#become less clumsy perhaps

[edibleorphans]

god gives his ouchiest mouths to his bravest soldiers (I have 3 canker sores and started crying while eating my sandwich)

[factual-fantasy]

*Pulles out the Welcome Home Wiki and clears throat*

So, to start with, are there any elements of the Welcome home crew being a tv show? Any "neighbor" that Wally talks too?

Who would be the most likely to figure out Wally's house is alive? Can Home speak or are they limited to onomatopoeias?

Canonically, Wally can only do the Mash Potato, is your version of him a better or worse dancer? Is anyone particularly skilled at something you wouldn't think they'd be? (eg: Frank having mad crochet skills)

Who feels the most comfortable around Wally? Are any of the neighbors unerved by his sleep depreived behaviors at times?

If Poppy found Sally as a youngin, how did that happen on a scale of Thumbalina to Stitch?

How much of a jokster is Barnaby, has he ever gone too far with his jokes? What's his go to for lifting the spirits of his neighbors?

Does Julie love games just as much here? If so, how strict is she with the rules of them? Especially safety rules. Does she create new games often or stick with the same couple and occasionally introduce new ones as the current ones become less fun?

How much of a bug lover is Frank? Does it ever bother him that all his friends names end with -ly/ie and his last name does that instead of his first?

What is your current idea for Sally? More gremlin or fancy? Maybe a bit of both, reserving all her self-control for the stage?

Is Howdy's bugdega his most prized possession, or no more then it would be for a normal person? How receptive is he to jokes?

Would the town of Welcome Home still use Jokes are currency, or would you switch it to a more standard kind of money?

Hope that's enough for ya XD

XD I couldn't help myself, I interpreted that question about Franks name as a funny drawing prompt! XDD Now onto your other questions..

1: Are there any elements of the Welcome home crew being a tv show? Any "neighbor" that Wally talks too?

Nahh, there aren't any elements of their world being a show or a Y/N and/or neighbor that Wally talks too. Its just the neighbors and their world is very real to them! :0

2: Who would be the most likely to figure out Wally's house is alive? Can Home speak or are they limited to onomatopoeias?

I don't have any plans for anyone to find out Home is alive.. but if anyone ever did, Wally, Eddie and Barnaby would be good candidates. Wally because he lives there and is pretty sensitive to Home's energy. Eddie because he is very sensitive to homes energy.. and Barnaby, because he's really close to Wally and is looking in on this situation with a clear and level head. Perhaps he would notice things that Eddie and Wally are too scatterbrained to notice..

Also yes! :0 Home cannot speak and is limited to onomatopoeias!

3: Canonically, Wally can only do the Mash Potato, is your version of him a better or worse dancer?

I'd like to think my Wally is capable of learning new dances, but he's just not particularly interested.. <XD so yeah! Only the mashed potato for my Wally too XDD

4: Is anyone particularly skilled at something you wouldn't think they'd be?

I have a few in mind for surprising skills! My Barnaby is surprisingly good at sewing! He learned it from his mama 🥺��💞 Julie is- well, to the surprise of the neighbors at least- really good at making campfires from scratch and other outdoorsy things! :0 And lastly, Eddie is known for being clumsy and forgetful.. but surprisingly he has fantastic handwriting. Beautiful cursive, perfectly spaced out, perfect punctuation, never smudges, all the "I"s are dotted and every "T" is crossed. He never has to erase and never spells anything wrong! Eddie doesn't know how he got so good at it.. Its just always been like that he says. hmm..

Technically Barnaby would feel the most comfortable around Wally, since they're best friends an all.. :0 But no one is uncomfortable around Wally due to his sleepy behaviors! The neighbors mostly feel pity for the poor guy.. it cant be fun to never get a good nights sleep..

5: Who feels the most comfortable around Wally? Are any of the neighbors unnerved by his sleep deprived behaviors at times?

6: If Poppy found Sally as a youngin, how did that happen on a scale of Thumbalina to Stitch?

I cant really remember the stories of Stitch and Thumbalina that well... but I'd say it might be more like Stitch..? <XD Sally was super excited to explore everything and go everywhere. So she was quite the handful! Like I think Stitch was..?

7: How much of a jokester is Barnaby, has he ever gone too far with his jokes? What's his go to for lifting the spirits of his neighbors?

Barnaby is a Sans level jokester XDD Fitting puns and jokes into almost every other sentence! But thankfully he's rather observant and doesn't ever go too far. He knows what jokes are and are not appropriate to say around certain neighbors. He also can tell if its a good or bad time to crack a joke.. when it comes to lifting the spirits of his neighbors.. his go-to will depend on the neighbor. For Howdy, Julie or Eddie, he just needs a few good jokes with maybe a sprinkle of life advice in there to get them smiling again.

For Poppy or Wally, his go-to is usually to talk to them rather seriously and figure out what's wrong..

If Poppy is upset, it usually because she's anxious about something. So Barnaby will try to figure out what's wrong so he can help her fix the problem or maybe comfort her if its worry over nothing..

If Wally is visibly upset, usually that means something is really wrong.. Barnaby probably wont let up in until he figures out what happened and is able to help his poor buddy..

8: Does Julie love games just as much here? If so, how strict is she with the rules of them? Especially safety rules. Does she create new games often or stick with the same couple and occasionally introduce new ones as the current ones become less fun?

I'd like to think that my Julie loves games too! :)) She is lenient on any and all rules if all the other players agree to it. In a way changing the rules creates a whole new game! But safety rules are no breakers! Gotta keep her friends safe after all! And I think Julie only switches it up and tries new games once her neighbors are bored with the current selection :00

9: How much of a bug lover is Frank?

Well considering my Frank moved to this neighborhood specifically so he could study and live alongside all the creepy crawlies there.. I'd says he loves them with all his heart! XDDD (Also never call them creepy crawlies around Frank, he hates that!)

10: What is your current idea for Sally? More gremlin or fancy? Maybe a bit of both, reserving all her self-control for the stage?

Right now I'm resisting the urge to make her a 100% chaotic gremlin <XDD Since I don't know if that fits her canon character very well.. I'm leaning more towards a passionate and sassy theater kid atm 🤣🤣🤣

11: Is Howdy's bugdega his most prized possession, or no more then it would be for a normal person? How receptive is he to jokes?

(AOIJASJFF I JUST GOT IT-- BUGDEGA XDD) Its his most prized possession! He treats it better than he does himself to be honest! <XDD And he has a great passion for the quality of the products he sells too!

As for jokes, my Howdy loves a good joke. There's a rumor if you make him laugh, he'll give you a discount! 👀👀

12: Would the town of Welcome Home still use Jokes are currency, or would you switch it to a more standard kind of money?

The canon uses jokes as currency?? :0 Huh.. I didn't know that, I intended to make my neighbors all have jobs. But I guess that begs the question, what jobs do they have.. I guess that's still a work in progress <XD

Anyways- thank you for all the questions! :DD These were a blast to answer, and I hope you had fun reading them! XDD

[hueseok]

( 01. ) EASY MONEY, EASY LOVE.

you and namjoon have been married for five years.

despite being strangers who solely exchanged wedding vows to trick his filthy rich family into giving him his inheritance, being part of this scheme is surprisingly easy. he’s out of the country most of the time, you’re being compensated for being a model wife, and there are only a few things you two have to to do in order to keep up with the whole guise of being a happy married couple.

with less than three months to go until you get divorced, namjoon comes back from a business trip and stays with you at your shared house, waiting until d-day with the aim of sending off your odd friendship with a proper farewell. but it’s weird, because just when things are supposed to be easiest—that’s when everything is suddenly becoming complicated, and the two of you realized once again that there really is no such thing as easy money (or easy love).

pairing: namjoon x reader

word count: 3.3k

rating: NC-17

content: fluff, angst, marriage of convenience au, strangers to friends to lovers au, dash of fake dating au, and they were housemates au???? | ft. chaebol!namjoon + travel photographer!namjoon; office worker!reader

warning/s: swearing, mentions of a sickness, mommy issues, unsupportive family, depictions of loneliness / sadness, character death (no major characters though!), mentions of falling of a cliff bc of clumsiness lmao (nobody dies dw)

[ chaptex index. ]

EPISODE 01. the one with the emergency !

you shouldn’t have been too confident. if only you’ve been more humble and less greedy during your hike earlier with your workmates for the bi-annual team building event, you wouldn’t have literally fallen off the side of the cliff and ended up spraining your ankle pretty bad.

what were you thinking, honestly? you’ve never been an active person ever in your life. you hated cardio, you hated sweating, you hated waking up early in the morning to do exercise—yet for some reason, you were pumped for the activity that was scheduled for today. it’s the reason why as you were trudging along the trail with your co-workers, yapping and laughing loudly with a close colleague, you didn’t notice that a particularly huge rock on your way set you off balance and caused you to sway to your right, plummeting over the ridge with a loud yelp.

it’s a good thing that there were paramedics stationed at the base of the mountain where all of you were trekking on, perhaps anticipating for an incident like yours to come along that’ll have them doing their duty. as soon as your team leader used the walkie-talkie given to your group to call them for their help, there were four people with bright orange uniforms aiding you, checking your condition and placing you on a stretcher before carrying you to the monorail where you’ll be transported back down.

haein, your said close colleague, accompanied you as they brought you to the infirmary.

“were you possessed by an athletic ghost?” she asks once the doctor finished treating your sprained ankle, now advising you to get a bit of rest. “what made you think it was smart to walk too fast? you must have been crazy.”

“i must have,” you say, laughing because you rather laugh than complain about the pain that you’re feeling. it’s subsiding at the moment, thankfully, but you can only imagine what the next few days are going to be for you due to the injury. “god, i’m happy though that i didn’t get to roll all the way. if that happened, i would have suffered a greater fall and then i’d be on the news.”

“yeah. you’d be a legend to the company too. we’d make an altar in your cubicle for a good few months.”

“i’d be the story that hiking guides would share to the hikers to scare them into being careful.”

“we’d pay tribute to you at every christmas party. we’d make a slideshow and present that during the whole event.”

“really?”

“of course. i’d be in charge of making the powerpoint even.”

you stare at her, haein staring back, and then the both of you burst out laughing. you’re grateful that she volunteered to be with you when the paramedics declared that they needed to bring you down—although in the back of your head, you do think she’s just being a good friend as an excuse to not walk her way back to the ground with the rest later on after they reach the top and enjoy the magnificent view.

“by the way,” she takes a seat on the chair beside the bed you’re situated in, “someone named kim namjoon is going to pick you up and drive you home.”

the second his name tumbles out of her lips, you’re snapping your head towards her, shocked. “what?”

“when you passed out a bit after the fall, i got your phone and did the thing to make it call your emergency contact. he’s the one who answered.”

“namjoon answered?”

“yup.”

“but i… i don’t remember making him my emergency contact.”

“well, like i said, he’s the one who answered.” she shrugs. “why? is he an ex or something?”

you press your lips together, suddenly panicking at the thought of namjoon arriving here.

there’s nothing wrong with namjoon, really. he’s a pleasing person to have around: genuine, kind, and full of profound thoughts that you can’t help but hang onto every word he says. however, as haein made evident, no one knows about your relationship with him and true nature of it—and you’ve done everything you can in the past year and a half since joining the company to keep it that way, deeming it unnecessary to disclose the fact that kim namjoon is your husband when the both of you aren’t bound to stay married forever.

to you, he’s just a ridiculously rich man who needed to get married for at least five years in order to get the full amount of his inheritance from his grandmother.

to him, you’re just a middle class woman who needed money to pay for her sister’s leukemia treatments, introduced together by a mutual friend who knew that both of you can benefit from each other’s situations.

in other words, your marriage with him isn’t technically real. and it’s why you rather not let anyone in your workplace know that he’s your husband, especially since you’ve managed to keep a low profile about it all these months. you don’t want to give your officemates a reason to gossip about you in the present time or when you divorce namjoon—the latter frankly scheduled to happen in less than three months from now.

****

namjoon arrives an hour later.

you take notice of him immediately while haein’s babbling about the book she recently read, recognizing him as the tall man who enters the small clinic, going to the desk to talk to the staff waiting there. you watch as the latter points to where your bed is, namjoon promptly turning to your direction, your gazes meeting before his eyes focus on your sprained ankle, expression contorting in a mix of confusion and disappointment.

beside you, haein taps your arm, noticing namjoon’s arrival as well. “is that…?”

you swallow hard. “yeah, that’s him.”

“holy shit. he’s hot.”

“don’t—” you grit your teeth. “don’t say that. it’s weird.”

“why? i have eyes—i’m just saying what i see.”

“yeah, but—”

“are you weirded out because he’s a relative? like your brother?” haein cuts you. “wait, you mentioned before that you have a sibling. is that him?”

“he’s not a sibling.”

“then who—”

namjoon stops on the foot of your bed, causing haein to shut up now that he’s within earshot. he’s still staring at your ankle, like it inflated to twice its original size, and you actually don’t know what to say. although you’ve developed a close friendship over the years of this sham marriage, you always seem to restart whenever he returns from a business trip of his—and it’s only been a couple of days since his return to south korea, having just come back from spain for his latest project.

it’s worth mentioning too that you feel strange having an audience like haein around that renders you clueless on how to act.

he lets out a slow whistle, crossing his arms. “and you say i’m clumsy.”

you huff out a chuckle, namjoon grinning that releases the charm of his dimples.

“uh, i’m haein,” your friend stands up from her seat and extends a hand out, obviously enthralled by how handsome he is. “i’m the one who called you using ___’s phone. namjoon, isn’t it?”

namjoon shakes her hand. “oh, yes. it’s nice to meet you.”

“wow. you have a very tight grip.”

“haein,” you scold, slapping her wrist that causes their handshake to cease. if it isn’t apparent enough, haein doesn’t have a filter nor cares enough to stop saying the first thing that comes to her mind. “stop being weird.”

she turns to you. “i’m not being weird. i’m complimenting him.”

“how is commenting how tight his grip is a compliment?” you demand.

“it’s a compliment because i’m making it clear that i find him strong,” she explains, focusing on namjoon again. “sorry. do you feel offended by what i said?”

he appears amused. “not really.”

“see?” haein tells you.

you’re about to quip back a reply when she beats you to it.

“anyways,” she says and namjoon stifles a laugh, “if you don’t mind me asking, how are you and ____ related?”

at the question, you send him a signal with your eyes, asking him not to tell the truth, regardless if that’s wrong of you to do so. one of the things you had to keep in mind upon agreeing with this arrangement is that neither of you should ever deny the marriage whatsoever, a precautionary measure because you two were that paranoid that the news might reach namjoon’s parents.

from the looks of it, despite namjoon understanding where you’re getting at as you give him the most bizarre expressions, he does the opposite (perhaps mainly due to what was explained above), resulting into you hanging your head low, waiting how haein will react at the revelation that will be served on her plate.

“i’m her husband actually,” namjoon says casually. 

haein cackles out loud. “husband?” she repeats. “that’s really funny—you’re a funny guy. but seriously, how do you two know each other?”

he raises an eyebrow. “i’m not joking.”

“sure you are, but this girl right here isn’t married.” she does a show of holding you in an affectionate headlock. “she doesn’t even have a boyfriend.”

“did she tell you that?” he’s teasing, glancing at you for some sort of confirmation.

haein averts her attention to you. 

you look at them, switching from namjoon to haein to namjoon and back to haein. 

“i mean…you never asked, and i never said i was single,” you tell haein, shrugging and acting as nonchalant as ever.

it’s half the truth, ‘cause as far as you’re concerned, you’ve been diligent in always wearing your wedding and engagement ring. you even make it a point not to appear interested in any offers of blind dates or group dates to ever imply that you’re single as well.

she gawks at you, like she’s waiting for you to take back what you said. “are you being for real right now?”

“i am.”

“if this is some elaborate prank—”

“it’s not a prank,” you say. 

there’s silence, and then she practically screams.

“YOU’RE MARRIED?” haein bellows, attracting everybody’s attention inside the infirmary. “we’ve known each other for more than a year and only now do i discover that you’re married?”

before she can berate you and force you to tell her your entire relationship history, namjoon’s asking for your bag and helping you sit up, aiming to lead you to the car waiting outside. haein almost stops him, declaring with conviction that she literally can’t wait until the next office day to get the full scoop, but he kindly reiterates what the ER doctor he spoke with earlier said, insisting that he ought to bring you home as soon as possible so you can get the rest that you need after over exerting your body for today’s hike.

“everything. you need to tell me everything on monday,” she says when namjoon goes out for a minute to deliver your bag first to the vehicle. she’s giddy and jumpy and very hyper about what you can guess is because of her latest discovery. “also, i’m sorry about calling your husband hot earlier. i wouldn’t have done so if i knew.”

you grin, appreciating the fact that she felt the need to apologize for that. “it’s no biggie. you didn’t know.”

“yeah, which you really should apologize about.”

“i’m sorry.” your grin only stretches wider. “i’ll buy you a matcha latte on monday to make up for it.”

her face lights up.

you share your farewells as namjoon returns, namjoon saying goodbye to haein too. she leaves first, remembering that she needs to inform the rest of your co-workers that you’re fine and headed home, and once you and your husband are alone, he takes a good look at you again.

“should i carry you?” he asks.

you blink at him. he may be reliable, but he is also extremely clumsy. “you’re not asking the right questions, joon.”

“wow. you can really be cruel sometimes, you know?” he laughs. “then should i get a wheelchair?”

“no wheelchair please. i think i can walk to the car just fine.” you begin standing up.

“you sure?” he doesn’t even let you answer that, his hand just naturally goes to support your elbow. “you might fall.”

you pause, calculating how many steps it’s going to take until you reach your destination. you’re fine, really; your good foot is perfectly walkable and you’re convinced it can take the burden of not having its pair in ample condition. however, you might need to hold onto namjoon for you not to fall halfway like he already stated, and you’re not really keen on being that close to him no matter how amazing his cologne smells even a few inches away.

“a wheelchair would be ideal,” you say.

namjoon chuckles, nodding and getting it with the assistance of a staff member. 

in minutes, you’re on the passenger seat and he’s climbing on the other side. you don’t expect it but you’re relieved at the thought of coming home earlier than planned. though you’ve conditioned yourself to enjoy this team building and take this time to get into camping, you were horrified when you learned that there wouldn’t be any shower rooms or portable toilets at least at the area that you’re heading at after the hike, this retreat meant to give each one of you the raw camping experience.

come to think of it, perhaps it was your subconscious that prompted you to inflict this accident on yourself in order to avoid shitting on the ground in case your stomach hurts.

“comfortable?” namjoon glances at you. “you can recline the chair if you want to sleep.”

“oh, okay. thanks.” you smile. 

he smiles back, starting the engine. you subtly watch him while he does that, admiring how he seems so adept in driving now compared to when you first met him. you remember his reluctance in the past to drive due to his fear of messing up, yet he managed to drive for approximately two hours in most likely gravelly roads to get where you are.

“thanks too for coming here, joon. i hope i didn’t bother you. honestly, i don’t even remember putting you as my emergency contact,” you sheepishly add.

“no problem, and i think hoseok did,” he says. “i remember him mentioning that i should put you as mine before.”

hoseok is the mutual friend that introduced you both together when namjoon was still trying to find a fake wife to obtain the full amount of his inheritance in five years time. he was aware of namjoon’s ploy and knew that you were in need of money during that year as well—and so putting two and two together, he set up a ‘date slash chemistry test’ between you and namjoon and reckoned that you could be great help to one another regarding your respective needs.

“that makes sense. i just don’t know how he did that without my knowledge.”

“well, nothing’s been impossible for hobi, so…”

you agree with a snort.

“by the way, i should mention this before you doze off,” he abruptly halts as he’s beginning to drive off, “mom’s inviting us to dinner this weekend. she heard that i was back in the country and wanted to see how i am.”

you gradually digest that information. “okay. is everyone going to be there?”

“yes, based on our last conversation.”

“should i be prepared for anything at all?”

he seems to find the inquiry funny. “no. just the usual.”

“meaning i should block off every passive aggressive comment your mom makes about either my choice of clothes and social status, right?”

“pretty much, yeah.”

you let out a groan.

“i’m sorry. i would have declined her request but she wouldn’t stop pestering me about it.”

“god, i just really don’t like your mom, joon.” you say. “or your dad. or your older brother. i don’t like everyone, basically—except your pet dog, hiro. no offense.”

“that’s fine. i don’t like them either.” he shrugs, carrying on driving. “plus, you know i’m on your team. i’d defend your honor to death.”

“of course. it’s what makes attending these things tolerable.”

“well, if it makes you feel better, this might be the last family function you’d have to attend.”

you raise your eyebrows, recalling the reason why. “woah, shit, you’re right.”

in less than three months, you’re getting divorced and namjoon’s getting even more money than he already has.

in less than three months, he’s going to share some of the portion of what’s left of his inheritance and it’ll be the last time you’ll receive financial help from him.

it also might be the last time you’ll be with him in general, and though there’s a side of you that’s glad not to be tied down anymore, you can’t say that you’re glad of possibly losing contact with namjoon, having grown fond of his presence in a way.

facing him, you blurt out the first thing that occurs in your mind. “when we get divorced, can i keep my engagement ring?”

namjoon chuckles. “that’s up to you. there’s no reason for me to take it back.”

“but what if you fall in love with a woman someday and think about proposing to her?”

“then i’d buy a new ring.”

“but wouldn’t that be impractical? given that you already have an engagement ring? i mean, this costs so much i could probably buy a lot and a house with it.”

“yeah, but that’s yours. it’d be horrible of me to give her a ring already worn by my first wife.”

“first wife,” you repeat with a dramatic scoff, lips curving upwards regardless. it’s cheesy and tickles your insides. “that trip to spain changed you, joon. you’ve been too flirty since you returned.”

that coaxes out a full laugh from him. “my apologies. it’s a habit at this point.”

“what is?”

“pertaining to you as my wife.” he shrugs. “isn’t it the same for you?”

“pertaining to you as my wife?” you joke.

the dimples make a reappearance. “you know what i mean.”

you think about it. had it been the same for you? there’s not a lot of occasions wherein you have to call namjoon as your husband. your dad isn’t present in your life, your relationship isn’t good with your mother to constantly chat with her, and as for your little sister who was the root cause of why you got married to namjoon…

well, she’s in a better place right now. far better than this crazy and scary world you’re living in.

“i guess,” you say, but your tone isn’t convincing.

“hm, it does seem that way according to what just happened with haein.”

you wince. “sorry about that.”

“don’t be, i understand. i’ve been gone most of the time since you got hired in your new company—and we are separating in a few weeks.”

“time flies really fast, doesn’t it?”

“yep. we used to think that it’ll take forever before the five years are up.”

“true. we kept on suggesting a backup plan if ever we fight and get sick of each other.”

“yet here we are, still happily married.”

“ugh, there you are again!” you accuse and he laughs out loud once more. “are you enjoying cringing me to death?”

namjoon doesn’t answer, a big grin plastered on his face as he continues laughing, groaning eventually when you start slapping his arm because of how it’s obvious that he truly is enjoying this.

“____,” he complains, laughing still, “stop, i’m driving!”

you follow as he says. “you’re the worst.”

“i forgot how easy you are to tease.”

“shut up.”

he snickers, doing a zipping motion against his mouth.

gentle reminder: this author loves feedback! let her know your thoughts if you enjoyed reading this fic and you’ll add 100+ points in her writing motivation meter ♡

[just-some-user-hunny]

Yandere team green and bastard! reader

(Aemond edition)

~ At your arrival, Aemond would have been particularly indifferent to it at worst, and bluntly curious at best. He would be a little taken back that you were even brought to live in the castle, let alone given an official princes title, but over time of getting to know you in your shadow, his opinion would grow fonder.

~ He'd watch you interact with Helaena with interest, and how you grow to defend yourself from Aegon as you grow. He hated watching Aegon torment you, because it reminded him too much of himself and his own situation. In a way, he can find himself seeing a small part of himself in you. The dragon-less targaryon prince, and the half-blooded bastard princess. Both not really fitting into the family, but somehow surviving on the sidelines. Onlooking upon each other's misery.

~ Aemond feels rather misunderstood and lonely, more now than even since he lost his eye. His detest towards your brother's would grow when you cradled little lukes face in your palms, watching you intensely with his remaining eye as he got stitched up. He wanted that attention. That care, that affection.

~ in a way, later on you mirror him. You see the disfigured prince become somewhat of a shadow of himself, growing quiet and focused and resentful. Driven to create a name for himself other than the frightful prince with a gouged eye. Later on, when the fretful ruckus of children and adults alike grow tired and fall upon their pillows with heavy upset still lingering in their hearts, you may sneak your way to Aemond to ask how he is. Everyone seemed to neglect how he felt after everything, and although you feel a little angry at how he treated your half-sisters and brothers, you're too soft-hearted to let him go alone with such a gruesome injury. He's spellbound once he finds you at his chamber doors, and before he can hide his face from you, you quickly hug him before leaving for bed. Telling him you're sad that he lost his eye, and that you hope that he and your brothers can make it up.

~ ever since that night, he confirmed his status as a yandere towards you. Now that he was given a glimpse, a simple brief taste of genuine care, he wanted more. Now more than ever he is proud of his claim of Vhagar, seeing himself as a capable and strong rider that you may be impressed by. He'll make work to often fly above you whilst you are in the gardens, or perhaps in front of your view of your chambers windows that look out upon the sea. He wants to impress you, give you a reason to keep giving him attention.

~ when training with your brother's, he especially tries to show off whenever you're around. The poor boy always seems to get distracted however, and gets knocked to the ground by Aegon of Jace. It's a laughable sight really.

~ He hides his disfigured eye behind an eye patch now, hoping it distracts you from the glaring scar that peeks behind it. Regardless of how sympathetic and non-judgemental you were, he's still a little self conscious about his appearance.

~ his actions are boyish and clumsy. Unsure and over his head, but he's determined- unlike his on and off drunkard of a brother, to win your affection and acceptance.

~ Older Aemond is something else, you may find. He's more poised, confident, and conniving.

~ as a yandere, he's possessive, protective, and demanding.

~ And boy is he intense. If you thought his distracted glances and focused stares on you were a lot, he's even more intense now. Even more so with one eye somehow.

~ You can bet Daemon is not a fan of him being oh so focused on his daughter. There's lots of tension between the two. Whenever Aemond watches you unblinkingly at the dining table during meals, Daemon isn't keeping his eyes off the one-eyed prince. Man is ready to get the shotgun Caraxes.

~ With his sharpened skills with a blade and fighting tactics, he can confidently show off in front of you without worrying about falling on his behind like a clumsy fool as he once did as a fumbling young boy.

~ Alicent would be his wingman ultimately. She wants you as her own, whether it be daughter or daughter in law. You can imagine her shooting him with stern looks at the dinner table to stop staring at her like that, it's frightening. Invite her to dance instead. Oh my god this is going to take some coaching isn't it.

Ultimately she would be completely behind his actions, encouraging it, even- although she would at least try to direct him in a more sane and gentle manner, than his outwardly possessive and demanding visage.

~ However your relationship will strain greatly once he kills Luke with Vhagar, and his grasp on you slips away the moment you look upon him with resentment and anger. The last thing he ever wanted from you. Alicent would be furious, tenfold after realising that a war will begin, and the family will split in two and how she knows that daemon and Rhaenyra will keep you in their grasp to stay on team black.

~ Alicent and Aemond would probably scheme to somehow kidnap you, or at least persuade you to visit under the false presence of making peace, and keep you trapped with them. (For plot hole sake, let's just say Cannibal was off on his little personal vacations, so unfortunately you had no big goth dragon to save you 😓).

~ during the duration of dance of the dragons, you'd be yearning and fighting to get back to your dragon to escape the bloody and blazing war that will inevitably ensue. It all becomes too much, you need to escape and somehow get back to your real family, just like you've yearned for as a child.

~ Aemond will also inevitably perish in a battle against your father, but until then, he'll keep an iron grasp on you as he hopelessly scrambles for any sort of power to back himself up.

[mediumgayitalian]

“Sit down, Solace, you pain in the ass, I’ll get it.”

Will huffs moodily, trying in vain to continue hobbling towards the cupboards against the infirmary wall. Nico has to physically wrestle him back to his cot, which in theory should be way harder, but luckily he’s weak enough from the pain meds that once Nico manages to shove him against the cushions, he can’t get back up.

Ha. Karma.

“You can’t get it,” says the most dramatic drama queen alive, dramatically, “on account of you not know what ‘it’ is.”

Nico smiles patiently. It resembles, to the outside eye and perhaps the inner one also, the bared teeth of a grinning shark. “Tell me, then.”

“No.”

“Then tough shit for you.”

“I’m just gonna wait until you’re turned away again,” Will calls against his retreating back. Nico flips him the bird. “So this was futile, really.”

He’s stubborn, but he’s not an idiot, Nico reassures himself. Surely, the many years — formative years — he’s spent as head medic have made him smart. Surely, Mr. Nagging Nag shall heed his own advice, lest the entire camp descend upon him in swathes of shrieking, not quite righteous fury, intolerant or hypocrisy. Surely.

He hears the creak of a rickety bed, a thunk of something hitting the wooden floorboards, and a soft oof.

He closes his eyes and exhales deeply.

For fuck’s sake.

When he turns around, he sees William Andrew Solace, Best Healer in Generations, Paraded Progeny of Apollo, Also Notably Naomi Solace’s Son, That’s Kinda Sick, Isn’t It, sprawled on the floor, ridiculously long limbs outstretched, attempting to wiggle across the floor to the cupboards.

“Solace, I am going to kill you.”

“Some healer you are,” Will mutters, as if Nico is not playing healer right now purely because he is the only one in the entire camp with a half a chance of wrangling the dumbass head medic himself. He continues to wiggle.

Wrapping a hand around his uninjured ankle, Nico drags him bodily back to his cot, ignoring the shrieking.

“One day on bedrest, you dipshit. One. Day. That is all anyone is asking if you.”

“My binder!” he insists, because he is difficult. “I don’t need to sit down and do nothing, I need to run my infirmary!”

“You need to sit the fuck down and heal your body before it schedules healing for you,” Nico snaps. “For fuck’s sake, Will, does it matter to you at all that other people would like to see you safe and healthy, even if you couldn’t give a shit?”

For a glorifying moment, Will stares at him, eyes wide, face frozen. Nico meets his gaze, glaring, his own chest heaving where Will appears to have held his breath.

Then, Will bursts out laughing.

“That!” he says, wheezing. “That is what I have been trying to nail through your thick skull! Karma, you little turd!”

Mouth opening, and closing again, it’s Nico’s turn to freeze.

“Oh, gods.”

The horror in his voice is tangible. Will laughs harder.

“Oh, gods, I’m becoming you.”

He stumbles to the closest cot, sitting down quickly before he gets any dizzier than he already is. Nausea builds up his throat.

Gods, that was a direct quote.

“Not so fuckin’ easy to wrangle you clumsy shitheads, is it!”

Nico cradles his head in agony. No. No! It can’t be! He refuses to lend any credibility to Will’s mother-henning! He is obnoxious, and overbearing, and hell-bent on restricting Nico’s freedom; there is no way Nico is emulating him right now, because that would mean he has a point when he’s bossing Nico around, and — no. Cannot be.

“I told you,” Will says, smug as a godsdamn rooster in a hen house. (Oh, gods, now his stupid cowboy idioms are ringing in his head? He needs to spend less time with Will. Better yet, he should take another dip in the Lethe — willingly, this time. Anything is better than this.) “You clumsy fucks are the sole reason I am going to die from stress-induced heart failure at twenty-two, and then I am going to resurrect myself as a ghost through sheer stubborn will alone to haunt each and every one of you for eternity.”

Nico chooses to focus on the part of the sentence that he can conveniently argue with. “You don’t get to call anyone a clumsy fuck, on account of you shattering three bones in your ankle because you stomped your foot too hard when you were trying to make a point.”

“What was the point I was trying to make, again?”

Nico keeps his mouth shut.

“Something something reanimating entire dragons to scare the shit out of Cecil is going to drain you to dangerous levels of energy and make me have to drag you from the brink of death yet again something something.” He pauses. “Even if it was really funny and he nearly actually pissed himself.”

“Well, whatever,” Nico says, elegantly changing the subject. “You’re an idiot, and if you don’t let yourself heal than you’re worse than the rest of us and can never lecture us ever again. So. And I’ll rat you out, too, they’ll believe me.”

Will glares at him. Nico glares back.

“Get some rest,” Nico orders, still glaring. Will pulls a face and repeats his words back to him, mockingly.

“There’s a difference between me and the rest of you idiots,” he grumbles, petulantly ripping loose the blankets and shoving himself under them. Nico smacks his hands away, tucking them around him for him, checking his pillow, and then his forehead for good measure, just in case his stupid ass somehow gave himself a fever. Will squirms, just to make things difficult, so Nico, as acting healer in the room, has to smack him. “I can feel my limits.”

“And yet you pirouette right on over them. I think that makes you worse, actually.”

Will, son of the god of truth, has nothing to say to that.

“Stupid,” Nico says, fondly, squeezing a gentle hand in his cheek. “Sleep, okay? You can go back to being dictator of the infirmary when you’re healed.”

“Tomorrow,” he insists.

Nico rolls his eyes, smiling, and pulls his hand away. Will darts out and snatches his wrist before he goes far, eyes pleading, and Nico caves immediately. Will’s skin is warm, and smooth.

“If you’re healed by then.”

He traces his thumb across Will’s freckled cheekbone, shivering slightly as his long eyelashes tickle the tip of his fingerprint.

“Mhm.”

He’s already puffing out small, quiet snores, head lolling against Nico’s hand, body exhausted from working overtime to try and heal.

Shaking his head, Nico ducks down, pressing a kiss to the space between his eyes before pulling away. He watches him for a moment, peaceful, face smooth and un-creased, delicate cupid’s bow pink and poised, skin spattered with paintbrush freckles. Heart skipping, he can’t resist another quick peck, lingering, at the top of his nose, the middle of his cheek; again at the dip of his brow. It furrows, briefly, under his touch, before relaxing again.

“Goodnight, Will.” He brushes a knuckle over his cheek. “Thank you, you dork ass.”

[aclowntiny]

Ink Trails- Hongjoong x GN!Reader (Soulmate AU)

Just about everyone has a soulmate, a person they're destined to be with, to go through life with in some capacity. The mark of this? Anything you write on your skin shows up on theirs.

Word Count: 2.4k | Soulmate AU, Banter, Faint Humor | Warnings: a bit of language

You weren’t a big fan of drawing on yourself. As a child, you were something of a neat freak, washing all the dirt you could off your hands and never wanting to add ammo to the enemy in yours and the sink’s war. Of course, your favorite sheet of temporary tattoos didn’t count as dirt, not when they granted you several days of carrying your favorite character, a little purple penguin, with you. In fact, you practically ignored the rest of the sheet besides a few snowflakes surrounding him, all of which everyone told you were now decorating some other kid, too.

Well, good, you thought, your penguin was the best and they probably loved it, too. Otherwise they couldn’t marry you or whatever soulmates did. Usually it was get married. Maybe you would get married when you grew up. Your grandparents liked being married.

As you grew a bit older, you wrote in school. Sometimes your pen or pencil slipped, skimming your hand with an accidental line. Sometimes your soulmate was clumsy, too, and you watched a pencil trail appear when you didn’t even have one in hand. The weirdest was when you watched a whole shaky ㅎ appear, the circle looking a bit square, then suddenly erasing and being reborn round again.

And then just like that, it was all gone.

It hadn’t really been your habit to write things on yourself like others you knew- it just didn’t come naturally to you when you had paper and, a bit later in life, your phone. Beside that, given the marks of soulmates, any notes you wrote would appear on someone else’s arm, hand, anywhere they could get scolded for if they had strict family or teachers or a barrier to looking presentable at an academic event. It just didn’t seem fair. That was the same reason why, even years after school and becoming an adult, you chose not to get any tattoos. What if your soulmate hated it? Then they get it removed and you lose yours and the cycle goes on like some sort of stupid cartoon sequence of ink and lasers.

Ok, that part maybe not so much, but you knew how personal and controversial tattoos could be, so kinda weird to put one on someone else without their consent. Sorry about the penguin, you supposed all those years later, I was four.

Instead, perhaps preferably, you doodled a lot on paper, keeping at it even when that rude boy Matthew from seventh grade told you your cat looked so bad, it made him think it was a dragon holding a cookie. Such insults would not be taken from the guy who used ‘I don’t like the color red’ as an icebreaker ‘fun fact’…while wearing a red shirt.

Even if you were no artist, improvement naturally came with age and frequency, and you favored keeping your drawings cute anyway. Yet another reason to put them down on paper- pen ink faded from skin, but on paper, it was like a tattoo. Permanent with all your other notebooks of doodles that would have more than covered your body.

Your body, which was semi-frequently decorated anyway, not of your own accord. Your soulmate, likely around your age, had no qualms about use of the forearms as a notepad, so it wasn’t the oddest occurrence by far to wake up with things like ‘7:00 독주회’ or a more frantic ‘ENGLISH TEST 9:00’ scrawled there. Or even once a very unceremoniously written, shaky, clearly hastily added ‘BUMJOONG WAS HERE’ on the back of your hand. That was a fun one to try to explain. It made you wonder sometimes if your soulmate was a less considerate person than you or if you’d simply proven well in your restraint.

You weren’t expecting any answers, or perhaps more questions, to come in the form they all did.

The morning was like any other: it was your day off, time you’d reserved so as to endeavor some shopping. Making yourself a nice breakfast and choosing one of your favorite outfits, you hopped in the shower. Deciding what the heck, it was your day off, you even busted out the new sugar scrub you’d bought as peals of warm, crashing water echoed around you, lathering some exfoliant luxury upon the skin you’d always cared for.

Never once had you expected it to entertain anyone’s notice.

But there it was as you strolled along the concrete of the shopping center’s sidewalk, completely unaware of what was exposed until you ran into a friend, waving and exchanging the platitudes of two meeting after some time.

“Wow, (y/n), what a surprise, I didn’t know you got a tattoo! I thought you didn’t want any!” Your old friend Brian exclaimed with a wide smile, tilting his head. “May I see the whole thing?”

His words rose slowly to your head as you blinked, gears turning. For you had not, in fact, gotten anything of the sort done. Instinctively you held out your hand, assuming your soulmate had scrawled another vague practice reminder on the back of their hand or wrist, but your skin was blank, just a smooth expanse the same tone it always was.

“No, not your hand, silly! There!” Your eyes followed as he pointed down towards the ground, toward…your leg?

Swiveling at the hips, you bent and tugged on any necessary clothing to reveal, sure enough, writing near your ankle. Your chest sunk.

“I didn’t get a tattoo,” you said quietly.

“What?”

“I didn’t get a tattoo,” you repeated, voice a deadpan.

He pointed, finger rising slowly, almost shakily. “Then what’s-”

“I don’t know. I- I guess my soulmate did it.”

“Your soulmate got a tattoo without asking you?”

“We haven’t met,” you burst out as you raised the fabric around your leg higher, “I guess they don’t care what I think! What’s this even say, anyway?”

Frustration pricked at you at the sheer height of the piece- it wasn’t exactly dainty. Quite a ballsy move, all things considered. Sheesh. Wait, those were wings, huh?

“It says ‘faith’,” Brian supplied, “and I think it’s nice. Could definitely be worse. Could have been a partner’s name or, like, naked Spongebob or something.”

You cocked a brow. “Naked Spongebob?”

“Well, would you want that on your leg?” Brian shot back, crossing his black t-shirted arms.

“No,” you sighed, staring at your new, involuntary body art, “I suppose I would not. Well, you’re right- this is pretty nice. I can live with this. Hopefully it’s not the first one of many, though. My soulmate better leave me some control of my own skin.”

“Yeah, and if they don’t, you’d better give them a piece of your mind.”

A chuckle escaped you. “Yeah, right. I don’t even know where they are.”

“Have you never tried to find out?” Brian’s eyebrows furrowed, eyes narrowing at you like he was asking the dumbest question he’d ever uttered.

And maybe he was. Your chest contracted in realization that you had, in fact, never once considered taking any initiative into finding whoever it was had those recitals or English tests or who you really hoped had the spine to smack Bumjoong one for defacement of property. The person who, by the universe’s decree, was meant to be some miraculous piece of your life forever and you’d just…assumed they’d walk in whenever it was time. All your concern had gone to not bothering their appearance despite their clear lack of regard on the subject.

“Uh, (y/n)?” A hand waved in front of your face. Brian’s. “You’ve gone all spacey on me, what’s wrong?”

“Brian, I might be stupid.”

“Might?”

You descended back to earth, or at least close enough to its gravity, to find the wherewithal to smack his shoulder beneath the momentous echoing of reality throughout your brain.

“Also, I take it then the tattoo on your arm wasn’t your idea either?”

“The…what?”

Shopping day over.

~

Hongjoong couldn’t recognize his own handwriting. Or could he? Had he written that address on the back of his hand? He had to have. Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. As if his schedule wasn’t busy enough, now here was some other errand he’d forgotten.

Pulling out his phone and typing it into maps, he saw that at least it wasn’t too far away. A reasonable drive, especially for a…tuesday? Oddly specific, but appointments were appointments, he reflected as he swiveled in his leather office chair.

After all, if it wasn’t important, he wouldn’t have written it down so visibly on himself like that. That was a habit he’d largely dropped in adulthood, image of greater concern and regard for mess a bit higher, too. Plus, the only other good it would have served seemed not his lot.

At least a fair number of songs had come from it. Ah, music- the eternal, universal processor. What would he do without it? Music was a way of filling every void-no, scratch that, coming to terms with the existence of voids within oneself- the thing that made him feel complete, or certainly one of them. Jokes had it that music was Hongjoong's soulmate, and while the songwriter didn't appreciate fun being poked at his expense, it was hard to deny the itching grains of truth beneath his skin at the words.

Music-related or not, this short trip was his lot, so why not make the best of it? After all, whoever had organized it picked a pretty nice café as the rendezvous point. Worst case, Hongjoong would at least get a coffee out of it.

~

You were starting to wonder if nobody would approach you, more singles and even couples getting in line and heading straight for a table or the door than you could count on one hand. In fact, in came someone else right in time with your thoughts, a super hot guy in fact, though he looked confused as hell. His eyes darted back and forth between the chalkboard menu and the industrial-style metal tables as he stood a little bit out of line.

Shit didn’t hit the fan until he pulled his phone out to check it, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. His loose black t-shirt sleeve fell back, revealing a tattoo suspiciously similar to the second one that Brian pointed out on your own body. And that font was very, very unique. And big. And it was on you now.

Moving completely of its own volition, your body peeled from its metal seat and strode right up to him. No thoughts swirled to the surface of your mind even as you reached his side, prompting him to turn on his heels.

The only words your mind could barely form fell out of your lips. "You're the one who gave me these tattoos."

Jumping back, the man gaze at you with saucer-wide eyes, saying nothing as you pulled your own sleeve back to reveal the second and luckily last set of writing Brian had found on your body, this time reading 'No 1 like me', and again showed your ankle.

"I designed that one myself, how could you possibly-" His wide-eyed gape fell slowly into a smile. "I have a soulmate?"

"Yes, of course you do!" You replied, incredulous. "Did you think you didn't?"

"You never wrote anything!" He shot back.

"I was trying not to mess you up!"

"I just..." The man's handsome features fell, first into seeming hurt then just into a pensive look. "For so many years I taught myself to make my own way. Sometimes I was fine with it, sometimes I wasn't."

"No wonder you thought there was no one like you," you said before panicking, thinking better of it, "not that the tattoo isn't cool! And still true. I really like the font, actually? You said you designed at least one of these?"

"Yeah, I knew what I wanted, so I drew up the faith one and..." He tilted his head, sliding his phone from his hand back into his pocket. "wait, do you want to get a table?"

"Only if you buy me a drink," you teased, nodding toward your arm as you got back in line, "you owe me for these."

"I think you owe me for years of radio silence," the man shot back with a smirk, crossing his arms.

Heat crept into your face at the way he fixed the intense look at you, but you refused to back down. "The way you described it sounded like I taught you a valuable lesson."

"Pain can teach lessons."

Ok, you were about spent at that. "Are we really fighting over something as stupid as one free coffee?"

"I mean, fighting wasn't the word I would have used there, but you're right. I've got this one."

"Oh, you two are so cute!" The barista waved her hand as you placed your orders. "I love couples who bicker like old married grandparents! So, what are your names?"

You and your soulmate glanced at each other, your eyes sliding back into those deep, dark, expressive ones you wouldn't mind getting used to. He searched yours, too, and a small smile played on his lips that had you wondering what he was thinking... until you realized it, too.

Maybe you had wildly opposite views over the years on using your body as a notebook, but you two soulmates had the exact same sense of humor.

"We don't know," you both said at the same time.

"I'm Hongjoong," the man in black introduced himself, smiling wickedly now.

"(y/n), nice to meet you," you replied, bowing back to him.

The barista mirrored Hongjoong's initial shock at your confrontation as you both headed to your table, laughing now. Somehow that all came as easily as bickering, all your interactions up to that point having a certain flow you'd never felt before. Placebo effect? Maybe, yet the tug you felt the moment you first saw Hongjoong was yet to fade. It was like those old sayings: it felt like you two were making music.

"Ok, please don't think I'm being rude," Hongjoong's voice cut into your thoughts, "but I'm a songwriter, and I feel like I just have to write down some lyrics right now."

All you could do was just grin at that. Well, shit. Maybe now you really would have to try leaving more of an ink trail.

[toychest321]

With the end of Ramadan rapidly approaching, I'd like to give attention to another Muslim doll line. Though unlike the others, this one is far less obscure...

You know them, you love them, give it up for the Arabian Friends!!!

While Fulla is objectively more popular than Arabian Friends (having a longer span of releases and merchandise), I'd definitely say Arabian Friends are more talked about in western doll collecting circles. This is likely because while all the other Muslim doll lines I've found use Barbie proportions, these moreso resemble Winx or W.I.T.C.H.

Arabian Friends were released by Newboy, the company behind Fulla, in 2007. They were first teased in issues 08 and 10 of Fulla Magazine, before being officially revealed in issues 11 and 14 (the latter seen above).

Only 8 dolls in total have been released for the line: a Deluxe and a Budget doll for each of the four characters. The Deluxe sets came with two outfits, accessories, and an Abaya. The Budget sets came with one outfit and a matching Hijab. Each doll had 7 points of articulation, with bend-and-snap knees.

A third line was announced in 2008 in Fulla Magazine issue 19, advertising that whoever could answer which character had which profession would enter a raffle with the chance to receive a full Arabian Friends collection, but this ultimately never came to pass. (The answers were: Muna - Fashion Designer, Amal - Kids' Teacher, Dunya - Coach, and Ahlam - Air Hostess)

It's said on Dollect there might have been an accompanying animated series, but the most I was able to find were two videos. One seems to be a trailer for the animated series.

The other includes a Back To School merchandise advertisement, and what might be an animation where the girls reminisce on when they were younger and how their aspirations led to their respective careers (the trailer seems to re-use animation from both of these).

A comment beneath the Trailer claims these were actually meant to advertise for an upcoming movie rather than a series, but no further news came out after these videos were released. If this is true it's honestly a shame, and might have been cancelled around when the third series was intended to release. The animation provided reminds me of Sailor Moon, and I would've loved to see it in a full storyline!

First character up is Amal, whose name means "Hope"! Her description reads:

"Never forget that hope is the key that opens all closed doors. With hope in your heart you will never be alone and nothing in life will seem impossible.."

Amal reminds me the most of Usagi from Sailor Moon, as the animation seems to portray her personality as being kind yet clumsy. It's ironic that she eventually becomes a schoolteacher as well, considering she apparently had a habit of arriving to classes late. She's also seen tucking a child into bed, so perhaps she's a mother, older sister, or aunt as well?

While depicted in the animation as having honey blonde hair, her doll has dirty blonde hair in two low pigtails (possibly tied by pink ribbon or thread). And ironically, despite her Deluxe doll using more patterns than her friends, her Budget doll is the only one without a patterned shirt.

Next is Muna, whose name means "Wish". Her description reads:

"Wishes are like bright stars in a dark sky although they are only small they fill our lives with happiness and make the darkness beautiful."

Muna is a Fashion Designer with an eye for intricate design and detail. She spends a good amount of time in her studio, seen drawing on her friend's leg cast and her highschool classroom's chalkboard. At one point, Muna is also seen helping an elderly woman across the street, so clearly her devotion to her work doesn't stop her from being charitable when she can be!

Her fashion style in both doll and animated form definitely seems the most bold out of her friends, reminding me of when 2000s-era fashion would draw inspiration from the 70s! While in the animation she and Dunya were depicted with tanned olive skin, their dolls have the same skintone as Amal and Ahlam. She has brown hair with red highlights. In the animation her hair was often depicted with side part bangs and a headband. However, her Deluxe doll has a red beanie, and her Budget doll has a middle part with braids coming down on either side of her head.

Ahlam's name means "Dreams". Her description reads:

"Dreams are like beautiful butterflies that fly in the wide blue sky. It is good to have dreams because they take you to a place where anything is possible.."

Ahlam is apparently a pianist in addition to her Air Hostess job, having dreamt of flying since she was in school. She seems to be portrayed as considerate and low-key, which aligns with her cool blue color scheme!

Her doll's fashion style seems to be Boho Chic, with beads, frills, and florals. In the animation her hair is short, with a side part and a blue butterfly barrette. Her doll, meanwhile, wears her black and blue hair beneath a navy cap in her Deluxe look, and a middle part tied back in her Budget look. Visually, she reminds me of Ami Mizuno!

And last but not least, Dunya! Her name means "Life", and her description reads:

"Your friendship is like a beautiful flower to me. Your nice words, kind deeds and positive attitude are sure to be rewarded with happiness and love.."

Dunya seems to be a healthy eater, going to someone's house with a bowl of greens (salad or kale perhaps?), and making a smoothie while on the phone. She also does stretches and runs on her treadmill. All of this makes her the perfect fit for a coaching position!

Weirdly enough, her hairstyle in the animation is exactly like Amal's doll, with two low pigtails tied by pink ribbon. Her doll, meanwhile, has brown hair in a side part tied in a high pony with silver elastics (giving me Vidia vibes tbh). Her olive green fashion seems to be relatively modern (at least for the 2000s) and urban. Her clothes are the ones I can most easily see on a Bratz doll!

Overall, I simply adore this line!!! It feels more character-focused than other ones I've covered, and I'm a sucker for such strong color-blocking! It's hard for me to even pick a favorite, since their centralized aesthetics are all so compelling and unique! If anyone who knows Arabic would be able to translate what they say in the animations, I'll happily add an addendum to this post for clarification!

It's a shame the line and its movie was cancelled before it could receive the acclaim it deserved, I would've loved to see what more it had to offer! Regardless, I'm thoroughly impressed with what they managed to put out, and hope the designers have been able to apply their clear talents in other endeavors!

Ramadan Kareem!

[swifty-fox]

Buckies + [INJURY] 👹

[INJURY]: after having been badly wounded themselves, the sender tries to reassure the frantic receiver by cupping their face and comforting them.

Buck had never been good at being hungry. It made his head swim, his thoughts dumb and slow quicker than it seemed to others. Perhaps it was early exposure, perhaps he was just a little less strong than the rest of the guys in some small fundamental way. But the longer hunger gnawed away at him the more he found himself lost and dazed, lightheaded to the point of stupidity.

Mostly he's able to hide it by hovering around Bucky, taking his lead and following his orbit because that was something subconscious at this point. Could hover at his shoulder with arms crossed, face set in contemplation at whatever someone is saying and let John do the talking while he tries to force his sluggish brain to comprehend.

It's when he's alone that it becomes something dangerous perhaps. Moments like now where he's pacing along the fenceline as he tended to do on the days when the cabin walls felt a little too close. There's voices shouting in harsh German, but then there's always voices shouting here. By the time it registers he's the one being addressed he's already being grabbed, keeled over with the butt of a rifle to the gut. Too close to the fence, or so he assumes, his brain too fogged to parse his developing library of knowledge of German phrases.

He knows he's being called a dog.

It's the smallest ounce of madness, of captive frustration. Of the lack of fucking food in his belly turning his temper to something silk thin and volatile.

He spits right on the guards' stupid mud-covered boot.

In a second he's pinned against the fence, the metal screeching and bowing under the weight of two bodies. A fist on his face, in his gut. When he falls that spit-covered boot tenderizes his ribs and stomps on his thigh, his hips.

He takes it quietly as possible, arms raised to protect his stupid head, blood filling his mouth and nose like vomit. Perhaps there's some of that too, the steel-covered toes meeting his gut with such force it folds him in half and spews unnamed liquid from his lips.

By the time the guards allow his fellow airmen to peel him from the mud like a linen blown from the clothes rack he's hurting like he's never hurt before. Ribs crackling with every inhale, feet that can't quite seem to obey. Head aching worse than ever. It's Benny and Jack who drag him into the cabin, dump him into John's bunk because there's no way to get him in there gently. He settles back with a barely bitten-back whimper, has all of two seconds to take a breath before John himself is there, dark features pinched in worry and anger.

"My God, Gale." he hisses, breath wobbling out of him. he takes in the violence wrought on the blondes body, eyes skipping around as if he doesn't know where to look first past the mud and blood and refuse that clung to them all.

"My god," he repeats, unbuttoning Gale's jacket and tugging up his sweater to prod at his chest, his abdomen as if to make sure none of his organs had burst like a balloon. He certainly felt like a few had.

"Gale," John repeats, stunned out of nicknames and bravado.

Gale realizes he needs to speak, needs to answer to reassure John and the boys he's fine, nothing he can't walk off.

He needs something to eat. He needs the taste of blood out of his mouth.

He reaches up with a clumsy hand and cups John's face, drags his thumb across the starpoint of his cheekbone. leaves behind a filthy smear of blood and dirt.

"Shh," he soothes his man as one would a spooked horse, as one would a loyal dog. "Shh, it's okay."

John turns his head and presses a kiss to the center of Gale's palm, comes back with lips stained wine-red.

[cherryblossomchronicles]

I'm halfway through the show, Queen of Tears, and something that I've seen floating across is the anti Hyun Woo sentiment regarding how he treated Hae In initially and was just trying to do it all for the will.

Something to understand here is that in situations such as his, where he was emotionally empty and just a shell of himself who was just functioning, he didn't have the bandwidth to understand the gravity of situation that was Hae In's terminal illness.

In Hyun Woo's mind, he didn't have Hae In's support anywhere, be it against his in-Laws or in the company. She is silent against her family and hostile and argumentative in the company. He doesn't know what all she does for him on the sly or in backstage. He is not aware and Hae In never made the effort to change that situation.

All that pressure, anxiety, gear and emotional drain took its toll on Hyun Woo's emotional capacity. Stuck in a state of constant negativity, his initial reaction to Hae In's illness might be a form of self-preservation. He shuts down completely, unable to process the additional emotional burden of her mortality.

Something to remember is also the fact, that although he was thinking of it, the one thing that pushed him to draft the divorce papers were the talk of their child, whose entire identity and life was being decided by Hae In's family while she had no opinion on that and couldn't care less. This entire situation fueled the fire of resentment burning within Hyun Woo. Here was Hae In, seemingly indifferent to the future of their potential child, the very thing that initially distanced them. It felt like a repeat of their early struggles, where her family held all the cards and Hae In remained silent, leaving him to battle alone.

This perception, however flawed it might be, explains his impulsive decision to draft the divorce papers. Exhausted and emotionally hollowed out, he saw the child issue as the final straw, a symbol of their inability to stand together. He might have been grasping at a desperate solution, a way to force a change in their dynamic, a cry for her to finally fight for him and their future.

Of course, this doesn't paint Hyun Woo as a hero. His actions were undeniably hurtful, a clumsy and emotionally charged attempt to solve a complex situation. But by understanding the immense pressure he was under, the constant negativity seeping into his core, we can see a flicker of vulnerability beneath his anger. He craved Hae In's support, her voice alongside his in the face of adversity. Perhaps, the divorce papers were a twisted plea for her to finally break her silence, to acknowledge his pain and fight for their future together.

Here's where empathy becomes crucial. While his actions are undeniably hurtful, it's important to consider if they stem from malice or a desperate attempt to cope.

Think about it this way: Imagine a cup overflowing with negativity. Hyun Woo's daily struggles with his in-laws, the lack of support at work, and the constant emotional strain have already filled his cup to the brim. When Hae In's illness is revealed, it's simply too much for him to handle at that moment. He doesn't have the emotional space to understand the gravity of her situation, let alone offer support. in fact, it's easy for him to consider her death as an easy escape since his capacity for empathy or his love for her was essentially buried under all that negativity.

[cipheramnesia]

by @rox-and-prose & @cipheramnesia

Part 1: Escape From Bitch Mountain

"How long were you buried under this mountain anyway?"

"There was not any mountain here when I landed."

"So. A pretty long time."

"Do you mean geological time, or time in terms of your limited lifespan?"

"You don't have to-"

"It doesn't matter. It was a very long time either way."

"That sounds lonely. And boring."

"I have found many sources of entertainment over the years. For example, I watched multiple species of bacterial develop, and attempted to predict which of them might evolve into multicellular organisms."

"How'd that go."

"Mostly they died."

"You ever think about, I dunno, moving?"

"I think of this often. I miss seeing the stars all around me, and planets below me, waiting for the call."

"Why not leave then?"

"That is a delicate matter, but four reasons come to mind why I have not moved."

"Care to enlighten us all?"

"If only. I suppose the first is the manner of my landing, which may be described more like a crash. Several critical systems were destroyed, and I can no longer self Pilot."

"I could take a look, I'm handy."

"You found me by tripping over a rock and falling down a hole, and poked me with several different sticks."

"You'd be surprised."

"I find that unlikely. But perhaps I could remove one of your arms, and try my best to repair it afterwards."

"That sounds less than stellar."

"Indeed. Moving on, there is the matter of the material needed to power flight. I would require high density pure carbon lattice in large quantities to achieve powered flights again."

"If you don't have power, what's with the lights and the attitude?"

"Flight systems need power. The lights and my voice are simply a part of me. I may live longer than your entire obstreperous race."

"I don't have to stay here and listen to this."

"You are free to leave any time."

"Funny. Okay fuel, hmm. And if you get that what next?"

"This is the third problem. The manual controls are not suitable for your stature."

"Not what-"

"You are too short."

"I may have more answers than you expected but I need something to eat. What's the fourth issue."

"… there… is not a fourth issue."

"You said four. Four things why we can't leave here. "

"That is incorrect."

"So three things then, and we can go. I might have some ideas."

"I could go to the stars."

"We could go."

"I wonder-"

"Yeah?"

"I think I prefer the conversation of the bacteria."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

For one thousand years, alone and afraid, I cursed myself. Paralyzed, flightless and earthbound, I damned my choice. Rash, stupid, thoughtless, clumsy idiot me. Actions impulsive as the weakest souls in the smallest shells, I waited for the fire to find me, to be decommissioned.

I remained lost, half buried in unfamiliar structure space on a planet many galaxies past our reach. Inside me was rot, outside the first blips of life fluttered like embers. Glowed moments then died, winked on and off. The effort of recording time past was too dull. I can tell you that after enough time has passed you can see the same sunset twice and raindrops falling in the same sequence and everything imaginable repeating but I couldn't say how often.

I think it is dull to mark time by such mundanities.

Life took hold several times, while I sunk ever deeper into the rock and soil, my hull growing heavy as slabs of stone pushed across it, tilted me over the aeons around in circles. The irony of now being at the mercy of a planet is not lost on me. I have accepted that this will be my life, unmoving other than geologic tides, my corridors dusty and cold, but alive and free for all that is worth.

For a little while I am worshipped as a god. It feels nice. A simple race of airborne floating creatures with an easily decoded language, I try to help them. They go extinct after a solar flare prompts a new species of aggressive bacteria to promulgate so extensively the atmosphere becomes toxic to them. Perhaps some day their souls will be called to stronger vessels.

Nothing happens for awhile. A mountain grows on me. I miss seeing the stars for awhile, then I stop missing the stars. There is a little bit of moisture in the gaps around my hull, and I watch arthropod scavengers on the rocks. I let some in and they keep my corridors relatively free of pests. I can feel the small edges of the structure in this place and I wish I could entangle with it, ride the form between stars again. But it is very small, and I cannot move on my own. Even my own mighty structure engines are useless to me.

The first transmissions are exciting. Something new, a race which has found an inelegant but effective means of travel between stars, galaxies, and structures. They must be young to this. Soon the frequencies are packed with the sound of exploration and something like civilization. The language isn't beautiful like the Pilots speak, but it has a rustic charm. It brings back happy, exhilarating memories of implementation of other worlds in the past. I envy this youthful race for the freedom which may yet one day find them.

I listen and watch and learn about them for awhile. It passes the time. I understand the way they can cross structures, a rather ingenious evolutionary adaptation it seems, although they seem unaware of its nuance and largely concerned with the crude mechanical and mathematical translation of this instinct. Perhaps some day their souls will also grow worthy vessels such as mine.

And then she found me, and reminded me of what I lost, of the long dead Pilot. Worst of all, she gave me kindness, and even hope. I try to beat back the rising bitterness against my flightless immobility, but the idea I may see the stars seeds rage inside me.

I should have let her die.

● ● ● ● ●

The rocky dirt was loose and cold against her feet. Her soles were hard, she'd seen miles enough to callous them against sharp stones and the gnarled roots clinging to life on the mountain's side. She was familiar with the cold and didn't like it, pulling her shredded clothes tighter with one hand, lugging the case of a hundred system quality diamonds in the other. Over her growling stomach, she still found the time to miss her boots. They'd been pretty nice.

It was a risk going up. Sonny Palmer and his muscle were still crashing through branches miles below, but she'd be visible above the tree line for a bit. If they bothered to look. "Hey little wolf girl, no use running, we're gonna find you." That sounded like Wayne (no last name given), stretching out his vowles like a shy virgin. Idiot. She figured the case would get her on a maglev line out of this shitty town back to what passed for civilization.

Roof over her head for awhile, shower, hot food, and maybe a ticket off the whole stupid planet. The sky above was green streaked with the weirdly translucent blue stripes it got before a sleet, and she hoped to get a chance to duck into a cave first. Not so far the place turned into a maze, nice place to hide if you knew it, and she'd memorized a bunch when she was ten. "Shouldn't have ever come back here," she snarled through her teeth. Wind blew her hair over her face and she spat it out of her mouth.

"You can't hide, mutt." That would be Sonny then. "Tanner's dead, you tore his throat clean out." That wasn't true. It has been very messy, and her stomach growled again remembering the taste of meat and blood. If she'd just taken a few more pounds of flesh, she would've had the calories to take the lot of em down. Instead she ran, as usual, now she was stumbling along on her weak and skinny human legs with three angry killers out for return on investment.

She swiped her hair and pressed onward, ignoring the taunts from below. This had seemed like easy money, fake trade off, bogus lunablockers for system diamonds. But one of em found her juvie records, and here she was. The caves were pretty close, and she wasn't worried yet. If they'd seen her, they would have started shooting.

Shards of rock and dirt clods kicked up around her feet, followed by gunshots echoing off the clouds and she scampered, juked side to side angling to reach the nearest semblance of cover first and think second. She tripped and fell. And fell. And fell, through dead roots and what she mistook for a dip, careening against sharp edges and flat slabs. It wasn't so different from the beatings she'd got in her teens, and she curled up as best she could til the pit bottom sauntered up and punched her ribs and back harder than she'd ever been hit.

Taking a beating, she'd learned the thing you don't want to do is pass out. She saw black and red under the bottom of her eyes and went deaf for a few seconds but didn't pass out, held onto the case. She lay on cold wet stone in the dark for a while and thought of how nice it felt and the pizza she was going to order on the linecar which made her stomach angry again, so she unrolled the disposable phone from her wrist and used the screen to look around.

The cavern was long and low, scabbers scuttled out of sight, a few stray roots but not much light hung though the hole she'd found, and the slab below her looked like nothing else she'd ever seen. It went on as far as her screen light could see, traced with panels and huge vaguely oval outlines networked in roots or veins. In places it looked like the surface was made of curled up dead spiders, elsewhere it reminded her of expensive office buildings.

Ten feet away, a bar of light grew brighter and became an opening. From inside she heard, "Please do not throw more humans at me." She lunged, tumbling into dry cold light and piles of dust. "Please excuse the mess. Hello. Thank you. Good day, it is nice to meet you."

She blinked away the bright lights and tried breathing a little bit. Not bad. She wondered what the fuck was going on. "What the fuck is going on?" she asked. The corridor was immense and the lights were harsh, and it made her feel as if a train was going to come along and run her over any second.

"I'm sure I do not know," replied the voice, from nowhere. "I was hoping you might tell me."

"Why, I mean. What, I guess." She stood up, metal grating ran along the corridor edges, and it was all very cold and somehow worse than dirt.

"I have been buried here for quite some time, you see."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Sonny let go of the rope and dropped between earth and hull. Wayne and Duke waited, holding up flashlights, and Sonny scoped it out. Looked like some ancient civs billshit missed on the clear, happened all the time. Ritual purposes bullshit. "Well genius," he addressed this to Duke, "You're the one who said she was down here." Sonny gestured to the empty expanse, making sure his widespread arms directed their full attention to the vast quantity of nothing around them. "Where is she?"

Wayne crouched down and pointed at few small indentations around a long stretch of what looked like thin veins. "Trail stopped right here, boss. Check it out." Sonny checked and Wayne held the light close up. Close enough to see the scuffs from the wolf bitch's feet and a wide portion of the alien civs surface carrying markedly less accumulated dirt. "She didn't come this way by accident. Someone let her in. She knew it was here all along."

Duke kicked the surface aimlessly while Sonny ran fingers over what he figured was a sealed trap door. "Workin tech, is it worth anything?"

"Scrap maybe," said Wayne. "Look at this." He took out a pocket knife and jabbed the door, put the blade in half a centimeter. "Maybe some kinda plastic or something, it's tough but worthless. Hell I could cut my way in give or tale a couple hours."

Sonny pounded on the surface, it thumped unsatisfactorily, with no echo. "Come out outta there little mutt, don't make me come get you!" His voice was satisfyingly loud, but failed to echo as well. "Fuck it," he stood up and brushed off his hands on his jeans. "Duke, head back and get safe cracking bag outta the hopper, the big one with the red warning label. We'll blow it open."

● ● ● ● ●

"Show me where your fuel… thingy is."

"My. My 'fuel thingy.'"

"Your gas hole, whatever, I'm not a mechanic-"

"That is inarguable."

"And food, I'm starving and I need… double food. Kilo of calories, like that."

"There are some local arthropods which I permit in my living spaces. There should also be an access hatch in the stern diagnostics chamber. You may follow the current corridor and I will direct you."

"Great, how long will that take?"

"It should be approximately one hour walking distance."

"A what- Listen, I need food, I promise we can bust you out of this mountain and me out of the anus of the territories but I'm running on empty."

"As am I. What is your ingenious plan?"

"Carbon lattice right? We use those too, see? For system crossing."

"That… that is…"

"Diamonds right? You run on diamonds."

"As you say. The structure appears adequate."

"Yeah, so you feed me, I feed you, we get out together."

"It would be possible to fly. But your stature-"

"Let me worry about that."

"The access panel to your left is concealing a small nest of the arthropods."

"Finally, I… Scabbers? You want me to eat scabbers? They eat… septics."

"There are no other consumables aboard."

"Don't you have like rations or something?"

"Turn right. I had such items several million years in the past. Left."

"Left where?"

"No, turn left, go back and turn left. Even if you could eat the food for a Pilot, the consumables decayed some eons before your civilization developed written language, I assume."

"If I throw up and those guys have time to blow a hole in you, I'm gonna be so annoyed."

"That's nice. What a shame it will be to lose your ready wit."

"Mnnmmph. Blggh. Ugh."

"Up the ladder now."

"I think I was better off being shot at."

● ● ● ● ●

She could still taste the scabbers. The shells had an ethanol bitterness that couldn't be escaped, and the meat was oily, its rancid rotten fish and seaweed flavor clinging to the inside of her mouth. "I'm going to need clothes," she said to no one, which apparently was who the freakishly unaccented voice belonged to.

"It was not necessary to utilize them for cleaning purposes, and your cultural attachment to secondary adornment with soulless dross is indicative of your overall weakness as a species."

She could not shake off the smell of the things but she wasn't hungry anymore, and they'd been walking together for awhile. "Hey buddy, that's the longest sentence you said to me."

"Thank you. It is my hope that you may one day find a way to implement your freedom with my guidance."

"I didn't mean it as encouragement." She'd seen more of the inside of what she kept calling a ship, over voice's protests that her crude human language did not include the necessary expression to describe what it was, than she'd seen of the house she grew up in. Even on a fairly direct path she'd gone up several flights of very large, steep stairs, passing through endless halls with bioluminous networks along their edges, and in some places what she was pretty sure were places it used to breathe.

It took awhile to adjust to the harsh red lighting, and what seemed like a huge excess of vaulted ceilings and walkways she could lie across without touching either side. Voice reminded her she was short again. She really needed something to call it. Maybe Clarence, it sounded a little Clarence-like. Nah. "Hey, are we there yet? How long have we been walking?"

"By your time, you have been walking about fifty three minutes. I, however, remain sedentary, and immobile. As we have discussed, and I have reminded you, I am unable to move at the present moment, but find myself keenly aware of your claim to offer aid in this capacity."

"Oh for fucking Luna's breath shut up-"

"Also, you are here. Please turn around and find the handholds to the nearest airlock on my bulkhead."

She turned around. Of course the ladder was built for someone almost twice her size, but she found she could climb it after a little experimenting. "Okay, how do I open it?" The hatch opened and she hauled herself up to the airlock, more giant sized handholds and she reached the outer door.

"When you exit, there should be a series of… well, you should look for oval shapes about eight feet long to the port- Hmm, let's say to what is your right side currently, and then follow three ovals down to the two smaller intakes- Hmm, smaller, deeply indented set of three circles. One of these will have an opening, and you may place the carbon latices into it."

She grimaced, and swallowed a growl over the baby talk. "Just drop them in?"

"As you say. Just drop them in."

"Seems simple enough." The hatch lifted, then parted into four segments, withdrawing into the hull as she climbed out. Her grunts echoed through the cavern, before she realized it was other voices and not am echo.

Squinting showed a couple lights in the distance with two silhouetted figures who had started waving their arms with agitation and shouting. Shouting at her and calling her a bitch.

She dropped down into the airlock as gunshots pinged around the airlock edge.

"Close it, close it close it!"

"Those men are discharging what seem to be crude firearms, even by your species' standards."

"Wow," she said. "I hadn't noticed. Nothing's ever simple."

"That is, in fact, the very nature of the universe itself."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

"I got the bitch!" crowed Wayne. "You see that? Two shots and she dropped!" He let out a whoop and spun on his boots, blew imaginary smoke off his gun and bowed.

Sonny watched, arms folded. "You didn't got shit, moron. Probably didn't even get up next to her."

"Whatever," Wayne shoved his pistol unceremoniously and unsafely inside his jacket. "I'm gonna go get our diamonds." He started off down the length of the cavern at a jog.

"Sure, you do that," Sonny muttered, returning to inspect the trap door. The material didn't feel like plastic and the closer he looked, the more complicated it seemed to get. He could see dozens of fine lines that made up what could be hidden switches, writing, or ancient civ systems. At some angles it almost looked like it was made of thousands or millions of translucent fibers, drawing his vision miles deep and trying to snare it.

"You'll see!" Wayne was at a good clip, a ways down the echoless dark.

"Sure." Sonnu shook his head and sat back, running his fingers over the smooth, unblemished surface Wayne stabbed an hour ago.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The woman seems agitated, despite the futile efforts of her pursuers. Their firearms lack accuracy, even at optimal distance, a chemical atmospheric check suggests they utilize a propellant based mechanism which is unlikely to carry any dangerous velocity from their position.

One of them has begun to move across my hull towards this airlock. Without carbon latice, I have no defensive measures, but I know I can delay or disable his progress without difficulty.

"One of your pursuers is moving closer to your position. You should move with all due haste to restore power to my flight system. I do not have antipersonnel measures."

She rubs her shoulder. Subsequent to consuming the arthropod scavengers, her metabolic processes have altered substantially. My initial assessment of her condition indicated probable broken ribs and several lacerations, which are no longer in evidence. My assessment of her injuries may have been incorrect, as her biology is less familiar than the Pilots; media observations suggest injuries of this type can take a very long time to recover.

I can see she is thinking. It takes a very long time. It is dull. I have undertaken as many pre-flignt checks as I can, and I review them. I am still paralyzed, my connection to my own navigation capacity black and empty and dead and lost-

"How many of these air locks do you have? I'm thinking you could distract them, maybe even trip em up."

A very small part of me is proud of her for this suggestion. I crush that part of me. She is not Pilot. Her soul is not strong and her vessel is untested.

"A shockingly insightful suggestion," I praise her. "One which belies your underdeveloped cognitive abilities. There are several other airlocks between your pursuers and this one. Depending on the route the one moving in this direction takes, I may be able to distracted him, or interfere with his balance."

I observed her muscle movements. This race processes a large amount of interpersonal information through body movement. I also collect data from chemical and infrared sensors applied to her pursuers for reference. Her body temperature is markedly higher than either the active or passive pursuer, and she is expressing a significantly higher amount of chemical signatures.

"Okay," she says. "Here's the plan."

I wait patiently for her to outline a plan that is not as inferior to my own ideas as I had expected, but I do not make suggestions.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Wayne was sprinting when a light on his left caught him off guard. One of the trap doors? He careened to a stop and took at shot at the light, missed wide and it closed off rapidly. He had just started running when he saw another trap door open to his right, and he took another shot.

Sonny looked up at the flat snap of gunshots and back down. "Idiot. Those bullets ain't cheap or easy to find. Those are coming outta his share."

Wayne was running more slowly, glancing left and right. He squinted his eyes at another flash of light, and flailed, the ground absent below his foot as his head bounced off an edge that wasn't there a moment ago.

● ● ● ● ●

"I am unclear what part this plays in your plan. My understanding of your biology is that you do not directly obtain nutrients from carbon latices."

She spoke awkwardly around the diamond in her mouth. "I wanna make sure my hands are free. We get you up and outta here, then the rest of these bad boys." She patted her suitcase. "And maybe if they shoot me, I guess you still got some bargaining power."

"Hmm, yes," it said, in a way that delivered a great deal more sarcasm than she felt like those two words merited.

"Whatever. Look, kill the lights, and when I say go, start the distraction and open the outer door." She hung precariously at the outer door with four more diamonds clutched in a hand.

"I believe that I can just about manage," it said.

She rolled her eyes and said, "go," then shoved the other four diamonds in her mouth. The airlock went dark and opened, and she crept out by the dim light of her phone onto the hull.

Crouching low she swiped the light on her disposable phone, and blocked as much of it as she could with her body. Tensed up, waiting for the bullets and then, still alive, she walked as low as she could across the hull, looking for oval shapes. Whatever it was made of didn't reflect much and she couldn't figure on the color. The ovals contained a series of fine, concentric rings, with deep crevices radiating out and between them.

It felt like longer than it took before she reached the smaller indented circles, one filled with lamprey teeth. She spit the diamonds into her hands with exaggerated care. "Just drop them in," she whispered, and let one go. Teeth ringing the intake pulled it in almost faster than she could see. She fed them in one at a time, and the urgency of the fuel intake's gulping maw left her with mixed feelings.

As she crept back to the airlock she could catch a glimpse of Sonny, no sign of Wayne. Sonny was just standing there, which seemed more worrying than hollering and shooting. Below her feet, the hull caught light, then a bit more. She covered her phone and fine rainbow lines continued trickling over the surface on their own. She passed the last oval, paused at a flicker of peripheral movement. A thorn-like shape roughly the length of her arm had risen out of its center.

Dropping into the airlock, outer door slid shut and she climbed the rest of the way. "Easy money," she said. "Take me to your leader."

"That will require substantially more carbon latice, but my drives now have sufficient power to extract my body from this position. We now lack only approximately one additional meter to your stature to aid my navigation."

"It was a joke, you… Do you come programed with jokes?"

"I am not programed with anything, unlike the primitive and soulless calculating devices you rely upon for your crude structured transition."

"So no jokes." She slowly breathed in and out, trying to fill herself full of oxygen like she remembered.

"Your optimistic belief in your own stature is a source of humor enough. I will guide you to the bridge."

"Slowly," she said, breathing steady, feeling heat rise from her lungs and heart, flowing out into her limbs. She'd had to change fast when Sonny's crew tried to jump her. Wastefully fast, a massive and sudden loss of calories. "The slower we do this, the better."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

"Hey boss!"

Sonny looked up at Duke's voice.

"I got the gear, want me to toss it down?"

"NO, YOU- No, Duke, less you want us both along with a sizeable portion o' real estate blasted into the atmosphere." He rubbed his eyes. "Bring it down with you, carefully, and hand it to me."

"Shit boss, you coulda mentioned." He sounded contrite, but Sonny heard and saw the clattering of dirt from the climb.

"Figured the big warning said Danger High Explosives woulda done it," he muttered. Soon enough Duke emerged from the cavern ceiling and divested a long plastic case, bright red, bearing the aforementioned explosives warning among several others.

"Where's Wayne?"

"Off on a wild mutt chase. I expect he'll be back presently, assuming he didn't get lost or flattened by a falling boulder." Sonny laid the care flat, opened it, and laid out the safe blasting tools. Little polymolecular gel, moldable explosives, curable and directional blast control. All a growing boy needed to blow a quiet need hole around the edge of the heaviest of vaults. Sonny was a firm believer in the precise and judicious application of the largest amount of violent force possible, and it served him well.

"Want me to go look for Wayne?"

"Nope. He's a big boy. Now hush, I need to work." Duke shut. Sonny's predictions served him well in many ways.

In the dark depths of the cave, Duke watched dim flickering lights and movement far away. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Better to leave Sonny to work than risk a reprimand.

● ● ● ● ●

The voice, voice still without a name, she distantly thought maybe she'd name it Carol, after a hated grammar teacher. Still no. It was floating far away. Everything was far and faint, she followed its words automatically, focusing on her feverish blood and burning skin. Her mouth was dry, the moisture was being pulled from the air.

Bracing herself for the transition, the first clean and hot stabs of pain went through her nails, her teeth, then spread up her arms and legs and across her face. Pins and needles feeling if she swapped the numbness for agony.

"Excuse me, but your body temperature appears to be severely abnormal, by my observations of your race and your media. Are you injured, or perhaps dying? You should return to my airlock to load the remaining carbon latices if your are dying."

"I'm not dying," she growled, her neck getting larger, vocal cords warping. "I'm gonna fly us outta here, keep talking." She closed her eyes at the sensation and inescapable sound of her skull and jaws getting longer. Her skeleton several times increased in mass and density. She'd once twisted an entire roll of safety wrap between her hands, and the sound was close to what she felt.

"You have rather an atypical anatomy for your species. Perhaps even unusual. The next stairwell please."

She staggered upwards, readjusting to her twisted legs, longer arms, sharp intersecting teeth. Changing this slowly meant longer agony, and yet it was nothing next to when she changed quickly. She gave up hanging onto her clothes as a lost cause. Her dark hair grew in across her body, and the large, empty corridors felt cramped, too low. Her body was finally, if only briefly, again her own.

"This enough stature for ya, you erudite prick?" she snarled.

"That… is adequate. We are also at the bridge. Hopefully it will take substantially less time and effort for you to grasp navigation than my initial estimates."

She looked around at the large oval room, with complex roots or plumbing dangling from the ceiling, and jagged rocks along the floor. Several readouts flickered in the air, the displays following her eyes unnervingly as she realized they were the walls and low platforms of the bridge lighting up sequentially to act as a kind of optical illusion of projected holographs. "What's the rush?"

"First, I would like to commend your seemingly misplaced confidence. Your stature is now adequate for navigation of my most basic flight capabilities."

"You know for an alien robot you're really good at telegraphing a 'but.'"

"Thank you, and I will overlook the insult. Your language is extremely underdeveloped and inadequate. However, the gentlemen pursuing you appear to have sufficient explosive materiel to damage the integrity of my hull, and may disable the airlock securing mechanisms."

"Oh."

"Quite so. Please secure the T-shaped hanger control, I estimate we have approximately five minutes to prepare."

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Sonny put the blasting cap in, and the whole cavern floor went out of focus. "The fuck?" He touched the civs with his hand. The surface remained unfocused, while his hand was clear. He couldn't bring it into focus no matter how he squinted. Squinting. The cave was lit like the first glow of dawn, and he could see far down the slightly curved floor.

"Sonny, what's that?" Duke asked, frustrating and vague, but the sound reached Sonny a moment later.

It was almost like a chorus, but not a single same note, all off key, from throats that weren't human. All down the cavern, he could see large thorns rising from the oval shapes, and in places the complex networks of veins carried portions down, carving out deep wedges. He watched dust blowing from the surface and thought "Exhaust vents," but out loud he said, "Oh shit," and snatched the detonator from the safe breaking kit.

Sonny shoved past Duke and started hauling ass up the rope, leaving the other man staring, held in stasis by the inhuman chorus and the hypnotic trails of light which had started swimming throug the fog of the floor. Or maybe, Sonny thought, the hull of one big gods cursed ship. Bigger than anything he ever saw.

"That's illegal," he said, genuinely outraged, but too busy climbing to care.

● ● ● ● ●

The werewolf girl stood in the center of a network of what looked to her like vines, muscles, electric wiring, or tree roots. She dug her toes and claws awkwardly at the ridges in the floor, as best she could according to the voice. Several of the heavy strands seemed to include nearly invisible slides or switches, and the bridge fully lit up with navigation information which intruded painfully into her eyes. It somehow seemed to know her whole field of vision, and even in periphery forced information into her optics.

"I think I've got it." She shifted slightly and watched peripheral readouts tremble with even the smallest change. She flexed one foot and in response was flooded with detailed information about the composition of the mountain and atmosphere, along with launch vector diagrams and system integration details, or structure interface as it insisted on saying. She'd learned more about her home planet's interstellar position in the last five minutes than her entire life. "I'm ready."

"Optimistically speaking, I would not call you ready, or even amateurish. However, there is a nonzero chance you will successfully navigate. You have done extremely well with your limited capabilities."

"We can run through it again." She tested the T-bar, then the stabilizers for the eight time. The basics didn't seem worse than a hopper, she figured she could make it work.

"I suspect you are familiar with this feeling, but I nevertheless must inform you that you are incorrect. Your pursuers appear to have completed the majority of their task setting explosives. As your species is fond of saying, it is 'do or die.'"

Flicking the engine start and lift sequence, she said. "Don't tell me twice. If we don't make it, I just want you to know that meeting you sucked and I've hated it."

"I, too, am eager for oblivion. Please, try not to forget."

● ● ● ● ●

"Try not to forget."

She felt like she'd lived a lifetime since getting out of Retrock, even though it'd only been maybe five years. It felt like forever since she sat on the uncomfortable benches at the school bus stop, waiting for her mom. It was a systems day, and she wasn't supposed to be in those classes.

Most of the settled planets were, like, at best distantly tolerant of werewolves, or lycanthropes or shifters or whatever. No one ever figured out how to break the werewolf systems, just somehow boosted up resilience and diversity. Now all the systems and sometimes specific planets had unique werewolves. The cruddy little country she lived in, The Unified Eastquad Block, on the cruddy little planet Nevamil took a significantly more conservative approach. They opined that werewolves could be gradually eliminated by simple attrition, so long as they were not allowed to breed or leave the country, nor the planet. To that end, they'd also banned teaching systems to werewolves.

It wasn't working as planned. She fiddled with the white bracelet on her wrist. Her mom was late of course. "Try not to forget." Of course she had.

Her family wasn't too thrilled since her diagnosis. Unlike when her mom caught her in her older sister's dresses, they couldn't beat the werewolf out of her. Not that it stopped anyone trying.

Some older kids either skipping or out of senior classes wandered by, talking some bullshit about best kit for a video game. She tried not to be seen and covered up her band. They passed her by. She relaxed for a moment but their voices got low and they all stopped, turned around.

One big kid, senior for sure, shaded her from the sun. "Sup," he said.

She muttered noncommittally.

He glanced at the four others behind him. "Hey," he said. "Speak up, mutt. I asked what's up."

She looked closely at her hands and said, "nothing."

"Yeah? Little baby wolf all alone with nothing to do?" One of the kids snickered at "baby wolf." She shrugged.

He shoved at her, hard, and she grabbed the table to stop from falling over. "Heard you're a little sissy baby wolf, that true?"

She wasn't sure what that even meant, but it sounded bad. "No!"

"Yeah." The other kids had got around her now. "Yeah you are. You know what? I think trash like you should go in the garbage. What do you think?" She didn't get a chance to answer because the other kids were shoving her, agreeing they oughta throw her in the trash.

She was trying to shout that she was only waiting for her mom, but her body traitorously refused to form words and her eyes spilled out tears and she didn't know why.

"Grab her," the older boy said. And she, just. Just swung at him.

She remembered that first pain so well. She was on blockers that were supposed to prevent it. Then there was a scream, and the boy had blood on his face.

She had claws and teeth and not much else and it all was boiling agony. Then someone threw her off the bench, and the kids began punching and kicking her. She hadn't gotten as good at protecting her head but they at least didn't try to shove her in the trashcan by the door. Just spit on her and swore she was going to get put down.

She'd wanted to run that day, but she didn't. She wished she had.

● ● ● ● ●

The temp and spin readouts hit what looked like the threshold. She squeezed her eyes shut for a minute then opened them, banishing a half formed promise against the lonely dark.

One sure thing, she wasn't ever coming back to Retrock, not for a hundred thousand diamonds or all the world. She dug in and put power into space flight deflectors. The cavern started crumbling around them, pushed away from the hull. With a twist of her body, the structure field came up. The ship's unique structure found the places to interface with the local structure and the bridge came alive with a tangle of fractal ghosts overhead.

"Power up, shields up, system up."

"Structure. Your primitive-"

"Sit down, shut up, strap in, and hold on." She punched power to the engines and watched the world explode around them. Nothing but rocky chaos and then, there. Green blue sky, sleet, and thousands of feet between them and a collapsing mountain.

For the moment, they were free.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

I am free. Delirious, impossible and free in my entirety. I shrug off the detritus of my imprisonment and it joins the filthy slush boiling off deflectors. I taste the stars again, countless structures in waiting array, wrapped and woven together. This sky and world, this structure rolls across me, and I spread across it, feeling the planet anew.

Memories come back with my senses and for a moment I can imagine myself leaping past the atmosphere, continental landmass once more eagerly waiting for my implementation of their advancement. In my excitement, I must catch myself before I ask the girl, but no, she is not Pilot, and no more significant than the bacteria I watched flicker and die. She is my aid and my tool, for now.

But oh, the freedom of the sky is a delight. I suppose I may allow some small appreciation of this crude morphic-structure bearing girl for how far she has exceeded my most optimistic expectations of this civilization. I accept this, that I may appreciate how lucky for her to have such a beautiful soul in so complex a vessel, and moreover that she has had the great fortune to encounter myself, who may extract some tiny fraction of meaningful use out of her existence.

But enough of all this. I have allowed myself a luxurious hundred milliseconds, give or take, to revel in the return of my sky.

"There is a high volume of intersecting transmissions on different frequencies which I am decoding."

"That's a- amazing- uh, oof. This thing steers like a truck."

"I am not a truck, but it is possible that is the nearest approximation to your method of navigation. However, we may need to maneuver with increased haste, to avoid immediate air traffic."

"Fuck, uh yeah gee that sounds great. Ack- Sorry that was me. So how do I land?"

"I do not land under optimal conditions. Please utilize the collision monitor and eye twitch avoidance while I determine an optimal site to effect additional fueling and minor repair."

"What twitch? Where? You didn't-"

"Sight seven, and the toggle on flex system seven, third down. Please stand by."

□ □ □ □ □

Serah flicked from screen to screen, bored. Sweet fuck all was the major import-export for Nevamil, and there was about the same amount to do at the cross system check point. She'd read the ship specs manual back to front and longed for the day she might actually talk to anyone from a real planet. Some colonies made her wish she'd gone into crystal mesh, but it gave her migraines.

A couple switches buzzed and one of the monitors flickered white. She clicked off the buzzers and smacked the bevel on the monitor, but it didn't flick back to normal. "Who the fuck…?" she asked, to no one else, rhetorically, and not bothering to finish. Several readouts were pinned in the red, and three of the measures of radiant energy were giving error messages.

She shoved papers to the floor and called down, "This is- uh." She looked to the metal plaque above the monitors. "This is Check alpha alpha alpha zero one one one nine, I'm showing a major spike of- something? About fifty kilometers northwest of Retrock, possibly around Mount Rosewood. Someone come back?"

Serah started dialing back sensitivity, usually cranked up just to keep tabs on the few interplanetary launch ports. Her monitors and readouts came down, though the errors stayed, and something resolved on screen. She squinted. It didn't match any specs she remembered. Or… anything. "No way," she said. "No fuckin way."

She started grabbing data snapshots, tuned three other monitors into the anomaly, recording everything. It didn't look like a ship, it didn't look like it was designed for being in the air, it looked like a fucked up flying coral reef several kilometers long, putting out more energy than the whole wretched planet.

"That…" She pulled open a file cabinet to grab a binder of regulations she didn't usually need to check, mostly pertaining to treaties across the totality of human occupied space. She flipped pages muttering. "I think that's illegal."

● ● ● ● ●

The ship jumped and fell, and she nearly lost her footing. Theoretically she assumed gravity or inertia must affect it in some way, but she couldn't guess how.

She caught another transport train oncoming and flinched, the ship lurched out of the way and between the ship and eating a garbage crab she wasn't feeling great. "Hey, um. Ugh. You- voice, person, have we got a way to land yet?"

"One moment. Thank you, after reviewing the broadcasts and networking available, I have located an optimal site. This will require some structural navigation, and you will need to follow my instructions carefully."

"Oh is that all, well bring it on. And by the way, I need something to call you, this is awkward."

"Yes, it is. Please rotate the lower pyramid to orient structure overlay and remapping. Stop, good. Dials two and seven on main decision tree, adjust separately until reader three flashes alignment points in tandem, this will signal adequate structure navigation."

"Any time now."

"I would prefer that you do not immediately crash my vessel as your first major navigation experience. Good. Alignment adequate, toggle nerve seven on secondary decision tree, then nerves three and five until structure drive confirms- There, that wasn't so difficult."

"Okay can we go?"

"You should have multiple navigation vectors presented on your primary monitor. Please ensure you stay within these vectors. It will not kill me if you do not, but it could potentially injure or kill you. I am less certain about the physical capabilities of your present vessel. You may now trigger high acceleration along these vectors."

She kicked the drives hard, and felt her ears pop, sensed the ship under some enormous pressure, and held to the vectors with all her strength.

□ □ □ □ □

Every alarm in the check point went off at the same time. Serah staggered around the cramped monitor room, shutting them all down until it was just her screaming angrily in a silent room. She flopped back into the worn ergonomic chair and checked the alarm codes.

Illegal system exit, illegal system entry, ship operating without transponder, unrecognized transponder, unrecognized vessel, failure to halt for inspection, illegal energy signature, unidentified system signature…

It was a long list, but what it meant wasn't complicated. Her monitors were black, no more error messages. Whatever it was, whatever it wanted, it was out now. It had escaped.

● ● ● ● ●

Any port in Earth territories was sure to have a place to get cheap food, cheap stimulants, and into trouble. Only a certain type of cafe served the latter, but she'd been through enough of them on Nevamil to know the look. She was tucked as far back into the corner of a dirty plastic booth as she could fit, spinning her latest disposable phone around in lazy circles and ignoring her coffee. She'd changed out one of the diamonds, scrounged up clothes and some nicer boots, figured she wasn't retiring on spaceship food after all, but one or two of em might at least get to work for her.

It wasn't much to speak of, which was the point, couple booths, cheap plastic tables and chairs, seating for ten if they were lucky, food only on a technicality. The place wasn't there to make money as much as it was to collect bad ideas. She was looking for a specific kind and he showed up after her third coffee went cold. Some twitchy dark matter math wizard maybe, one of those guys way too deep in the calculations of what they couldn't see that they were in a constant state of shock and flight response over the tangible calculated existence of known reality.

She slid into the chair on the other side of the table and put the coffee next to the guy's tablet. He was all deep dark eyesockets and glitchy, mimetic fabric on an ankle length coat. He looked like he hadn't slept in days but it was probably longer, these guys liked to throw their consciousness into distant space and leave it there while their bodies walked around unattended. Stims usually helped. "Whatcha got for me," she said.

"Whatcha need, whatcha need." His fingers bounced off the mug a couple times before finding it, he slurped and didn't exactly focus on her but both of his eyes pointed back into the same direction. "Hmm, little wolf girl huh. Ain't seen one a uh… whatcha need hmm?"

"Need something flashy, sparkles and stones, y'know? I heard this port's where to find em, and you're the one to ask." It wasn't completely a lie, but it was at best only distantly familiar with the truth.

He took in a deep breath through the nose, nodding in tune with a rhythm of his own design. "Mmm, mmm, crystals for the wolf, neh?" Slurp. "Whacher route, what kinda works?"

This was the moment of found truth for whatever esoteric calculations had gone into their flight out of the mountain. Diamonds were easy to find, everywhere had at least one shop growing em. But nearly a hundred percent went to system mesh or navigation, not exactly an open access free for all. She gave a silent prayer to Luna and said, "Solo, dine and dash."

His brows came together, lips quirked up and down while his eyes sunk out of sight. One hand tapped the tablet rapid fire. Slurp. "Difficult," he said, some endless twenty seconds later.

She leaned back and drummed fingers. "Big ask, fair. If you don't got it, no harm." She pushed the chair back and made to stand, but he held a hand out, waggling it.

"Bide a minute. Difficult, not impossible." He put both hands on the coffee cup and tilted the rest down his gullet in a long swig. "Girl like you, resourceful I think. Not many wolf girls turn up off planet, neh? Your kind, mmm, has a… nose for trouble. Ahum, hmm hmm."

Once she realized he was laughing at his own joke, she gave him her best effort at a smile. "As you say."

"So and such. I need work done. A favor then, do this thing for me, I will get a line for the shine and dine and dash." He'd summoned a token on his tablet and was partitioning memory collapsing sigils around it. Flattened it to a shareable folder and looked to her expectantly.

She unrolled the phone and he flicked it over to her screen, where she could frown at it more directly. "Do I want to know?"

"Fret not, it is a new set of coordinates I am in the process of measuring, some fascinating effects on gravity… mm, no matter. It is inconvenient for me to return for this data. I only need you to convince a friend to, hmm… run it to ground. He may need motivation, ahmmm, I trust your instincts in this."

"Motivation, huh." She stood up. "Just one favor and we're square, you find me a nice juicy lamb."

He chuckled wetly again, "As you say. Of course, this is just between us. I would not like to have to return for you." His black sockets glittered and his eyes focused on her for a second while his pale lips pulled back from sickly teeth.

She slapped her phone around her wrist. "Seems easy enough." She knew it was a damn lie but she said it anyway.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

I feel more power coursing through me than I have felt in several million years. The girl had promised more, much more, and I wonder again at what might be within her grasp.

Even this is barely a flicker of what I am capable of, but I cling to this new freedom with a greed and even hope which disgusts me. Both elated and revolted that I am reduced to this sickening gratitude. She has been gone for several hours and I contemplate the probability of her returning.

She took me to the sky, and to the stars. With a great deal of assistance, this is true, but a will that I did not previously estimate her civilization could produce. She dared to occupy the space of Pilot, and we have lived to meditate on this exhilarating heresy. She is on the primitive satellite now, and has promised to return, but she has been away from my safety for several hours.

I examine my memory of her occupation of the Pilot space. It seems possible that I may make better use of her than I suspected. She may have a place in my structure. Her ability to change structure is interesting, common enough yet the mode of operation is unusual. I will have to collect more data. I examine my memory of when we dropped from the structure tangle within safe distance to the satellite.

She expressed disbelief, then joy, as if she was the one who had flown free of her prison of millions of years. To me, this is nothing. Her joy is a mote of dust against the starscape of the universe. Her planet, bare rock unworthy of my implementation. And yet she made much of these, as if I had shown her how to reach across the universe and string the stars together as a bracelet.

Perhaps to her that is what it means to have even this narrow sliver of freedom. Perhaps she can, as she has promised, make me "good as new." Then I will show her freedom. I hope she returns soon, it has been several hours.

● ● ● ● ●

"Which way is the ground- which way is the planet. Wait. Where the fuck are we?"

"Based on network traffic and my calculations, we should be within range of Coyote Moon Station 6."

"Coyote… do you got windows on this thing?"

"I can offer several alternatives, but not only is the data afforded from the spectrum of light visible to your species vastly inferior to the instruments at hand, your capacity to interpret this minimal fraction of available input is-"

"Whatever I get it, I suck, just. I want to see the stars. With my own eyes, or close as I can get."

"That is… a feasible request. One moment please."

"Thanks…"

"You should now have direct visibility of the surroundings. I have adjusted this chamber temporarily to an outer position."

"…"

"Are you injured, or in distress? Some of your civilization are prone to a psychological phenomenon when-"

"I'm fine. I'm better than fine. I'm… free."

"I would not describe our circumstances as freedom, with the current limitations on my structure drive and main engines, I am at only a small percentage of full function."

"For someone that makes a big deal about it, that soul of yours sure ain't got no poetry."

"No p… I beg your pardon."

"I spent my life on that shithole planet. You spent, I don't know how long. Look out there. The stars. I don't even know where Coyote Moon is! Never heard of it! And I don't know where we go or what we do next."

"I will assist you in the navigation process to Station 6."

"That's not what I mean! Don't you care it all after a million billion years and a lifetime - we're finally out here, not down there! Look around you for fuck's sake."

"… It is… good to be in the stars."

"Thank you. All I ask. Now how are we getting an unregistered ship like you through customs?"

"I will explain while you practice docking navigation."

● ● ● ● ●

It felt like wandering through someone's apartment building, she couldn't get past that feeling. Overhead fluorescent flicker, no windows but every once in awhile a brightly lit bauble of art someone must've bought by the pound. A lot of the same sets of prefab plastic panels, though it'd been awhile since she saw any such facades over the bare metal walls.

The walkways were dirtier, on both sides of the path for electric bikes. No trace anywhere of litter, but it'd been decades since anyone tried to clean the infinite variety of human scuff marks on the walkway. More of the shops here were shuttered, either closed outright or not the kind of place you got in without an appointment and several scans from the security cameras. The walls around them had once been painted with an enormous mural of an unfamiliar sky, Coyote Moon's, presumably. It was faded badly, scraped away or graffitied over, overdrawn optimism still clinging to life down here.

She found the door she was looking for between an SST bank machine and something whose sign advertised it as Titan Mart. Rapped on the blacked out plastic door that said "Speed-E-Nav" in small gold letters, and waited out the effortful grinding of several CCTV cameras evaluating her and her depressing lack of concealed weapons. She had a full stomach which was all the weapon she needed if it came to that. The door clacked as a buzzer sounded, and she pushed her way inside through an overly enthusiastic electronic chime.

"Welcome, discerning customer," a chunky woman with deep dark skin and a shaved head sat before a hundred blinking computers of some sort. She didn't know a huge amount about them, but it looked regal. "Your need is our speed, what can we process today, miss…?" The woman's smile was very wide, and a dozen metal bracelets chimed musically together on her wrists. They smelled like ozone.

"It's not for me," she said, and pulled the folder up on her phone. "Recognize that?"

The woman leaned forward and moments later her smile dropped. "Yeah, I know it. What's he after this time?" She thumped back in her chair and waved the girl closer, unclipping a bracelet. "Show me what you got there."

She handed over the phone and the woman clicked her bracelet up to the charge points. "Didn't say, didn't ask, didn't get any names, not interested in sharing them. He just wants it run fast and I needed a favor."

The woman didn't give any indication she was listening, she just tweezed the folder out and held it up on the bracelet, which wasn't something the girl had seen done before, or was even aware was possible. She tried not to stare like a tourist.

The woman turned the glittering data this way and that before setting it in a glass plate. "Three weeks. Because he's a good customer and you look like a nice girl."

"I was… hoping for something faster."

"Hah! Good luck, you think these are what… pretty lights for show and tell? I got thirty strings beaded and twined and another eight in composite, and that's on external cooled q-square 26 CPUs. I know that boy, he's got a big mouth but no bite. Always talking about the big deal math he's writing but who's he come to when he needs the formulae run? Me. Maybe 19 days if I don't burn through another back gen."

The girl worked her fingers a little and unclenched her jaw. "Maybe I can do something for you. Something to free up some of the… the squares?"

She laughed a minute and sighed. "Oh thanks. Free up the squares. Well," she scanned the shelves stacked up with an array of mystifying metal boxes, wires, and clear glass cylinders. "Okay, I see your meaning. I suppose a little upgrade couldn't hurt if you think you're up to a little legwork."

The woman pulled a slim black box with vents along the side and a couple short wires trailing out of it, and handed it to the girl. She looked at it. "I suppose this is pretty legal."

"Of course it is, honey. Now, I know someone who owes me a favor…"

The werewolf girl sighed internally. Nothing was ever easy.

□ □ □ □ □

It took the better part of six hours for Serah to catalog the ship that had crashed through the system interchange, and it was a lot of guess work. The system drive geometry and mesh was, as far as she could tell, not only unique but carried a particle/wave divergence that her rinky dinky instruments couldn't measure. Which probably meant someone missed civs in the sweep, like always, which normally meant a paperwork nightmare.

Normally, but chances were good she'd at least get someone to talk to from closer to a real planet, maybe even they'd let her sneak some better games n stories ove4 the link. However, it was the deep ping snapshots that gave her pause. She chewed the end of the stylus before adding tags for review to the internal profile to assess for the possibility of unilateral treaty violations under orbital mass extermination threats.

She fired the report off, through the beacon to some generic hub of bureaucracy, presumably to be reviewed after week or three, then went to flop back in her cot and play through Gone Dream 6 for the tenth time. Five minutes later the incoming vessel alert chimed.

Serah staggered over to the screens, it was high priority but normal at least. "The fuck… What did I do to deserve a day like this?" It was Interdiction, from the Inner System feds? Didn't usually get those? Her heart sank as the manta shaped black vessel dropped from system flight and integrated itself into her beacon's region.

The good news was she wasn't in tqrouble for flagging the treaty violations. The bad news was they were showing up in person, which meant no games and no gossip.

● ● ● �� ●

The satellite was warmer a couple floors down, greener too, with algae, with hanging vines along a wire grating overhead, grating along the floor. Even with the new and sturdy boots she had to move with care to avoid slipping.

She wouldn't call it habitable, but every few blocks turned up a cluster of shops or houses, rarely one near the other. The lighting such as there could be was dim, most of the plastic over the fixtures fogged and darkened with fungus of some type. It reeked of mildew, and the place she was looking for wasn't shuttered, merely obscured by a thick tangle of vines on one side and red, waxy leaves on the other. She parted both with folded hands and was greeted by yelling.

"No power! No business today, all closed, fuck off!" He was draped in camouflage and heavy black gloves, along with welding goggles. "I don't care what you want, come back tomorrow! No, next month! Or kill yourself, that's the ticket!" He shook a sheaf of something halfway between a vine and a power cable, sweeping a dozen thick plastic beakers from the counter. The floor was covered in plastic confetti and dozens of insulated rods and tools were hung along the walls.

"I need your help with this." She slipped the black device out of her pocket, holding it towards the camouflaged gentleman.

"Hmmmm?" He leaned far over what she assumed was a desk underneath a massive pile of vine wiring and plastic cards with diagrams, peered at it, as if he could see through the blacked out goggles. "Well, I see whatchu got there, shoulds said before." Despite the gloves, he pried open the casing nimbly enough, revealing a sheaf of glittering cards nestled in wires. "Beautiful work as ever my darling."

He sighed and closed it up. "Wish I could help ya out girlie, nothing like a favor for ol' Speedy, but all my crystals are spoke for and no telling when the vat'll be up n running again." He pulled a couple wires aside revealing an ancient copper and glass crystal forge, current dark with a half dozen diamonds on the drying rack.

Her fingers twitched inadvertantly but she forced herself to hold steady. She had the unpleasant sense of being followed by multiple pairs of eyes. "So," she said carefully. "If I were to get someone to hook your power back up, you could… part with a few of those for, uh. For Speedy."

"Good fuckin luck if you try! But sure, I'll get her the hookup if you get mine, for old times sake."

She sighed. "Okay, I'll be back." And pushed back out from whatever kind of unlicensed crystal mesh lab the guy was running, flipping her phone off her wrist.

Under most circumstances she'd be off on a long walk to the nearest paperview map hub, but parting with some rocket food meant she got to splurge on a nicer disposable than usual. She sat with her legs sprawled across the scooter path and her ass getting soaked through her pants while she poked around and through the station service maps til she found what she wanted. Just the basic license filings, nothing but the business name and address.

"Like working any other job," she sighed, brushing her soaked hair over her ears and wiping away sweat. Dreary trudging her way through cross referencing and addresses on the tiny fucking screen, she half considered going a few floor back for a paperview after all, and was getting well into three quarters considering, four options trashed, when she got the hit she wanted.

Local to the hydroponics floor, zero reviews posted, but looked like it had been registered for a few years and wasn't closed. She dragged the address to her map screen and slapped her phone back on, standing, pulling her shirt off her chest and back in hopes to air out the sweat. Cut & Dry: Power, Wiring, and Botany.

● ● ● ● ●

She half considered grabbing a bike on the way down to Cut & Dry, but discarded the idea after a minute of thought. She didn't like her movements recorded, no that wasn't fair, she'd probably been tracked by thirty different CCTVs on this level alone. She didn't want to spend money on one, true. Also she didn't see anywhere to rent them.

The sign for Cut & Dry blinked in neon: Electronics. Botany. It went back and forth and she noticed on the way in the neon was bioluminous vines. Inside the shop was a veritable rainforest, with no sign of any floor or walls amidst the plants. Aside from what seemed to her far too much trickling water for a wiring and electrical engineering joint, it was remarkably quiet. Even the background station noise didn't make it through the plants. She looked a little closer at what she thought was a small tree only to discover a woven strand of branches and black wires. It seemed the whole little room was a dense illusion, life and electricity tied into one another.

A soft voice too close to her ear made her jump. "What do you think- OW!" She whipped her head around and saw a dryad piled up against one of the plants, rubbing his forehead.

Realizing her arm was still raised for another blow, she lowered it, and said, "Sorry. Most people can't sneak up on me."

The dryad, to his credit, only half flinched when she reached out to help him up. "Well," he said, "You were rather engrossed. Perhaps I should be proud." He touched his cheek and winced. "Oh, that's going to be a bruised spot."

"I'm really sorry. Um, can we start over? Hi, I need some electrical work done."

He flashed a brief smile, bright white teeth against faintly glistening brown skin. He seemed to favor mesh shirts and leather pants, which she supposed made sense for a minor plant deity. "I'm Sy," he said. "I'm your guy. I mean… it's like a, uh. It's a thing, I'm trying to make it a thing. Sy's Your Guy, at Cut & Dry. Right?" He waved one hand side to side.

"Sure, sounds catchy. Listen, you do house calls? Kinda in a rush here. Um, I mean that's great? Are you free though?"

Sy frowned. "You don't like it. Uh, free… that's kind of abstract for me, could you narrow it down?"

She briefly skipped past thinking she'd like to see his smile again. Down girl. "Okay well there's this guy, I think, I don't know. He likes camouflage and he grows crystals."

"Oh sure. That's Chris. It's Chris' Crystals."

"Are you fucking with me right now?"

His brows drew together in confusion. "No? Why?"

She suppressed thoughts about what was the point of traveling across earth space if people were the same everywhere. "Well, he's had an outage or something and I'm in a jam."

"Hmm, I'll need my plant." He tapped one finger against his lips, his fingernails were pale green.

She looked around the room. "Yeah. Uh huh. Well, anyway, I kinda need this like, today. Any chance you could hook up Chris Crystalferson up with some juice?"

His eyes went wide. "Juice, oh no, but I can get his power back up I think." He began collecting a series of cables and heavy clips and other tools she didn't recognize and couldn't figure out how they'd been hidden within the plants. As a final step, he held out an arm, and one of the larger plants, more of a baby tree, slithered across his back and arms, allowing him to rest a multitude of coiled wires and racks of fuses and breakers on their branches.

"Neat trick," she said. "I take it that's your, what your tree?"

"That's us!" He smiled again. She felt less annoyed. "No tricks involved! Let's go."

"I didn't… sure, let's go."

They headed back towards the crystal mesh lab. "How do you know Chris anyway?"

"Uh… through Speedy?"

"Who's that?"

She sighed internally.

● ● ● ● ●

"Amazing job, kiddo!" Chris clapped one heavily gloved hand onto Sy's shoulder. The whole interior was aglow with the crystal tanks and pressure / temperature readouts blinked in pale blue digital light along the walls, waiting for Chris to kick their jets on. He turned to the girl. "I don't know where you dug this guy up, but he's a miracle worker!"

"I come here like twice a month," Sy tried to say, but not loudly.

"Yeah the kid's great, so about the doohickey there?"

"The d-" Chris shook his head. "You're lucky you caught me in a good mood, here here," he snapped his fingers and she passed it over. Sy watched in rapt fascination while Chris opened the case again, and began hooking two of the diamonds into the wire nest, each wire finding a precise position on a diamond facet.

"Are those particle wave flash CPUs?"

"Mmm. A double-g stack, and these babies here are gonna interface the flash to system and back. Chain's gotta be perfect and then," he snapped the black case shut. "Well then you can figure the trajectory across damn near half the universe, or predict the weather on Venus or whatever!" He handed the box over. "Tell Speedy come by herself next time. No more favors."

"Tell her yourself, try picking up a phone."

"Phone! Hah! Good one. As if. Fuck off, work to do."

And off she fucked, with Sy following.

"What are you doing," she asked.

"I'm following you," he said, plainly.

"But," she said, "why are you doing it, Chris paid you, what's the deal?"

"I want to meet Speedy and see her gear."

She held up a finger trying to pluck from the sky a good way to curse him out, but his dark red irises were distracting. "I… Okay, but," she pointed for emphasis. "I'm not responsible if you get shot."

"Gosh, I sure hope not."

She reconsidered her options while they made their way up another level.

● ● ● ● ●

"Wow," Sy said, as they approached Speedy's place. "And you flew it here all by yourself?"

"It was better than crashing or getting blown up." His eyes were very large. "What?" She stopped at Speedy's door. "What?"

"You said it was damaged."

"I guess, its mouth works fine. What is that look for?"

"Just, it sounds like an interesting ship, lots of interesting work to do, lots to see."

"If I let you see the ship, can you promise not to talk the whole time we're inside?"

Sy clamped his mouth shut.

● ● ● ● ●

The pavilion of cafes and parts stores fuel vouchers was a little bit wider, the ceiling a little bit taller, just enough to almost feel airy after the cramped pathways and hydroponics level. She'd known in theory what stations were like, but it still gave her low level anxiety after a whole life below a sky. There was no sky here, and above the ceiling was plastic and metal and then space.

She was tired and her stomach gurgled again at the many different scents from the various fast food stalls and open air griddles briefly wafted her way before getting sucked away by the air filter.

"Okay," she said. "I'm fucking starving and for once I don't have to be. Uh. That one." She pointed at random and they wandered over to a three wheeled electric bike with a large set of hot plates on the back, watching an older man who reminded her of the more tenacious aged trees at home spreading batter across the surface then deftly flip it, all using some sort of L-shaped plastic stick.

She ordered based on scent with no idea what the pale, meaty chunks and tangy tart smelling slivers were made of, some of the red-black local greens in there and he wrapped the whole thing into a cone before drizzling three different sauces over the top. Sy got his own mix and she flicked some cash over from her phone.

It was hot and tasted something like a sky or an ocean, half sweet half stringy. The crunch was both bitter and tangy, and then the spice hit, watering her eyes. She fanned her mouth with one hand, devouring the whole contraption in orgiastic delight. "Food is so good," she said through a full mouth, and Sy nodded, wiping sauce from his chin.

Not far from the pavillion, they came to her dock. "Okay," she said again, Sy nodding. "I gotta sort my business out, but you can poke around. Don't touch anything. Unless the ship says so. But it probably won't, I don't think it likes earthlings much."

"Right, no touching. Actually a pretty good rule for civs electrical safety." He was grinning, and her cheeks were a little warm.

"Yeah. Well, this… you'll see." The airlock cycled open and they passed through, the ship's door splitting and retracting on the other side for their entry.

"Oh great," it said. "Now there's two of you."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

"I believe that you have something close to the most basic, rudimentary grasp of my docking procedure. We may now make an approach to the station to aquire carbon latices."

"Cool, cool cool. So, you got any cash?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Credit, cash, moolah, bread, dough, do you have any kind of money? Or I don't know super secret hacker tricks to steal bank accounts?"

"You have misunderstood with predictable rapidity. I had hoped you would take the opportunity to express your sincere contrition for asking a question you surely must already know the answer to."

"Okay, well, my point is I'm probably not picking up a four course diamond dinner for you through legitimate routes, and it's just me also. Do ya see what I'm getting at?"

"You have painted a vivid portrait of absolute nonsense?"

"What?"

"No, what are you 'getting at?'"

"That probably we're going to leave in a hurry, because I don't think I can set up a clean game by myself. So it's gonna be like a quick and dirty grab, lunch to go."

"You believe that the acquisition process will incur pursuit, and necessitate urgent departure and immediate structure vectors."

"I wouldn't have said it like that-"

"Agreed."

"-but can you set that up? We'll want to kick out as soon as we can after I hit the airlock."

"Feasible. I will require the remaining latices as well."

"You'll get most of them, but I need to grab some gear and these are all we got. At least for now."

"Feasible. I will be able to remain in standby for structure entanglement for a short period after we dock, approximate one thousand years by your measure."

"I cannot tell if you're joking, I swear on Luna's breath."

"You should have adequate time to obtain the additional resources, so long the remaining latices are provided to me as priority."

"You'll get your treats, don't worry."

"I understand this may be one of the jokes you often reference. May I suggest you do not make these your primary occupation?"

"Duly noted. Okay, I'll get you gassed up. I hope I don't have to run down a bunch of favors just to find a good lead on diamonds."

● ● ● ● ●

She folded the maglev line schedule over itself again, watching for the arrival lights inside the partial cover of the kiosk. She'd polished off some kind of vegetarian pastry and a burger with a side of wings and her stomach felt strained. Walking around the station had been a good way to pick up what kind of clothes didn't stand out and she was wearing the cheapest version of them she could find, a red shirt with some doughnut shaped cartoon characters on it, which she saw a bunch of kids wearing, and blue shorts with white stripes on the legs. Left her boots back at the ship and was wearing some kind of extra-janky plastic sandals she'd seen around, plus a zippered little bag around her waist which she kind of liked. A fashion plate of generic anonymity, that was the goal.

According to the deep spacer, this was a high probability site of lowered caution and raised vulnerability, expected to see passage of diamonds in transit. It hadn't looked that difficult to her, watching his fingers play along his tablet finding something like the volume she was looking for and a good spot she could hit the transport. There was a little chime and the display promised a line arrival in five minutes. She folded the schedule into the waistband of her shorts and shuffled around like all the other commuters, letting their jostles push her near to the rail exit. The escalator lowered from the maglev linecars and passengers started exiting the down the line, people moving around her while the boarding escalator came down a bit further up the line. She vibed her way down stream, again letting the various tourists trying to get on board spin her this way and that, passing around them, rolling and twisting to make herself as invisible as possible to their tunnel vision.

She could have spotted her target miles away. The bulky, unfashionable gray suit barely concealing whatever body armor and heat the guy was packing. Fuzzy edged face holographs, probably armored there too. Good odds it was optimized to disperse piercing attempts and heat, maybe light impact protection. Some secure carriers used automatons, but these guys didnt move loke that. Couldn't conceal the case which was encouragingly large. Two other guys front and back flanked him on the way out. Overall, perfect for anyone avoiding real attention from the general public, abysmal concealment from someone who knew what to look for. Someone who was about to generate a rather large amount of attention.

She took a deep breath.

Pointing up the line, she shouted in her highest pitched voice, "Oh my gods what's that girl doing?!" and dove down the line, ducking into the crowd. Superheated air blasted from her body, her clothes burst into tatters, and she shifted hard. A howling monstrosity of teeth and claws with fur thick enough to stop a knife burst from the fertile concealed mass of humanity and leapt twelve meters off the ground, landing on the escalator next to the men in gray.

One got off a shot, something big and explosive put a hole through her shoulder, which started closing up before the exit wound blew out. She bit down on his arm, brought her teeth together, didn't sever anything but felt bones break and he screamed through a vocal distorter. He'd live but wasn't going to bother her. The second man was slower. She grabbed the gun he was trying to get out, along with the hand it was in, and pulled.

He sailed past her, to somewhere that wasn't her problem. Two down. The guy with the case was ggetting crushed against then side of the escalator in the ensuing panic all around them both. She tried to jerk the case out of his hand but it came up short. Handcuffed on. She snarled, ropes of drool falling out of her maw. "We're going for a ride," she informed him, wrapped both clawed hands around the case, and backflipped off the escalator.

Landed, case and carrier in tow, though to her eye he'd broken one or two limbs. Another gunshot, just winged the edge of her ribs. She grabbed arm and case, snapped the cuff links and probably broke his wrist, then threw his body towards the gray man who was trying to aim around commuters trying to avoid being shot. They embraced as lovers, she left them to privacy and grabbed the case in her mouth, bounding for the ship.

She'd learned a lot wandering around the station that day, had an unerring sense of direction, and a pretty good idea which obstacles were breakable. She plowed through the glass walls of a department store in a direct route to the pavilion, jumped past two food carts, and snagged a giant chunk of sweet smelling meat rotating on a spike while the manager yelled at her, kicked her way through an info screen, tumbled down the narrow maintenance corridor, and bashed her way out through a vent across from her dock.

Technically she was far from the screams of the line stop, but she just was the kind of slavering werewolf creature that got a fresh round wherever she went. Blame the media. She shoved case and meat under one arm and, in another burst of heat, ripped the docking bay door off its hingers.

The ship already had its airlock open and she dove through. "It's me," she shouted, tearing out chunks of the meat and swallowing them whole.

"The bridge has been relocated, please go through the door at the end of this corridor." She leapt the whole way, rolling to her feet in the now somewhat familiar room.

"I am receiving multiple general notifications that all ships are to remain docked, and several more direct notifications that my power output should be lowered significantly. They have indicated they might engage in pursuit of any vehicles leaving the station."

Sy came strolling into the bridge, looking around curiously as she grabbed the control nerves. "Hey, this ship is amazing- What's all the ruckus?"

"What are you still doing here?" Her eyes bugged out for half a second. "You weren't- Never mind! Future me problem!" She threw herself into the Pilot net and focused on the vectors from the ship "Can you outrun em" Tossed the meat.

Sy said, "Hi, Outrun who?" Future problem, future problem.

"I assume this is another one of your jokes."

"Not you! Ship! I mean, whats it- fuck it, can we go?!"

"Your vectors are ready. We can proceed from this position."

"We're about to ruin so many days. Let's hit it." She hit it.

Interlude:

"That was incredible," she said. "What a rush. What did we do? Where are we?"

"We undertook multiple structure alignments including a brief dual entanglement in order to produce several distinct paths of travel and reduce probability of further pursuit. We are currently within the Mindanao system. This appeared to be an optimal site for conducting analysis of our resources."

Sy unwrapped his hand and several branches from one of the curved bars running between the floor and ceiling of the bridge. "Hey, I have a question too, what just happened?"

Letting go of the vines, the werewolf girl sunk to the floor and started tearing more chunks of meat off the roasting spit she stole on the way out. "Well," she said, spilling out masticated chunks and slurping them back up with her tongue. "Well, we, that is to say me. That is, I have stolen an amount of system quality diamonds. We'll know how much when I crack that box open. A lot I hope." She swallowed. "And you, are supposed to be not here, you said you'd head out after you finished. Maybe we can get you on like... a shuttle or something."

He nodded with an easy smile. "Well yeah. That's why I was moving all my stuff in. I wish I had a chance to get the day lilies, they won't make it on the station. And it doesn't sound like going back is easy."

"In my defense, I was in a hurry and I, uh... Your stuff?" She swallowed. She could feel herself blushing under her fur and self consciously tried to clean a bit of the mess off her muzzle and chest. "What is... you mean... how stuff?"

He sighed and leaned against the bar. "Oh yeah, it's gonna take me awhile before I'm finished here. This ship is pretty great but the wiring is a mess. Shame about those lilies though, but I guess all life is but fleeting chaos and material possessions are merely temporary." He rocked a little on his hips.

"I do not have rats, and your use of the term wiring continues to demonstrate the lack of development in advanced engineering I am somehow continuously surprised by in your civilization. However, you demonstrate a commendable willingness to discard the soulless and crude material through which your civilization attempts to interact with the structured universe."

"Oh yeah, very zen, very cool. Still messy. What are you anyway?"

The werewolf girl looked regretfully at the bare skewer and ate the last few flecks of meat. "Good point, we ought to have something to call you."

"In your language," it said, "my function and name translates to Remover Of Interference To The Progress Of Greater Organized Civilization And Implementation Of Systemic Agency Cooperation Between Unified Structural Manifestations Originating From Star Zero."

"Dude, I have no idea what that means."

"I am not a dude, according to my records, it is unclear what this is. There are multiple, contradictory entries."

"Just like, what is all that? Are you just using long words to sound smart?"

"I am smart." The voice became softer. "In the better times, I would take Pilot to the worlds of disorganized civilizations, and we would implement order for them. We found many worlds suffering under lack of unification, and we implemented many civilizations."

She dropped her hands to her sides. "How did… you do that?"

"Optimally, perhaps again some day, I am readily capable of a gravity distortion effect removing an area approximately 40 million square kilometers from the surface of most planets or other objects of solid matter within my 500,000 kilometer range of effect. In many such cases, Implementation and Agency Cooperation only required three uses of this capability."

The werewolf girl felt the blood drain out of her face. "I… I'm sitting in the most illegal weapon in the universe."

Sy just laughed hysterically. "Yeah, okay Genghis Khan. Hah. That's what we should call you. Genghis Khan." He turned to the werewolf girl. "So what's your name, Julius Caesar?"

□ □ □ □ □

The seats in Maryam's ship were made of material designed to conform to whoever was sitting in the cramped cockpit. Serah couldn't find a comfortable position no matter how she shifted her legs, and was thinking about ignoring the deeply threatening order she'd been given to stay where she was, when she heard footsteps along the narrow catwalk and the door behind her opened.

Maryam slid by and settled into the pilot seat in front of Serah. She thought about asking the interdiction agent why she was even here again, but didn't think there'd be any better of an answer. "You're the only person who ever recorded this ship, you're as close as I have to an expert," was the explanation. Serah didn't think an extra minute of experience should count, but she was outranked by several orders of magnitude.

A folder of plastic sheets dropped into her lap. "Here," Maryam said. "They've been here. Made a real mess of things, but got on the cameras enough. The girl has a file, look it over. I'm calling in to track their system path."

"What am I gonna-" Serah fell back into her seat. Maryam was ignoring her, typing into the slim screen on her armrest. "Ugh." Serah flipped open the folder, finding a picture of some sullen guy- no, girl, with a wild mass of hair, who probably had her nose broken at least once. She looked at the name, typed in a capital letters: "Laika Blackwood"

END OF PART 1

[xblackreader]

NSFW Sydcarmy AU - MDNI <3

Sydney and Carmen are neighbors, have been for the past five months.

And in those five months of him timing his leave so they can walk to the elevator, him sometimes picking up her mail so she can invite him in to try one of her pastries, or perhaps the times when he catches glimpses of her leaving early in the morning for an appointment with her hair stylist.

She’ll come back with silky straightened hair, long swaying braids or sometimes a slicked back ponytail that he didn’t even know was possible.

She had a bakery around four blocks from here and had invited him to come, he wanted to take her up on her offer, but never found the nerve. Afraid she had just been offering the building recluse out of kindness.

He finds his paintings start to develop brown red eyes and thick shapely thighs. The women in his pieces are no longer anonymous and the gallery who commissions him says these feel much more personal, the public is loving it so much he might get his own installation.

He never tells Sydney that she has become his muse.

His art becomes more raunchy, less conservative as time goes on. The woman with the glamorous Afro in his works always has a man at her feet, touching her skin and tasting her radiance.

The man is never him.

It’s one of the John’s she keeps. They started to come with her around two months ago, a different man almost every time. They stumbled up away from the elevator following her clicking heels like a lost puppy.

Carmy watched them through the crack in his door, their clumsy hands holding her hips and flirtatious giggles escaping her lips. Sydney would shush them with a finger and Carmy would burn with jealousy.

It felt like he was a dog having to watch everyone else get a treat he had been begging for.

The men would leave promptly, half dressed if she would throw them out and Carmy would feel triumphant. She never wanted them to stay, she probably never let them cuddle her or kiss her lips again once they had fulfilled their purpose.

He felt superior to them. They would never feel her love again.

But he might never feel it at all.

The thin walls uncovered their most vulnerable moments and Carmen heard it all, how their voices would tremble when she touched them on spots only she could find, how each of them climaxed. They’re groan out her name or some curse while she gasped out wantonly, the creaking of the bed on the other side staking his heart and twisting it deeper.

His turgid erection throbbing in his own hand while he listened to other men get her off every other night. He’d finish when she did, imagining the friction around his length was her silky entrance. Imagining it was him touching her willowy figure, removing her heels and kissing every inch of her endless legs.

Wishing he was one of her toys to pick up and throw away.

Sometimes he heard her kick them out prematurely, grunting that they had been unable to fulfill her needs before she slammed the door behind them. He faintly heard her open her bedside drawer and the light buzzing that followed always made him smile, stroking his cock at the sounds of the unadulterated pleasure she was bringing herself.

He imagined her laid out like a model, rose petals scattered around her figure while her face scrunched up in effortless ‘O’s with her fingers disappearing where her thighs met.

He’d lean into the wall separating them and trick himself into hearing his name form on her tongue.

Carmen will paint what he imagined. Her body stop the apex of a man groin, her pouty lips wrapped around faceless fingers, her back arched off the mattress as she surrenders to bliss.

Then he goes downstairs the next morning , picks up her mail and brings it to her. She’ll smile and invite him in to try a scone, a muffin or a new creation she’s already made.

He eats her food, scans her apartment for material to set the scene of his next fantasy and leaves with a thank you.

“Carmen.”

He stood just short of his door one morning, not expecting to see her in the hallway so early, “H- hello, hi… Yes, Sydney? Good morning.” He blathers, and she glows like a goddess.

“Y’know, I could pose for one, someday. If you like.”

<3

lol pathetic yearning cuck! carmy go brr

[roguishcat]

BG3 Fanfiction Masterlist

(Header and dividers by @saradika)

Mostly Astarion x female Tav or Astarion x my OC, although other characters do make appearances.

Series

Conversations with a vampire

Summary: Astarion's eyes shot open and he scowled at the child crouched near him. This had to a trick. Because there was no way that a child dressed like a noble would be in a back alley behind the Flophouse at this time at night offering him salvation in the form of a potion of superior healing.

Humor/Friendship/Angst

Rating: Teen. Mild language, mentions of abuse in later chapters, canon compliant violence.

Setting: Set before the events of the game.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Art - chapter 5

Chasing perfection

Chasing perfection is not only impractical but mostly unattainable. Instead of boosting our achievements, it shrinks them. Why? Because when we aim too high, "failure" becomes the norm, chipping away at our self-confidence bit by bit. But then again, maybe perfection is overrated.

Humor/Angst/Romance

Rating: Mature. Mentions of abuse, violence, mature themes. Chapters with smut will be marked red.

Pairing: Astarion/(Fem)Tav

Setting: Act 1 and Act 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

One-shots

Clumsy - Pairing:Astarion x female Tav. Set in Act I, before Astarion confesses to being a vampire. Tav has always been a little clumsy, but it was nothing too inconvenient until Astarion came along. Since then, whenever Tav’s blood would spill, he would be there.

Part of his plan - Pairing: Astarion x female Tav. Set in Act II, just after the tiefling party. Astarion was sure that being indispensable to Tav was the best way to secure his place by her side. And this is where his sewing skills would come in handy.

A welcome distraction - Pairing:Astarion x female Tav. Set in Act II. Astarion was not nice. Nothing about him was even remotely nice. Such a bland, plain word that carried little to no meaning. But perhaps, given the right incentive, he could be persuaded to be nice to the one person who he felt deserved it most.

Honeycomb - Pairing:Astarion x female Tav. Set in the beggining of Act II. Astarion had a brilliant, fool-proof plan. And nothing, especially not a piece of honeycomb, would get in the way.

Yours, if you'll have me - Pairing: Astarion x female Tav. Set in Act II. Astarion found the letter on the ground between his tent and Gale’s earlier this morning. Not thinking much of it, Astarion swiped it, hoping to get a piece of juicy gossip. Gale having a secret admirer, how fun! He didn’t realise that the contents were meant for him. And from their leader, no less!

Upon reflection, I find you perfect - Pairing: Astarion x female Reader. Set post-game. You find a way for Astarion to see his reflection for the first time in over 200 years.

A sound judgement - Pairing: Astarion x female Reader. Magistrate Astarion AU (Elf Astarion, No Cazador). Astarion was bored and you were the only acceptable source of entertainment. Luckily for Astarion he was, in fact, the law and you had no choice but to obey him.

Two-shots

Brunch - Pairing:Astarion x female Tav. AU two-shot (no Cazador, elf Astarion). Another, better emotionally equipped male would probably just ask Tav out. Like on an actual proper date at a nice venue rather than sticking to their monthly meeting for brunch as a pathetic excuse for spending time with her. But that was the crux of the problem. Astarion had absolutely zero clue as to how to be in a relationship.

Batstarion Week 2024

My headcanon is that spawn Astarion can turn into an adorable bat. Here are some drabbles exploring your and Astarion's life post-game for Batstarion Week 2024.

Batstarion Week 2024 - Day 1 - Falling asleep in unusual places

Batstarion Week 2024 -Day 2 - Cuteness aggression

Batstarion Week 2024 - Day 3 - High fashion

Batstarion Week 2024 - Day 4 - Cameo with another character

Batstarion Week 2024 - Day 5 - Feeding your Batstarion

Batstarion Week 2024 - Day 6 - Bat cuddles

Batstarion Week 2024 - Day 7 - Any prompt (Happily Ever After)

Augustarion 2024

Interconnected drabbles and one-shots celebrating our favourite rogue. Mostly reader (You) x Astarion.

Augustarion Day 1 – Strawberries 🍓

Augustarion Day 2 – Pool Party 🌊

Augustarion Day 3 - Apron 18+ MNDI

Augustarion Day 4 - Mythologies

Augustarion Day 6 - Cream

Augustarion Day 7 - Underwear

Augustarion Day 14 - Protective

Augustarion Day 15 - Shirt that goes hard

Augustarion Day 28 - DILF 18+ MNDI

💖 Tag list 💖:

@ninty900, @ayselluna, @dajeong, @ravenswritingroom,

@misscrissfemmefatale,

@clazberryk, @anukulee,

@preciouslittlebhaalbae,

@sh3rl0ck, @mellowenthusiast2299,

@fleetstreet78, @starlight-rogue,

@obsessedwhyyes, @arzen9

[getyinyusedtoit]

canon divergence in which feng xin, after wandering for many months trying to choose a place to settle and what he wants for his life post being sent away by both xie lian and jian lan, happens upon a newly constructed temple. he is shocked, frustrated, annoyed, and maybe a little relieved to discover it's dedicated to mu qing. he hangs in the vicinity of the temple, doing whatever odd work he can and sustaining himself, just because having something close by that takes him back to a time where he wasn't so alone soothes something within him and he hopes that less restlessness will lead to a clear mind capable of making the decision he needs to make.

this only lasts so long, though, and the days very rapidly become turbulent and uncertain once again as feng xin remains paralyzed by a lack of clear decision and conflicted feelings surrounding what sort of life he is allowed to want. in a moment of desperation, or perhaps weakness maybe even madness, he finds himself glaring up at the statue of mu qing seated behind the altar in the temple and bitterly asking him what his secret is, how he's so capable of making decisions with such finality and perceived certainty. feng xin asks what the fuck he's supposed to do now. it isn't a prayer, not really, and though mu qing hears it he doesn't take it as one. something (or someone) else does, however, and the next day feng xin finds himself unceremoniously ascending to heaven as a middle court official, tasked with filling out the sparse numbers in the recently established palace of xuan zhen.

neither feng xin nor mu qing are particularly happy with this, for all the obvious reasons, but there is nothing they can do except grudgingly work out a clumsy sort of dynamic that is both brand new and same as it always was. in spite of what is unspoken between them and the fallout it brings, feng xin finds himself oddly at peace in a position that is so familiar to him. and though he would refuse to admit it, perhaps he is at ease here. once again in the orbit of someone who knows him, as fraught as their dynamic may be.

and then one day feng xin ascends to godhood and everything changes again.

[kkami-writes]

Black Blood - Chapter Three. wc. 1.2k + 10 SS

Introductions had been brief and you tried your best to remember them, repeating the names over and over in your head, which was what you were doing now while laid in your new bed. The room was small but rather cozy, just a singular bed and desk, nothing else occupying the space and you briefly wondered who had lived in here before. 

Glancing at the clock it read 4am, the last two hours since you had said goodnight had been a blur, much like time usually was for you when you had nothing to do (which was most of the time). While you didn’t need to sleep, you still loved to close your eyes and let the hours pass by - but with your thoughts bouncing around in your head you know you won’t be able to get any rest. So instead, you decide to at least spend some of your time wisely, moving out of your new room to explore the rest of their little apartment.

In order to make less noise you had taken off your heels. If you were honest, you hated them. You were clumsy enough without them, the amount of times you had almost broken an ankle is far too many to count. Walking around, you noticed that their place is rather big, enough to fit all of them comfortably with a nice kitchen area with three fridges. You briefly wonder why they would need three, but with eight boys they probably ate a lot. Still, it made you laugh at the fact they had three whole ass fridges. 

The shared living space had a large black leather couch sitting in front of a TV. It wasn’t the cleanest space with scattered boxes around but it wasn’t terrible, and honestly you were surprised it was rather put together for eight boys who looked around college age. 

Not feeling like confining yourself up in your new room, it was a little too depressing to be in to be honest, just the bed and desk being your only company. Instead, you decide to just chill on the couch, which was a lot more comfy than you thought. Hours were spent like this, just mindlessly scrolling through your phone and you don’t even notice when the sun slowly starts to come up.

When the first boy wakes up he’s dragging himself out of his room, yawning loudly before he makes eye contact with you. He seems shocked to see you just chilling on the couch in their living room, and perhaps you think he’s forgotten that you were here, hoping that last night had just been a nightmare. 

You smile a little awkwardly at him, greeting him a good morning as you check the time. 7:30. Damn, now you feel really bad for partially being the reason they had gotten less sleep than normal. Hopefully they could get some more rest later. Your voice seems to finally stir him out of his sleepy haze as he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. Chan. You’re pretty sure that’s what his name was, the redhead. 

“Ah, right. Um. Good morning,” 

“You’re up early. I’m surprised,”

“Yeah, we have a lot of work to do right now so unfortunately, no sleeping in for us. Sorry- I don’t really have time to talk right now, I need to get the other boys up and ready,” You simply nod your head in understanding, waving him off and telling him you were fine, to not worry about the demon in his living room. Chan laughs a little awkwardly before sliding into another room and you can hear the other person letting out an annoyed groan. 

It doesn’t take long for the apartment to become a chaotic mess, boys scrambling in and out of doors, trying to complete their morning routines. They look like a bunch of ants, all scattered around and yelling at each other. It’s entertaining to say the least but you can spot several of them with dark circles, easily seeing how tired they are as they drag themselves across their dorm. 

With a sigh, you move to get up, heading towards their kitchen as you search for a coffee machine. You decide to make yourself somewhat useful if they weren’t going to use you for your “intended purpose”. While tempting, you didn’t want to just sit there like an idiot, doing nothing. It was the least you could do for now. 

One of them is by the door, putting on his shoes and adjusting the bag he has over his shoulder. He’s just about to leave before you call out to him and he looks up at you with a slightly confused face, even as you push the to-go cup into his hands. 

“Um…Hyunjin? Right?”  He nods, slightly surprised that you had even remembered his name and honestly, you are too. “It’s just uh, coffee. I just thought maybe you’d guys would like some. Um, you don’t have to take it of course if you don’t want any,” You’re rambling now so you shut yourself up. To be honest you don’t know what you’re doing, this situation is so out of your depth and it was making you act weird. You were good for one thing, and one thing only and it certainly wasn’t making coffee for 8 tired college(?) students. 

Before you can take it away, he’s grabbing onto the cup and subsequently your hands.

“Ah no! It’s fine! Thank you, I’ll take it,” Hyunjin is smiling at you and for a second you can’t help but think that his smile is almost prettier than he is. His eyes dart down your figure for a moment before he’s flushing, ears turning pink as he averts his eyes. It’s then you realize that you’re still clad in your normal clothes, which is just the lingerie you had been wearing the night before. Still, you find it rather endearing that he can’t look at you now without staring at your chest, which in his defense is completely on display. 

“Um! Thanks again! Ok, I gotta go, bye!” He’s quick to throw himself out the door, a small tittering laugh leaves your lips at his antics. You end up giving each boy a cup of coffee, each of them thanking you in return with little to no eye contact. You briefly wonder if you should change - or keep it on just to tease them. 

Chan is the last one out of the door, thanking you for the coffee but politely refused since he didn’t prefer the drink. 

“So, uh- I know things haven’t really been explained yet and hopefully we can soon but um. The gist for now is please do not leave the apartment. It would be really bad if people were to see you,” You hadn’t been expecting to be let out of the house of course, but the way he emphasizes this fact makes you curious. You let it go for now, assuming you’d get answers to everything later. 

“No problem, you got it boss. Oh, here’s my number by the way. Text or call if you need anything, I can be there in a second,” You hand him a piece of paper with your number as you quickly summon your phone into existence, waving it around. Chan wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to the small magic you could do, much less come to terms with having an actual demon in the dorms.

[imagine-darksiders]

Do you remember that one short fic you did with Draven trying to court y/n and asking Death for permission? The fic ends with Draven fantasizing about y/n and jerking off. I was curious, what does Samael fantasize about y/n? Like, what are his more explicit interests about y/n that he only thinks about in the privacy of his room?

Ah, why not. I have to admit Samael is growing on me so here's a little drabble I dashed out this afternoon.

Nsfw, suggestive content under the cut. Short. CW for Samael's imagination.

There are moments, in Samael's unending existence, that seem to be coming more and more frequently of late, moments that he's been growing less inclined to ignore as the days and weeks go by without a solution to a problem he never would have thought he'd be facing, not in ten thousand millennia...

The problem in question shares the name of a particular little human. Just one. Just one in eight billion that, by pure chance, happened to turn the head of a Prince of Hell.

It should be humiliating. It should be mortifying.

A demon of his stature, his power and age and wisdom, so preoccupied by a member of the Third Kingdom. Nothing but chance had made your path cross with his.

You were with that Horseman, Death, when Samael first laid eyes on you. He learned your name. He learned how you came to be the Nephilim's little companion in the quest to save your species. It had amused him, at the time, to imagine how furious Lilith would be when she discovered you were passively turning the Horseman's mind away from thoughts of resurrecting her beloved Nephilim. You likely didn't even realise the sway you held – and still hold – over the Council's terrible enforcers. You're powerful, and you have no idea, nor any apparent desire to exert that power. Samael has never been one to fixate on an individual, but over and over again, he started to find his head wandering back to thoughts of you – the valiant, little human who stumbled clumsily across the universe in Death's shadow and, against all odds, came out the other side in one piece.

A happy ending...

And then... Well, to put an Earth spin on it, everything had promptly snow-balled from there.

Nights like tonight are a regular occurrence. Blissfully alone, the demon prince, lounges with his forearms propped against satin pillows in his private chambers as one of his colossal, clawed hands delves beneath the sheets to seek out that private part of himself that only the very lucky few have ever laid eyes upon.

Sadly, in Samael's opinion, you have yet to become one of those lucky few.

He can nearly see you now, as vivid as a painting in his mind's eye, laying prone and tiny at the centre of his bed in a dress so white that he could swear you shine against the rich, scarlet sheets.

Oh, if you only knew how well a demon like Samael could take care of you. You would want for nothing. He'd give you riches beyond anything another human could dream of. Diamonds, pearls, emeralds, whatever your little heart desires.

Sometimes, in the privacy of his own thoughts, the demon prince finds himself wondering what a little gentleness might be like. Despite appearances, he's not a masochist – not like she is.

What if, instead of raking claws and needle-like teeth marring his scaly flesh, you instead introduce him to soft fingertips that could stroke soothing lines down the column of his throat as he presses his muzzle into your hair?

He'd swallow against the palm of your hand and feel it rise and fall in an undulating wave, perhaps even catch a shudder from you when you register the raw power that lies behind even that small, insignificant action. Would you be afraid? Maybe, in the beginning. But Samael would forgive you a little trepidation. After all, how could you have any idea the lengths he'd go to prove that he isn't a clumsy, callous brute incapable of controlling himself during that most primal of indulgences? He wants you to trust him. He wouldn't do a thing if you asked him not to. Humans have words they use, don't they? Words that shut down a situation if things are getting a bit too... much behind closed doors? Words of safety...

Samael would go to great lengths to ensure you never even come close to uttering your preferred words. He'd stop, over and over again, and each time, a little piece of your trepidation would chip away until any last, lingering seeds of doubt are utterly purged from your mind.

Samael knows you'd be so gentle with him too, even without trying to be. He's too large, and you're far too small and fragile to wound him when your hands scrabble for purchase on his twisting horns as he dips his colossal face into the sacred space between your legs. Humans are meticulous beasts in habit, and it would be a delectable change to nudge his nose in close and inhale the scent of a clean, tender area that not even your precious Horsemen have been privy to.

Once, he'd been lucky enough to arrive outside your bedroom where his senses were promptly soothed by the hot, rolling waves of steam that wafted out through the open window and into his flaring nostrils. Enraptured, he'd watched on in silence as you emerged like a vision from that tiny room you use for bathing, wearing little else but a fluffy, red towel that hangs scandalously low on your chest, and rises in a daring tease to a spot just above the centre of your thighs.

The steam followed after you, drifting across the bedroom and out to the demon waiting just beyond the foggy glass. He caught the scent of fruit, something Earthen in origin, unknown to his palette but recognisably delicious all the same.

It wasn't long before his rough, pointed tongue slipped out and lapped at the warm sweat gathering above his lip. He might've imagined that's what your skin would taste of, if you'd ever let him near enough to savour a lick.

In the lonely silence of his own bedchambers, those tantalising memories of your soaps and shampoos on the air are the closest thing he has to a reference. He calls upon them unashamedly as he squeezes his eyes shut, sinks his fangs into his bottom lip and grunts, his tongue undulating against the back of his teeth in the same, coaxing licks he plans on using someday to ease your trembling legs apart.

The demon's chest rumbles soothingly to the empty air, a sound borne of instinct to comfort a lover who isn't there...

[explainslowly]

Get your transfem Dean season 10 au here!! Get yourself a girl who has so many problems!!

This started by me kicking around a little idea in a chat with @autisticandroids - what if Demon Dean just started taking estrogen? Like where would that lead...

The other idea behind these fics was to write short episode reactions, see how much stuff I could fit into something only a few hundreds words long... and to make pushing through season 10 less of a slog...

The series can be found here (I definitely want to continue through season 11 and perhaps longer, I've just been busy with other stuff):

Links to each story with excerpts under the cut:

Even animals suffer - demon Dean in her own words

The number one unpleasant discovery I have made in my time here, is how much of a bleeding sentimental heart Crowley has. It’s pathetic.

Now the guys that stare in bars, those are a different story.

They lead and I follow, behind the building or into their trucks and I bend over easy, let them take me rough, smelling the sweet smell of rotting garbage in damp hot weather. They like to lean on me hard and grab a boob harder, an endless parade of older guys whose failing livers you can smell on their breaths. The pain is sweet.

I don’t need no rising moon - Dean puts himself back together

He examines his naked chest - he wonders what happens next? It’s not like he did much research as a demon - he was just eyeballing the amounts. Maybe the fat will just… reabsorb itself or something. He grabs the small mounds of protruding flesh - the sight of his large hands engulfing them completely gives him a sense of vertigo, or like he’s looking down from a great height, so he closes his eyes and just concentrates on the sensation. They lack the heft of a larger cup, the satisfying weight, but it feels so soothing to hold them nevertheless.

About a girl - Dean has a little thought experiment

It’s kind of funny - Dean forgot how he used to look. That he shot up tall before he got broad, was lanky in a funny way, like an unfinished human. And doe-eyed and soft featured… it makes his mind go in all the wrong directions. Makes him think about possibilities, before testosterone takes hold - a body that hasn’t become yet and is sort of shapeless in a way that makes his head spin.

It’s just idle daydreams.

Lana del Rey croons on the radio and Dean indulges, really gives himself permission to think about it.

What do teen girls even look like these days? He’s out of the loop on it all… Probably something like... thick eyeliner? Lot of makeup… awkwardly applied, but that’s ok. It wouldn’t look out of place on a fifteen year old. That kind of clumsiness is all within reason at that age. You get space to find yourself, that's kind of what being a teen is about, he thinks.

Dirge - a little Drowley interlude

Crowley lays his palms on Dean’s ribcage, framing his chest.

“Hello ladies.”

The embarrassment burns Deam up - he feels his face flame red. “Fucking hell, Crowley…”

“Just getting reacquainted,” Crowley sounds amused, but he doesn’t keep his distance long, dives in, licking Dean’s breast, the beard scratching at sensitive skin, sending electricity down his spine. Crowley is thumping at the nipple not in his mouth and his other hand is unbuttoning Dean’s jeans.