#basalt fic

[basalting]

day three of @jasontoddweek2025 - monster - supernatural AU - league of assassins

Jason has always known he was different.

jason todd & catherine todd - changeling!jason - 1092 words

It wasn’t-

Jason always knew he was different. Knew it in how sometimes if he’s really mad, or really sad, things look… different. Knew it in how Daddy would flinch when he saw him sometimes, in how no matter how late he wandered the streets, none of the gangsters ever messed with him. Sometimes they’d try, and then Jason would look at them and they’d run away.

For a while the only one who never flinched, who never ran away, who would look at Jason and smile even when he felt too big and too strange and too different was Mama.

Once he asked her, after none of the kids at the park wanted to play with him, what he was. And Mama, had smiled at him and kissed his cheek and said, “You’re my baby, that’s what you are.”

But it hadn’t been enough, or maybe he got more different as he got older, or something. Cause not long after that Mama started using. Started running though dealers the way Jason ran through books.

Once, when Jason was trying to make her eat while high, she had grabbed his face, pupils huge in her eyes, and whispered, “Forest child, doesn’t it hurt? To be surrounded by cold iron?”

And then she laughed and laughed and laughed until Jason left her and her food and curled up to sleep in the closet.

Things got worse and harder and different after Mama died. Daddy was back in prison and none of the gangsters would mess with him but none of the street kids would let him stay with them either. The different was too different. It made people flinch, made them nervous. So Jason kept to himself, sold tires and scrap and whatever looked kinda pawn-able for food and second-hand clothes and socks.

And then Batman found him. And if Batman noticed the different he didn’t react, or maybe Batman was already so different that he didn’t notice Jason’s different.

But maybe he did.

So Jason kept his different inside, didn’t let it out the way he used to with Mama. Or only sometimes, once Bruce made him Robin.

Jason hid his different, and the way he was too big and too small and too much and too different. Only let it out when in fights or alone in his room. Because Bruce and Alfred and Dick and Babs; they didn’t flinch when they looked at him. He would do anything to make sure they didn’t stop looking at him like they wanted him around.

But Jason got older, and he got more different, and he didn’t stop hiding how different he was.

And then Dick was off planet and Babs was busy and Bruce- Bruce benched him. Bruce took Robin away from him, and- and Robin was- Robin was life! Robin was flying and fighting and helping and Robin was the only time Jason could be different without anyone noticing and getting hurt! Or scared!

He tried to keep it down, tried to keep the different tucked in tight to his bones. But he was so different and it was so hard and- And he wanted someone who wouldn’t care if he was different.

He wanted Mama.

———

Jason knew it was stupid to go back to the shitty apartment building they’d lived in. There wasn’t any way that it wasn’t being rented out to someone else. There wouldn’t be anything of the life he’d lived with Catherine here, but he couldn’t help but hope.

“Jason? Jason Todd?”

It was Mrs Walker, who used to push her kids behind her when she saw him but would also knock and leave leftovers for him to find on their door step. Scared of him but, kind. She smiled sadly, not quite looking at him. She gave him what she’d saved, Mrs Walker at least hadn’t changed. Still scared of him, still kind.

Tucked safely in his room, Jason slowly went through the box. Most of it was junk, old report cards and paperwork, not anything anyone still alive needed. A family photo, a tiny Jason cradled in Catherine’s lap with Willis standing behind her. And- And his birth certificate.

His birth certificate that did not say Catherine Todd was his mother.

———

Jason wasn’t stupid, he knew that blood wasn’t everything. Before the drugs Mama had been his Mama, had loved him even when he was different.

But.

But he couldn’t help but hope, couldn’t help but want this new mother. This blood mother to love him. To look at him, different and all, and not flinch. To love him anyway.

So he went, to Israel. To Lebanon. To Ethiopia.

Sheila Haywood didn’t flinch, she’d been surprised but she’d smiled. Told him about Willis, explained why she hadn’t been around.

Maybe. Maybe she was safe, to be different around.

———

And then the Joker.

———

Jason gasps awake, gags on blood and bile.

It figures, he thinks, the one time I want someone to flinch. They don’t.

“You’re awake.”

It’s Mom, Sheila. Tied to a support pillar, cheek and swollen and bruised. Her eyes look strange.

“I’ll-“ He swallowed thickly, “I’ll get you out Mom.”

“There’s a bomb.” She said it casually, like she didn’t care. Jason dragged his hurting, bleeding body towards her. Reached out broken hands to untie her.

“Don’t touch me!”

Her voice was sharp and mean.

“M-Mom-“

“I am not, your mother. You are a foul little monster. A disgusting creature that- that steals real children and then pretends to be them. This? This suffering and death? It’s what you are. What you bring. And what you deserve.”

Jason flinched, tried to swallow back the tears, couldn’t.

“P-Please- just let me-“

“I woke up and I knew,” Sheila’s eyes were cold and cruel, Jason didn’t want to hear what she was going to say. She said it anyway. “I knew you weren’t my son! Something happened, something took my son away and left me you. I couldn’t.”

Sheila shook her head, eyes haunted, “I couldn’t even look at you, not without seeing all the ways you weren’t my Jason, so I left you with Willis. And I never found my Jason again.”

Tick. Tock. Went the bomb.

“But at least,” Sheila sighed.

Tick. Tock.

“I’ll finally,”

Tick.

“See him again.”

Tock.

[kaleidoscope1967eyes]

Iego Visual Inspiration - Meru

OC Fic Lore Taglist: (let me know if you want to be added/removed)

@canon-can-fight-me

@aldhanii

@alexlifesonofficial

@dailydragon08

@coffeeorsomething-irl

@masterlukessaber

@rogue-kenobi

[peacestew]

62 Degrees North

written by MeropeMerope Isak/Even | Rating: E A Faroes Island AU

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

Summary: I'm squinting against the sun for most of the day, taking in the island, taking in Isak, in these oblique little chiaroscuro glimpses: a flock of hunting fulmars, darkly silhouetted against the pale sky, darting up the cliff face with blade-like speed. Isak's weathered boots scraping over the uneven basalt stone, finding footholds, as he clambers up the final stretch to the peak of Kolturshamar ahead of me.

He has the low sun at his back when he turns to me. His face is mostly in shadow but the sweep of his cheek, the curls peeking out underneath his beanie, are burnished gold by the light.

The rough wind scrapes across the ridge and snatches his words away. I can just about make out his laugh. Then he burrows against me and speaks right into my ear. "Do you want to hear a tragic story?"

Read the completed fic on AO3 here with art by @peacestew ✨

[jasontoddweek2025]

Feature Post

Congratulations to everyone who did Jason Todd Week 2025! (We will also have a summer event, so look out for that!)

Here we have a list of works (fanart and fanfic) by some of the awesome creators who participated in this event. Levels of detail vary by what was submitted to the feedback form. Please check the tags for warnings!

Without further ado...

Lycanwing (@star-wars-lycanwing-bat, Star_Wars_Lycanwing_Bat on AO3) - Series

Road to Murder - On his way to murder the Joker, Jason questions his life's choices. (Drive)

Olive Branches - After a long day, all Jason wants is to go back to his apartment, but a little bird tries to get him to join in on family movie night. (Chronic Pain)

Monster - A half dragon kills Joker and reveals himself to Bruce. (Monster)

Isn't It Lovely, All Alone? - Jason is buried alive and he dies but the pit keeps bringing him back. (Grave, Buried Alive, Immortal Jason Todd)

Hello, Welcome Home - The aftermath of day 5 AKA The family cuddle pile. (Family)

Feline Therapy - Jason rescues a cat but what he doesn't know is that the cat is Tim. (Enemy to Caretaker)

Another Version of Me - Jason get triggered and Dick helps his brother realise that he is loved. (Return)

Birdie (@birdiedoesdc, a_alene on AO3) - Series

N.J.S.A. 39:3-10 - Drive

do you still wake up reaching for an empty space? - Chronic Pain

buried, banging at your door - Monster, League of Assassins

i'm gonna kill you if you don't beat me to it - Immortal Jason Todd

this live, throbbing age that brawls - Jason is a Literature Nerd

mechanically up all night, though - Red Hood and the Outlaws

i'd save a life if i thought it belonged to you - Lifeline

whenicarusflies (@whenicarusflies, whenicarusflies on AO3) - Series

We walked as tall as the skyline - Drive, Time Travel, The Batmobile Tires

when i take a breath I drown - Fear Toxin

How can I then return in happy plight? - League of Assassins

always and forever the last day alive - Grave, Buried Alive, Immortal Jason Todd

Family Problems - Family, No Capes AU

could you give me something for the pain - Enemy to Caretaker, Lifeline

you can't wake up, this is not a dream - Return, Outsider POV, Crime Alley

Chaos (Fic)/Lito (Art) (@freedom-of-speech333, Freedom_of_speech333 on AO3) - Series

The Loss of Tires (The Return of Hope) - The Batmobile Tires

Laughter Follows Me Back To Life - Joker

The Ghost of Who I Was/The Most of Who You Loved - Supernatural AU

I'm Still Here - Immortal Jason Todd

I'm Only Here For The Books - Jason is a Literature Nerd

You’re My Brother, After All - Enemy to Caretaker

The Life, Death, and Second Life of Jason Todd - Outsider POV

basalting (@basalting) - Series

late night drive - Drive

a good fuckin' day - Joker

cuckoo's egg - Supernatural AU

rest your weary heart - Grave

buy one, get one 50% off! - Family

don't think nothin' of it - Red Hood and the Outlaws - Implied Roy/Kori/Jason

it takes a village - Outsider POV, Crime Alley

Stormz (@stormz369) - Masterlist

Day 1 - Flashbacks to Jason's early years with Batman + Reader finding out he was killed. (Batmobile Tires) - x Reader

Day 2 - Reader helps Jason deal with a PTSD nightmare. (Joker) - x Reader

Day 3 - A civilian kid is afraid of Red Hood & Jason processes his feelings about it. (Monster) - x Reader

Day 4 - Jason + Reader at his grave. (Grave) - x Reader

Day 5 - Damian designs scar cover up tattoos for Jason (Family, Jason is a Literature Nerd) - x Reader

Lark Alliance (@snowberriesromanoff, lyricalark on AO3)

Day 7: come in she said i'll give you shelter from the storm - Jason Todd, the Narrows, and something like faith. A character study of Jason's pre-Robin years and the people who help him survive. (Crime Alley) - Selina Kyle/Holly Robinson

nursal1060 (@nursal1060writes, nursal1060 on AO3)

Day 2: The Pain Fades When We're Together - Chronic Pain - JayTim

salem (@worlds-okayest-fag, salemisntdead on AO3) - Series

Carry on my wayward son, there will be peace when you are done - Basically jason gets kidnapped by dick (not that he knows its dick lol). (Drive)

don’t need advice for my pain (it's making me more insecure) - Jason has a not fun night and wont ask for help. (Chronic Pain)

jason todd and the no good terrible very bad day - Supernatural AU

A minute from home (but so far from it) - Jason stuck in a time loop digging himself out of his grave over and over again. (Grave, Immortal Jason Todd)

ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind (except tim) - Jason, Tim and Dick on a Batburger run for a family movie night, Dick and Jason argue about Disney movies and they accidentally leave Tim behind. (Family, No Capes AU)

And though I am crying and bleeding and barely breathing (youre killing me) - Absolute angst piece about Jason having a mental breakdown in his bathroom bc trauma. (Scars)

i don't believe in luck (against the sun we're the enemy) - Sentient Gotham AU where Jason is Gotham's chosen knight. (Outsider POV)

FaalThien (@faalthien, Faal on AO3)

Day 1 - Time Travel

Day 2 - Joker - JayDick

-

Day 4 - Immortal Jason

Day 5 - Monster, Jason is a Literature Nerd

Day 6 - Scars

Day 7 - Return

[bitethedevil]

Taming the Wolf (Raphael x Tav): Chapter 1

Tags and Warnings for this fic: Plus-Size!Tav, Druid!Tav, Tiefling!Tav, Dark!Raphael, Breeding Kink, Mind-control, Non-Con and Dub-Con Elements, Sex Pollen, Master/Pet Dynamic, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

A link to read this fic on AO3 (kudos or comments make the author very happy <3)

Next Chapter >>

Fic Summary: Tav tried to avoid fulfilling her contract to Raphael by leaving the Crown of Karsus on the bottom of the Chionthar, leaving her contract unfulfilled by a technicality. Although, no situation is so bad that the new Archdevil of the First can't find a way to profit off it. All the other archdevils of the Hells have their own lineages of tieflings on the Material Plane and Raphael is not going to feel left out...

AN: I'm working on learning how to write smut, so I made this. That's essentially what this fic is: depraved smut. I also noticed that there aren't a lot of plus-sized Tav fics when it comes to Raphael (please recommend them to me if you have found any), so Raph is into bigger girls in this one. There is no smut in this first chapter since I am setting the scene first, but remember to mind the tags in future chapters. There might be additions to them as we go along with this fic.

Tav was padding through the forest, sniffing the ground in her wolf form. She had gotten the scent of a rabbit. She was following its trail with her nose, and the scent was getting stronger. She was getting close. Her mouth started watering.

She slowed her pace and lowered her body closer to the ground when she saw it. Just a few feet ahead of her, she saw the fat little creature sitting on its hindlegs, sniffing the air. She moved closer with calculated steps. It turned its head towards her. She pounced on it…

…And missed it. Yet again. The little creature sped through the forest floor before she could even sink her teeth into it. Her hunting skills had needed training ever since she got rid of the tadpole. She felt like a novice again after having spent so much time in her real form during her adventure.

She huffed and lowered her nose to the ground yet again to see if she could find her next meal somewhere else. That is when she saw flames rise around her. She instinctively walked backwards to avoid them. They quickly lowered again, and she saw that she was somewhere entirely else.

The smell of sulfur reached her nose immediately and it made her blood run cold. So did her new surroundings. She was in a gigantic hall that seemed big enough for a small army to comfortably march through. The tall walls were made of dark basalt. She fixed her orange eyes at the shapes she saw on the walls. She looked at the charred bodies hanging from them.

She smelled him in the air before she heard him: sulfur, musk, palmarosa, and pepper.

“Yes, Zariel had a bit of a flair for dramatics.”

She turned back into her human form. Her white fur turned into her grey skin, her fluffy tail turned into her long spaded one, and she felt the familiar weight of her curved horns on her head again. She stumbled slightly as she turned around to face him. She had not walked on two legs for days.

“Raphael,” she greeted and coughed, trying to find her voice again.

His body was turned towards the wall she had been looking at. His head turned towards her. He was dressed fancier than she had ever seen him. His usual red and blue outfit had been exchanged for a black suit with red and gold accents.

He looked her up and down with the hint of an amused smile on his lips. She no doubt looked a mess. Her thick dark curls had not seen a brush for weeks. Her grey skin was caked with dirt and old blood from the few kills she had managed to make while she had been in Wildshape.

“You are no less feral than the last time I saw you, I see,” he said. “Perhaps a bath is in order before we speak. A certain degree of decorum is expected when one speaks to an Archdevil.”

That made her cough even worse as she choked on her own spit.

“A what?” she choked out and looked him up and down.

“An Archdevil,” he repeated. “Avernus is mine after you left the Crown of Karsus to me.”

They had promised the Crown of Karsus to Raphael, but they had left it at the bottom of the Chionthar instead. The pieces of the it were scattered across the bottom of the river, and they had naively hoped that was enough to keep it from doing more harm.

“Went for a swim, did you?” she asked. “Congratulations, I suppose. We had hoped that it would stay put.”

“Did you now?” he asked and turned to face her. “That would mean that our agreement was broken and that your soul is mine.”

“You interrupted my hunt,” she sighed. “Can we get to why I am here anytime soon?”

“Certainly…” he said with a dangerous smile. “Instead of skinning you and making you into a new fur rug for my throne room, and making your fine friends join the charred corpses on the wall for trying to snub me of what I was owed, I will graciously ignore this lazy little mistake. If, of course, you accept my terms.”

She sniffed and scowled at him.

“I don’t owe you anything, devil,” she said and crossed her arms over her chest. “You got your crown in the end, didn’t you?”

“Indeed, but not brought to me by you as agreed upon,” he said and smiled at her. “I find myself…unsatisfied and wanting more. Fortunately, I have use for you and I am legally in my full right to hold you accountable for this.”

“I couldn’t give less of a shit about devil laws.”

“Language,” he chided. “You will when I hurt you and the ones you hold dear. It is a simple deal, really. You will stay here with me in Avernus for an unspecified amount of time, and in return you will live a life of luxury while you do.”

She laughed and then gestured to the state she was in.

“Do I look like I care about living in luxury?” she asked. “What do you want me here for?”

His lips tugged up in a smirk and he glanced over her body.

“You’ll find out.”

She rolled her eyes.

“And if I refuse?” she asked.

“I can use the Crown to make you say yes, though I would prefer not to,” he said casually. “It would be more satisfying to avoid it.”

She narrowed her eyes at that.

“No, you can’t,” she said. “The contract stated that you could not use the Crown of Karsus to dominate mortals. I’m not immortal.”

Raphael chuckled at that.

“Had you taken the time to properly read it through, as I suggested you should, you would know that there are exceptions,” he explained. “Those who are of Infernal bloodlines are one of those exceptions. You are a tiefling, my dear.”

Fuck. She knew that he was not lying. She scowled at him. She would never have dreamed of signing if she knew that was in the contract. Tieflings somehow always got the short end of the stick. He smiled at her like the cat that got the cream, drinking up the furious expression on her face.

“So…” he said with a smile as he walked closer. “Will you be a good pup and roll over or must I tighten your leash?”

She sneered at him and her eyes darkened.

“I’m not a dog,” she said. “And should you for a second be under the false impression that you are the master of me, then I will tear you apart.”

He chuckled and ignored your threat.

“Oh, that’s right. You believe yourself a wolf, isn’t that so?” he said. “Where is your pack then, wolf? While you scour the forests for food all on your own, because you have run out of funds to feed yourself. It has only been months since you became the hero of Baldur’s Gate, and you are already right back where you started. Without possessions, without friends, without dignity, while you live like a beast rather than a person.”

“It’s a choice,” she grumbled. “And none of your business besides.”

It was, though it would be a lie to say that it had not also been a necessity. She never had much since she left her circle all those years ago. It was easier, cheaper, and freer to live in the woods.

It was also lonely. She knew she could have reached out to her old companions after their adventure, but she never did. She did not want to trouble them, and it felt safer to be alone. It had been so easy to fall into old habits.

“Here you can be so much more,” he purred. “I see potential for something great behind that beast you parade as.”

She did not answer. Raphael smiled widely and put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“Do not force me to make you submit,” he said before completely changing into a lighter mood. “Now! I will have my servants prepare a bath for you. You reek. After, we will dine together. I suspect you must be hungry, since I interrupted your hunt for dinner.”

She was very uncomfortable as the servants insisted on washing her in the bath. She had tried to insist that she could wash herself, but the two tiefling women were not having it after they saw the state of her. The bath smelled of some sort of lavender oil mixed with something else. The smell was too strong and perfume-like for her liking.

When they brought out the shaving kit, it finally made her protest. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at them as one of the servant ladies tried to pry her arm up.

“No,” Tav said stubbornly.

The woman pursed her lips and sighed.

“Please, my lady,” the woman said. “We have been ordered to.”

“No.”

The two women looked at each other as if trying to figure out what to do. They looked nervous as they did so. Tav figured that there might be consequences for them if they did not heed Raphael’s orders. She sighed in annoyance.

“Why does he want me shaved?” she asked.

“We do not know, my lady,” the other woman said. “Please. We will be careful not to nick you.”

Tav sneered and reluctantly let her arms be raised above her head so they could shave her armpits. She had grown quite hairy during her time in the woods. She preferred it that way and she could not guess why Raphael would care about it. She was not happy.

She was even less happy when there came a knock on the door. Both of the women paused their movements. One of them got up to place a screen in front of the tub. Tav looked at the both of them with a confused expression. The one of them that did not get up smiled sweetly at her.

“The physician,” she explained. “Come in!”

“The what?” Tav asked.

She heard someone enter the room.

“Good evening, my lady,” a male voice said from behind the screen. “Apologies for interrupting your bath. I need only ask you a few questions.”

Tav blinked and scrunched up her face.

“Why?” she asked. “I’m not sick or anything. What do I need to see a physician for?”

“His Grace has requested it, my lady.”

Her eyes were about to roll out of her skull when she heard Raphael be referred to as ‘His Grace’.

“Get on with it then,” she grumbled quietly.

“Do you have any allergies that you are aware of?” he asked.

“No.”

She heard a quill running over parchment as he was noting it down on the other side of the screen.

“How much do you weigh?”

“No idea. I’ve always been a bit on the heavy side.”

“Do you have any medical conditions that you know of?”

“No.”

“Has anyone in your family had any medical conditions that you know of?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Have you ever been pregnant?”

Tav raised an eyebrow at that question.

“No?” she answered.

“Have any of the women in your family had trouble conceiving?”

The questions were taking an odd turn.

“Not that I know of,” she said. “Why?”

“I am not allowed to tell you,” the physician explained and then continued his questions. “When did you last bleed?”

She huffed at that answer.

“Recently,” she said.

“How recently? Days? Weeks?”

“A bit over a week perhaps,” she answered. “Are you sure you can’t tell me? What is going on?”

“I cannot tell you,” he repeated while he was scribbling down something. “That will be all for now. I will visit you tomorrow to check your weight and height.”

She heard him get up from his chair to leave.

“Alright?” she said with a sigh and looked at the ladies on either side of her with confusion. The both of them avoided her questioning gaze.

The servants dried her off, and with some resistance from her, they got her in a dress. It was a dark blue silk dress that was supposed to ‘compliment the yellow of her eyes and the grey of her skin’. Tav thought she just looked stupid. The dress was too tight around her waist, making her hips look even wider than they already were.

When they were done with their little game of dress-up, she studied herself in the mirror with a scowl on her face. She looked ridiculous. Her body was on full display in the dress. It was not that she had ever had a problem with showing off her plumpness, but she just also had never felt the reason to pull attention to it like this. The form of her stomach was on display, and it made her feel naked.  

She was ushered through the fortress and into a large room with a table in the middle. Raphael sat at the end of it drinking wine. The table was filled with all kinds of food and drink. Raphael devoured her form with his eyes before gesturing for her to sit down beside him. She kept standing. She wanted answers first.

“What is the meaning of all of this?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“I had imagined that you were hungry,” Raphael said and took a sip of his wine.

“You know what I mean…and I am,” she said. “But I am more starved for answers than food currently. Why am I here?”

“All will soon be revealed,” he said and gestured to the chair again. “Sit down.”

“No,” she said stubbornly.

“Sit,” Raphael said more harshly this time. “And eat. I have questions for you.”

“No,” she repeated.

Raphael waved his hand and she found herself sitting down against her will.

“Good girl,” he said as if to a dog and smiled even wider.

It pissed her off even more. A low groan of frustration escaped her, that would have been a growl if she had been in her preferred form. She thought about getting up again just to spite him but there would be no use in it. She decided to eat instead.

“Tell me about where you come from,” Raphael said and swirled the contents of his glass.

“North,” she said and pulled apart a piece of chicken with her hands.

“I had gathered,” Raphael said with a tight disgusted smile at the way she was eating. “I am more curious where your ancestry comes from.”

“North,” she repeated and shoved a piece of chicken in her mouth. “Are you asking about my tiefling ancestors?”

“Indeed,” he said.

“Don’t know,” she answered. “I just know that it’s far back and that we are Asmodeus tieflings. None of my parents are tieflings. It had skipped two generations before it appeared in me.”

“Fascinating,” he said. “One would not have guessed Asmodeus tiefling from your appearance. That grey skin of yours would have suggested Zariel.”

“My dad was a drow.”

“A bit of a mutt then,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s perfect for what I need you for.”

“A mutt? Your dog metaphors are hilarious, though they are already getting a bit old, don’t you think? Besides, it’s rich of you to call anyone a mutt when you are a cambion yourself,” she huffed. “What do you need me for?”

Her comment annoyed him, and she could see it in his eyes, though he apparently chose to ignore it.

“Oh, but the dog metaphors are so fitting for what I intend to use you for,” he said with a cruel smile. “Why else would one be keen to get their hands on a prized bitch with interesting bloodlines like yours? To breed pups, of course.”

She almost choked on the piece of chicken she was eating.

“Excuse me?”

“All the other notable archdevils have spread their lineages across your realm,” he explained. “We all have to start somewhere, of course. I cannot think of anything more poetic than the woman who helped me win my crown to be the start of my own lineage of tieflings. I am feeling rather generous so I will only demand five children out of you, and then you are free to go.”

She was dumbstruck for a moment as the information sunk in. Then she became furious.

“You would have me be a broodmare for your children?” she asked harshly. “And risk my life in the process? Are you insane?”

“If you refuse, I can have you killed for certain instead,” he said. “Or worse, I can force you.”

Her eyes glowed for a moment as she was about to lose control of her temper and transform. She dug her claws into the arms of the chair she was sitting in as she tried to calm herself before she did something stupid.

“Tieflings and cambions can produce more cambions,” she hissed. “In case you have never picked up a biology book. A swift death would be kinder than dying while trying to birth a cambion.”

“The chances are rather slim. Especially with a diluted Infernal bloodline like yours,” he explained. “Besides, I will have physicians and midwives to tend to your every need for the same reason. Does the child grow bigger than a tiefling would, we will kill it. You are too useful to me alive for me to let you die in childbirth.”

“I am not even considering this!” she yelled. “You are out of your mind.”

“Though you will consider it, because the consequences of refusing me will be much worse,” he said calmly. “I promise you, that if you simply come peacefully, no harm will come to you. I will be generous with you. I will only take you when the chances for conception are the highest. The rest of the time you will be left to yourself, free to do whatever you please.”

“Take me?” she growled. “Archdevil or not, I will tear you apart if you as much as touch me!”

Raphael sighed when he saw her eyes starting to glow in anger again, but continued explaining:

“You will have your own chambers, of course. You will be well taken care of, and the only thing you will have to worry about is your pregnancy and the birth. You will not even have to see the children after they are born either, if that is what you wish.”

She hammered her fist down onto the table and got up. She was looking at him like a woman with murder on her mind.

“Send me back,” she hissed at him. “Now.”

“No,” Raphael replied calmly with an unimpressed expression on his face.

“Send. Me. Back.”

“I wonder if you are hard of hearing or simply thick-headed,” he said and narrowed his eyes at her. “Have I not made it abundantly clear what your options are?”

“I won’t do it,” she said. “You can’t make me. Infernal law states that deals cannot be made if the other party is under duress or if the deal is signed because of death threats. That much I do know.”

Raphael chuckled.

“I am not asking you to sign a thing, my dear,” he said in a dark tone. “I already have a contract with your signature on it. Those laws are in place for those who have not yet signed. I already own you. I am in my full right to do whatever I please with you. Had you simply handed me the Crown then it would have been a different story, but you did not.”

Her realizing her predicament was the last straw. She lost her temper and in the blink of an eye she found herself in her wolf form. She had pushed away the table and the chair during her transformation. She snarled and locked her eyes on him. Then she remembers pouncing on him, though never landing before she heard a snap, and everything went black.

She woke up in a bed that she had hoped would be her own before she opened her eyes. When she did open them, she learned to her disappointment that it had not all been an odd fever dream. She was in a bedroom that was five times larger than the one she had at her home on the outskirts of Baldur’s Gate.

The bedchamber was lavishly decorated. There was a bathtub in the corner, a desk with a chair and some writing utensils on it, a large wardrobe, and a fireplace with two armchairs in front of it. She was not impressed. Lavish as it was, it did not fool her: this was a cell.

She sat up on the bed and when she moved, she felt something around her neck. Her hand went to it and found a collar around it. She touched all the way around it to find an opening or a clasp, but there were none. She pulled on it, but it did not give. She instinctively knew that it had some magical purpose, but she was not yet sure what it was.

She got off the bed to find a mirror. She found one on the desk and she saw that there was some kind of inscription on the collar. Her eyes narrowed at the Infernal letters that adorned the black collar in a golden script. Her Infernal was rusty but she did manage to put together what it said:

‘Property of the Archdevil of the First.’

She was fuming. She tugged at the collar in anger once again, still with no luck. Her eyes fell on a piece of parchment on the table. Her eyes scanned over the words, and it only managed to further stir the flames of her temper:

‘If you are to act like a beast, you will be treated as one. You are invited to dine with me tonight. I expect you to be on your best behavior or you may find yourself waking up in a cage the next time you bare your teeth at me, dog. - R”

Her breathing had quickened into furious puffs of air. Her hands clenched into fists. She would tear this room apart. She would tear him apart and paint the walls with his blood. She would devour him. She felt the familiar feeling of her druidic magic spreading through her veins.

Though something was different. The magic would not take as it usually did.

She stayed in that middle-stage of transformation. Her face fell at the realization. She tried again to turn into her wolf form, but the magic still would not take. It did not envelop her in its cold embrace of the earth clinging to her skin and changed her form like it usually did. The feeling stayed under her skin, going nowhere.

“No…” she whispered to herself. “No, no, no…”

That was the purpose of the collar. To keep her in her own form. She panicked. She paced around the room. She was missing something, but what? He had not taken her magic from her, or she would not be able to even enter transformation. The collar simply stopped the final step.

She tried turning into an owlbear instead. No luck. She tried panther, deep rothe, bear, sabre-toothed tiger, badger…No luck. Then she wondered if it could possibly have something to do with the size.

She finally tried something smaller: a cat. She finally felt the magic envelop her skin and change her form. She felt herself grow smaller and she was then standing in her furry little form on the floor. She felt some relief that it had worked and hoped for a second that she might be able to slip out of the collar, but the size of it had simply adjusted to her form. She let out a frustrated hiss.

It was something that not all of her forms had been taken from her, but she could hardly tear Raphael apart in the form of a cat. She tried the last couple of forms there were left. She could do a dire raven as well, but that was not particularly helpful either. She could not exactly fly away from the Hells. She hated feeling so helpless.

Later, the same servants from the day before came to dress her and usher her to where Raphael was. He was smiling widely at her when she entered, and his eyes went to admire the collar on her neck. She wanted nothing more than to throw an Ice Knife at his smug face, but she decided to keep the peace for now. She needed her powers back in full again.

She kept quiet as she sat down beside him, which only seemed to amuse him. She had nothing nice to say to him. She began eating with her hands as she always did.

“Ah-ah,” Raphael chided. “Fork and knife, dear.”

Her eye twitched but she kept quiet as she reluctantly dropped the food in her hands. She wiped her fingers in a napkin before grabbing the fork and knife. Her movements were clumsy when she tried to cut her meat. It had been a long time since she last had been forced to use utensils.

“Good girl,” Raphael praised in that degrading way of his. “You are quieter today. I take that you have figured out what that collar around your neck does?”

She continued ignoring him.

“I will take that as a yes then,” he said and then changed the subject. “The physician says that your fertility will be at its peak soon, so you can expect a visit from me in only a few days.”

“And you ask me to mind my table manners,” she said in a cold tone. “Don’t make me lose my appetite.”

“Oh, my apologies, dear,” he said. “I did not realize you were of such a delicate disposition. I simply mean to say that if you behave until then, I might be inclined to loosen my grip on your leash, so to speak.”

She gritted her teeth in annoyance and tried to reel back her temper.

“Will I be rid of this gods-awful collar?”

“No,” he answered. “I like it on you. It suits you. Though, I can allow you to change into whatever form you would like as long as you are on your best behavior.”

“’Allow me’…” she repeated and laughed bitterly under her breath. “Is this it then? I’m your little puppet now that you can do whatever you want to? I think I’d rather choose death if that offer is still on the table, actually.”

“Essentially, yes, you are,” he answered coldly. “And do not continue to make me repeat myself, Tav. It will not just be your death if you decide to go against me and even if it was, whatever I will put you through here will be nothing compared to the torments I will put you through after you are dead, and I get my hands on your soul. For your soul is still on the line, since you by technicality did not fulfill your contract. A technicality that I will only overlook if you do as I tell you.”

She shook her head and went quiet. She felt so hopeless. She wanted to laugh and cry and scream at the same time. She leaned back in her chair. She had barely eaten anything, but her appetite was gone.

“Can I go now?” she asked. “I am not hungry after all, it seems.”

“As you wish,” he said. “But first…”

He snapped his fingers and a vial of dark liquid appeared on the table. He took it and held it out to her.

“I will watch you drink this before you do,” he said while his orange eyes bore into hers. “A servant will bring it to you tomorrow and every day after that. They are under orders to force it down your throat if you refuse.”

She looked from him to the vial with disdain.

“Am I allowed to ask His Grace what this is?” she asked.

Raphael smiled slightly and his eyes narrowed at her.

“That cheek will get you nowhere,” he warned. “It’s a vial containing numerous things to ready your body for its purpose. I am not trying to poison you. I am trying to help you. Spare you even.”

“Spare me?” she asked bitterly.

“If I disgust you as much as you pretend, would you not find it helpful that we only have to attempt to get you with child a handful of times before we see results, instead of waiting for months?”

She looked at him and then at the vial. She sighed softly and took it from his hands. She took off the cork and smelled its contents. It had a smell that was all too sweet like fruit that was just past its ripeness. She looked at him again.

“There would be little sense in poisoning you,” he reassured her. “Now drink.”

She looked at the vial once more before downing its contents.

[nosferatini]

Reversed Veil of Worlds: A Little History

I’ve had the tremendous pleasure of working with @daneecastle on the background for this fic, drawn from their inspiration and their Reversed Veil of Worlds comic, which you can catch up on HERE!

Summary:

In the aftermath of what was taken from him, the Supreme Archangel has charged himself with the protection humanity, and that means putting a stop to the war between Heaven and Hell—for good. Neither angel nor demon is safe from the flaming sword, with one exception: Muriel.

After permanently separating themselves from Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale and Muriel carry on their crusade in the midst of crippling identity crises. Aziraphale, plagued by the handling of his grief, and Muriel challenged by the limited knowledge of sporadically returning memories, both find that their demons may be the very key to navigating their inner conflict.

Of course, Aziraphale's demon has been asleep for 75 years.

Chapter 1 (excerpt):

“Tell me a History, little wings…”

The voice crept eerily into half woken ears; like wind licking at the mouth of a cave. The slightness of it teased Muriel’s brown eyes open to the surrounding pitch of darkness, leaving them unsure if the whisper had come from a dream.

The words carried an air of familiarity. Senses took flight from the chasms of their mind: a taste, a scent… a feeling ; a tall silhouette in a curtain of clouds that fell like waterfalls from the archways of Old Heaven. Sensations as lucid as a memory and as elusive as a dream. And Muriel knew about dreams, if only for those daylit versions that came without slumber or appeal—visions that haunted their waking hours like ghosts reticent to reveal themselves. Muriel considered the words themselves:

Little wings?

It was a nickname. But its identity was lost in the disintegrating fragments of their subconscious; sand slipping through the helpless clutches of ethereal fingers. The dream was already hardening around the edges, reconstituting reality around them. The smell of sulphur, the murmur of bubbling lava flow, and the chafe of basalt on their hands and face, which caught at their cardigan when they tried to rise. A knife-edged threat of pain hindered the movement, and Muriel slumped back onto the igneous surface, trying to forget the gash left by Hellhound claws in their leg.

They bit their lip, held their breath, and rose to sit upon the rock. The action caused the sounds of respiration to recommence. Which was odd, because Muriel still had their breath tucked behind their teeth.

Muriel ceased all movement and listened…

The inhalations gained in magnitude, drawing in heaves great enough to create a vacuum behind their shoulders, while each exhale coursed ripples of warm air between the feathers of their exposed wings. The rasps of breath picked up as Muriel began to turn their head, like a giant hyperventilating at the sight of a mouse.

Yet there was no giant behind them. Even in the darkness, Muriel could sense the walls of this chamber were too small. A rivulet of leaking magma on the ground nearby gave the tiniest hint of light. That, and the blue glow from the eyes that were now staring back at them.

Listen to the 🎧PODFIC VERSION🎧 (feat. music by the very talented @paperclipninja !)

Continue Reading on AO3

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Special thanks to my betas 77ckk, @fishey-me and @the-literal-kj along with all the support from @goodomensafterdark and @whickberstreetwriters !

[kendrene]

For your mini fic: Ava and Beatrice, things you said in the grass and under the stars

Beatrice leaves Europe all-together, after.

She tries not to. Lingers for a while. Drifts from city to city, country to country, but the sun shines too brightly over Venice's canals and Paris - which Ava had said they should visit together after the war - well, Paris is a haunting.

An ocean later, another landmass crossing, Beatrice hits the West Coast, slowly working her way north where pliant sand gives way to a jagged coastline. Basalt cliffs against which the waves rage. Incessant. Hungry. The sea a low roar in her ears, never too far. Persevering even when she wanders inland, past jasper-studded beaches, and into the woods beyond.

The forests themselves are old, teeming with life both new and rotting. Fog never quite lifts off of the trees, a layer of it, gossamer-thin, persevering even on hotter days.

Beatrice settles down, and grief settles alongside her, the one companion she can tolerate in newfound solitude. It's a worn blanket. A beloved jacket she cannot bear to leave the house without. She grows new habits, easy when all of her days look the same.

She spends a lot of time hiking, getting a feel for the land. Brings books down to the beach to read; in the sun when she can, under a piece of tarpaulin hastily erected in between two trees if it rains.

It nearly always does.

Sometimes Beatrice reads aloud. Imagines it is Ava she is reading to, all the stories and facts about the cosmos Ava didn't have the chance to discover for herself. She reads until her throat is dry and sore. Reads until her voice is drenched in loss, and her heart bleeds for all the things she's lost.

Reads until daylight gives way to the first smattering of stars and the words on the page are blurred by lack of light, perhaps by tears, into a smudge.

The air is wet and salty, whips like the edge of a sharp knife against the soft skin of her cheek. Beatrice packs her book, rolls up the tarpaulin. Picks the now familiar way back in total dark.

She stumbles. Trips over something yielding. Something that snags at her ankles and brings her down to her knees, a rock catching the heel of the hand she throws out to steady herself, cutting open her palm.

It's debris, Beatrice thinks. A large piece of wood. Maybe seaweed.

It is not.

It's a body.

It's Ava. And she's not breathing.

"No. No. No.' Beatrice has prayed, she has begged for Ava to come back but not like this. Not to lose her right away again. "You can't die, please." A sob rips from her, unchecked, even as she turns her over. "I can't lose you again." Beatrice will not think of her as a corpse.

Ava's skin, her lips tinged blue by the frigid waters of the ocean and not divinium. Beatrice's mouth seeking. Ava's tasting of saltwater and the abyssal things that cannot stand to be brought into the light. Ocean waves crashing around them and over. The tide coming in - a bitter, a cold a cruel baptism. Her hands red with the cold and hurting flat to Ava's chest, pushing, pushing while her mind falls into mechanical routines.

"Breathe, goddammit." Bea's own lungs burning, alight with the effort of wrangling life back into another being. "Please Ava don't go."

"Not...going." A cough. Water sputtering down Ava's chin. Her own hand rises weakly, slick around the curve of Beatrice's cheek. Light, molten gold, shearing through the night to wash over them both. "Not going anywhere." Ava's other hand grips Beatrice by a shoulder, tugs her down to sprawl rather inelegantly over her chest. She's not exactly warm, but she's not cold anymore. The Halo brightens to a shine that makes a mockery of dawn. "I'm home."

[chromatic-lamina]

Writing Patterns

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

What way to waste a bit of time on an otherwise busy day! Tagged by @purplehairedwonder

Tagging @afterdeck-ace , @gendervapor14 , @gali-la @ensignsenna @cal-cium-the-nerd @escapaldi and anyone (I mean it) else who'd like to play/try! If you haven't got 10 posted fics, then aim for 4 or 5 or however many you do have posted.

tadpoles in a clawfoot tub

One Piece | G | Gen | 1.9 K | Pre-Marineford, Garp and Roger and then Garp and Ace parallels

Rayleigh didn't know why he bothered.

valuta

One Piece | G | Gen |2 K | Cora & Doffy, Cora & Sengoku, Cora & Law, Law & Sengoku | the story behind Law's coin collection (or one of them)

"Your grandmother's and hers before that."

Riding Along on my Pushbike, Honey (You Look so Pretty)

One Piece | T | Gen | 3.3 K | Aokiji and Law | post Luffy Pirate King AU, Aokiji, Law and Bleat the goat go for a cycle along a frozen river

The mountain streams were filled with smooth basalt like the one Law carried in his pocket. 

Taxi

One Piece | M | AceLaw but not all chapters | 17.6K | AU Law's a taxi driver and picks up a myriad of customers*

Older fic which I reuploaded the 3rd chapter to. I'll open with that, cos the first chapter opening's a bit confronting

Solid advice applied wrongly. Law was good at it.

Forty-Two Superior Teeth

One Piece | T | Law and core hearts | 2.6K | Law and the core Hearts dream on Swallow Island

One thing Bepo had was a super thick skin, and just as well, 'cos those boots were steel-capped. 

Bioluminescent Hearts*

(spoilers chapter 1081)

One Piece | T | Law, Hearts, Blackbeard, Saul | 5.7K | Law and the Hearts all manage to escape well from BB.

Last on first off, the helmsman was a position usually held by the lowest rank, the newest recruit. 

Heart Pirates Week 2023: Jean Bart: Scars

One Piece | T | Law, Hearts, fiiclets | 1.8K total| title says it all

The wooden deck of the Polar Tang wasn't that practical.

MarcoLaw OP Rare Pair Month Drabbles and Ficlets

One Piece | T | MarLaw, Marco and Law Ficlets | 1.8K total| there was only one bed

Law couldn't contain himself to one bed.

Something Old, Something New

One Piece | T | Zoro, | about 500 words| Zoro reflects on rainy days

One eye closed still had depth.

Bepo’s Drabble and One Shot Collection

One Piece | T | Hearts, Ikkaku, Hakugan, Law, Bepo| about 800 words| , chapter 15. Slice of life aboard the Tang

The thing about the huge, huge, huge beanbag that Hakugan had lugged on board when he'd joined them (packed to the softly- moulding-brim with snow geese feathers collected from friends and family), was that it was very white, and so was Bepo.

Sun Path Ozoni

One Piece | T | Hearts and Law| 1275 words| The Hearts debate whose New Year tradition is best, and enjoy a summer celebration.

"Nah man, you gotta use the soy broth."

Patterns: I am writing a lot of Hearts stuff (some due to zines), and also am not writing as much as I used to (busy, and have only got so much to say!). Anyhoo: my openings are relatively short, bar the last one. I don't open with dialogue as much as I thought I did. A touch of description is common, or an internal observation. General observations seem to be popular too.

[windflowerofskellige]

Suddenly Vernon beamed at her. “Look outside,” he said softly, cradling her hand between his. Peering through the window of the carriage, Cirilla gasped. They were just drawing across the ridge, and beyond she could see white road winding across the hills. Sharp black basalt cliffs formed the background, overgrown and dotted with flowering bushes and trees. Where the capital had been grey and stormy when they departed, spring had already come to these hills. The burst of red and violet bushes in front of the black cliffs were marvelous, and the fragrance of them even made it past the windows of the carriage. “It’s beautiful…” Strong, warm hands squeezed hers. “The garden districts usually have an early spring, because the mountains shield them from the rough sea winds,” Vernon said.

HEY MARINA, CIRCUS IS IN SESSION! Thanks for following directions and coming to my side blog now I must ask, where is this set? I'm so confused, is this supposed to be Nilfgaard the city? Where am I right now Marina? Write your fic I guess I don't care I post Temerian and Redanian content for fun. Do you wanna hear about Radovid? Do you wanna hear about Foltest? Do you want to hear about my OCs? I can give you Jadwiga of Kaedwen, Queen of Temeria. Here you go!

Perhaps an Arabella? I fixed her face model for her mod so when I get Redkit working on my PC I think I'm going to see if outfit modding is any easier.

Maybe you'd like an Arabella hugging Roche because thats like a mentor type of scenario going on after her dad's death?

How may I perform for you in this circus session?

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

respice finem

by basalting After a deal gone bad Sheila dies next to the body of the kid she hadn't wanted. Then she wakes up. - A time loop fic Words: 9511, Chapters: 1/3, Language: English Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: Gen Characters: Sheila Haywood, Jason Todd, Joker (DCU), Bruce Wayne Relationships: Sheila Haywood & Jason Todd Additional Tags: Time Loop, Blood and Violence, Canon Compliant, technically, Comic Arc: "A Death in the Family" in Batman (1940) #426-429, Character Study, Canonical Character Death, lots of minor ocs - Freeform, &lt;- please ask me about my ocs, Bad Parent Sheila Haywood, Bittersweet via https://ift.tt/RyFZ1Y2

[basalting]

it takes a village

we did it!!!!! its technically just past midnight where i live but its still the 12th somewhere right (laughs nervously)

day seven of @jasontoddweek2025 - return - outsider POV - crime alley

jason todd & crime alley - threatened sexual assault (no assault occurs), threatened violence against children (no children are harmed) - 3826 words

No one is happy when Red Hood rolls into town.

He’s loud and flashy, he’s dumping heads at the police station and chasing Black Masks boys around. Just another asshole, mucking around in the mess of Crime Alley. It’s just another playground for men like him.

So people keep their heads down, prepare to weather the storm his ambitions bring.

———

Katherine is cursing her life and the subway and fucking professor fucking Morrisen when she carefully walks out of the station. The sun had long since set and her cheap, shitty apartment was a 20 minute long walk in the dark on a Friday night.

Fuck Elias Morrisen and his fucking essay, she thought, if I get stabbed because he wanted to bitch about my homework I’m going to kill him.

Katherine set her shoulders, slotted her keys between her knuckles and set off.

Head down, eyes forward, don’t look or react or stop. Just keep walking until you get where you’re going.

The muggy are was almost oppressive, hanging over her like a shroud as she hurried along. It was just early enough that the first round of rowdy drunks hadn’t been kicked out of bars yet, aside from a few catcalls she’d been ignored.

“What’re you doin’ out late honey?”

Shit. Katherine dared a glance, lurking down an alley were a group of men. As she watched one of them lit a smoke, the flare of the lighter threw the black and white coin emblem on his shirt into view. Two Face’s Halfpenny Boys, Katherine looked away, kept walking.

Mutters burst out behind her as she hurried away, “Hey!” It was the same voice, “I was talkin’ to ya bitch! Where you going so fast? Got some other John to get to?”

The men burst into laughter, she could hear them moving. Getting closer.

She grit her teeth, if there was- Was a store or something. A 7/11, maybe? She could hide out there, at least be somewhere with cameras. Fist clenched tightly around her keys, Katherine sped up - not quite jogging, hoping desperately for something. Why couldn’t she remember where the nearest store was? She’d been at the apartment for months.

“Got somewhere to be huh? Why don’t you wanna have a chat with us? We’re real nice right bo-“

The man behind her stopped abruptly as Katherine slammed into someone. Carefully she looked up, Big. She thought, the man was tall and broad - easily large enough to engulf her entirely. And he was wearing a featureless red helmet.

Red Hood. Fuck.

“H-Hey Hood,” The man called out, “You wanna hang with us?” His voice growing stronger as Hood stood, patiently maybe? The helmet hid his expressions, Katherine tried to force her breathing steady, hoping against hope she could get out of this. “We were gonna have some fun tonight.”

“You with these idiots?”

“W-What?”

“You with them?” Red Hood jerked his chin towards the men behind her, his fists clenched in his gloves, the leather creaking.

Resigned, Katherine shook her head, “No. I’m trying to get home.” The chances of Red Hood doing anything about the Halfpenny boys was low, but there had to of been at least six of them. At least if she went with Hood instead it’d only be him, “I can-“

Red Hood flowed past her, ducking around her smoothly without touching her, and punched the first man in the gut.

“Hey! What the fuc-“

Then he pulled out a handgun, shooting the downed man in the gut. Everyone froze.

“I don’t like it. When little fucks like you, bother nice girls just trying to get home.” Something about his helmet distorted his voice, turned it flat and dangerous. The Halfpenny boys had gone pale and their buddy on the ground was whimpering in pain. Hood pointed the gun at the downed mans head, “Now you can either pick up your trash and get the fuck outta Crime Alley, or I shoot this stupid fuck in the head and then start hunting the rest of you down. I’ll send you back to Two Face in pieces, divisions of two even, cause I’m a nice guy like that.”

“Y-You got it man. We’ll- We’ll go! We promise.” Stuttering apologies a couple of the guys crept forward, hauled their buddy up which made him scream in pain, and dragged him away. Maybe to a clinic, more likely to go bleed out in a gutter somewhere. Katherine let out a shaky breath as Red Hood turned back to her.

She didn’t know what he’d want from her, why he’d stepped in at all. Most people wouldn’t of, those men had been packing heat. He didn’t come any closer, just tucked the, still loaded, gun into the holster almost hidden by his jacket.

“Sorry about that.”

It would’ve been absurdly casual from anyone else, the helmet and distorter made it intimidating. “’S fine.” She said quickly, “Can I… Go?”

Hood nodded, body language open and casual, almost non-threatening. Which was wild to see from a guy who’d just (probably) mortally wounded someone and threatened another five.

“You get home safe miss.”

Miss. She thought dazed, A gangster just called me ‘miss.’

“Sure, uh, thanks Mr Hood. For the save.”

Before he could do anything else weird, or before he could reveal he’d been lulling her into a false sense of security and threaten to shoot her too. Katherine hurried away, her roommates were not going to believe her about this shit.

———

Alicia Montgomery had lived through the evolution of Park Row to Crime Alley, had seen the hookers and gangsters and dirty cops. The way all those fancy politicians had turned away from Park Row as if they would all stop existing if they kept their eyes closed. Well Alicia Montgomery kept her damn eyes open.

She’d walked these streets since she was a little girl, met her Peter here - fool of a man who fell and damn near broke his ankle in front of her. When she’d asked him if he was alright, he’d just stared at her, then told her he’d tripped falling for her. They’d skipped school to sit on a fire escape, just talking for hours. She’d loved that man every day of her damn life, married him and raised three beautiful children with him and buried him too young.

Park Row had done it’s damnedest to chew her up and spit her out, but Alicia was Gotham born and bred and she wasn’t an easy woman to push around. She’d seen the strange and the explainable and the frankly bizarre. But it was still something to look up from where she was sitting on her front stoop to see what’d scared her pigeons away, and see the newest in the line of thugs looking to rule Park Row across the street with some of his Red Hood gang members picking up trash.

For a long moment Alicia just blinked at them, but there they were, bold as brass and all. Red Hood in his stupid helmet with a black plastic bag and a bright yellow sharps container on his belt. Picking up trash.

Something, morbid curiosity maybe, made her slowly rise up. The birds she fed had flown off anyway and she’d been almost out of food for today anyway, it might not hurt, to take a closer look.

The streets and alleys of Park Row were always filled with trash, if any of those costumed idiots wanted to steal a garbage truck without it being noticed than they’d inevitably end up taking one of the few that still went to Park Row. Most people knew they either had to haul their trash to the dumpsters behind stores, which had a better chance of being picked up, or if you had a car, take it to the dump yourself. A lot of people chose to do neither and just dumped their trash wherever they liked.

A couple of Hood’s people stiffened as she approached, it was almost flattering, that they thought an old woman like her would be able to do anything to a man with Red Hood build. But well, you didn’t need to be strong to use a gun, she supposed.

A short woman with a burn scar twisting the skin of her jaw and neck narrowed her eyes, muttered something to Red Hood and he turned to her. His red helmet was smooth and featureless, no indication of any facial features and nothing to show that he could hear or see her.

“What are you doing?” A few of Hood’s people jerked when she spoke, at least three people dropped their hands to some sort of concealed weapon. Alicia kept her eyes on Hood’s helmet, waited to see how he’d react.

Hood raised a hand, motioned for the others to go. With a ripple of grumbling they spread out, snapping on gloves and shaking out garbage bags. The burned woman stayed close, stepping back to lean against a wall pretending to be absorbed in her phone. Alicia had no doubt that if she made any moves the woman didn’t like, she’d end up with a bullet in the head. There’d been a lot of gang leaders in Park Row, in Gotham as a whole, and none of them had ever done something like this, not even when they were pretending to be on the straight and narrow.

What was Red Hood up to?

“We’re cleaning up,” Red Hood said, his helmet turned his words strange and robotic, aesthetic or necessity? Alicia wondered. “This is the second block, we’ll haul all this shit to the dump. Get it a little cleaner for everyone.”

Alicia hummed, looked up at him in his fancy gear with his fancy helmet and his robot voice. “None of the gang leaders before have cared about the trash before,” She said, more statement than accusation. “What do you get outta cleaning up?”

Hood’s head tilted, weak sunlight making the smooth, glass like surface of his helmet glow, “I live here too ma'am.”

Simple, humble, ‘I live here too.’

Alicia was too Gotham to believe in faith, to trust anyone so easily. But there was something about this boy, and he had to be a boy her intuition screamed it to her, she could see why the burned lady was so protective. She smiled, reached out slowly to gently pat his muscled forearm,.

“Well then, gimme a minute to get into some working clothes and I’ll come help you young folk out.”

Hood jolted, “You don’t have to, we’ve got it handled. We can-“

“Young man.” Her voice was firm, “I do have to, after all,” She squeezed his wrist gently, “I live here too.”

Then she turned and hurried across the street, it could still be a scheme, a ploy of some kind. But for today the Red Hood was here, cleaning Park Row up in a way no gangster or vigilante or politician had bothered to do since she was a little girl. And she’d be damned if she didn’t lend a hand.

———

Ye-jun was late, his beloved daughter Ha-eun had woken up with an ear ache. Which meant she woke up screaming and crying inconsolably, she’d fought him with all her two-year-old might when he forced the drops into her ears. Even now, almost 40 minutes later, she was letting out soft hiccuping sobs into his chest as he rushed down the street to work.

Her daycare wouldn’t take her until she had a doctors note proving she wasn’t sick and even if they would’ve taken her, the daycare was on the other side of the Bowery. He’d be almost 3 hours late for work if he took her at this time.

“Appa,” Ha-eun whimpered as a car honked furiously, her little hand coming up to hover over her sore ear. “It’s loud.”

“I know baby,” He murmured, pressing a quick kiss to her hair as he waited for the light to change. “We’re almost at Daddy’s work, you can have a nap in the office okay?”

Ha-eun sighed deeply, sunk heavier into his arms. Not for the first time since he’d woken to a screaming toddler, Ye-jun missed Val. Also not for the first time, he cursed the thief that had decided the change from her register was unsatisfactory, and made Valerie pay for it with her life. Don’t think about it. He told himself firmly, Just focus on getting through the day. Ha-eun needs you.

“Sorry I’m late,” Ye-jun called out, cradling the back of Ha-eun’s head as he rushed into the small office at the ship yard.

“Gene!” Joel yelled happily, Ye-jun forced down a wince. Joel had hired him years ago and, after Val, had told him to bring Ha-eun to work whenever. It was worth having their names butchered to keep this job, a lot of people had it a lot worse than him. “How’s little Hay-yoon, huh?”

Joel roared with laughter, making Ha-eun start to whimper. Ye-jun needed Joel to leave, Ha-eun was already overstimulated. The last thing any of them needed was for her to throw a tantrum and scream the whole office down around their heads.

“Still got an ear ache,” Ye-jun winced with a fake laugh, bouncing her gently in his aching arms. “She’ll probably go down for a nap soon so I can get the arrivals all logged before she wakes up.”

“No rush, no rush.” Even attempting to be quiet Joel was uncomfortably loud, but Ye-jun appreciated the effort. “I’ll get outta your hair and let you handle all… that.”

Joel shot the clunky computer Ye-jun used for work an almost frightened look, technologically inclined, Joel Watson was not. And then finally, finally the office door closed behind him and it was just Ye-jun and Ha-eun and the old ceiling fan that clicked with every spin.

Ye-jun turned on the computer and then focused on getting Ha-eun set up while it loaded everything. From his duffel bag he pulled out some snacks, her water bottle, several colouring books and Chi-chi - her bright red Clifford the dog plushie.

Hidden behind his desk was a small bean bag and bookshelf, the top three shelves had Ye-jun’s work supplies. Folders of approved shipping accounts, meticulous notes of containers received and departure times and a copy of every law, mandate and advisory the Gotham City council had released regarding the ports for the last 8 years, ready to be referenced.

This job wasn’t glamorous, wasn’t exciting or even very challenging outside of the sheer volume of work he had to do, but it kept his daughter with a roof over her head and food in her belly and that was all he could bring himself to care about.

Hours later Ye-jun rubbed his aching eyes, so far he’d managed to avoid the Asian stereotype of needing glasses but the strain of squinting at ship numbers on a database was making him feel like he’d need them sooner rather than later.

Ha-eun was sleeping, worn out from playing and colouring, tucked into a the gap he’d made between the wall and an old filing cabinet. He’d brought a spare quilt and pillow from the apartment and Ha-eun delighted in making a little nest for herself and Chi-chi. He was just considering getting up for a stretch and checking on her when the office door slammed open, Ye-jun flinched back, staring at the broad figure in the doorway. Dark pants, brown leather jacket, and a bright. Red. Helmet.

“Red Hood…”

“And I don’t even need an introduction.”

The man’s voice was harsh, robotic; that featureless helmet tilted. Beneath it, he must of been looking around the room. Please, Ye-jun thought, Please Ha-eun stay asleep. Please, please, please don’t be noticed.

“What- What do you want?” His voice shook, Ye-jun kept himself stiff. He couldn’t look towards where Ha-eun was sleeping, had to hope Red Hood wouldn’t notice the bean bag.

“I need information on a shipment Eugene, and since our friend Mr Watson wasn’t very helpful for me, I’ve come to you.” Red Hood put a hand on his hip, showing off the holstered gun. “Think you can help me Eugene?”

Licking his lips, Ye-jun stuttered out, “Wh-What shipment are you…?”

“Some asshole looking to stir the pot shipped a fuck ton of fear toxin tainted drugs into Gotham from this ship yard, and I need to know who Eugene.”

“What?” Fear toxin filled drugs? Jesus, things were bad enough when Scarecrow got out. The thought of people high and driven out of their minds with fear made him shiver. “I- I have shipping manifests but. It’s not like they just put drugs on the damn things when they fill them out!”

In a swift, almost too fast to catch movement, Red Hood had the pistol aimed at his head. The words died in Ye-jun’s throat, Red Hood’s voice was a low growl when he spoke. “Someone in this stupid little shipping yard has the info I need, so you can either give me what you have… Or I take it.”

If he kills you, what will happen to Ha-eun? Ye-jun thought, Val was an orphan and Umma and Appa are on the other side of the fucking country. If you die, she’ll be alone.

Despite himself, despite knowing he shouldn’t, Ye-jun’s eyes darted to the hollow where Ha-eun was sleeping. Red Hood spun on his heel, stalked towards the file cabinets.

“Wait!” Ye-jun gasped, terror a living thing - clawing up his throat. “I can- I can show you my files. It’s on the computer!”

He flung himself forward, clipping the corner of the desk with his hip. The pain was faint, drowned under desperation. Red Hood hadn’t even twitched, gloved hand reaching for the filing cabinet as the other hand swung up to point the gun at him again. The top drawer of the cabinet was ripped open with a screech, Ye-jun stepped closer - ignoring the gun.

And Ha-eun lurched up from her nest, hair messy and eyes mostly closed.

“Appa,” She groaned, “Ear hurts.”

Red Hood froze, helmet tilted down to where Ha-eun was rubbing her face with her fists, one of Chi-chi’s ears clenched in her hand. “Please,” Ye-jun whispered, “Please, please don’t hurt her.”

Ha-eun looked up at Red Hood’s looming figure, squinted at his bright red helmet, looked down to squint at Chi-chi’s bright red fur. Held Chi-chi up.

“Chi-chi?”

“What.” Red Hood growled.

“Chi-chi.” Ha-eun said firmly, awkwardly climbing out of the blankets. Ye-jun snatched her up, tucking her into his side as she whined to get down, watching Red Hood carefully.

“I don’t know anything about any drugs,” He said quickly, “Check my computer and the logs, I just review footage and confirm arrivals and departures. I don’t know anything.”

Red Hood kept his helmet turned towards them, Ha-eun squirmed, grunting with the effort of trying to get out of his arms.

“Sit down,” Red Hood’s voice was still harsh and robotic but the knife edge of violence in his body language was gone. “I don’t hurt kids Eugene, I’ll find what I need and go.”

Slowly, Ye-jun backed up, sinking down into his desk chair again. He kept an eye on Red Hood, even as the man seemingly dismissed them and focused on a file he’d just pulled out.

“Appa,” Ha-eun said, voice rising into a whine as she tugged on her red ear, “Hurts.”

“I know baby,” He whispered, dragging over the bag, “I’ll give you your drops.”

Ha-eun lent into his chest with a huff, letting him stroke back her hair while he carefully squeezed out the medicated drops. On the other side of the room, Red Hood didn’t react to any of the noises, just dropped the file on top of the cabinet and pulled out another one. Ha-eun smacked Chi-chi into his chest, “Chi-chi too.”

“Is Chi-chi’s ear sore too?”

“Uh-huh,” Ha-eun nodded, kicking her legs, “Extra, extra sore.”

Under her watchful eyes, Ye-jun put the capped bottle of drops in Chi-chi’s ears, Ha-eun pulled the plush in close running her hands over it’s fur. Then she pointed at Red Hood, “Big Chi-chi too, Appa.”

He choked, lashing out to grab Ha-eun’s arm to pull it down before Red Hood noticed.

“Why,” Ye-jun tensed but Red Hood’s head was angled down, looking at Ha-eun, “Why am I Chi-chi too?”

“Cause you’re red.” She said it like it was obvious, brandishing Chi-chi to Red Hood’s helmet.

“Guess you’re right.”

The silence was almost… Awkward, as Red Hood blatantly stuffed the three folders into a bag he’d kept tucked close to his side. “It- The name on these files is Ye-jun,” He felt a small burst of surprise at the clear pronunciation, despite the robotic voice filter. “Is that-?”

“It’s my name,” Ye-jun said cautiously, “Joel just thinks it’s easier to call me Gene so…” He almost wanted to shrug, almost wanted to laugh. Why would a crime lord care about a small time ship yard admin worker having his name mispronounced?

Red Hood grunted, the sound turned strange by his voice filter, and shoved the filing cabinet drawer closed.

“Anyway,” Red Hood nodded at them both, stomping towards the door, “Thanks Ye-jun, sorry about-“ He waved a hand, gesturing at the office in general, “I believe you that you’re not involved with this, if you aren’t - you shouldn’t see me again. If you are,” Red Hood casually rested a hand on the holstered gun, “you will.”

With that the man stomped out the door, Ye-jun followed him to the door, less out of politeness and more to make sure he actually left. The entire afternoon felt insane, he wasn’t entirely sure why they hadn’t been killed. What kind of crime lord apologised for getting someone’s name wrong?

“Bye Chi-chi!” Ha-eun yelled, waving and flinging Chi-chi around as she did so. Red Hood hesitated and then, almost awkwardly, waved back before disappearing around a corner. Ye-jun slumped back against the door frame, weak kneed with relief.

“You’re an angel,” He whispered to Ha-eun, pressing kisses to her cheeks, “And Umma is definitely watching over you.”

Ha-eun giggled, pressed a big, slobbery kiss to his cheek and then beamed. “I like big Chi-chi, can he come tomorrow too?”

“Um, no. Sorry baby, b-big Chi-chi,” Ye-jun choked slightly at calling a fucking crime lord ‘big Chi-chi,’ “Is too busy to come tomorrow.”

“Oh.” She frowned, “Can I draw him a picture? For when he comes back?”

Ye-jun sighed, surrendered and said “Yeah baby, you can draw big Chi-chi a picture.”

Still alive, cradling his still alive daughter, Ye-jun went back to pack up his bag. Fuck work, they were going home.

[fountainpenguin]

"I learned quickly that perseverance stood between a cat and her new best friend- (Me!)" (x)

---

New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 14 - “Kindle (Pearl, Impulse)”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

---

Pearl's barely begun playing Session 2 when Scott calls her back to the portal hub. See, she's on the buddy program list, and there's a new refugee in New Star Station who's a little... Well. Different. His name is Rhetoric, and in the eyes of the game, he doesn't exist.

While Pearl sorts that out, Impulse mines the ore to craft a clock...

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

PearlescentMoon - Bat

Quarry: Etho

Hunter: Unknown

Allegiance: Lush Cave Alliance

💚  💛  ❤️

Pearl is on-server for what feels like eight minutes and eleven seconds before Scott logs onto Dog's Life, pleads for her, Ren, and Martyn to log out, and jumps off again. Pearl relays this information to Tango, who turns his head. He, uh… He doesn't push away from the thin ring of basalt that stands between them and a drop to certain splashy lava death. He's leaning over it pretty far. And that's fine! To each their own, y'know?

Still kinda stresses me out, though. Since ghasts can die from their own fireballs, I'm not sure they're fireproof… so I'm glad I'm not the one carrying those hybrid traits right now.

A ripple passes down Tango's white-tipped tail, though his expression is curious, not annoyed. Several ghast tendrils lie long and coiled around him. A few of them ripple too, and Pearl is grateful for the new mod she put (with Grian's blessing) that spells the word Ghast above his head. Finally, Tango does flip around, though he braces his elbows on the wall. "Well, I mean… He must need you for something pretty serious if he's pulling you away this early. C'mon, though… It's only been a couple seconds for him since you came on, right?"

That is weird… Pearl glances over the rim of the basalt drop. One relatively small ghast bobs below. It's one of the little ones translucent enough to show its massive beating heart. "I guess so? I've not actually taken the time to experiment with the way it works. It's so confusing living in Simmers' Quarter-"

"Oh, yeah… Yeah, they play around with time a lot over there, don't they? That'll really mess you up. Some of your neighbors pop back the next day zoned out of their minds like they've been gone for years, right?"

Pearl chuckles. Sort of. It's mostly drowned in the distant, warbled mews of ghasts and the crackle of the lava. The Nether air is thick with smoke. The oxygen is thick here. She really needs a drink. At least this should be a quick visit… She doesn't plan to stay here with Tango half as long as she did with Martyn back in Double Life. But if they get carried away… Cleo and Jimmy will understand. Probably. At least they have each other.

Actually, given Cleo's track record, maybe I do want to be careful.

She checks the comm again. You know, there's something pathetic and cruel about all this. The irony is omnipresent and its laughs tickle at her ears. Scott certainly wanted nothing to do with her in Double Life, even though they got along well the season before. They thrived, actually, back in Last Life. He won the season and Pearl made it to the final four. They faced each other in the finals of Double Life with snow up to their ankles, Scott clutching Cleo's limp body in his arms and Pearl holding a panting wolf by the collar, fingers wedged beneath the leather strap.

How fitting, y'know… all the snow. Wind whistled, swishing snowflakes through the air. Few words were exchanged. Mostly staring eyes and heaving chests. Puffing breaths, visible in the air. Wolves growled, Scott bent his head over Cleo's unmoving form, and splintered sparks curled down both their cheeks. It always ends like this, in Grian's games. They always start of fun and full of life, then tear her to her core.

She loves the rush. She really does.

Double Life ended in a burst of TNT, set off at Scott's own hand. And maybe they didn't get along, and maybe it had its miserable and lonely moments (especially where roleplay and Between interactions blurred into bitter avoidance, like he didn't want to see her at all).

Two seasons later, here he is… come crawling back to coax her from the dark. What's she to do with that information? Scott probably wouldn't taste his own medicine even if she poured it in a sugar spoon and shoved it straight down his throat. He'd cough it up and squirm and spit it right back in her face.

Well, maybe I could do a little better at inviting him out in Between… Without regular Empires interaction, she sort of fell off the map where Scott's concerned. Maybe she likes it that way.

And maybe I don't.

It's… difficult (hanging out with Scott) because it's easy (for Tango and Jimmy to get along; for Martyn and Cleo to have clear lines of disinterest in the sand; for Etho and Joel to tumble twinkle-eyed into mischief even after all this time). This feeling swishing inside her soul isn't even jealousy. Seriously, that is not the issue. Muddlement might be the better word. Confusion and muddlement.

And it's not hard because of Double Life, exactly, because roleplay isn't supposed to cut this deep. It's difficult for reasons undefinable. It's difficult because it doesn't have to be. Scott never meant to, but he made the rejection hurt a lot more, y'know? To do this so soon after he came out to her about the whole 'allay' thing and pressed forward, practically pleading for an extension of their queerplatonic relationship to cross from Last Life into Between. He was coming off a break-up with Jimmy. He probably wasn't in his best frame of mind, and the emotions of Last Life were still tangled and raw for both of them.

She did turn him down, though. You know, that's what really stinks. Why does she feel so much guilt about it, even after all this time? She really handled that information overload as best as she possibly could. She didn't do it over comm. She didn't drag it out. It was all in private, too, though maybe she could've waited for him to put his jacket on again. And she looked him in the eyes (most the time), and saw two little hearts break inside his pupils like shattered snow globes dumping liquid to the floor.

"I'm sorry, Scott… I'm not really interested…"

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[ladyhoneydee]

30 Day Song(fic) Challenge: Day 4

The prompt today for my Song(fic) Challenge was "song you listened to most recently". I must admit I did a little fudging on this--I simply couldn't come up with something for the song I'd most recently listened to ("Standing Next to You" by Jungkook, for those curious), so I opened up a playlist made for me by a beloved irl friend and fellow zelink writer, Gourdkin. What played was the instrumental piece "Elk (Acoustic)" by TTNG, and the trumpets set to peaceful guitar took me immediately to the mental image of...a goron in a forest. Of course, there's only one iconic goron consistently found in a forest in the LoZ series to my knowledge: Gorko!

Written in Stone

Game: Skyward Sword, very early on in the game

Pairing: None

Word Count: 847

Keywords: character study, peaceful

“Goddess, if you want to send down one of your sky people to teach me, I would appreciate it!” he calls up to the heavens. The angle strains his neck, and he tips his chin back down with a rumbled laugh. He’ll never meet such a person, of course, but it sure is nice to dream. 

Read the fic on Ao3, or under the cut!

You might think the woods are no place for a goron, and you might be right. But Gorko had never been great at listening to public opinion. His ears had always been tuned to the voices of those long past, after all. Even though, as he’d once heard from his Papa Stone before setting off, that archaeology and myth were no fields for a goron—lava fields were. He’d just let the words roll right off the plating of his back, and left them there on the igneous ground between them.

Gorko has been outside the Sealed Grounds for the greater part of two weeks now. His most recent pilgrimage—back from Lanayru, the mines of which being the other location he can’t stay away from—is set with supplies of felsite and basalt from home for three more moons, and then he’ll need to move on. But for now, he finds himself back at the temple. 

During the mornings, like any archaeologist worth his rock salt, Gorko gets to work at studying the temple. Over the years, he’s very carefully tested the stone from which it’s built (he has a very refined, built-in palette for such a thing, after all) and gone on field trips to the overgrown open-air mine two leagues away that the stone was quarried from. He’s detailed blueprints of the structure’s exterior and endless sketches of the carvings etched into it. A few times, the old woman who lives alone there has allowed him inside the temple, and he very respectfully recorded every observation he could. He’s hopeful that she’ll grant him entry this time, too.

In the afternoons, Gorko indulges in racing down the huge pit in the temple grounds, gleefully gathering speed along the downward spiral. He’s gotten his overall time down to a mere two minutes, without cutting any corners by dropping a level. It’s quite impressive, if he says so himself.

At night, he camps out below the stars, chowing down into a rock roast or tossing back handfuls of gravel, and he imagines the joy of someday having an apprentice he can share all his research with. 

This morning, Gorko has switched tracks a little, so to speak. Rather than the temple or its grounds, he’s investigating the bird statue outside its eastern border. He’s always found it intriguing—a landmark for people coming up or down from the sky? How would people up in the clouds notice such a little marker? They’d have better luck aiming for the big honking temple just a few dozen paces to the west, surely! It’s a shame the whole thing has long been papered over with lichens and mosses, and the runes on its surface weathered by the Faron region’s annual rainy seasons, or else maybe it would have more information for him. All Gorko’s been able to find about the bird statues, to date, comes from dusty scrolls and tomes.

After pacing circles around the statue, recording every detail in his sketchbook—it’s the same as any other sprinkled across the land, down to the purple shade of the old paint, but he’s nothing if not thorough—Gorko pauses in the center of the clearing to study it from a greater distance.

He’s always been fond of the birds featured on each of the statues. All the same variety, no matter the region a particular statue might be found in. He’s never seen a bird quite like them, even among the waterbirds near Lake Floria and the waterways between regions, and he wonders what importance they must have held to those long-ago civilizations. On his most homesick of days, when he misses the sulfur scent of the mountain and the taste of his Papa Stone’s obsidi-bites, it’s a comfort to see the big-billed bird in the desert vistas of Lanayru or the tucked-away temple hidden in the depths of Faron.

Great goddess, he wishes he were able to swim, and not just sink like a rock! Someday he’ll make it across the water and through that tantalizing koi-mouth entryway, instead of just sketching its contours from the shade of a nearby tree. Maybe he should ask the kikwis and the Water Dragon for permission to cut down some trees to build a bridge, one of these days. But he digresses. 

Gorko shifts his weight to one leg and rubs his chin thoughtfully, as the sun creeps higher overhead. Once again, a morning spent coming up with more new questions than answers. But then, that’s the whole reason he’s here. And there, and everywhere, and not just sitting at home in the same dusty mine all day. To learn, and learn, and learn.

But sometimes, it would be nice to get some answers…

“Goddess, if you want to send down one of your sky people to teach me, I would appreciate it!” he calls up to the heavens. The angle strains his neck, and he tips his chin back down with a rumbled laugh. He’ll never meet such a person, of course, but it sure is nice to dream. 

In the distance, a bone horn blows. 

[crystal-verse]

A snippet of beckoned by sunlight and freedom (obscured by visions and mystery), the planned fic that'll span ARR as experienced by Mehka and K'pheli.

A'mehka'ahma was not familiar with ships or the salty sea. Both things were rare in Gelmorra -- as would be expected, considering Gelmorra was an underground city. There were rivers that ran through the tunnels and hollowed-out caves, and a few small pools that were large enough to swim in, but no proper lakes, and certainly no sea.

Standing on the deck of that great ship, as it sailed through the ocean waters, she couldn't say that she disliked it. A'mehka'ahma had shed her old identity upon rising aboveground, leaving those caves to follow that call from the gods (that wanderlust in her blood, that need to see what was out there) -- she wore her new name, Mehka Awandah, like a tightly-fitting shirt or bracelet, and hoped that she could keep Gelmorra hidden. As was always the hope -- as was always the danger. As far as she knew, Limsa Lominsa had little knowledge of Gelmorra, not nearly as much a risk as going to Gridania would have been (and Mehka did worry for her cousin, Sae'pheli'ehva), but one should always be safe rather than sorry.

Mehka (and that was her name now, here -- she had to think of herself as Mehka) was lucky that her clothes, while a bit odd, didn't draw more than a passing eye. Mehka Awandah was a Miqo'te from the middle of the Twelveswood, seeking glory and adventure by leaving her clan and traveling to Limsa Lominsa. She was experienced moderately in the lance, as her clan had used for hunting, and in daggers, which were used for smaller prey or skinning hunts. She had taken up the axe in hopes it would serve her in coming times. She had little coin, basic knowledge of Eorzea's geography and politics, and wanted to see what the world was like.

A'mehka'ahma would keep hidden any mention of Gelmorra -- of its silkmoths the size of an antelope, raised and bred for silk and meat; of its large caverns with stone reaching high above, buildings and small shrines and little walls made from stone mined from the cavern around them, quicklime and basalt and dolomite; of the aether-filled light-crystals, glowing enough for the people to see. Of the way her people crept aboveground, through the stone passageways and through the darkness, to see the stars on hallowed days and to see the sun on others, or those reckless enough to go aboveground just to feel the breeze. Of the way the plants all glow that soft blue-purple, bioluminescence grown into them. Of the way Gelmorra, its Duskwights who had lived amidst the underground dusk and quiet rivers and threat of Gridania's elementals, thrived in its secrecy, lived despite everything, taught their people the history and common knowledge of aboveground, the culture of the different city-states of Eorzea and of Gyr Albania and of Ilsabard, that should they go aboveground they would have covers made, an aboveground identity with enough knowledge that they would not be found out.

It is why A'mehka'ahma and Mehka Awandah are one and the same, really. The same person, just a different past worn -- names worn like a cloak or a pretty outfit, to keep one's past told to only those who were trusted. Knowing of Eorzea and Gyr Albania and Ilsabard.

(There are a great many Garleans living in Gelmorra, just as there are a great many Miqo'te and Elezen. Some of these Garleans are born Duskwights, proudly claiming that word that Gridania had painted on those who'd chosen to stay underground all those centuries ago. Some of these Garleans are imperial defectors, looking for somewhere safe, and taken down to Gelmorra by the Duskwights. Some of the Elezen, too, and the Miqo'te -- most of the aboveground Duskwights aren't aware of Gelmorra, so 'tis up to the belowground Duskwights to find them, to offer them that home again, where the Wildwoods will not blame them for simply being born to a legacy of loyalty.)

Regardless of all this -- her name is Mehka. Mehka Awandah. Adventurer seeking glory and adventure in Limsa Lominsa. She stands on the deck of that ship, as it leaves its harbor in Thanalan, and turns her face up to the sky -- lets the sea breeze surround her, blow her hair in one direction and then the other, lets the waves rock her from side to side.

"Not used to the sea breeze, eh?" Comments one of the other people on this ship -- a Roegadyn, with a blue tint to his skin and long lavender hair. The book strapped by his hip suggests she's a woman of magic. "Yer a Keeper of the Moon, I see."

"How could you tell?" Mehka asks, words entirely sincere. She knows that she does not particularly look like a Seeker of the Sun or a Keeper of the Moon -- by her height she is Gelmorran, as tall as any Elezen or Garlean (taller, even, than some of her female Elezen friends), Her pupils are rounded as opposed to the slit pupils of her mother, but she's got the shorter fangs more common to Seekers of the sun, rather than the longer fangs one would expect from a Keeper of the Moon. (And, as well -- she's not been smiling that wide from the sea breeze, has she?)

The Roegadyn woman just chortles, and slaps Mehka's back. "Ye've confirmed it jus' now, lass!"

Ah. Or that.

"I hope ye don' think I'm bein' rude." The woman continues. "I know plenty'a Keepers who'd tan my hide for callin' 'em a Seeker just based off their looks. But ye seemed a new adventurer, and I made a lucky guess about ye not bein' the type to take offense if I guessed wrong." She stretches one arm, then motions for Mehka to follow her. "It's gettin' late. We'd best be goin' below deck to rest."

The woman's got a good point -- it is getting quite dark, now that Mehka bothers to pay attention to the light of the sky. Nowhere near as dark as would be troublesome for her -- she is Gelmorran born and raised, after all, and all Gelmorran-born are used to low light levels -- but dark enough that one might want to think about sleeping. "My thanks," she tells the woman, and gives a small smile. "I'm Mehka Awandah. Might I have your name?"

The woman grins back at her. "Solkwyda Aerbremwyn, Limsa Lominsa born and raised!" She pulls the book from her hip, and after a brief second with a flare of aether a creature appears -- small, thin, and foxlike, colored blue save for the red crystal on its head, with a three-forked tail. "An' this 'ere's my Carbuncle!"

Carbuncle, now named, sneezes, and jumps on top of the also newly-named Solkwyda's shoulders.

Mehka smiles in what she hopes is a polite manner. "'Tis good to meet you, then." The conversation cuts off from there -- Mehka and Solkwyda parting ways as they descend belowdeck. Mehka stops by the galley for a quick bite of dinner, and then heads to the sleeping quarters aboard the ship. Her own room is small, but decently furnished -- a bed, a dresser bolted to the floor for one to store their things in -- and Mehka lays down with a sigh, glad to be off her feet even if the rocking of the ship is a bit unsettling now that she's on her back, surrounded by wood and steel.

She rolls over, and closes her eyes. Tomorrow she'll arrive at Limsa Lominsa -- and then her life as an adventurer will begin, and she can finally work towards the explanation for that strange calling she'd felt those few months ago.

[spitzyyyy]

some old stuffs that i figured i might as well share since i went back and reread it. not posting the entire fic, as it makes little to no sense and is unfinished, so here! take it!

also content warnings: character death, implied blood and gore, uh. basalt ends up talking about some of their horrific deaths to cope with the fact that gabbro dies during this loop. the context is also under there.

Wrote these three snippets a LONG time ago, as part of a full 5k thing that makes very little sense on its own. (Was a part of The Hourglass Tips, which I have lost a lot of motivation for (also also my writing style has changed a LOT since chapter 4))

The full context for this moment is because of a previous part, in which the hatchling tries to take Chert to the Sunless City to attempt to distract them, but it goes wrong and the two end up trapped inside of a housing unit and can't get out as the sand is rising. They then go to see Gabbro next loop, since they've been thoroughly traumatized, only to find them dead.

[thesebattlescarsarebeautiful]

Suddenly Vernon beamed at her. “Look outside,” he said softly, cradling her hand between his. Peering through the window of the carriage, Cirilla gasped. They were just drawing across the ridge, and beyond she could see white road winding across the hills. Sharp black basalt cliffs formed the background, overgrown and dotted with flowering bushes and trees. Where the capital had been grey and stormy when they departed, spring had already come to these hills. The burst of red and violet bushes in front of the black cliffs were marvelous, and the fragrance of them even made it past the windows of the carriage. “It’s beautiful…” Strong, warm hands squeezed hers. “The garden districts usually have an early spring, because the mountains shield them from the rough sea winds,” Vernon said.

Marina, please, Im begging on my hands and knees take it to the witcher sideblog. @windflowerofskellige I know you know it exists. Why are you sending me fic snippets? WHERE IS THIS SET? I NEED YOU TO GO TO THE SIDEBLOG I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE SHIP WHERE IS THIS TAKING PLACE THAT AINT VIZIMA.