bat, she swiftly stroke out before she could even think about swinging.

She needed a different approach. Something that would catch Seokjin off guard—basically speechless.

Wait…

That was it!

Different! She needed to recruit a certain queen to assist.

         “You’re kidding, right? You really want Seokjin’s first meeting with Sowon to be when you’re trying to win a date with him?” Namjoon questioned cautiously.

Sumin glared at Namjoon, “I could care less right now. She’s an expert on capturing the attention of anyone and as you can see, I am pretty desperate right now…” She stated as she texted an SOS to Sowon.

Namjoon could only sigh in response as his little façade threatened to break, like tiny glass shards that fell piece by piece. Every time Sumin would mention Seokjin, and the fact that she had been trying so hard to land a date with the pretty boy, only left a sense of pain within in his heart.

It had been a huge secret that he kept buried deep inside. A secret that hid his true, genuine feelings towards the princess. He had been in love with his best friend for years, and it truly sucked knowing that she could never see him in a romantic light. He would be lying to say that he didn’t honestly try to change her mind. He had dropped subtle hints that he wanted to give them a try, but Sumin only thought that he was simply acting to keep her parents happy.

Every kiss on the lips fueled his love towards her. Honestly, he was the fool in love. A fool to be in love with someone that had her eyes on someone else—his best friend.

Only Yoongi and Hoseok knew about his dark secret and tried numerous of times to convince him to tell Sumin the truth, but Namjoon knew better. He knew better that no matter what, he’d rather stay her friend and have her in his life than not at all. At the end of the day, he lived true to his motto.

         “Her happiness is my happiness…”

With a forced smile, Namjoon sat close to Sumin and wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

         “Well, there was one idea that we haven’t tried yet,” He began, earning himself Sumin’s undivided attention, “I have one more idea for a date that would definitely leave Seokjin speechless and saying yes…” He trailed on as he began unveiling his idea.

Unknown to the two of them, Sumin’s father happened to be walking by when he heard sounds of laughter. He quickly peeked inside his daughter’s office, and his heart practically soared at such a sight. The sight of Namjoon and Sumin sitting rather closely and smiling as if they loved one another.

Wanting to share the news with his wife, the King slowly closed the door and hurried towards the garden. As he hurried down the corridor, he failed to notice that Sowon headed towards Sumin’s office.

Sowon’s brow raised as she wondered why Sumin’s father wore the biggest smile she had ever seen. She quickened her pace as she closed the gap between herself and the door.

Unbothered with the whole knocking, Sowon barged right in and announced,

         “You know…from my years of knowing you, my soft princess, I have never seen your dad smile that wide.”

Both Sumin and Namjoon stared at the queen with pure confusion. Their brows were knitted together. Tiny creases formed on their foreheads. Finally, Sumin spoke first, asking Sowon to clarify what she had meant.

         “Well, what I mean is that your dad looked like he had just won the jackpot and ran off to tell someone the news…” Sowon explained, taking a seat on the leather couch.

Sumin’s eyes immediately widened, and she dashed out of the room. She ran down the hallway but came to a halt the moment she saw her dad talking to Seokjin as he shook his hand.

Not good. Not good at all.

Letting out a huff, she stomped her way up to her dad and once again came to a stop. What she heard next left her speechless and further angered her.

         “I knew that Namjoon and Sumin would work this out,” She continued to witness her father shake Seokjin’s hand and beaming in happiness, “I am honestly over the moon that I would live to see my daughter marry, and while I have just met you Sir Seokjin, I am personally inviting you to the upcoming nuptials.” The king finished, finally ceasing in shaking Seokjin’s hand.

Sumin rolled her eyes as she walked up to her dad and tapped him on the shoulder.

         “I can’t believe you, daddy. I thought I have told you that both you and mom need to stop planning my wedding behind my back! I have stated countless of times that Namjoon and I are just friends, and I will never marry him. Okay?” She said; her tone laced with frustration and anger.

Her father waved off her harsh words, “Are you sure? I have heard you and Namjoon laughing and you can’t tell me that the smiles the two of you wore were fake.”

Sumin rubbed the sides of her forehead. Her patience wore thin. She wanted to disappear and just forget about everything and anything that dealt with her stupid engagement.

         “See, Seokjin, she is quite speechless from thinking about her earlier interaction with Namjoon.” She heard her father say. Wait, Seokjin. Her endless frustration made her forget that Seokjin was there as well.

She mustered the sweetest smile ever and turned towards Seokjin. Her next action captured Seokjin off guard.

         “You see, daddy, the reason for the smiles and laughter is because Namjoon was helping me plan the perfect date for Seokjin and I,” She then hooked her arm around Seokjin’s, “And then you just ruined the surprise…” Sumin stated with a cute pout on her face.

Sumin’s father eyed her strongly, trying to find the lie within her words. Then, a short hum left his lips and just as he opened his mouth to say something, what Seokjin said next caught, only him off guard, but Sumin as well.

Her mouth became agape. That’s how shocked she was to hear the words that came out of his lips.

         “I am sure whatever date you have planned for us, sweetheart, it will definitely be one to remember,” He placed a soft kiss on her temple, “I just hope I am not too late to retract my rejection on your offer on the many dates you had proposed earlier,” He then switched his focus on to Sumin’s father, “You see, I felt so bad for rejecting her previous offers since I had important business to attend to, and I honestly did not want to keep standing her up, however, after seeing her humongous effort to keep planning these romantic dates and wanting to spend time with me, I see now that it is incredibly important to find the balance between my work life and my love life.” Seokjin finished with a sincere smile as he eyed Sumin with pure adoration.

Sumin felt her face flush as her heart skipped a beat. Hearing his words made her swoon…too bad her rational side knew that he was merely acting and unintentionally making her predicament worse.

Wanting to keep the act up a little longer, Sumin smiled sweetly and told Seokjin that he had been forgiven, and she was honestly happy that he had finally found the time to be with her.

Sumin’s father nodded, believing in the words that Seokjin said. His mannerisms kind of reminded of himself when he was pursuing Sumin’s mother.

Ah the good old days.

Yet, being the protective father that he was, he still kept a watchful eye on Seokjin. He then smiled warmly at the two of them and bid them a fond farewell before walking away to attend to his daily royal duties.

Sumin maintained her smile until her father’s backside was no longer visible. The second he disappeared from her sight, Sumin immediately dropped the façade. No longer wearing the sweet, warm smile, Sumin’s lips remained neutral while her eyes bore the emotions. The rather furious emotions. She unhooked her arms from his and then crossed them over her chest. Her jaw clenched in anger.

         “What the fuck was that about?” She asked coldly, demanding an answer from the handsome yet arrogant man.

Seokjin brushed off her sudden attitude and simply shrugged; through, deep down he didn’t know how to answer her question. Why had he chimed in like that? Why did he place a sweet, innocent kiss on her head?

More importantly, why had that ugly, foreign emotion infiltrated his heart once again? He definitely he needed some one-on-one time with Sandeul and Ken. Those two, outside of his inner circle, were his most trustworthy friends—his brothers.

“Look, don't think too much into what I just did. From what Namjoon had told me, the two of you hate the whole wedding talk and since I don't like seeing him uncomfortable, I decided to do you guys a favor. Now, you owe me." He “kindly” explained, smiling smugly near the end.

Sumin gawked. Did she just hear him right? She owed him? Yeah. No. That was not happening.

Her eyes narrowed, practically disappearing, as she breathed heavily. Her temper skyrocketed at that moment.

         “Owe you? Are you kidding me right now?!” Sumin questioned loudly, looking at him in disbelief.

Seokjin shrugged, averting his gaze. The reason behind that was because he eyes homed in on her chest as it heaved up and down. He thanked and cursed the Gods for blessing his eyes, and the fact that Sumin decided to wear a blouse with a v-neckline. Because of that, he got a good look at her chest…

Wow, he became this pervert when it came to her—and it all started that fateful day in his office last month. Since that day, he could not get her out of his mind. Specifically, he could not get the image of her plump lips out his mind. God, he would be lying if he told one of his friends, right now, that he had never fantasized about the princess. How her lips would feel around his cock. How her moans would sound whether he thrusted mercilessly or took his sweet time. Damn, he felt himself hardened at those unholy thoughts, and what made it even worse, practically creepy, was that while he thought about making love to Sumin, she was busy yelling at him.

Speaking of which…what was she hollering about now?

Seokjin tuned back in with a disinterested expression sketched on his handsome face.

         “I don’t owe you shit! Because of what you have done, I have to now devise a whole new plan with Namjoon and some how manage to convince my parents that you and I will never be an official thing!” Sumin ranted loudly, “And to think…I was going to offer you a deal because I have heard about your tiny dilemma with Malaysia and Thailand and out of the kindness of my heart, I had written them both a convincing letter that pretty much hints at you earning the title of “prince” because of your relationship with me. Now. I’m going to burn those letters since you oh so kindly screwed me over.” She added before turning on her heels and storming back to her office.

Before she had gotten completely away, Seokjin reached out, gently grabbed her wrist, and pulled her closer.

Sumin’s eyes flickered to her wrist and then at Seokjin. Her gaze hardened as she demanded him to unhand her or else she’d scream bloody murder.

Seokjin rolled his eyes, unnerved by her threats. He then shot her look that pretty much said, “Sweetheart, you need me just as much as I need you.”

Sumin roughly freed her wrist and sighed loudly, glaring at the duke. She despised that he was right. She hated being wrong.

         “Okay. Fine. Just stop staring at me like that and wipe that smug smirk off your face,” She paused, inhaling and exhaling nice and slow, “I hate that you’re right…Alright, I propose a deal between us. In exchange for these letters that will secure your company’s trading routes with both Malaysia and Thailand, I want a fair chance with you. You will accompany me on these dates and develop a fresh new opinion. What you “know” about me before is gone from your mind, and by the end of the sixth month of my deadline you don’t develop any romantic feelings about me, then we can end things on a neutral note. Deal?” She proposed, holding out her hand for him to shake.

Seokjin remained silent, taking in the deal she had offered before him. In exchange of those letters that would help out his family tremendously, he’d only have to go on dates with her? There’s no way it would backfire right? The royal families of Malaysia and Thailand would back out if their relationship ended? Maybe he should ask…which he did.

Seokjin hummed in response as Sumin gave him her word that she’d make sure that Thailand and Malaysia would not back out of trading agreement if their relationship were to end.

He rubbed his chin, feeling the tiny stumble, as he thought about the different outcomes of this arrangement. His mind came up with mostly positive results. His family would benefit, he could engage in meaningless sex with the princess, and then hopefully sort out his feelings towards Sumin. At the end of this, he’d happily declare that it was never romantic feelings he felt towards her, and it was just lust and then move on with his life.

Yeah…

Lust…

What a load of bullshit…Seokjin knew that it wasn’t lust. Well his heart knew it wasn’t just lust. He was a fool that was completely infatuated with the woman, who patiently waited for his hand to shake. Unknown to him, that woman felt the same way. She too became heavily smitten with him. One could say that she was teetering on the fence of being in love with him. However, her pride had gotten in the way, and she’d never admit that she had some sort of romantic feelings towards him.

With a heavy sigh, he placed his hand into hers and shook it, ignoring the fiery touch that ignited the moment his palm came into contact with hers. That warm sensation that entered his heart, causing it to beat uncontrollably.

         “You got yourself a deal, princess…”

A/N: Okay! We are slowly leaving the train station and heading straight towards the romance and the angst that is Seokjin & Sumin! I hope you guys like this update! I’m incredibly sorry that these updates are tad slow (even more so with the writing process since my motivation/inspiration comes and goes and then I’m juggling an internship, studying for my teacher tests, and can’t forget school work! I hope you guys are understanding!) I shall see you guys in the next update! Maybe you guys will even see never before scene from Fight for Me via flashback!

Don’t forget to leave a like/reblog/comment/ask in my inbox! I love hearing your thoughts! :)

- Kim