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prahacat · 1 year ago

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Bend, Break

It's been three days since Dooku saved his life, and all Obi-Wan can do now is push until they break. Continuation of Brush, Bend, an AU where Obi-Wan and Dooku desert in favor of exploring their weird, obsessive relationship dynamic. This also (very liberally) fills my Obi-Wan x Dooku YOTP2023 December prompt "moving in together". cw: (mild) sexual content, mentions of abuse and violence. 3k words.

The black clouds hang so low, Obi-Wan can almost split them with the tip of his blade. Not much longer now and it will rain. An icy wind whistles across the bare plains, where nothing, no trees, no grass, breaks through the volcanic rock. Obi-Wan lifts his saber and swings it in a flurry of swift strikes. Far away, the horizon flashes red and orange below the crushing mass of clouds. He slashes at empty air until sweat soaks through his tunic and drips into his eyes, until he is trembling and breathless, and the first cold raindrops pat against the back of his neck.

When he looks up, the lone figure watching him from the terrace turns and melts into the shadows.

Obi-Wan lowers his lightsaber, and the blade, purple like a dying star, extinguishes in a hiss and crackle.

They haven't been warm for days. The ruins offer hardly any protection against the harsh climate, or against each other. What remains of the collapsed tower nestles between the basalt rocks and the leaden sky, and it's cold inside, always too cold; in the morning, a silver sheen of frost covers their blankets. But there is no point in leaving. Out here, on this bleak hunk of a planet, nobody looks for them.

Obi-Wan mounts the hewn stone steps into the room that was once, presumably, the tower’s main hall. Time has chipped away the golden mica on the ornamental carvings, and the ceiling painting has faded beyond recognition. The fireplace takes up most of the back wall, a black mouth spitting sparks and soot. Apart from them, the sole guest who visits is the wind: it barges in through the broken terrace doors, fans the flames, and tugs at Dooku's cloak before it lets up when he doesn’t react. He stands like a statue below the arcades that frame the terrace, his back turned toward Obi-Wan as he stares somewhere into the far distance. Black sheets of rain now curtain off the world beyond.

Obi-Wan slips out of his clammy boots and wiggles his bare toes. Frozen, numb. "Have you eaten yet?"

A cup and a half-empty bottle of wine sit on the table, the glass fogged up with the cold. They look lost among the few pieces of equipment they have salvaged from their ship and arranged into a makeshift command center. Two datapads, the map, a radio—and the encrypted com that has been silent for nearly seventy hours.

Dooku watches the clouds churn and flash along the horizon. "An electromagnetic storm." His voice, though quiet, echoes through the cold hall. "Communication is out. No signal penetrates these clouds."

"She'll find a way to contact us." Obi-Wan throws a broken chair leg into the fire. Ventress is more loyal than he will ever be, a relief as much as it is an inconvenience, and Obi-Wan wonders whether that knowledge doesn't also pester Dooku in quiet, calm hours such as these. "We should eat something. She'd make me berate you if she were here. Let me warm some soup—"

"Leave me."

Slowly, Obi-Wan rises to his feet.

Dooku's back remains turned. Obi-Wan listlessly regards the bottle. "The wine won't help with the pain." But Dooku ignores him with a stubbornness that annoys Obi-Wan more than any rudeness would. He drapes his drenched cape over the mantelpiece. Steam rises as the wool begins to dry. Dooku stares at the storm in stony silence, and Obi-Wan thinks: I could grab the bloody ship, I could fly off and leave you stranded here, but it'd never make you stare at the sky like this, longing for me to come back. He wipes the damp hair from his forehead. "There's no need to worry yet. If the Jedi had captured her, we would know. They would make demands or try to negotiate."

"If the Confederacy had captured her, we would know as well," Dooku says dryly. "We would be under attack already."

"You think Ventress would betray our location?"

"The Confederacy has recently invested considerable resources in the development of new torture droids.”

Obi-Wan rounds the table and joins Dooku below the arcades. "Maybe we should move." His gaze lingers on Dooku's side, but the dark tunic covers any hint of bandages. "How is your wound?"

"Fine." But there's not much privacy when you've been stuck together for three days between walls that no longer have ceilings. In this hollow tower, Obi-Wan can always hear the whisper of Dooku's tired footsteps somewhere, and it's only late at night that he catches him leaning against walls and archways, resting his weight, letting go. This morning, Obi-Wan saw Dooku hunched over the edge of his bed, eyes closed, the hazy light melting on his face, one hand pressed against his stomach as if he was afraid of tearing and falling apart as soon as he stood up.

There's a feverish shine to his eyes now.

Without thinking, Obi-Wan says, "The Jedi would help us."

"The Jedi." Dooku grimaces. The wind has tousled his hair and a few stray strands fall into his eyes. "Always the Jedi. And what do you expect the Jedi to give us? Forgiveness? A pardon for your crimes? Pity and a bowl of hot soup?"

"Protection, I should imagine," Obi-Wan says. "They would at least see to Ventress' safety."

"You are willing to trade her safety for our freedom?"

"What freedom? All we do is run." He gazes out into the pouring rain. In the distance, the mountain peaks float above a sea of darkness. "We have no allies, no supporters. A temporary truce with the Jedi would grant us some respite at least, and a place to lie low. Ventress could reunite with us at the Temple. Once we know she is unharmed, it will be easier to decide on a course."

"So it is Ventress who worries you?" Dooku turns toward him. "Or do you seek to save your own hide?" His black cloak parts and flows like dark, heavy water that Obi-Wan needs only to step into to wash away what remains of him. He wants to. "Bravery and dedication," Dooku says, "those qualities come easy when you believe to be backed by the establishment. But only those who are not afraid to fend for themselves will bring about actual change in this galaxy."

Obi-Wan scoffs. "As if you ever knew what it meant to fend for yourself, Dooku. You only ever made a move when you had something to cushion your leap: a new, comfortable life as a Count, your wealth, your armies, Palpatine's protective hand. Now you have lost all of it and look where it got you. Ex-leader of the Separatists and disgraced Count of Serenno, hiding in a drafty—"

Dooku grabs him by the neck and yanks him close. "Don't insult my intelligence, Obi-Wan," he says, his voice low. His thumb digs into the soft skin behind Obi-Wan's ear. The smell of burnt wood and thunderstorms clings to his cloak; the fabric rustles against the length of Obi-Wan's thigh. He's right here, and Obi-Wan touches his wrist, allowing his fingers to slide into the warmth below the sleeve, where Dooku's pulse is thumping as fast as his.

"I know what you are after," Dooku whispers.

Do you, Obi-Wan wonders, and the thought sends a sudden rush of heat through his body: want; fear.

"It would be such a relief for you if I swallowed your bait." Dooku tightens his grip on his hair and pulls Obi-Wan's head back to gaze down into his face like Obi-Wan once saw a butcher do with a nerf calf to inspect its teeth. "If I took the choice from you and dragged you back to everything you betrayed." This is how he used to hold Obi-Wan after frying or strangling him with the Force, but as the cruelty has grown rare, so have the caresses. Obi-Wan leans in, and the sharp tug at the back of his head eases.

"How you dream of liberation," Dooku murmurs. "You cannot bring yourself to break free from your torn existence. Freedom scares you, but misery has become a familiar comfort. How do you want to cope without it? You are truly lost, Obi-Wan."

"Then so are you, considering we're stuck in the same place." Obi-Wan presses his nails into the tendons on Dooku's wrist.

Dooku smiles and lowers his eyes. The fire pours a river of gold over the left side of his face. "I've seen the color of your blade," he says softly. Obi-Wan feels his touch on his belt, fingers brushing the hilt resting at his thigh. His skin tingles, but he keeps his eyes on Dooku's face, watches the flames paint strange blue shadows along the sharp lines of his nose and under his lashes. "What a shame your lightsaber no longer knows what it is supposed to be," Dooku says, but he can't even begin to imagine how terribly wrong he is. It's not misery Obi-Wan can't do without, but this: the feeling of being hollow and porous, so close to all these fleeting, liquid secrets; gold and shadows and melting light, and Dooku's blood pounding against his fingers.

Outside, rain and wind battle for possession of the tower, for this whole rotten, forsaken planet.

Obi-Wan lays his hand flat on Dooku's chest, pressing against the half-moon scar and his heart: strong and steady, but chained to its own obsessions. Dooku's face is a mask, unmoving except for his slowly drooping eyelids, like he is about to fall asleep. Idly, Obi-Wan brushes the moisture from his cloak. Dooku's body simmers under his palm: warmer than the fire. "The state of my lightsaber doesn't concern me as much as the state of your mind, Dooku," Obi-Wan says. "You've already lost everything. What is left that you're so afraid of losing that you growl and raise your hackles?"

Dooku sighs and lifts his gaze to the vault where nothing is left of the murals that must have once depicted gods and creatures, men and beasts, floating in the skies and glimmering like golden stars. He closes his eyes as if the sight gives him a headache. His grip on Obi-Wan's hair loosens and he caresses it with his fingers instead, carefully combing down the wet strands Obi-Wan is sure stick up in every direction. Dooku bends down toward him; and something caves and swells inside Obi-Wan's chest when Dooku presses his mouth against his sweat-damp forehead. "What you did three days past, during our attempt to seize the droid factory," he hears Dooku murmur into his skin, and his voice floods Obi-Wan like ice water, "you will never do that again."

(What part of it? The taste of Dooku's blood, the smell of his skin, rust and sunlight, and his eyes: wide and dark like liquid amber? The cold tingle of Bacta, the rustle of the gauze? Dooku's limp weight and the faint thump-thump-thump of his heart when Obi-Wan laid his head against his chest? What part of it? The heated discussion in the factory's control room?—how Obi-Wan stormed off, first blinded by rage, then by the sudden detonation, then by something else altogether when he crawled from below the debris and Dooku's bleeding body? What part of it does Dooku want to forget?)

Obi-Wan pushes at him; he needs to see his face.

But Dooku pulls away. "You are not a prisoner.” He retreats behind the table and lowers himself into the chair, the movement stiff and without his usual grace. "If you wish to leave, the door is right there. Although I must warn you: I will not give up the ship without a fight."

Obi-Wan lifts an eyebrow. "You are injured, Dooku."

Dooku pours himself a glass of wine. The cold has tinted the skin beneath his nails an unhealthy, bluish shade. "That should level the field somewhat."

"Going at each other won’t improve my mood, let alone yours."

"Stabbing me in my sleep would be the most efficient strategy, though I wouldn't think you a spineless coward who—"

"Just shut up!" Obi-Wan plants both his hands onto the table, leaning toward Dooku. "Who are you trying to distract with this petty jabber? You cling so desperately to your belief that everything has to be paid in misery and suffering that you’re denying yourself even the slightest bit of—"

"The last thing I need is your pity," Dooku hisses.

"Oh trust me Dooku, I do not feel sorry for you."

Dooku stares at him from over his glass. "Get out."

"I'm not leaving," Obi-Wan blurts out. Dooku keeps staring at him with that dumb face, and the heat rises inside Obi-Wan. It crushes his lungs, pushes against his throat, and his body tingles with the urge to move; shake it off, crawl beneath the table, maybe throw more logs to the fire, or hit Dooku. He swallows. His mouth is so dry that his tongue sticks to his palate like old gauze to a wound. "I'm staying."

Dooku straightens in his chair and raises his chin. "And yet, moments ago, you were entertaining the idea of crawling back to the Jedi."

Obi-Wan clutches the edge of the table. "You know that's not what I said."

"Isn't it?" Dooku samples the wine, his eyes never leaving Obi-Wan's.

"Kindly cease twisting my words, Dooku," Obi-Wan says coldly. "And stop drinking. Are you hoping to make this tower your grave?" He snatches the wine glass from Dooku's hand and downs it himself. The alcohol is bitter on his tongue, but it sends a pleasant burn down his throat.

Dooku's hand snaps up and grips his wrist. Wine spills over Obi-Wan's sleeve; the glass slips from his fingers and shatters onto the floor. Obi-Wan knocks forward, his knuckles grazing Dooku's throat before he braces against the backrest of the chair; it creaks and shudders.

Beneath them, a thousand tiny shards gleam upon the floor, like stars, like teeth.

Dooku has no eyes for the destruction. He is staring up at Obi-Wan, his right leg awkwardly stretched underneath the table to reduce the pressure on his wound. Scabbed scratches litter the left side of his face, and all Obi-Wan can think about are the scars hiding below Dooku's clothes, the ones he put there, the ones Dooku put there for him. He shivers; a gust of wind sweeps under his wet tunic, but Dooku's face is warm when he touches it. Dooku presses into his hand, tentatively, as if still wary whether this will veer into care or cruelty. Obi-Wan exhales soundlessly: don't, he wants to say, don't do this, don't trust this, me, us. He brushes his thumb along the corner of Dooku's mouth.

Dooku closes his eyes, licks his lips. "Obi-Wan ..." he mumbles.

What remains of Obi-Wan's reason burns up in that breathy whisper. He falls forward and crushes Dooku's mouth beneath his. Dooku stiffens, then opens with a groan, and his hands are back in Obi-Wan's hair, both of them, burying into the wet strands, just like Obi-Wan buries himself in Dooku. He sways and falls, or maybe Dooku pulls him; the chair scrapes over the stone tiles as Obi-Wan crawls onto Dooku's lap and wraps himself around his heat, and it's all Obi-Wan has been craving: Dooku's body against his when nobody is watching, because everybody is gone.

Their teeth clash; Dooku angles his head and his fingers clench in Obi-Wan's hair as he kisses back, his breath heavy and wet and his nose pushing against Obi-Wan's cheekbones. The taste of him makes Obi-Wan dizzy. Wine, he thinks, something that is bitter at first but reveals layers of addictive sweetness the more you drink of it. When Dooku gropes at Obi-Wan's back and makes a noise like he's drowning, Obi-Wan's stomach gives a startled twist. He rolls his hips, grinds down until he feels Dooku growing hard beneath him. Dooku breathes wetly into Obi-Wan's neck and groans again; maybe with pleasure, maybe with pain, Obi-Wan doesn't care, and he isn't even sure which possibility arouses him more. He tilts Dooku's chin toward him and pushes his tongue between Dooku's bared teeth into the soft, searing warmth. Dooku's eyes change color like Obi-Wan's saber: they're soot and smoke and embers that swirl in his irises. He keeps them open while they kiss, watches Obi-Wan from below heavy lashes, and it's weird how this sight ignites a giddy heat in Obi-Wan's guts, similar to when he finally sunk that knife into Dooku's chest after weeks of skirting him. This, he thinks, I can still win this, I can still wound you, you feel this too. He slides a hand below Dooku's tunic, runs his fingers along the wound where the skin is hot and swollen, and Dooku moans around Obi-Wan's tongue.

When they part for air, they are both panting like animals. Dooku cups Obi-Wan's face in his large hands and traces the curve of his cheek with his thumbs.

"Stay with me," he breathes against Obi-Wan's mouth; it's barely louder than the wind howling against the tower, but Obi-Wan is close enough to taste his words on his tongue.

"Stay." His mouth grazes Obi-Wan's neck.

"Obi-Wan." He draws him flush against his chest.

Obi-Wan's hand is squished between their abdomens. He presses harder; digs his fingers into Dooku's ribcage, the softness below, and it's all so familiar and yet strange, the same skin he has touched and ripped apart and restitched countless times. He can feel the rise and fall of Dooku's chest and the pulsing heat trapped between his thighs where Obi-Wan straddles him. The blade guard on Dooku's saber stabs into Obi-Wan's stomach.

Obi-Wan drops his head on Dooku's shoulder. Distantly, he realizes that he is warm, almost hot, for the first time in days.

Outside, he can hear it: the last, gentle drip of water as the storm finally dies down.

#star wars fanfiction #obi-wan kenobi #dooku #yotp 2023 #obi-wan x dooku #dookuwan #this has been one exiting year in the fandom #seemed appropriate to end it with a bit of spicy goodness about my two favorite idiots #they're allowed to have some good things too #prahacat writes #my ff

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theoldaeroplane · 1 year ago

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transfiguration's going to come for me at last

uh here is a big chunk of Fray's backstory. i'm mostly posting this to share with my ttrpg group but. you can read it too. 5.5k words, cw for violence and Bad Times

---

Fray tries not to think about the last time he saw Zion, but most of the time he can't help it. It just overcomes him, so warm and inviting he cannot help but fall into the memory.

It is bright and crisp at Charn's boundaries, and she has come to see him and the rest of Gyr Warden off, like she always does. Fray is in high spirits, pleased as always to be serving Charn, to be serving Zion by serving Charn. Her broad hands cup his jaw and she bows her head over his, her scruffy strawberry blond hair falling into her eyes: one brown, the other the same gleaming gold as his own, the hexagonal pupil betraying its artificiality. She looks at him like she is peeling him apart. She always looks at him like that, like she can see something in him no one else can. She did even before she lost the eye. "You come back to me in one piece," she tells him. "See to it."

"We always do," Fray signs back with a teasing smile.

"You had better," she murmurs, and bites her lip. "I don't know, doll. Got a bad feeling about this one."

Fray might have brushed anyone else off. Not Zion. "It'll be well with us," he assures her. "Best warden team in Charn, right?"

"Hmm," says Zion, and reaches up to pull out one of the clips she always wears to keep her permanent cowlick under control. It's thin, flexible metal, a small star shape affixed to one end and painted blue. "You wear confidence well," she tells him, and uses the clip to gather his bangs out of his eyes. He touches it as she does, feeling the warmth of being cared for bubble up in him. "But you'd best promise me anyway."

"I promise," Fray tells her, and rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

---

Gyr Warden, the best Luminary team Charn has ever produced. Gyr Warden, the ones dispatched when threats to Charn's noble purpose arise. Gyr Warden, the ultimate strike force, the keepers of the peace, the sword and shield raised against the everlasting threat of the apocalypse.

Gyr Warden, bested by a pit.

It was a covered pit, of course, sheltered under the remains of some great building so the snow would not weigh its disguising sheets of rusted metal and repurposed tarps down too much. It had been rigged to collapse in on itself only with enough weight. Four persons' worth, or thereabouts. Fray can still remember the sickening way the floor gave out from under him, the buckling and screeching of metal scraping together, how the world spun. One moment he had been focused on their surroundings, in search of the escaped targets Proxy reported sighting amid these ruined machines and buildings, and who she had gone ahead to scout for. In the next he is falling, falling, falling.

It's luck and his heightened reflexes that keep him from being impaled on the stakes stuck purposefully in the bottom, but mostly luck. He just knocks his skull against the metal floor of the pit and blacks out for a few seconds. He wishes he'd stayed out when Glint and Shrike's agonized screams split his ears. Beyond them, Sworn clutches an obviously broken arm. Basalt and Proxy are nowhere to be seen, until a horrible boom rings out over the shrieking. Basalt's lifeless body comes tumbling into the hole after. He nearly lands on Sworn, who screams a little in shock.

A trap, Fray thinks dimly. A simple, stupid, obvious trap that he should have noticed. Basalt stares at him from across the pit with frozen, staring eyes.

It's luck again, and years of training, that see Fray stay still when he detects movement above. His head is ringing with pain and the wails of his impaled teammates, until another terrifying boom rings out. Shrike goes limp. Whoever is shooting botches putting down Glint. The first shot just destroys her arm and the screaming redoubles, ragged and piercing. There is a scuffle and shouting up above. Sworn is whimpering, shuddering, staring---staring up at where Proxy is shoving her way toward the edge of the pit, through the gathered crowd of figures in tattered gold and jade. They let her push past, too far for Fray to read their expressions. Proxy lunges for the rifleman, bellowing something Fray cannot hear over Glint's screams.

Three of the figures fall on her, and the shooter cracks her across the face with the butt of his rifle. Another of them steps forward and puts a slug into Glint's forehead. The screaming stops. At last, Fray can hear what Proxy is saying:

"Stop! Stop! You said you wouldn't hurt them!"

There's a chorus of scoffing laughter, and despite her hextech, despite her training, Proxy is still overwhelmed when the crowd piles onto her and as one hurls her down into the pit, just yards from Fray. She lands badly, on one of the half-raised pieces of metal that had formed the false floor. The crunch her spine makes as it snaps at the waist echo in his ears long after their assailants walk away.

---

Once the figures leave, Sworn tries to drag themself to Fray. Miraculously unharmed for the most part, Fray rushes to them instead. Proxy lies where she fell, but her ragged puffs of breath into the frozen air betray that she still lives.

In silence he triages Sworn. Their left arm snapped on impact, but snapped cleanly. The livid swelling in their ankle suggests that it fared much worse. They're fine apart from that, other than scrapes and bruises, and the fact they just watched the horrible execution of three of their teammates. Three of their family.

Fray does what little he can for the injuries. He focuses on pulling Sworn out of their mounting panic not only for their sake, but for his, too. Sworn is the youngest. Sworn has rarely been faced with the cruelties that the outside world is capable of. He only relents when Sworn swallows and asks in a splintering voice, "Orders, major?"

Reality starts settling in again. Fray braces himself best he can. "Stay with Proxy," he signs, and does not allow himself to look at her. "I have to ... perform retrieval."

"Acknowledged," Sworn says weakly, and allows Fray to help them hobble to Proxy's side. When they're settled, when Fray has done a silent, mechanical once-over of Proxy---he cannot bring himself to look her in the eye---he picks himself up, and takes stock of their situation.

The pit has sheer metal sides. The walls rise up nearly twenty feet. It seems excessively deep, for a grave. There is nothing that would lend its to an escape, especially not with Sworn's ankle.

He looks around long after he has gathered the information he needs. He's putting off retrieval.

Basalt is nearest. Fray calls a knife to hand out of his hextech and sets about the grim work: pulling the implanted machinery out of his team's bodies, so that it will not fall into enemy hands. Basalt is still warm. His blood crawls sluggishly out of the spots Fray cuts into him.

He hears the conversation begin, behind him.

"You led us into a trap," says Sworn.

"Yes," says Proxy, who never lies.

"You betrayed us. You betrayed Charn."

"Yes," Proxy says.

"What did they tell you? What was worth this?"

Proxy is quiet for a long time before she says, "Does it matter now?"

Fray, listening, supposes it doesn't. Sworn falls silent, and then begins to cry.

Body by body, Fray excises hextech from his brethren's flesh. He pulls stabilizers and hard light generators from limbs, and goes about the delicate work of deactivating the spine stabilizers. The liquid battery inside each one is rigged to explode when tampered with, unless disabled through the addition of another compound in a hidden compartment. He's seen the result of failing to do that, on one of his first field missions, before Gyr Warden. The lieutenant had fallen, and the enemy tried to pull the hexes from her back. The explosion had killed everyone within thirty feet.

He crushes each one into uselessness, scattering their delicate interiors haphazardly around the pit. He even buries some of the pieces. He takes a long time to do it, too long, because when he is finally done there is only one more thing left for him to address.

Proxy lolls her head to one side when he comes to stand over her. She hasn't gotten up. "Major," she says, and tries to lift an arm in a salute. When Fray only stares at her and shakes his head she wheezes; he thinks it might be a try at a laugh. "Fucked this one up, brother."

A dozen things fly through his head. He wants to ask her why, he wants to ask her what was supposed to happen to them, he wants to ask her what he did wrong that she betrayed Gyr, that she betrayed Charn. He wants to scream at her, to shake her, to beat the shit out of her.

Instead he just signs, "You're paralyzed."

"Yeah. Seems so."

"I need you to tell me who those people are."

The way she stares up at him, her face slack in an emotion he cannot decipher, makes his stomach churn. "Just people, Fray," she says softly. "Just people like you and me."

Something in him snaps. He drops to one knee, fisting his hand in the front of her coat and hauling her up by it. Proxy just stares up at him dully, as if waiting for his judgement. "Tell me what just happened," he grinds out, the words fluting and mutating in his throat. It sounds more like tll m wht js happnd.

Proxy is quiet for a long time, looking at him, then past him, at the edge of the pit. "I made a mistake," she says eventually. "I trusted the wrong people. I thought I was too clever to be taken in. Now all of Gyr Warden pays for my arrogance. I throw myself on your mercy, Major."

Fray stares at her. Proxy, his second, his sister-in-arms, Proxy the great-hearted, Proxy the wise and merciful. The one he trusts---trusted---above all but Zion herself. She matches his gaze until he lets go of her shirt, too overwhelmed by the sensation of his heart cracking apart.

---

A day and a night passes. Another follows. Once some of the people in jade and green return. They talk quietly among themselves, casting a careful eye over the three remaining members of Gyr Warden, and then leave. Though he checks and rechecks their cage for means of escape, Fray finds nothing.

At night, he keeps himself from despair by remembering Zion.

Zion stands head and shoulders above Fray (not impressive), could pick him up and throw him (a bit impressive), and is journeyman under the head machinist, overseeing the ancient technology inside the bodies of Fray and the other Luminaries (very impressive). She snores. She ruffles his hair every time she passes him. She is ruddy and precise and gentle and sings to herself when she works with a voice as rich as syrup, and if she told Fray she needed him to kill someone, he would do it without question.

Zion is one of the rare Charnites to have hextech without being a Luminary: the unmistakably false eye in her left socket, provisioned for her after she lost the real one retrieving machinery from the dangerous bunkers that spread warren-like under the city. Zion was the one who stayed with him night after night when his body rejected the first hextech he was given. She was the one who recommended him for the more unregulated, more compatible newer iteration, citing his dedication and skill. His body belongs to Charn, but Zion is the keeper of his heart.

In the frozen nights, where he builds pathetic fires out of the clothing of his dead companions to keep the rest of them from deaths of their own, he thinks about how he promised her he would come back unharmed.

---

"They're waiting for us to starve, I think," Fray signs to Sworn on the third day. "Or grow hungry enough to surrender. But I imagine they would have made their demands already if it were that."

"Why don't they just shoot us?" Sworn says, absently, like they are asking what time it is.

"I don't know."

Sworn is quiet for a long time. "She must, though," they say at last, and does not need to indicate whom he means.

Fray has managed to create a makeshift shelter with the fallen metal. If nothing else it functions as a barrier between them and the sight of the bodies. Fray has moved Basalt and Shrike to the furthest edge, but Glint's blood froze her to the spikes she is impaled upon. He cannot remove her without great effort, and he must conserve his energy to attend to the living.

The shelter was mostly for Proxy, who has lost the use of her legs. She has said nothing since Fray's aborted interrogation, seemingly waiting around to die. Sworn has cursed her out a few times, only stopping when Fray intervened. Honestly, he doesn't have the energy for that, either. A Luminary is better equipped for the deadly weather than your common man, but they starve the same as anyone else, and the rations he pulled from their packs are running low.

They drink snow melted in a crude bowl and set over the tiny fire Sworn's hextech allows them to make. Sworn's foot looks infected, looks like it's dying. Proxy starts refusing her portion of the rations, so Fray makes a disgusting-looking broth of them and force-feeds it to her. Traitor or not, no one else is going to die on his watch. Not while he can help it.

On the fourth day, one of those jade-golds reappears, alone. Fray catches sight of her sitting at the pit's edge with a rifle slung across her lap, watching them intently. Upon realizing she's been noticed, she just raises a hand, like this is a casual greeting. Fray swallows his anger and signs to her. "Who are you?"

She squints at him. "Don't know that hand stuff, champ."

Sworn is in no condition to translate, but they're roused to do so anyway. This is an opportunity too important to let slip. "You don't need to have my name," she says in response to Fray's prior question. "But I know yours. It's Fray, right? Rank of major, to hear Proxy tell it? Do they name all of you after nouns? I suppose that's one way to strip off your humanity."

"Her name is Agrippa," Proxy murmurs. It's the first thing she's said in days. "Agrippa of the Vow."

Fray gives no indication of hearing Proxy. "Then what do you want with us?"

Agrippa of the Vow blinks down slowly at him. "Because I want to watch you suffer," she says. "After everything you've done, all the lives you've ruined, all the innocent people you've slaughtered ... I want to see you down there, with the person who betrayed you. I want you to lose your fingers to the cold. I want you to get so hungry you peel the flesh off your friends' bodies and eat it. I want you to hurt." She leans forward, eyes roaming over them. "And then I'm going to put you down like the dog you are. I'm going to make it take days."

"What's wrong with you?" Sworn cries, leaping to their feet. "We're trying to save this horrible world, from people like you---"

"Sworn," Fray hisses, whirling on them.

"You people don't see it, you don't understand---"

"Sworn!"

"Kiddo, don't do this," says Proxy.

Sworn says, "We only do what we have to," and Agrippa tilts her weapon down. There is the thunder of the weapon and the soft sound of Sworn falling to the snow. Fray lurches toward them, trying to drag them out of her line of fire. They clutch at their stomach, blood foaming past their lips.

"Fucking brainwashed animals, the lot of you," the woman calls down. Her voice drips with disgust. "There, Major. You can eat that one fresh. You're welcome."

---

Sworn passes sometime in early morning. They had ceased whimpering some two hours before, and despite Fray's best efforts he could not keep them conscious.

He puts their body with the others. He retrieves their implants and destroys them, except for the one that creates fire. He spends almost an hour trying to get Glint off the spikes and poles, and in the end simply saws through the metal with his hexblade. His hands are raw and bloody by the end of it, but Glint gets to join the rest of the family. Because that's what they were, or what Fray had always believed Gyr Warden was. A family.

Their bodies won't rot in the cold, and the floor of the pit is ancient steel. But he has Sworn's flame hex, and it is no natural fire. The stench of burning hair and flesh sickens him, and the black smoke that belches up from the pit does away with any hope he might have had of the pyre going unnoticed. Regardless, Agrippa will not see him reduced to cannibalism. He stands in front of the flames for what feels like hours, forcing himself to watch. To remember. Shrike, storyteller, musician, field medic. Glint, trick shooter and master of comedic timing. Veteran and scout, Basalt, who could find his way through any storm. And Sworn, fresh and promising, so clever and passionate.

Gyr Warden, his cohort, his family. His to protect. His to fail.

When he goes back to Proxy and flings himself down beside her, she makes a low, pained sound. "And then there were two."

He does not answer her.

"Fray, I need to tell you something."

He does not answer.

"Luminary-Major First Among Us Into This Fraying World, look at me."

Fray snarls. He obeys, he glares at her, his teeth coming down so hard on his lip that it breaks the cracked skin. His hands shake when he signs. "What?"

Proxy is crying. The tears come slow and languid, freezing to her face before they can slip all the way to the ground. She waits long enough to make sure he's paying attention. "I want to tell you why this happened," she says, voice creaking with the effort, "but I don't think you're ready to understand it."

"What does that mean?"

"It means it took me such a long time to understand it myself that I can't possibly hope to convince you of it with the time I have left."

He wants to tell her she has years left. Even now, even after everything, she is still his family, and part of him will always love her despite it all. He wants to comfort her, to promise her he's going to get them out of here, that he's going to take them home. That they're going to be okay.

He can't.

"Tell me anyway," he signs, slumping against the side of the shelter. "I might as well know."

"You'll kill me for it."

"I wouldn't bother. We're already dead."

"Yeah," Proxy says with a broken laugh, and tells him.

She's right. He doesn't understand.

---

Luminaries stop sleeping like they did in their prior lives. They must still sleep, but they need less of it, and they rouse more readily. This is why it's such a shock when Fray is awakened by something being pulled over his head.

He panics. He thrashes, kicking, throwing elbows, but an uncountable number of hands on him force him to stillness. People are talking around him, saying be careful, get him tied, don't underestimate him because he's small. His arms are jammed behind his back and tied painfully tight. He can hear Proxy's muffled yelling, grim voices, the crunch of many boots on snow. Then he is being raised into the air. Up and up and up, and then down as he's thrown to the ground. The thing over his head is taken away.

The world is black except where it is white with snow or orange with the light of the bonfire that has been built near the pit. Countless figures in ragtag clothing stare down at him; he can't make out details with the way his numb face is pressed into the snow. "Alright!" calls a woman's voice. Fray recognizes it as that of Agrippa. "You all know Lieutenant Proxy," she sneers the title, "as our very own woman on the inside, who in her arrogance thought we would let her little pack of murderers live." There's a series of jeers and snarls. She goes on: "And of course we've got the famous leader of Charn's precious slaughterhouse here today as well!"

Something takes hold of his hair and pulls him up to his knees. The crowd, at least fifty strong and armed to the teeth, explodes into noise and howling. Through his cold-dulled senses, through the lightheadedness of having run out of rations the day before, he hears them as a kind of terrible chorus. Curses, death threats, oaths of vengeance, cries of murderer and baby-killer and monster.

He thinks back to what Proxy said to him, that they are only people, people like Gyr Warden. Only Gyr Warden is---was---nothing like this bloodthirsty, torturous mob. Not for the first time, he mourns Proxy's good nature getting the better of her.

It's Agrippa who has him by the hair, he finds as he looks around for Proxy, and Agrippa has a knife in her other hand. In the half dark, crazed with shadows, it is all but impossible for him to make out anything, but at last he spots the half-limp form of Proxy on Agrippa's other side, her hands tied in front of her. Agrippa is still going off, talking about justice and punishment and whatever other madness she's concocted for herself. A zealot, he thinks with a dull, distant pity. She knows not what she does.

As best he can, he braces himself for what he knows is to come. He has no hope for a quick death from these lunatics, but perhaps they will be kinder to Proxy.

"What shall we do with him, then?" Agrippa asks the crowd. The noise surges back into a fervor. They want his blood. They want his agony.

Strip him and throw him in the fire.

I bet he won't be so dangerous with his eyes gouged out.

Carve up the girl and make him watch.

Not Proxy, he pleads in silence, she was misled, she made a mistake, he would bear a hundred tortures if it meant they would spare her. She is still his scaffolding, his right hand. He still loves her even now. He dares not beg for her safety, not when giving up such a wish would be like dangling meat in front of wolves.

"I know what you really want," Agrippa shouts, yanking Fray's hair high enough that he struggles to his feet to ease the pain. His pulse screams in his ears. "This man's head, yes. But you what you really want is the ones pulling the strings. You want to blot out this disease before it comes for anyone else. You want Charn!"

Cheering.

"And what does Charn have that we don't?"

"Those damned machines," snarls one.

"The old technology," cries another.

"The fucking Luminaries," finishes Agrippa. "And what is a Luminary but a man with metal in his limbs? I say we rip them out of him."

A boon, Fray thinks, half delirious. That will kill him. A mercy. And the hextech will be useless without the serum.

Unfortunately, this is when Agrippa turns her attention back to Proxy. "Okay, Prox," Agrippa says, voice dripping with poison. "Here's your chance to spare yourself some pain. Tell me how the shit inside you freaks works."

Proxy gapes at her. "I don't---I don't know, Agrippa, I told you I don't know!"

Agrippa gives a great, aggravated sigh, and sinks the knife into Fray's shoulder. The guttural shriek that tears its way from his throat is so horrible that at first he does not realize he made it.

"I don't know!" Proxy wails. She pushes herself up on her bound hands. Blood has frozen around a cut on her forehead. "We're just soldiers! We don't get told how it works! Stop hurting him!"

The knife twists. Fray screams, bile crawling up his throat. "We've caught your kind before," Agrippa says patiently, in a different voice than the one she used to whip the crowd into frenzy. "We've tried implanting the technology into our own men. It doesn't take. I need to know how to make it take, Proxy." She pulls the knife out, slow, slow, and the withdrawal is somehow worse than the stab. For a few seconds, the blackness overtakes everything.

When Fray comes to again, the knife is between his lips, threatening to split into his cheek if he moves. "Stop crying," Agrippa is telling Proxy. "You know how to end this."

Proxy's shoulders shake. "You're horrible," she says. "We deserve death for what we've done, but you're no better. I'll tell you. I'll tell you."

How? Fray wants to ask with the last shreds of intelligent thought left to him. She understands the process no better than he does; it's a closely guarded secret for this very reason. Yet he never suspected her part in the trap, either. How long has she been working with Agrippa? What else has she betrayed?

Proxy shakes tears from her face and swallows a sob. "You have to start at the spine," she says. "You can't transfer them unless you crack the power cell. They're coded to the individual."

She's lying. She knows as well as Fray does what happens when the liquid battery cracks. Relief sweeps over him like an avalanche.

He is shoved down to the ground again, his bindings cut and his arms stretched out before him by two men. He shrieks as his stabbed shoulder is yanked forward without heed for his pain. His coat and clothes are sliced open to expose his back. The three stabilizers that burrow against his spine are left open to the freezing air. He seethes his breath in through his teeth against his pounding heart as Agrippa sets her knife against the topmost one and pops the housing off.

He is trembling from cold and tension by the time Proxy walks Agrippa through the last protective layer above the battery. "Now what?" Agrippa is saying, and Fray manages to twist his head enough to find Proxy's face. She has run out of tears, and stares at him. He jerks his chin the slightest amount. Do it.

Proxy takes a deep breath. "There's a cell of liquid," she says. "If you expose the liquid to air, it releases the hexes."

"What a fucking nuisance," Agrippa says, and leans forward. Fray feels it through his spine when she sets the tip of her knife against the glass to crack it.

The failsafe has been primed. Unprivileged modifications of Farlight property is disallowed. Cease and desist, or local override will activate. This will be your only warning.

The words somehow---he doesn't know a better word for it---the words are somehow coming from his bones. He hears them as if they're being spoken directly into his ear, a tinny, buzzy voice, neither male nor female. At first Fray thinks he's hallucinated it, until it comes again when Agrippa's knife bounces off the glass.

Failsafe activated. Local override activated. Tolerance is: zero. God help you.

Several things happen simultaneously. The first is that there is no self-destruction, no ignition. The second is that something surges through his exhausted body. The machinery in his arms and chest and spine blaze with light and heat, and he stares in bewilderment as dozens upon dozens of golden, hard-light hexes appear from nowhere all around him, like a full-body shield. One of the men holding his arms down jerks backwards; the other is not so fortunate. The gleaming hexes burn through his hands like a knife through butter. Behind him he hears Agrippa raise her voice and then cut herself off with a strangled grunt of pain. There's no one on him, Fray realizes, and tries to push himself upright.

He moves, but not in the way he had meant to.

He's drawn stiffly to his feet, the shouting and gunshots muffled compared to the overwhelming hum in his ears. His own skeleton is being operated without him. It draws his sword and moves him puppet-like, jerky and slow, until it isn't, until it's deadly and swift, faster than he's ever moved before. He cuts down man after man with cold efficiency and watches himself do it, watches bullets ricochet harmlessly off the armor. There had been some fifty strong in the crowd when this began. By the time he can stop and draw breath, over half of them lie dead in the snow. Agrippa has vanished.

The thing---the local override---seems satisfied by this. It turns him around and surveys the area, as if checking its work. The only remaining living thing is Proxy, staring at him with wide eyes. She awkwardly shoves herself up with her hands, twisted painfully at the waist. "Major?" she says, and the override notices her.

No, Fray thinks as his body steps toward her. No, you can't, she's not a threat, stop, stop! He tries to work his jaw, his throat, and nothing comes out. He tries to hold himself back, tries to fight it, tries to regain control. It's like trying to hold back a wall of sand with his hands.

"Fray?" Proxy says as he comes to a stop in front of her. "What---what is that? What's going on? How---?"

She doesn't get to finish her question, because despite the way he is screaming at himself to stop, he lifts his arms and brings the sword neatly through her neck.

Nearby, the fire crackles. The hum begins to wane, and he can hear his own labored breathing. Tolerance met, says the voice in his bones. Local override cleared. Thank you.

The armor dissipates. The sword shivers into nothing. Proxy's severed head stares glassily ahead, her jaw half-open.

Fray falls to his knees. He tries to scream, but nothing comes out.

---

There is no more Gyr Warden.

There is no more Luminary-Major First Among Us Into This Fraying World.

There may not even be a Fray anymore.

A storm blows in, the next day. A blizzard. It covers everything: the pit, the bodies, the blood. In the morning, from the place he collapsed next to the fire and into a barely-sheltered crevice of metal, Fray stares out over the pristine white and spends the next hour hoping, hoping, begging, pleading for it all to have been a horrific dream. For his team, his family, to still be alive. He wants Sworn to irritate him with questions and to hear Glint and Shrike argue over rations, with Basalt telling them both to shut the hell up. He wants Proxy to come up behind him and smack him across the back of the head, the way she always does when he's done something stupid.

He waits for a long time.

When this does not happen, he picks himself up and starts walking.

He walks for so much longer. He walks through the empty, meaningless white void and sees nothing, no one. He got a new coat from somewhere and it keeps him from freezing outright. He collapses more than once and each time hopes another blizzard will come and bury him, too. His wish is never granted. He picks himself up again. He starts walking.

He walks and walks and walks.

Until there's a caravan.

The man who runs it is tall and dressed in brilliant orange and black. His gold jewelry shivers and jingles every time he moves. He looks Fray over with keen interest before calling for food and blankets and some hot tea, for God's sake. Fray watches it all happen. He doesn't realize it's happened to him until late into the evening, when the man sidles up next to him and asks him what on earth he was doing wandering the permafrost alone. Fray, who had been staring stupidly at the blue star on the barrette he's just taken out of his hair, just redirects his hollow gaze to the caravan owner. The man takes this as chastisement rather than the utter speechlessness it is, and instead asks: well, where are you headed?

Fray means to say Charn. He means to say home.

Instead, Fray says in halting, splintering words, each one tearing at his throat as it passes, "As far from here as you'll take me."

#saint fray #apocalypse world #corgiwrites!#no beta we die like luminaries etc

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hileynoteson · 9 months ago

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step 1: 16 eggs

step 2: 8 tsp cumin

step 3: 1 cup italian seasoning

step 4: 8 tbsp fake butter flavor

step 5: 2 cup cornstarch

step 6: 2 cup powdered sugar

step 7: mix thoroughly

step 8: microwave in a 1100 watt microwave for 40 minutes, or until it has become a gooey mixture, whichever comes first

step 9: pour in ziploc

step 9: freeze overnight

step 10: smash with hammer into pieces

step 10: use a genuine, well seasoned molcahete made by hand from latin american basalt to grind into a coarse powder

step 11: prepare tube dough cookies

step 12: dip unbaked cookies in powder, ensuring a thick, even coat

step 13: use a watermelon baller to make eggplant spheres

step 14: coat the eggplant spheres in batter and panko

step 15: prepare 2 pounds of mashed potatoes with a 50/50 butter:potato ratio

step 16: mix the 2 pounds of mashed potatoes with 2 pounds of mayonnaise

step 16.5: refrigerate the mashed potatoes until firm

step 17: use a cookie scoop to form balls of the mashed potatoes

step 18: in separate fryers, fry the cookie dough spheres, mashed potato spheres, and eggplant spheres

step 19: in a 24 inch spring form cake tin, spread a 1 inch layer of grocery story vanilla frosting

step 20: make a flat layer of the mashed potato spheres, cookie spheres, and eggplant spheres. Ensure that they are evely distributed.

step 21: add more layers until you do not have enough spheres to add another layer. save any remaing spheres in the refrigerator for a tasty snack

step 22: freeze overnight

step 23: remove from cake tin

step 24: enrobe in chocolate, including the bottom

step 25: refrigerate

step 26: repeat steps 24 and 25 until the chocolate layer is an inch thick all around

step 27: slice and enjoy!

#cooking #baking #easy recipies #recipes #desert #breakfast #lunch #meal #yum

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mononijikayu · 11 months ago

Text

midnight pretenders.

In that moment, my smile dissipated like a droplet lost in the vastness of the ocean. Raven eyes met the hesitant gaze of my basalt orbs. Bathed in the dim light, my skin seemed to gleam, yet as I scrutinized it, an unsettling sensation rippled through me like the ebb of ocean waves. Once again, the harsh reality asserted itself – Nanami Kento existed. My body shifted uncomfortably; my arms remained at my sides. Perched on the stool, the straightened position felt awkward, almost burdensome.

GENRE: tragic lovers, classical musicians au;

WARNING/s: tragic romance, friends to lovers, exes to lovers, hurt, no comfort, mentions of alcohol, mentions of cigarette use, toxic relationship;

masterlist

midnight pretenders by aran tomoko

THE BITTER TASTE BURNED THE BACK OF MY THROAT. Yet, the allure of alcohol never captivated my senses. However, with the passage of time, it metamorphosed into a potion, a refuge, a constant companion. A gentle sigh whispered across my eager, daring crimson lips. My obsidian eyes, reminiscent of a vigilant doe, darted towards the enticing coolness of whiskey.

How many sips had graced my lips tonight? The count eluded me as I pondered having more drinks one after another. I’ve sinned a lot in this very spot. I commenced the indulgence prematurely and even now, when no more patrons are left but me and the flies overhead. I delicately shook my head, feeling the libation's seductive allure embrace me.

With a lifted brow, I contemplated the pools of pleasure before me, the corners of my lips gracefully curving upwards. Succumbing to the enchantment, I imbibed once more, the vivid tendrils of intoxication weaving through my being.

No matter. As the night unfurled its tapestry, I would return to the sanctuary of solitude. Unable to shed the flamboyant work attire, my ten-inch heels lay abandoned behind the door. An exquisite mask adorned my weary countenance, concealing the echoes of the day's trials. The house resonated with a resounding crack each night the door closed; an emptiness enveloped its silent halls.

The void of the opulent alabaster hue engaged in a silent, protracted contest, stretching for hours on end. Morning had already descended upon me as I returned home, an inconspicuous arrival unnoticed by anyone. In this place untouched by the sun's rays and devoid of its comforting warmth, there was a time when resentment gripped me. Yet, every day found me standing beside the weathered cobblestones at the entrance, returning to this place with unwavering persistence—a folly, perhaps. Today, however, I had no intention of dwelling on such matters.

It was the weekly interlude, a time when I would embark on a tranquil stroll toward the pulsating glow of a vibrant neon sign. The resonant notes of a saxophone reverberated smoothly from the colossal speakers within the corner jukebox. Conversations, both lively and animated, filled the air, intermingling with the occasional seriousness and flamboyance.

Some patrons exhaled plumes of smoke, releasing the pungent aroma of swirling chemicals into the atmosphere. Yet, amidst this cacophony, I remained unperturbed. It was this very escape that endeared this place to me.

At the bar's counter, I found solace, enveloped in the dimly lit ambiance. I could linger there, undisturbed, gazing into a world of my own making. No one intruded upon my thoughts in this sanctuary. Amidst the rhythmic pulse of life within the isolated confines of this quaint establishment, I could savor a moment to truly live again. Life, it seemed, could thrive in the embrace of solitary desolation.

“Looks like you’re breaking Utahime’s record." Ieiri Shoko snickered, the thin white cloth sweeping across the polished counter. “How many have you had, little doll?”

I laughed dryly in return, raising my cup back at her. "Hm? Are you sick of me already?I make you really good money, Shoko."

"To be honest, I am. You made me stay open for longer than I should!" She sighs, putting the cloth away. “I don’t mind swindling money off you though. You pay for drinks well.”

“Anything for my favorite lady!”

“Do you say that to everyone?”

“No, no. Just you.” I gave her a goofy smile, raising my glass to drink. “You take care of me well, Shoko.”

She gives a snort, shaking her head. She moves down the counter and towards the telephone line. “I’ll call Nanami for you. You wouldn’t be able to get home like this.”

I raised my head, frowning. “Don’t call him. I don’t want that.”

She puts the phone down, raising a brow. “Why? What’s going on with you?”

“Just…..” My mouth opened and just as quickly did it open, it closed. I wanted to say something. But I stopped myself. I didn’t know if my words would help or it would fail me. “I need another drink.”

“You’ll destroy your lungs like this.”

"She said, as she poured more into my cup and joined me.”

“You know I'm still working, you idiot.”

I laughed as she turned to the other side of the counter and grabbed a small shot glass, starting to pour a drink for herself. Shoko always tries to be someone who can balance the demands of work and play. She was better than anyone else at it.

Yet somehow, she can never truly abandon the need to satisfy the line between both worlds — especially as she seemed to sense the gravity of my burdens. I watched Shoko as she put away the bottle. Her movements were graceful, yet there was a subtle weariness in her eyes that only those who paid attention could discern.

As she clinked her shot glass against mine, she gave me a playful smirk. “Cheers to the relentless pursuit of both productivity and pleasure.”

We both downed our drinks simultaneously, the warmth of the liquid coursing through us. The atmosphere around us seemed to shimmer with camaraderie and shared understanding. Shoko, with her unwavering spirit, had a way of turning ordinary moments into memorable ones. In that small, dimly lit space, amidst the clinking of glasses and laughter, we found solace in each other's company. It was moments like these that made the relentless pace of life bearable, transforming an ordinary evening into a cherished memory.

I welcomed the drink to my lips once more, surrendering to the timeless dance of union. The frigid bitterness of the alcohol flowed down effortlessly, devoid of any discomfort. In bygone years, such a moment seemed inconceivable.

Now, however, the recurrent sensations of anguish and warmth in the recesses of my throat were not only tolerable but embraced. It held a certain enchantment, a necessity I couldn't deny any longer. In the clutches of this vice, the emptiness of the moment dissipated.

Setting the glass down, I found myself conceding to the truth—this ritual was my refuge after each arduous day at work. As the clock struck six, the elixir was bestowed upon me. And for a fleeting while, a smile would return to my lips.

It felt akin to providing electricity to those who had relied on kerosene lamps, filling the moment with a luminosity previously absent. Acknowledging this, I couldn't help but recognize that, in this nightly routine, there was a resurgence of life—an invitation to rediscover the joy of living, akin to an adventure waiting to unfold.

"So, what happened?" Shoko asked, grabbing the bottle again and pouring more for herself. The corner of her eyes crinkled with curiosity and wonder as she placed some more devil’s drink in my cup. “Did you two fight again? Are we expecting a hiccup in the relationship? What's going on?”

I smiled, looking at the pool of alcohol on my cup. She looked at me as I raised my head to look her in the eye. "Why? Do you think something happened?"

"I can read your eyes." She said to me as she downed her drink, then leaned her arms against the counter to get closer to me.

“Really?” I raised a brow at her, trying to not let the mask fall. “What do you see, oh great Shoko?”

Leaving out a sigh, she gave me a concerned gaze. "It’s pretty obvious with you, when you’re upset. It bleeds through the light that should be there.”

Once again, the harsh reality asserted itself – Nanami Kento existed. My body shifted uncomfortably; my arms remained at my sides. Perched on the stool, the straightened position felt awkward, almost burdensome.

I released a deep breath, as though preparing to plunge into the depths of the underwater world. Securing my legs around the chair's legs, I wondered if it was permissible to open up to Shoko. The thought lingered, but I refrained from voicing it. She knew I would eventually bare my soul anyway.

Over the weeks, she had greeted me faithfully at the door, the bell announcing my arrival to this small sanctuary. Initial distrust had given way to her quirky one-liners, the kind that made me laugh genuinely after years.

Her blunt honesty, even in the face of her high school friends Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto's teasing, endeared her to me. They try to come by often. But with Gojo’s busy schedule at his father’s office and Suguru’s deadlines at his writing job — the meet ups are one and far between. Yet I did not mind.

In fact, I looked forward to them. In these many years they too had become good friends of mine. As well as Nanami’s. Although Nanami's discomfort with Gojo's playfulness remained palpable. Nanami could handle playfulness. Otherwise, we perhaps would not be together.

Shoko had always weathered each stormy night that came from my presence without uttering a word, providing silent solace. Always attempting to lift my spirits with conversation, to bring light back in my eyes. Yet, I realized this was the first time she had spoken the truth to my face.

It felt like an open secret, as if I had never been adept at concealing the wreckage of my life in this seesaw game. I never enjoyed delving into the complexities that loomed over my expansive skies. There was an emptiness, a void akin to the vastness of space.

Yet, with each disclosure, a rift would emerge, revealing the gilded cage where sunlight never reached, my reluctance to escape, and the discontent intertwined with the blond man with brown eyes. It was easier to forget, to let the stone rest undisturbed, allowing moss to reclaim its harsh exterior. Pretense was simpler, a means to act as though certain events had never transpired.

"Do you have a cigarette?" I asked, having taken my shot in one easy stride.

Shoko raised an eyebrow, curious. "I still have a full pack in my bag. Do you want it?”

A wide smile spread across my lips as I extended my hands into the depths of the deep purse. My fingers traversed the black velvet texture, skillfully rummaging to retrieve the cool metal concealed within. With a flourish, I brought it into view, revealing a beautifully clear surface glistening in silver. Placing it atop the counter with a deliberate thud, I couldn't resist observing the bartender's shocked expression.

Unperturbed by his evident surprise, I gracefully moved to the vacant side, letting my fingers collect the cool remnants within the empty ashtray. Glancing back at the still-recovering figure behind the counter, I offered a playful wink, savoring the moment of intrigue.

"I didn’t know you smoked."

I laughed solemnly at her. “Well, now you know. Go on. Pour more drinks. Pack your things even. We’ll need it for the long haul.”

"Long what?"

A forlorn gaze emanated from the shadows of my eyes, lowering as my fingers fumbled in the grasp of the cold metal lighter. The urge to laugh bubbled within, but the weariness of my soul stifled any such expression. Each time I glanced at that capricious lighter, it summoned a cascade of memories, vivid as the flames I had yet to extinguish.

A subtle frown crept across my face as I released my finger, tapping it rhythmically across the counter. The weight of remembered names and places pressed upon me, each moment lived in a matter of seconds, too many lifetimes compressed into a single heartbeat.

With each passing year, the pain intensified. Whether for better or worse, it was the bitter taste of an awful truth. The equilibrium of the seesaw tipped precariously, with the eyes of the beholder widening in bewildered fear at each end. Terrifying it was, to look up from below, caught in the tumultuous sway of a balance that seemed to defy gravity itself.

I smiled at her, letting the smoke engulf me as I opened my mouth.

“The story. From the beginning to the end.”

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 1 year ago

Text

Basalt

Summary: Ruby takes Regina to the Blue Lagoon for her birthday.

Regina bites her nails, a habit she had thought that she had overcome years ago. At this rate she would be spending the entirety of her birthday at an airport.

Ruby nudges her. “If you want to bite something you can have some of my oatmeal. It's got brown sugar and apple chunks.”

Regina lowers her hand and bites the inside of her cheek which is only a slight improvement. “I'm not particularly hungry.” Apatite is usually the first thing that anxiety takes from her. Sleep is the next to follow.

“You haven't eaten since breakfast.” Ruby passes her the little styrofoam cup and a plastic spoon. Steam fogs reading glasses that she may as well not have put on--she hasn't touched her novel. “It'll give you something else to do.” Ruby urges.

“Thank you.”

“It’s just a small delay and your birthday isn’t until tomorrow…”

She very nearly snaps that she knows when her own birthday is but she bites her tongue at the last moment. If nothing else, this so called short delay is a testament to how far she has come in regards to how she deals with stress.

“We’ll get to Reykjavik way before then. We’ll probably even have enough time to explore the city a little bit before we have to get to the bus stop.”

Regina nods. She watches yet another airplane that is not hers take off. With her luck, when they do board the plane, she won’t even be able to sit next to Ruby. Likely she will be sandwiched between two perfect strangers and one of them will have probably neglected taking a shower that day. She clutches her carry-on bag to her chest. Twenty-eight years in the same town, never leaving, never wanting to has left her with an unease around planes and a twitchiness towards airports and their frantic crowds. Some would probably call it karma.

God, the longer she sits here listening to folks more disgruntled than she, the more antsy she gets. This chair is making her lower back sore. Her neck too. The Blue Lagoon is sounding particularly inviting right now.

Ruby leans against her shoulder as she forces herself to eat an admittedly tasty spoonful of oatmeal and than another. It certainly tastes better than fingernails and chips of dark brown nail polish. She recalls, at once, why she stopped polishing her nails after leaving the Enchanted Forest.

At least it isn’t an overnight flight, she reminds herself. At least it will only be several more hours. It is only late afternoon but she is thoroughly exhausted. One bowl of oatmeal later she finds herself nodding off.

She wakes up to Ruby nudging her awake with new that it is time for them to finally board their plane.

.oOo.

The view from the plane had been amazing in itself–a first glance at the glimmering, sparkling splendor that they would soon be a part of. It offered snippets of volcanoes and glaciers and geothermal steam. A wintery wonderland with plumes of fire and heat. Admittedly she had slept for much of the car ride from the airport to their hotel. Ruby insists that she had missed out on some spectacular views but at least she can say that she isn’t cranky and moody anymore. Still a touch tired, but she can function now. And the view from their hotel room is nice enough.

They have a perfect view of the Blue Lagoon whose steam rolls right up to the glass door, beckoning them to step into waters surrounded by black, volcanic rock. Rocks that tower high, teeming with rich green moss. The auroras aren’t out tonight but a steady sprinkle of snow glitters in the soft lights that illuminate the patio.

“Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get thee Blue Lagoon Suite. I would have had to fill out this request form…but I was able to get this Lagoon Suite.” She sighs. “Sorry, Gina.”

“Sorry?” Regina furrows her brows. She runs her fingers through the curling ribbon tied to a complimentary bottle of champagne. “This room has its own minibar and a private section of the lagoon!” She looks at the pamphlet. “Apparently daily group yoga and Icelandic coffee time is included in this package as well.”

Ruby’s smile returns, she sweeps Regina off of her feet and twirls her around. She lays her on the bed where Regina kicks off her shoes and lets herself sink into a plush mattress. A mattress that is somehow even comfier, more luxurious than the one in her own mansion. She exhales.

Ruby finds the remote and turns the stereo on. “Want the curtains opened or closed?”

“Well that all depends on what we’re doing.” Regina raises a brow.

“I was hoping that we could go for dinner and a bath, unless you wanted to get right to the sex.” Ruby shrugs.

It still takes Regina aback how blunt the woman can be sometimes. “Actually, a bath with dinner sounds nice.” So long as she doesn’t knock the plates into the bath.

“I’ll call and order. Do you want to get the bath going? I’m pretty sure that skincare, candles, and some massage oils were included with the stay.” She pauses. “What were you planning on getting? I was looking at the…this.” She points at the menu.

“Rúgbrauð.”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Pronounce these words.”

Regina laughs. “I did a little research before coming here. Perhaps I should order the food and you can get the bath ready so you don’t have to try to say kjötsupa.”

“Yeah. That might be a good idea. I was thinking of just saying ‘hot spring bread’ and ‘lamb soup.’”

After putting the phone back in its cradle she joins Ruby on the patio where they dip their feet into the lagoon water until room service lets them know that their dinner has arrived.

Regina lets her night robe drop to the floor and slips herself into the lightly steaming water. She closes her eyes and sinks into its warmth. It is, by all means, an amazing taste of what tomorrow will be like. She exhales the stress of the day.

“Want a massage with your bath and dinner?” Ruby offers.

Heavens, it isn’t even her birthday quite yet and the woman is absolutely spoiling her. “That would be wonderful, dear. If you would.”

Ruby’s touch is absolutely divine as her hands work the knots out of her neck. Her meal can wait, for the moment she is perfectly content to lean on the bathtub and let her fiance knead the tension away. The right squeezes in the right spots and the right pressure applied in just the right way makes it easy for Regina to pretend that she hadn’t been sitting tense and stiffly at an airport for several hours.

She will have to do something extra special for Ruby on her birthday. The woman had mentioned Morocco.

“How’s that?” Ruby asks.

“Perfect.” Regina purs.

Ruby smiles and ruffles Regina’s hair. “Well that’s all I’ve got. I’m ready for my…”

“Rúgbrauð.”

“Yeah, that.”

Regina chuckles.

.oOo.

It isn’t as crowded as Regina had anticipated, likely because she has the advantage of being an early riser. Ruby, a woman of the moon by nature, not so much; she is running almost entirely on that Icelandic coffee.

She seems to have as much fog in her head as the lagoon has steam.

“Happy birthday, Regina.” She says at last. “I hope that this is a good start.”

“So far, yes.” She certainly can’t complain about a gourmet breakfast. Neither can she complain about having a hand to hold as she makes her way into the lagoon water. Truth be told she hadn’t expected it to be as blue as it is in the pictures. But she is pleasantly surprised to find that it is every bit as vibrant as she had been led to believe.

Last night’s bath had been exquisite but it is nothing compared to feeling the lagoon water on her skin and the basalt rocks against the soles of her feet. Nothing compared to feeling the water stir against her body as she wades deeper within.

“So we get our silica mud masks over there.” Ruby points. “And our drinks over there.”

“I think that you should wait until at least noon to get a beverage, unless your going for something that’s non—”

“I’m getting something alcoholic.” Ruby interrupts. “We’re getting something alcoholic to celebrate your birthday with.”

“How about we start with the facial mask first?” She suggests. “Personally I would love to start my day with soft skin.”

“Would you like to try that float therapy before or after we have our drinks?” Ruby asks.

Regina shrugs. “I’ll see what I’m in the mood for after washing the mask off.”

.oOo.

Ruby grins to herself; it is nice to see Regina in such good spirits. She is so used to seeing the woman all tense and stressed. To see her running her hands along the black rocks of the lava canyon as she glides her way through the water. To see her slow down for a change and pause to marvel at the sights around her. There is an almost childlike sense of awe on her face as she marvels at the small cave—their own, for the moment—hidden corridor for the day.

Regina finds herself a seat on one of several rocks and rests her chin in her palms. For a time she simply sits in silence, watching the water reflect on the cave’s ceiling, listening to its gentle churning. Outside of the cave, another dusting of snow begins to fall. Each flake dissipates well before it has a chance to hit the lagoon’s water.

“This is…it’s really wonderful. All of it.” Regina finally remarks. “Thank you, Ruby. It means a lot. I can’t remember the last time that I actually enjoyed my birthday.”

“Of course, Regina.” She invites herself into the woman’s lap and lets her play with her hair. Regina moves her chin from her palms to the top of Ruby’s head.

In continued silence, Regina slides her arms around Ruby’s waist. And for a moment she thinks that Regina is going to cry. Recently it has been pretty easy to forget just how much the woman has been through and just how frigid the entirety of Storybrooke had been to her. And how hostile she had been to its citizens. The woman holding her is such a far cry from that; she is a rather quiet woman. Reserved and private. But she is a warm person with a kind smile when she manages one.

With any luck, Ruby will be able to coax more of them from her. She has seen so many of them in just these last two days.

“I’m going to make a cake for you.” Ruby declares.

Regina quirks a brow. “Is that right?”

Ruby nods. “It is. And we’re going to enjoy it on the patio with a side of northern lights!”

“You can’t just order those.” Regina gives a humored sniff. “They'll come out when and if the are ready.” She pauses. “It would be a nice touch but…” she pauses. “This has already been amazing.” She kisses the top of Ruby’s head. “Thank you.” This is spoken in a whisper that Ruby barely hears.

“Of course, Regina.” She herself can’t really ask for more. Frankly she would be perfectly content to sit in a cracked and battered pool of some cheap hotel so long as she could make conversation with Regina. So long as she could see that smile.

She looks from the diamond on her finger to the one on Regina’s.

She will get to see that smile.

Over and over again as they explore the world together.

Finally, she is free.

Finally, she has adventure.

Finally, she has a lover who can keep pace.

#once upon a time #regina mills #ruby lucas #fanfiction #regina/ruby

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waitingforwinterwinds · 2 years ago

Text

Game of Thrones - 55 CATELYN VIII (pages 575-585)

Catelyn arrives at Moat Cailin, and after reuniting with Robb, walks him through the consequences and possibilities of what they've gotten themselves into.

Just beyond, through the mists, she glimpsed the walls and towers of Moat Cailin... or what remained of them. Immense blocks of basalt, each as large as a crofter's cottage, lay scattered and tumbled like a child's wooden blocks, half sunk in the soft boggy soil. Nothing else remained of a curtain wall that had once stood as high as Winterfell's. The wooden keep was gone entirely, rotted away a thousand years past, with not so much as a timber to mark where it had stood. All that was left of the great stronghold of the First Men were three towers... three where there had once been twenty. if the taletellers were to be believed.

BASALT!!! *ahem* Sorry. Basalt is pretty much my favourite rock, or columnar basalt is anyway. Do yourself a favour and give columnar basalt a google, it's the type of basalt that cools a little slowly and forms hexagonal columns, if you've ever heard of the Giant's Causeway, that's columnar basalt. (Basalt is technically a rock group which makes up like... 90?% of volcanic rocks and there's a few 'sub' types which are organised by mineral content... well obviously, because that's how rocks are categorized after formation method and 'preciousness' XD)

I love this vibe. The mist, the have seen remnants of ages past, the brutal reminder that even things that seem permanent and enduring will fall eventually. Fact becoming fiction in the absence of proof. Makes me want to stare into the void and contemplate mortality. I'm sure the brief comparison to Winterfell isn't any kind of foreshadowing. Ha. ha. ha.....

Catelyn wanted to run to him, to kiss his sweet brow, to wrap him in her arms and hold him so tightly that he would never come to harm... but here in front of his lords, she dared not. He was playing a man's part now, and she would not take that away from him. So she held herself at the far end of the basalt slab they were using for a table.

Oh that hurts, the first time in what's probably close to months she's seen her first born and she can't even hug him. Like, it's the right call, she can't jeopardize his standing amongst the lords by reminding them of how young he is, or undermining his authority by treating him like a child be simply being his mother, but damn.

She ought not to be so open in her contempt, she knew, but her parting from the Eyrie had not been pleasant. She had offered to take Lord Robert with her, to foster him at Winterfell for a few years. The company of other boys would do him good, she had dared to suggest. Lysa's rage had been frightening to behold. "Sister or no," she had replied, "if you try to steal my son, you will leave by the Moon Door."

Someone should call social services on Lysa Arryn. Let's not kid ourselves, this woman is a danger to herself and everyone around her, she needs serious help.

Catelyn sighed. "I should. You ought never have left. Yet I dare not, not now. You have come too far. Someday these lords will look to you as their liege. If I pack you off now, like a child being sent to bed without supper, they will remember, and laugh about it in their cups. The day will come when you need them to respect you, even fear you a little. Laughter is poison to fear. I will not do that to you, much as I might wish to keep you safe."

Catelyn has a good head for political consequences, it's a shame she wasn't in King's Landing with Ned. Or that they didn't have secure phones. If she'd been there and up to date, she might have helped Ned keep out of the multitude of pit traps he managed to stumble into. ... But it's home-field advantage Lannister, so she might also be imprisoned, hmmm...

Something in Robb's tone troubled her. She smoothed out the paper and read. Concern gave way to disbelief, then to anger, and lastly to fear. "This is Cersei's letter, not your sister's," she said when she was done. "The real message is in what Sansa does not say. All this about how kindly and gently the Lannisters are treating her... I know the sound of a threat, even whispered. They have Sansa hostage, and they mean to keep her."

Catelyn coming in clutch with the deductive reasoning. She may have accidentally hoarder her deductive reasoning and logic skills, instead of handing a few shares out to her kids, because some of them are a little light on them. Robb. No offense to Robb, I'm sure he's good at things, but this is clearly not it. FFS even Sansa hasn't quite faced the fact she's a hostage yet.

"- Ned and your sister should be safe. Cersei is wise enough to know that she may need them to make her peace, should the fighting go against her."

Yeah, Cersei is wise enough to know that, but her son, King Joffery? Not so much.

This host her son had assembled was not a standing army like the Free Cities were accustomed to maintain nor a force of guardsmen paid in coin. Most of them were smallfolk: crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of innkeeps and traders and tanners, leavened with a smattering of sellswords and freeriders hungry for plunder. When their lords called, they came... but not forever.

D&D and the show translate things poorly = 🥛 I had assumed, in hind sight obviously erroneously, that way more of the fighting men the banners called were some kind of soldier or guard belonging to the lords, and that their keeps and castles and holds had been left with skeleton crews. I hope these folks got at least a few lessons of "these are the (number) basic moves, you can figure out most other moves from there, or you die. Practice when you can." and not just "Don't chop your foot off, you get one sword each, talk to that guy to pick up your armour."

Robb came up with a good plan at the end, and Cat did a good job directing him to his flaws to fix them without rubbing his face in it. Ah, if only someone had remembered to lock the difficulty slider in place.

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #game of thrones #catelyn stark #catelyn tully #a chapter a day reading #got

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