#before the rune of death was plucked out)

[sweetflanfiction]

Asymmetrical Symphony

Universe: Arcane (LOL)

Pairing: Viktor x reader

Summary: You had been on the rooftop with Jayce and the Herald and somehow you were sent to a place where things can be different with your help

Disclaimers and Warnings: If you want me to tag you on the chapters let me know! Also leave a comment with your thoughts :D Not finished, not proofread. English isn't my 1st language. All I know about LOL is from google and all I know about Arcane is taken from the show, so inacuracies will be plenty. I have a sort of idea on how to I'm gonna go with magic and runes, so bear with me. The reader will be written and GN (going by they/them) to get everyone involved, but if you see any discrepancies let me know.

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There was a second. Less than a second before Ekko's time flowed again. In that, second before Jayce and Viktor vanished into nothingness, before time turned in your favor. In that second you felt your mind separate from your body, your consciousness being bent into a spiraling corridor of Hextech, your soul being erased and repainted with the runes you studied. And then…white…a flash of nothingness and the ticking sound of a clock and in a blink of an eye you jolted awake.

The impact with something cold and hard took the breath out of you, feeling it hit right below the diaphragm. You kept sliding down something until you woke up enough to figure out where you were and how fast gravity was working against you.

You quickly figure out where you were: the Hexgate rooftop. The place you had been standing a second ago, looking at a white construct plucking all your memories away, now a dark slide with a not-so-fun ending. You cured under your breath, your hands finding anything they could grab and stop the swift descent. Finally, your fingers clawed at a sill and you haphazardly stopped your death by floor. 

With two big puffs of air, you managed to pull yourself up the ledge and immediately fall on your back, when you figured the ground was straight. You could feel your lungs explode with cold air, the tears you had before drying out in the night air. 

You frowned. Night air? Something snapped in your brain and straightened your back, sitting on your small perch. It was broad daylight … The flood of memories and images hit you all at once, and you felt all of them all at once. You felt your brain split open and be sewn back together. Jayce, Viktor, your two friends, broken and made whole again. The hextech, the hex core, and its idea of a hive mind world. Mel, a force of nature finally found what she was truly made of, marble and gold. Caitlyn and Vi, the backbone of the enforcers. You, a high society figure tangled in the science you patronized, turned fighter for Piltover's survival. 

You heard the chaos of the last hour in your mind, the screams, the clinking of swords and blasts of guns. The smell of blood, fear, and magic. 

You felt it all until…you didn’t. And it all became quiet. The silent whisper of the wind on your face and the normal sound of a city under your feet.

You got up on unsteady feet, realizing you were still wearing your makeshift enforcer armor. You looked around, seeing the skyline of the city, bathed in an orange moonlight, until you reached the Academy’s dome. A silent gasp came out of your mouth.

It was still intact. 

The gasp turned to frown and the hope to realization. You took a step back as you watched the red moon reflected on the glass pane.

It was still intact, but not for long.

You remembered Jayce talking about how he got to go to a different time, an alternate universe. A divergence in reality that sent him somewhere. His description was dire, filled with what he called ‘Hex Angels’ coming after him. But this seemed like your world, your time. Before Jinx attacked the council.

Before Jayce placed Viktor in the hextech bath, turning him into the Herald.

You had one chance. One impossible chance. 

The urgency of needing to get to council chambers hit you like a brick and you started to try and make your way inside the hexgate. Find an enforcer, tell them to get you into the chamber, and warn the councilors of the attack. If it would be easy, you were a well-known face in Piltover. Your father was a respected figure, an old councilman, only giving up his seat when your mother died 20 years ago. Getting into that chamber would be easier than getting down from this rooftop.

Which you managed with surprising ease, thanking Caitlyn for showing you the many ventilation entryways where the enemies could try and get inside.

And your feet hit the metallic floor of a walkway you ran as fast you could to any place you deemed safe to jump down. It seemed like a never-ending spiral that was clawing into your anxiety. But when you were about to scream you found yourself face to face with a door with a sign “Maintenance. Do not open it if Hexgate is hot.”

You gave it a few tugs. Nothing. You groaned and started pounding on it, until you saw an enforcer come to the door, frowning. 

He opened the door, a hand on the handle, another on his electric baton.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” 

You frowned at the first question but answered it. His eyes looked nonplussed and you frowned deeper. You hated to pull this card but you didn’t know how much time you had.

“Do you not know who I am?” Your voice echoes through the tube. “I don’t care who you are! You are trespassing on government grounds” He grabbed your forearm and roughly pushed you into a small corridor. “How did you even get in there?” He mumbled to himself, losing the door. “Doesn’t matter. I need to get to the council chamber.” You blurted out, knowing by his demeanor it was futile.  “Pal, you're going straight to HQ to answer how you got into a place with only three guarded doors, and why.”

He once more grabbed your elbow and dragged you away from the metal door towards a minuscule industrial elevator. With his free hand, he grabbed the key ring around his belt and unlocked it. It was beautifully crafted, as was everything in Piltover, but the cramped space and your shoulder pauldron made it difficult for both of you to get inside at the same time. 

You looked at the Enforcer, while he was trying to figure out if going down the thousands and thousands of stairs was worth it. The stairs were barely used, placed there by an overzealous engineer and much like the door to the elevator, it was locked. 

“I’m sorry…” you whispered to the guy and when he turned you did your best Vi impression and head-butted him, leaving him hurting and confused. You quickly snatched the keys from him and rushed to the stairs.

“Stop!” You heard him mumble, trying to regain his balance.

Yanking the door open you rushed down the stairs, jumping whole sets of stairs at a time, using the walls as a concrete cushion to break your descent. You kept jumping and running and colliding with the walls, begging that the ground floor appeared soon. 

The last landing was below you and you saw four enforcers open the door below you and rushed in, looking up and spotting you. You couldn’t take them all. 

Before you could do anything you felt something shift. Similar to when someone stretched after a good nap, but it was in the air around you. Not the air you realized, the reality around you awakened. It whispered something unintelligible, but you heard it even above the guards shouting at you. A faint piano note followed and right in front of you a rune appeared. Like a pattern on a broken mirror. 

A magical rune, you remembered talking with Jayce and Viktor about it.

The officers were approaching and without thinking you inscribed the rune with your foot on the dusty floor of the stairwell. Once made you waited. The guards stopped for a moment looking confused. Nothing happened.

A conversation between you and your father flashed in your head. You had finished practicing a piece on the piano, your father, ever the willing audience sat with a frown on his face. 

“What's wrong?” you asked, turning to him and he shook his head. “Is it supposed to be a happy song?” He asked and you shook your head. “No, it’s a requiem, but I didn’t feel like playing a sad song, so I changed the note.”

Your father smiled sadly and got up from his armchair.

“My dear child, if a song is intended to be sad, then it must be played as such. That was its intended purpose.” He placed a hand on your shoulder “You are only a tool to bring that song to life, your aim should be to bring it to life.”

Intention. You’re a tool with a purpose. You nodded and took a deep breath. Looking up at the enforcers you thought about what the objective of your plan was. Leave. Move from here. And then, you stomped your boot to the ground and a wave of air burst from it. Like a gust of powerful wind, knocking the enforcers down.

You looked at the groaning bodies on the floor, your chest heaving in deep breaths. For a second you were frozen to the ground, until the clanking of metal armor and footfalls snapped you out of it. 

“I’m so sorry…” You whispered to the guards on the ground and ran outside the hexgate, shoving whoever stepped in your path out of the way. 

You relied on your muscle memory of Pilltover to get you to the University where the Council of Clans was to be taking place. You managed to lose most of the enforcers by swerving into the building’s back alleys, stopping only by a garbage chute to dispose of the outer layer of armor you still had on, leaving you with a simple pair of blue pants and a tank top.

Arriving at the University steps you slowed down and walked confidently towards the enforcers at the door, hoping they had not been warned about your encounter at the Hexgated and that they knew about who you were. The last part was quickly dismantled as they stepped towards you with a hand up. 

“I am here for the Council meeting.” You announced, your tone showing the confidence you didn’t have, but that years of practice made second nature. “Good evening. We are not expecting any visitors.” The enforcer replied, politely. “Please turn back and come back tomorrow with an appointment.”  “Councilwoman Mel Medarda is expecting me.” Your tone dripped with the impatience only a Topsider was known to have. “I am truly sorry, but we are not expecting visitors. If any member of the Council was expecting you we would have been warned.” The other enforcer repeated and started towards you. “This is astounding. How dare you stop me from an engagement with a Councillor? Preposterous. I will tell your supervisor about this…” “As is your right. Now please turn around.”

You huffed and puffed, putting on a performance of a lifetime until you finished the rune you had learned minutes ago. Once that was done you turned to the enforcers and once again apologized, watching as they got knocked on their asses when you stomped the rune with your boot. It was enough for you to walk to them and grab another key ring for your collection. 

Unlocking the side door of the main entrance you stepped inside while hearing shouting approaching from the outside. Time is running out. You looked at the marble steps and both you and your knees groaned. You took the steps two by two until you reached the second landing and then you found the main elevator. You had no time to wait for the thing to arrive nor to go to the last floor by the stairs. 

Reality did the thing again and once more a rune whispered and showed itself as if it was a patch on the elbows of a jacket. There was no dust on the floor or walls, nothing for you to write the rune on. 

All of a sudden you felt a burning sensation in your hand and looked at it. In your palm, a bright blue rune appeared, glowing in the darkened university hall. The bright light spread, filling your palm, your knuckles and your fingers. When you moved your hand to turn it and watch the light consume the rest of your extremities, you noticed your fingers were painting light into the air. You moved your fingers in a wave a small path of light painted the air in front of you, like a stroke of a brush on canvas.

Once again, the clanking of armor and shouting kicked you out of your stupor and you used your now weirdly illuminated hand. For a second today, the rune did nothing and once again you thought of the purpose you had. Reach the last floor.

Another voice flashed in your head. Vi’s shouts when you were on the hexgate, back…back there.

“Well…don’t just stand there…push forward…get them out!”

Push forward. Quickly you drew the rune in the air and just as Vi sometimes spoke with her fists, you did the same, punching the rune with enough force to push it towards its destination.  

The elevator pinged and opened its double doors and you rushed inside. The elevator took off as fast as it could with its old gears but it was still quicker than the steps and by the quiet you were hearing, the enforcers were still finding a way up.

As soon as the elevator stopped you were darting towards the gigantic doors. Midway, you caught a glimpse of something shining through the sky through a window—the rocket. Jinx was going through the motions of pulling the trigger if she hadn’t pulled it already. If the rocket was already in the air, you had seconds to put a stop to the Herald’s ascension.

You swerved right, knowing the main doors would be guarded, but the side doors were usually…hopefully… left unattended. Never did a sigh of a door make you so happy. You grabbed the door handle. Locked.

Instinctively you made the gust of air rune in the air and punched it, the door rattled. You groaned loudly, your desperation evident. You painted the rune again but made it bigger. The door rattled again. If not size, then quantity. You made four runes on the ground, in a single line and stomped on it. 

The door flew open and you ran inside, watching as everyone in the room fell silent. You hadn’t been inside the chamber when the rocket hit, but you knew that Mel’s shield had naturally appeared to protect her. Jayce, being so close to her, had been protected, but Viktor was a breath away from it.

Mel’s eyes snapped to you as you took several gulps of air. Looking at a smaller window in the chamber you saw a light fly towards the dome. You locked eyes with Viktor, sitting on a chair, his expression confused. 

As you dashed towards him, Mel and Jayce, you were half tempted to use magic again, but when he reached for his cane you stopped that thought. You weren’t about to throw poor Viktor around, this was gonna hurt as it was.

A councilman got up in an attempt to stop you, but Vi and Caitlyn's training had paid off and you quickly skidded away. You were centimeters from Viktor when a blue glow bathed the chamber. Everyone’s face turned towards the domed ceiling. As everyone’s eyes were transfixed on the sky you grabbed Viktor's hand and pulled him to you as you rushed towards Mel. You heard the glass shattering as the rocket hit the target, the force of the impact enough to send you crashing to the ground, never letting go of the bony hand in yours. And then…blackness…

··········· • ············ •

[sanguinesmi1e]

A Round Door Like a Porthole, Lazarus Green Pt. 1 Pt. 2 (you're here) Pt. 3 Pt. 4

Art of LBM

Danny was still lying under the Specter Speeder, mind reeling as the words “they opened this portal with a child sacrifice, and bound his death and all the lost life potential to their bloody machine to create a perpetual gateway to the Infinite Realms” ran in a loop through his head. Could that really be true? Is his death attached to the portal, forever lodged in the doorway, preventing it from closing?

The guy clearly knew what he was talking about. The bit about why his ghost friends and frenemies caused so much chaos as they unleashed their obsessions on Amity Park made so much sense. It would certainly explain a lot of his interactions with ghosts after he died. 

 Danny silently cursed himself for not destroying everything in the lab before they got here. He and Jazz hadn't worried about the portal schematics, because they honestly didn't have any way to open a portal, only cycle energy in a recursive loop that shouldn’t have done anything. No one, not he and Jazz, not their parents, not Tucker or Technus, had been able to figure out why it had worked when Danny was inside. But if the machine was able to sustain a portal that was already opened. . . He wondered idly if he could light a fire that looked accidental and would both destroy the lab and leave the two men enough time to escape. It’d probably be too risky. And who knew what destroying the portal would do to him. Fully kill him? Destroy him completely and shatter his core? It might be worth it to prevent anyone from gaining this knowledge. 

No wonder Lex Luthor was interested in this business. A child was murdered in this basement, and for all Tim knew, the child’s soul could still be trapped here fueling a Lazarus Pit that connected the world of the living to the afterlife. What Luthor could do with an interdimensional portal or even a single sample of Lazarus water. . . Tim shuddered to think.

On the one hand, he was grateful that Wayne Enterprises secured the business before Luthor had the chance. On the other hand, he felt rather ill to think his family had directly enriched mad scientists who performed child sacrifices. At least he had full faith that between him and Oracle, they’d hunt the Fentons down and make sure justice was served.

“What is to be done for the child?” Tim asked Constantine. “Is his soul tied to that machine?”

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it’s just his death.” 

“You’re gonna have to explain the difference to me, ‘cause I’m not sure I see the distinction.” Tim said wryly. 

“I guess. . . Hm. You could think of it as the moment of transition drawn out endlessly like a plucked string whose note never stops vibrating. Like life is the anchor point of one end of the string, and the afterlife is at the other end, and the child’s death is the note created when his soul crosses from one side to the other. The soul is the bow causing reverberations, but the reverberations are the actual death itself. The effect of the soul’s passage. And in this case, the portal is amplifying the death so it doesn’t end like a normal death ‘note’ would.” Constantine leaned in to examine some of the runes that were part of the array. “Not a perfect metaphor, obviously, since you bow perpendicular rather than parallel to the string, and death and souls are nothing like music, but you get the idea, right?”

Tim was still caught on John Constantine saying the words “death note” together unironically in a sentence. He was going to have to share that with Steph later. Maybe with the whole family group chat, even. “Yeah, the metaphor makes sense, as much as any of this occult stuff does to me.”

“Whatever. As for whether there’s anything we can do for the child, I think we’ll have to try and summon him if we can.” The Brit started pulling items out of his trenchcoat’s inner pockets. “We need to ask what the spirit wants done, before we go messing with things we don’t understand.”

“Alright, need anything from me?”

“Yeah, move this stuff out of the way so I can draw a circle.” Constantine directed Tim to shove aside a few stacks of boxes, something called a Fenton Ghost Weasel, and together they shifted a coffin-shaped iron maiden that for some reason was labeled Fenton Stockades. Then he set to work chalking a circle and runes on the ground.

Finally he sat back and dusted chalk off his hands. “That should do it.”

“Will this be bright too?” Tim asked warily.

“Eh, might be? Shouldn’t be too bad.”

Tim grabbed an auto-darkening welding helmet with a green “Fenton” sticker on it off the workbench and slipped it on.

“Alright, here goes.” Constantine began the summoning ritual.

While Danny debated arson, the other two had finished clearing a space and chalked some kind of circle onto the floor. He tuned back into the conversation when he heard the trenchcoat guy begin a traditional incantation for a summoning. Were they trying to summon him? Danny really hoped it wouldn’t work. 

When people tried to summon the Ghost King he could almost always ignore the pull. This pull, however, was very strong and immediate. It seemed proximity made a difference, or this guy was just better at summonings than the average cultist. Before Danny could accept the inevitable, he was pulled bodily — literally! — out from under the vehicle and across the floor, still flat on his back on the Fenton Under Car Creeper, with the Specter Speeder’s ecto-engine hugged tightly to his chest. The wheels of the Fenton Creeper (not to be mistaken with the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick) sped him straight to the summoning circle. Still very much in human form. 

This was his first real look at the guy called Constantine, and he couldn’t help a horrified yelp. “Eugh!! What the fuck is wrong with you, dude!?!!” 

His lapse in attention made him lose the battle with the summoning spell, and it gripped him, pulling him through the convolutions of the spellwork even though he was already lying half across the circle, and forcing him to change into Phantom in the process. It was such a disgusting sensation, like he was one of those squishy water filled tube snake toys that look like a fleshlight, and someone squeezed really hard and abruptly so he turned inside out and went flying to go splat against a wall (or in this case, against the ground inside the circle of chalk). He tried and failed not to retch.

The younger man in the crisp suit whom he’d already identified as Mr. CEO-Timothy-Drake-Wayne looked at him in startled bafflement, while the older blond, still smoking his cigarette, (gross, and was that thing never ending?) was probably looking at him. Maybe. It was really difficult to tell, because he was a frankly vile sight. Danny winced and swallowed down nausea. “What have you done to your soul?”

“I — what?”

“Trypophobia central, man! Ugh that’s gotta be the grossest thing I’ve ever seen. Can’t you cover it up?”

“Who are you?” Timothy Drake-Wayne interjected.

“I’m the dead guy? You literally just summoned me.”

“Constantine said you were a child”

“I mean, I was?” Danny looked down at his obviously twenty-something year-old self and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been a while since I was fourteen though. These things happen.”

“Not typically, no. The dead tend to be pretty unaging.” Constantine said. 

“Dude I’m not having a conversation with you while your soul looks like Escher’s swiss cheese nightmare. Anyways, some of us do. Heck, I know a guy who constantly shifts from infant to old man and every stage in between. It’s pretty distracting when you’re trying to get him to let you fix the timeline again.” Danny continued to look anywhere but at the blond man. “But if it’s so important to you, I can —” He got an abstracted look, and slowly de-aged himself until the two men stood over a fourteen year old boy with snow white hair and glowing green eyes.

“That does not help. No.” The guy whose soul looked somewhat like a bleeding tooth fungus said. He turned away and started doing something magical. Danny hoped it would mask his soul in some way, but so far all it did was make Danny feel like he needed to pop his ears.

He also felt particularly uncharitable, so he didn’t revert to his natural age, and instead tried to see how young and cute he could make himself appear.

“So are you just haunting this basement? Seems hazardous, given the former proprietors.” Timothy tried to redirect the conversation. He didn’t seem nearly as distressed to see the ghost of a child, but his eyes darted surreptitiously to the Lichtenberg figure Danny used to always hide under gloves.

“Nah, haven’t been back here in years. I mostly live in my Infinite Realms haunt these days.”

“You . . . live? Is that just a figure of speech?”

“It’s rude to ask about a ghost’s nonliving status, you know. Highly taboo to ask how a ghost died or poke into the circumstances of our deaths without permission.” Danny admonished. Making himself younger than fourteen took more effort than he expected.

“Alright, I’m sorry,” Timothy raised his hands placatingly to the boy who now looked younger than Damian. “What brings you back to Amity Park?”

“Uh, you summoned me? Are we still not clear on that?”

Tim looked pointedly at the Fenton Creeper and the engine Danny still held. He’d shrunk down to the size of a four year old, and the engine really should be crushing him given it was bigger than his torso now. He quickly set it aside, and turned his biggest puppy dog eyes on Tim.

“You were in here already, and you looked pretty alive for a moment there.”

“I can look lots of ways!” Danny focused really hard on looking as cute, small, and nonthreatening as possible. He thought it was working when all of a sudden there was a pop! and he was smaller than he’d ever managed before. 

Timothy Drake-Wayne looked like a giant. The other guy, who had thankfully managed to put away his soul somehow, wore scuffed oxfords bigger than Danny. Hell, he could probably fit his entire self into one of Constantine’s shoes if that wasn’t a bizarre thing to do, and they weren’t already full of stinky feet. Holy shit what happened to him!?

Tim blinked down at the cat? Snake? Ghost. . . thing at his feet. What the fuck. A moment ago he was talking to an adult man whom he’s pretty sure was dead and he’s very sure was trolling them. Now his interlocutor had turned into an adorable creature with soft white paws, a long twisting tail, big pointed ears that swiveled like a cats, and a humanoid face that should’ve been creepy but was actually eliciting cute-aggression in him. Tim blinked again. The little baby ghost creature blinked enormous green eyes back at him. Then it yawned, revealing three rows of needle sharp teeth that looked like a cross between what you’d find in the mouth of a shark and a cat. Yikes.

“Does that mean the interview is over?” Tim asked him.

The creature just blinked up at him again, then zeroed in on his shoelaces, pupils expanding until only a narrow band of green ringed them.

Yup. The interview was over. Those paws hid some wicked claws which could apparently slice through leather with ease. Oh, Tim really hoped ghost scratch fever wasn’t a thing. At least the ghost looked sufficiently contrite after he yelped, and it waited while he removed a shoelace to sacrifice as a toy.

If Damian ever met him, there would be a new member of the family. Maybe he should name the creature preemptively so they didn’t have a cat-snake named Bat-Ghost in Wayne manor. 

“Do you have a name, little baby cat-snake ghost? Little baby ghost man?” He cooed as the miniature monster dashed back and forth, intent on shredding his shoelace.

The ghost paused long enough to chirp, “Li’l baby man!” before launching himself at the string. Even shocked, Tim’s reflexes had him whisking the toy out of the way, and the ghost went careening under a cabinet.

He wedged himself in the gap, landing face first in a dust bunny, and quickly wriggled backwards with an indignant squall. His wordless protestations cut off as he fell into a violent sneezing fit that thankfully dislodged him from beneath the cabinet.

Tim suppressed his laugh, and asked, “Little Baby Man? Is that what you want to be called?”

The ghost pawed most of the dust away from his nose, but spider webs covered his face and a big dust bunny perched atop his head like a fascinator with a cobweb lace veil. He looked Tim right in the eyes and nodded, dislodging the dust in his hair and setting off more sneezes.

“Li’l Baby Man” he confirmed. He placed a paw on Tim’s shoe and chirped, “Tim!” Then he pointed his tail at Constantine and said, “Gross!” with narrowed eyes.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

You know what I love? Flavour text on my items!

So here's some BG3 flavour text I found for Aylin's, Isobel's, and Ketheric's items, many of which are not lootable in-game - and some of which the characters themselves aren't seen wearing. I've had this lying around for a while, but now the toolset has given me a simple way to pluck out some neat "loot" visuals to go with the words. I'm going to list their names as they appear in the files, as well as include the non-unique descriptions some of them have (when they simply inherited from the template of another item of an appropriate type).

Aylin

Nightsong's Armour

Nightsong's armour is evocative of her personality - prickly, hardy, and about as agreeable as a clenched fist.

Nightsong Helmet

The Dame's resentment and anger toward Ketheric cannot be overstated. Still, her dreams rove sweeter corners, beyond the cruel hardwood floors of vengeance, the rooms of pain and discipline. Hers is a complex house, a house of the heart.

Nightsong Boots

Scratched in places, scorched in others, and worn thin at the heel, these boots bear the indelible marks of experience. (Metallic Boots default text)

Nightsong Gloves

Made from steel hammered thin, these gauntlets are a fine investment for any warrior. (Metallic Gloves default text)

Isobel

Moon Devotion Robe

A memory from her childhood: a warm bed. Through the cracked window, she could see the moonlight cupping the plums in the tree as if in silver hands. The name of the goddess Selûne came to her, and never left.

Isobel's Boots

Isobel's boots are haphazardly repaired, and have a humble snug fit for the wearer, snug as strong faith in the chest of a religious devotee.

Jhannyl's Gloves

(Left image is Isobel's actual visible gloves which don't have a "loot" equivalent, right is the visual for the ones that she actually has in her inventory)

Divine runes accentuate the finger pads. While not a religious sect, the Harpers do not demand the occlusion of religion in their members.

Isobel Headwear

She prayed for words and received silence. She prayed for intimacy and slept alone. She prayed for fruit and ate charcoal. She prayed for death and wanted to live. Then she grew older, and received things she'd wanted. Still she prayed.

Isobel's Circlet

Provides its wearer a touch of elegance but no additional protection. (Circlet default text)

Ketheric

Reaper's Embrace

Heavy steel bones and teeth enclose the armour's chest and neck like a grotesque exoskeleton that both swallows and protects the wearer.

Ketheric Circlet

Grants the wearer an austere presence, but no magical benefit. (Circlet default text)

Ketheric Circlet B

In his youth, Ketheric Thorm has the same puzzled, ever-curious brow belonging to any kid. Lamentable, that the brow this circlet adorned warped with tragedy and a sick determination over time.

Ketheric's Boots

Scratched in places, scorched in others, and worn thin at the heel, these boots bear the indelible marks of experience. (Metallic Boots default text)

Ketheric's Gloves

Not linked to any description and no "loot" visual I could find, but they're neat and have more little skeletons on them, so here they are.

Ketheric Cloak

Woven of heavy wool, this cloak is solid of make if somewhat stiff to wear. (Cloak default text)

Ketheric's Shield

In the theatre of dreams, Ketheric killed his wife every night. That wasn't how things happened... but always upon waking, he would glare into the dark, long-faced and solemn, and he would think: 'I keep you alive with my memories, beloved. I kill you with what I've become.'

Ketheric's Warhammer

This hammer's weight is centred on enchanted obsidian at the base of the head. Some nights before bed, Ketheric would sneak a whey-faced glance at the hammer, and think about the stone, and wonder what unknown facet of his heart bore his weight.

[daechwitatamic]

Of Ruin: Chapter 11

(banner by @itaeewon)

Of Ruin (Masterpost)

Rating: NSFW - minors dni Genre: vampire!au magic!au royalty!au, s2l, slow burn, eventual smut, angst and fluff

Summary: Taehyung of House Rune, Prince of Infracticus has been cursed. You’re the human world’s leading curse-breaker. It should be simple. But unraveling the curse becomes the least of your problems in the face of a world on the brink of civil war… and the love you start to feel for the prince.

A/N: Thank you endlessly to @sailoryooons for betaing!!! 💕

//

Section Warnings: language, tense situations with dangerous vampires, kissing, the precarious presence of fangs lol wc: 4.7k

You’ve never seen transportation like that which will take you to Scores’ territory, the region called Lucrotio. From the outside, it seems like a longer version of a carriage, pulled by a dozen amarisca, all pawing the ground and tossing their manes as they wait to run. Inside seems more like a luxury train car - thick drapes around the windows, plush carpeting, comfortable chairs that seem like they could have been plucked out of a sitting room.

There’s no one on board yet when Satuel and Dansoo accompany you and Namjoon inside.

“Where should we sit?” you ask.

“Wherever you’re comfortable,” Satuel tells you.

You and Namjoon settle into two seats with a small, round table between them. As Satuel and Dansoo settle in - one in the rear and one in the front of the coach - Namjoon begins to quietly go over with you what he’ll be looking for in the archives.

Despite the early hour, the sun not yet peaking over the horizon, the bruise-colored sky still littered with stars, you listen attentively. It boils down to the end-of-life intention you’d found in the curse; death magic is technically an elemental magic, and Namjoon is optimistic he’ll be able to find something useful, some clues to how to combat this thread of intention without having to end anyone’s life.

You both fall into silence when Prince Taehyung climbs inside the coach, followed by three of his personal guards, and the young Infracti he’d introduced to you as his best friend, Jimin.

“You’re still here, I see,” Jimin greets you, something mischievous in his glinting smile. “Well done.”

“So it seems,” you say tightly.

Should you trust Prince Taehyung’s best friend? Probably. Should you trust his hand-picked guard? Probably yes to that, too. But you can’t help feel on edge as the coach shudders into motion.

It’s silent in the coach at first. Namjoon seems to be done explaining his research theories with you, and you both look out the window at Infracticus passing by. The last time you passed through, in a smaller carriage, had been in the dead of night as they’d smuggled you in.

Curious, that the prince has no qualms bringing you along today, in plain sight of the Scores. You make a mental note to ask about it later, when you’re not surrounded by Infracti you don’t know at all.

You watch the sky turn from nearly black to violet, finally settling into a periwinkle as the sun rises high enough above the distant treeline to be visible from your window.

The landscape takes your breath away. You watch it rapturously, trying to drink in every stream, every knoll, every flowering field. You want to commit it all to memory; you want to forget that eventually you will have to leave it behind.

After some time, you feel the weight of eyes on you, and you sit back. You meet Prince Taehyung’s gaze in his reflection in the window. You hold his gaze that way, feeling bolder than ever before - maybe because to everyone else, you could still be staring out the window. Maybe because you aren’t looking directly at him - like the sun, it’s too strong that way.

Whatever it is that emboldens you, it doesn’t matter. You hold his gaze and wonder what you see in it. Ever since your last attempt to cure him, the attempt that almost took you out with it, something seems to have shifted between you. The looks you share are heavier, weighty meaning behind each small touch, each exchange of words hiding truer meaning like flower petals slipped between books pages, pressed and saved for later.

Each time you’d come up against these kinds of thoughts, you’d stopped yourself, told yourself it couldn’t mean anything, couldn’t amount to anything.

And yet.

Perhaps you ought to let Prince Taehyung speak for himself. Perhaps you both ought to speak freely, for the first time since meeting.

Something about him watching you through the reflection feels intimate, and you warm under his gaze. You wish you were alone with him. You wish you could ask him to take you to his private stable, maybe even back to his little hideaway island. Somewhere you could ask him what that look means. Somewhere you could ask him if you’re crazy for wondering.

You’re not and you can’t, so you keep your eyes on the window in silence, until at some point your eyelids grow heavy and you lapse into fitful sleep.

It’s Namjoon who wakes you, shaking your knee.

“We’re at the archives,” he says quietly as you slide your eyes open, casting a look around the coach to see what’s happening. The building outside is tall, so tall that you can’t see the top of it from your side of the coach.

You catch Namjoon’s sleeve as he stands. “Are you sure you’re okay going without me?” you ask quietly. You know that everyone else can still hear you, since they’re all Infracti, but you try to be quiet anyway, to give the semblance of privacy if nothing else. “I’ll go with you, you know. Just tell me.”

The smile he gives you is warm and understanding. He knows what you’re offering, what you’re willing to give up, and his smile tells you it’s appreciated.

“Satuel and Dansoo are staying with me,” he says. “I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about. You’re keeping him safe - who’s keeping you safe?”

“I think it’s gonna be a kind of mutual thing,” you say lightly. But, probably, it’s kind of true.

He gives you a long look. “Be careful,” he says finally, before following your two guards out of the coach and into the street.

You expect the coach to rumble back into motion, and you look around in confusion when it doesn’t.

Prince Taehyung has risen, stretching lithely like a cat. Then, wordlessly, he picks up two bundles of fabric and tosses one to you. Surprised, you fumble to catch it, causing the ball to unravel in your hands, revealing one of the hooded cloaks that you’ve worn a few times in your stay here.

You look at him in confusion.

“You and I are going on foot,” he tells you, swishing the cloak around his back and tugging the hood up and over his head, obscuring his dark curls. “The guards will follow at a bit of a distance. The coach will gather too much attention - I don’t want to be recognized on our way there.”

“Where are we going?” you ask, mostly just curious, as you don your own cloak, pulling the hood up and over your forehead.

“A tavern,” he tells you, shooting you a sideways smile.

“A tavern?” you echo as you follow him out into the street. Beneath your feet, the road is cobblestone, the buildings around you thatched like you’ve stepped into feudal Europe instead of an Infracti city. “Are we going to drink?”

He doesn’t respond to this, instead starting to head down the alley beside the archives building that Namjoon must be inside. You follow at a clip, burning with curiosity. The guards fall back, but Jimin - in his own cloak - brings up the rear.

“I might,” Jimin quips, and Prince Taehyung turns to shoot him a dark look over his shoulder.

“No, we’re not,” Prince Taehyung says firmly. “And you shouldn’t either. We’re going to meet someone.”

“Who?” you ask. You can’t help it - you hate being left in the dark, hate finding everything out as it happens.

Prince Taehyung sighs, turning back to look where he’s going. He leads across another cobblestone street and down another narrow alley. You don’t see another soul as you walk. Above you, white clouds float lazily through the purple sky, and you can hear what sounds like bird calls.

“We’re meeting with Seokjin,” Prince Taehyung says tightly, as if that means anything to you. Needless to say, it does not.

“If the wars had gone differently,” Jimin says, suddenly at your elbow, his voice quiet, “Seokjin would have been prince. He’s the Taehyung of the Scores, essentially.”

Something in your stomach turns to ice, and you will your feet to keep following the prince. “Is that… safe?”

Jimin shoots you a look that seems to say, you already know the answer to that. Out loud, he says, “Why do you think Taehyung wanted his little witch to stay close? The Scores don’t have as much natural magical ability - you should be able to send them running, if it comes to that.”

You wish you had half of his confidence in you.

“It won’t come to that,” Taehyung assures you, without turning.

The tavern blends in with the stone buildings around it. You only know you’ve arrived when Prince Taehyung stops walking and grasps the doorknob. You look up and see a hanging sign above the door, touting no name but a picture of beer steins.

You wonder if they even serve beer here - could you order a lager, or just type O?

Prince Taehyung pauses, his hand lingering on the door, and faces you. “Your presence will draw some attention,” he warns you. “Don’t look at anyone until we’re at our table. I promise - Jimin and I won’t let anyone touch you.”

You nod, suddenly too nervous to speak. As soon as you’re through the door, you feel his arm around your shoulders, pulling you in tight against his firm frame. Jimin sidles up to your other side, effectively flanking you.

The noise hits you first; as your eyes adjust you see that the tavern is packed with people wall to wall. The noise of conversation, glasses clinking, vague musical noises in the background - it all washes together into a dull roar.

It’s dark inside, and the Infracti with you leave their hoods up so you do as well. It’s true that the Infracti at the tables you pass notice you - either they smell you, or they hear your human heart pounding - but as soon as they see the arm around your shoulders they seem to lose interest; you’re not an easy target if they have to fight for you.

Guiding you through the crowd, Taehyung leads you to a table, and the closer you get, you suddenly realize there are two Infracti seated there; it was like they were rendered invisible until you got close enough - or until they decided to reveal themselves.

The two men at the table are beautiful, with glistening black eyes and dark hair, flawless skin, and wolfish smiles. The broader of the two leans back in his seat when he notices you. He looks quickly to the prince, that wolfish smile turning suddenly sharper.

“You didn’t say it was B-Y-O,” he says, one side of his mouth curling up in mirth. “Jungkook and I would have brought a snack, too.”

“Watch yourself,” Taehyung snaps, eyes narrowing. You notice he’s let them go black - outside, they’d looked human, deep and brown. The only time you’ve seen them like this, in their natural state, was when he was under the effects of the curse. You shudder, and the Infracti watching you - Seokjin, you assume - smiles even wider at this.

Beside you, Jimin lifts his chin just slightly. “I wouldn’t try snacking on this one,” he warns, his sweet voice coming out cool and unbothered. “She put a hole in the palace walls last time someone tried.”

Seokjin raises a brow, clearly still amused with himself, but curious.

Prince Taehyung opts not to explain who you are or what you’re there for. You stay silent, hoping the hood creates enough shadow to really obscure your face. Let them wonder about you. Let them wonder what you can do.

“So,” Seokjin says finally. “I suppose you asked me here to talk about the fires.”

Brave of him, you think, or maybe stupid, to just say it like that. But, to your surprise, Taehyung shakes his head no, and sits in one of the empty chairs around the table. Jimin follows, so you do, too.

“Not quite,” Prince Taehyung says, something resigned in his voice. “Though I certainly didn’t appreciate that.”

Seokjin and Jungkook just watch him, wait him out, faces impassive.

Taehyung sighs, pushes his hood back just a bit, enough that his face is visible. He looks around the table imploringly. “I’m not here on the crown’s business,” he admits. “I’m here as your friend.”

Seokjin stares him down, but after a tense moment, he seems to break, his shoulders losing some of their tightness.

“My friend,” he muses. “What could my friend Taehyung want to talk to me about?”

You watch as the prince casts a look around the room. When he determines that no one is paying your table any attention and that the noise level is high enough to cover this conversation well, he says, “It’s about my father. About what your family, and the Cleaves, have accused him of.”

“We didn’t accuse your father,” the slighter Infracti, Jungkook, points out petulantly. “We accused you - all of you. The Runes, at large.”

Seokjin waves a hand at him, effectively silencing him. He eyes Taehyung with clear interest, as if this conversation is going nowhere near where he’d thought it would, but he’s pleased with the twist.

“Come to deny it?” Seokjin asks lightly, but it doesn’t seem like he means it.

“On the contrary.”

Taehyung is always a vision, unearthly beautiful, striking and intense. But when he levels a look at Seokjin, eyes flashing, jaw jutting slightly in determination, something goes through you like lightning.

Taehyung shakes his head, once, tightly, black curls swinging above his brow. “I’m here to discuss what we should do about it.”

—

Seokjin folds his arms over his chest, looks sideways at Jungkook. They seem to have a silent conversation, at the end of which Seokjin’s frown deepens. He looks at Taehyung seriously, then glances at you and Jimin, as if you include you in his displeasure.

“Since you’re here as my friend,” he says, a touch of sneer on the word, “then consider it a kindness between friends when I tell you that I don’t trust you.”

Your heart sinks, but if Taehyung is disappointed, he doesn’t show it.

“I wouldn’t either, in your position,” Taehyung admits.

Seokjin shakes his head. “Your father won’t hand over control of the kingdom, not now, when things are already fragile.”

“Then help me make them less fragile,” Taehyung says intently, leaning forward. “Back down. Call off the Scores. Get the court families back in line.”

Seokjin’s eyebrows shoot up, quick as a flash, and beside him Jungkook lets out an indignant breath of a laugh.

“Even if I fully believed you,” Seokjin says slowly, as if explaining a complicated concept to a child, “even if I thought Taehyung will be true to his word, even if I thought you had a solid plan for after - which, I don’t - none of that is up to me. I can’t call anyone off.”

“You can,” Jimin says, palms flat on the sticky tavern table. “You can and you know it; maybe not officially, but we all know how much sway you have. Your people will do as you say - they’ll do as you do.”

“So you want me to say what, exactly?” Seokjin tilts his head to the side. “That there’s a plan to overth-”

“That isn’t the plan,” Taehyung bites out, and Seokjin stops mid-word, the first sign of deference he’s shown this whole time. “The transfer will be willing, you just have to trust me to handle that part. What I need you to say is, perhaps, don’t attack the palace, or even maybe tonight your family should attend dinner at court.”

Jungkook leans in, shoulder to shoulder with Jimin. “Let’s say we do,” he says, eyes glinting. “Then what?”

“Transfer of power,” Taehyung says, much more quietly, his lips barely moving. “Then, justice. Change.”

Seokjin purses his lips. “Those are big promises, Taehyung. I’m not sure I can really cash them in when all is said and done.”

“My father will see justice,” Taehyung says, his deep voice firm and cool.

“And then?”

“And then we’ll build something better.”

“That’s the part I find hardest to believe.”

“What’s the alternative?” Taehyung demands, frustrated. “The Scores stay powerless? Or worse, another thousand years of war, fighting for the throne? We know how that story goes - someone will win, someone will rule… until another family tires of it, and the cycle begins again. If we do this my way… it never happens like that again.”

Seokjin lets out a deep breath, but it seems to indicate that he’s listening, that he’s considering, even if he isn’t fully convinced. He turns to you, which is so surprising that you barely register the question he levels at you.

“What about you, venefici?” he asks, and it both startles and pleases you that he’s clocked you as a magic-wielder without being told. “What do you think about His Majesty’s plan?”

He asks it with a bite, a bit sarcastically, but you press your lips together, considering.

You look at Taehyung, who looks back at you impassively. He hadn’t talked to you about his plan before now. It is as new to you as it is to the Scores at the table.

“I believe him - I believe that he’ll try,” you answer, your eyes still on the prince. You’re not sure what you expect to see - gratitude, maybe - but his face remains as unreadable as stone. You remember the day that Taehyung brought you to his little island, had talked to you about his guilt and grief after the curse had led him to violence. “I believe that he’ll seek justice. And I believe that he’ll try to create a better way forward.”

“Try,” Seokjin echoes. His arms are still crossed over his chest defensively. “Do you think he can succeed?”

You’re not sure why he’s asking you - someone from the human world, the person at the table with the least experience with Infracticus and the ancient politics.

You meet his gaze anyway, and tell the truth. “Not alone,” you say, trying to emulate the even way you’ve seen Taehyung speak when he’s making a tricky argument. “That’s why we need you - now, and after.”

Everyone is quiet for a long time. Seokjin and Jungkook exchange another look, another silent conversation. Taehyung and Jimin do the same. You watch Taehyung, only Taehyung. Your magic can feel his, has gotten acquainted with it, and you can feel it thrumming, telling of his nervousness.

Finally, Seokjin purses his full lips. “I’ve known you a long time,” he says finally. “I know you mean well - I know you want what you say you want. I’m just not confident we’ll see it through. I’ll do what I can on my end, and if the power transfers to you… let’s talk again.”

“When the crown passes to me,” Taehyung says, something dark simmering behind his words, “I’ll send for you.”

You’re not sure how they communicated that this little meeting is over, but everyone but you rises to stand, so you hurry in suit.

“As an act of good faith I’ll tell you,” Seokjin says, and then leans very close to Taehyung’s still-hooded head, “don’t take the main road home tonight.”

Outside, the sun has slipped towards the treeline, indicating late afternoon. Seokjin and Jungkook vanish - solidifying your theory that they can control their visibility, and Taehyung and Jimin lead you swiftly around a corner and into a dim alley, their hoods still drawn.

Immediately, they begin to gameplan a new way home.

“We should send the coach back the way we came,” Taehyung reasons. “They’ll see it go that way, they’ll be prepared to attack and won’t watch the back roads as closely.”

Jimin nods seriously. “Send me with one of the guards,” he says. “If we’re stopped, they’ll find no one that they’re interested in. I’m sure we won’t have to fight.”

Your stomach twists as you understand the plan. You’re hardly close with Jimin, but you’re immediately nervous for him. And for yourself.

“And the rest of us?” you can’t help but ask.

Jimin and Taehyung look at each other seriously.

“I’ll send you with two,” Taehyung says decisively. “Then we can send back Satuel, Dansoo, and the human in a carriage on the western bank. We’ll take the two remaining guards and take a carriage up the eastern side a bit later.”

You gather that you’re included in the we, that you’ll be staying with Taehyung.

Jimin nods curtly, then clasps one of Taehyung’s hands in a firm handshake, leaning in close in some semblance of a quick hug. He gives you a quick nod and peels off back to the road the tavern sat on. As he leaves, one of the three guards who had ridden in with you appears out of nowhere to tail him.

“Come,” Taehyung says, holding a hand out for you to take. “We’ll go commandeer a carriage.”

As you often find, here in Infracticus, you just have to trust him, and you follow him deeper down the alley. You walk through town this way, hoods up, ducking into alleys, until you emerge on the far side, near a lazy stream. You can see, further upstream, a few water wheels turning slowly with the water’s movement.

Taehyung leads you to a stable, where a carriage sits on the cobblestones, two deep green amarisca already hitched to the front. Apparently, one of Taehyung’s guards beat you here and put in the request.

Taehyung helps you into the carriage and closes the door, untying the woven curtains and tugging them to cover the windows. You hadn’t seen a single employee of the stable, and your stomach twists with nerves again.

Taehyung removes his hood, but leaves the cloak on, so you do the same.

“One of my guards went to tell Dansoo and Satuel what happened,” Taehyung explains quietly, turning to face you. “So, we can’t leave until he returns.”

You nod in understanding. “I’m sorry that didn’t go as well as you’d planned,” you say, thinking of Seokjin’s cold expression as he’d heard Taehyung’s ideas.

To your surprise, Taehyung cracks a smile. “Are you kidding?” he asks. “I expected him to try to fight me - that’s why I brought you to put up your walls. That went way better than I’d hoped.”

You must look bewildered, because he laughs a bit at your expression.

“Infracticus has always been ruled the same way, even when different families had power, thousands and thousands of years ago,” he explains. “I didn’t expect anyone to trust my plan immediately. But I think he’ll come around - the fact that he’s willing to hear me out is huge.”

“Well,” you say slowly, “good, then. I’m glad. It’s a good plan, Maiesti. I want to help you make it happen.”

“You already have,” he says seriously. He reaches across the plush carriage seat and takes your hand, his touch cool and soothing. “I wanted to thank you. For today - for supporting me in there - but also, for this whole time.”

You feel your face heat, and you look away, watching your hand, small in his, instead of his face. “Of course,” you demure. “I’m just doing my job.”

You expect this statement to act as a splash of cold water, to deter Taehyung from the intense way his eyes - human again, now that he’s in the carriage with you - roam your face. It doesn’t; he pushes on.

“You continue to surprise me,” he admits. “Even when I think I’ve seen the true measure of you - you surprise me again and again.”

“What do you mean?” you ask. It just slips out.

He smiles, head shaking a little. “Your talent shocks me,” he says, “but it’s more than that. Your bravery - your unwillingness to back down. You’ve faced so many frightening things, I keep expecting each one to be the one that sends you packing, back to your home. But you never go. You stare down each new threat, and you dare it to try you. I’m amazed every time.”

You try to smile, embarrassed. “People say brave and foolish are two sides of the same coin.”

He shakes his head. “I’m foolish. You’re… incredible.”

His eyes are on you, and you bite your bottom lip, looking up at him through your lashes. This is an Infracti, a powerful one, a magic-wielder like you; this is a ruler, a crown prince of a land you don’t belong to; this is a man so beautiful and charming that you feel dumpy and awkward in his presence. And somehow, he is looking at you with something akin to admiration.

“What you’re doing… what you’re trying to do… is very brave, too,” you whisper.

“It’s selfish of me,” he says, voice also near a whisper, although you’re quite alone here, “but I really want you to be here, to help me see it through.”

God.

Is that an actual invitation to stay?

He shifts closer, just slightly, and your body mimics his. He’s still holding your hand, you realize.

“You’d make a hell of a Queen,” he murmurs, leaning closer. Your eyes fall to his mouth, finding the little freckle on the edge of his beautiful, bottom lip.

Could you kiss him? What would it be like - to have his lips on yours?

“I think I might like that,” you whisper back, raising your eyes back to his and leaning to fill the space between you.

His mouth on yours is cool and tentative, gentle. You lean closer, pressing your mouth more firmly against his, trying - already - to have more of him. He smiles against your mouth, lips quirking, and then he kisses you again, more insistently, dropping his hold on your hand to rest a chilly palm against your cheek instead.

You’d wondered if kissing someone with fangs would be different, or challenging, but he must have them tucked away, because when he licks into your mouth they aren’t there at all. His fingers twitch where they rest near your jaw as you bunch his white shirt in your fist, trying to pull yourself closer as you open for him.

He shifts, leaning up and over you, sending you laying back against the carriage door behind you, your head finding the window with a dull thud. Neither of you cares, kissing more frantically now, hungry, mouths moving together as you taste him, as you pull him over top of you.

He holds himself up over you, one arm snaking under your back to pull your torso flush against his as he devours your mouth. You clutch at his upper back, half to help hold yourself up, half to feel the muscles move there as he shifts. His spare hand caresses your waist, then slowly explores its way up, skating over your ribs, climbing higher and higher.

He breaks the kiss, both of you panting heavily, and then he attaches his mouth to the warm skin of your neck, tongue laving as he traces a path, chasing your pulse. You close your eyes and whine, low, the feeling of him washing over you like a rising tide.

And then, something sharp, tracing a line up your throat so lightly that it tickles. Your eyes fly open, your hands tighten on his back, your body suddenly screaming with adrenaline. Those are his fangs teasing your carotid artery.

“I won’t,” he promises, ragged, sounding half-broken. He nuzzles his nose against the spot, breathing deeply. “I won’t, but god,” he gasps, before placing a closed-mouth kiss against the same place. Your pulse thunders, but you loosen your grip on his shoulders.

He pulls himself away from the temptation, presses a hard, lingering kiss to your lips again, and then sits back, breathing heavily. You sit up, too, readjusting and trying to get yourself under control.

He smiles at you sideways, shy and playful, as he tugs his shirt back into place from its rumpled state.

“Like I said,” he teases. “Brave.”

“Like I said,” you shoot back, but your heart is singing singing singing and you’re sure he can hear it. “Foolish.”

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DID THE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!! lots more to come!! thanks for reading!!

[liminalpebble]

Between the Lines, Chapter 2

Masterlist

Summary: The exchange of concubines amongst the noble houses of Asgard is nothing new to the royal family, however, it is to Asgard's solitary younger prince. Since Loki had always openly declared the tradition barbaric and loathsome, he shocks the court to its core when he changes his mind.

The trickster had yet another surprise in store when he selected you, a librarian from a noble house to occupy his bed.

You're stunned, intimidated, even afraid, of the sly second prince, but you know as well as anyone that to deny a royal decree is to court death.

And so you go, only to find that this mysterious man is not at all what you expected.

Pairing: Femme reader x Loki Pre-Thor 1 AU

CW: Allusions to sexual slavery dubcon/noncon within the society. Power imbalance. Eventual smut with questionable consent. Minors DNI.

AN: This will be a multi-parter but not a particularly long one, so if I leave you hanging between chapters, I promise it won't be particularly long before it all comes together.

Chapter 2

“Come. It will be a long night, and we have so much to learn.”

He takes your hand firmly, but delicately, as if leading you to a ballroom for a waltz. The tenderness of it catches you off guard. You expected to be yanked over to his bed and ravished, left with bruises, and disposed of. That's what everyone told you to expect.

Instead, he guides you through lavish double doors to what appears to be his personal library. You crane your neck up, straining to see the top of the high, dark shelves and rolling ladders, all intricately carved with braided motifs, interwoven with mysterious runes and imagery. You have the dizzying sense that this room is centuries older than you, possibly even older than the god beside you. A stained glass skylight (a mandala of daggers) drenches the large parlor with eerie, icy moonlight. It tangles with the warm glow of the candles below in swirls of subtle blue and gold.

Loki feels his heart thaw ever so slightly at your glowing innocent wonder; the pure love and reverence in your eyes for those tomes, for the history of beings telling each other stories and truths, fantastical or factual...of people reading to know they are not alone. People, like you and him, who so often felt alone, who felt the painful singularity of your existence like a needle through the heart.

He smiles with furtive satisfaction. Oh yes. He has done very well to pluck this librarian from her life, like a flower from a secret garden of rarities. He watches as you walked in small uncertain steps, trance-like, towards the nearest shelves, raising your hand to graze the spines as you read them. Suddenly, you remember your situation, and turn to your prince asking, “I'm sorry. May I touch them?”

He chuckles, and sweeps his hands out from where he had them clasped behind his back; palms out in an open, gracious, gesture. “Of course. What good is a library, after all, if no one uses it?”

You nod, feeling a shy smile peek out from behind your nerves. He watches, radiant with longing. Those luminous eyes follow your careful fingers, brushing the spines so lovingly...the same way he ached for you to stroke along the iron pillar of his own, smelting him sweetly into something softer.

He swallows, blinks the thought away, and dons his inscrutable mask again.

“Would you like something more comfortable?”

“More...more comfortable?”

“Well, yes. As absolutely ravishing as you look in that gown, I don't imagine it's very pleasant to wear.”

The way his deep voice dripped like honey around that “r” sends a liquid, sugary, excitement coursing through your veins. An emotion you didn't yet have a name or category for; something teetering between fear and arousal.

He leaves the room in quick steps, returning with a robe of lush green velvet, placing it gently into your hands.

Loki gives a dangerous smile and a charming wink. “And don't worry, darling. I'll avert my eyes.”

He does as he says, turning his broad back to you. The prince leans against the door frame feigning a relaxed indifference that he couldn't feel further from.

It takes some time to free yourself of all the panels and boning of the intricate dress. You wonder how something so revealing could actually have so many layers. You curse under your breath as you fiddle with a latch for the fifth time, then sigh with relief as it finally gives way.

He...snickers. The terrifying tactician, master of blades and battle, the ambitious dark prince of Asgard snickers at you and you can't help but snicker back. It was funny. You probably would have laughed harder if you weren't still stiff and stifled by fear.

Finally, you shed the last of the layers. The gown falls around you like dead leaves, as you swaddle yourself in the verdant drape of his robe, reviving ever-so-slightly.

You take a deep inhale (your first since this stressful day began). The fabric holds his fragrance; earthy, snow-laden pine trees on the darkest night of the year, sharp clean mint, and something dark and hypnotic you can't place, like an ancient poisonous flower. It lulls you into a cool comfort, stills your breath, and soothes your chafed skin. You wonder if his touch would feel like this, but even better, and the thought makes the blood rush to your cheeks.

“Better?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Yes. Much. Thank you, Sire.”

As you tie the gold cord, you observe the shelves in front of you: Cummings, Eliot, Shakespeare, Milton, Whitman, and Blake...Midgardian literature. Forbidden Midgardian literature.

You turn and say, “You have Midgardian books?”

“Yes,” he answers, raising an eyebrow.

“I thought they were forbidden.”

He drifts closer, gradually dominating your space. As his shadow envelops you, he say, “Indeed they are for ordinary citizens. Not for a prince of the realms.”

You nod and feel your face grow hot with embarrassment. Of course. Silly question.

“But,” he purrs with a lilt of mischief, “that does beg the question...how are you familiar with them?”

You fidget, suddenly feeling that the oversized robe is overwhelming your naked body beneath it as it swallows you whole.

“I am...was...a royal librarian and archivist. We have special dispensations.”

“Ah. Yesss.” he says with a sneaky hiss. It's not the whole truth and he knows it, but he decides to play with his food a bit longer before going in for the kill. He loves to bite, but he much prefers to kiss beforehand; lips before tongue, tongue before teeth, taking his careful time to taste.

His broad hand slides around your waist. The other arm gestures to the expanse of shelves. He leans down, nose and lips nuzzling ever-so-slightly into your hairline as he whispers, “please, select a book, darling. Whatever your heart desires. I want you to read to me.”

@mischief2sarawr @mischiefmaker615 @litaloni @ladyofthestayingpower @gigglingtiggerv2 @smolvenger @lokischambermaid @sweetsigyn @alexakeyloveloki @loz-3 @jennyggggrrr @goblingirlsarah @lokisgoodgirl @coldnique @icytrickster17 @loopsisloops @muddyorbs @sailorholly @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @unlucky-number-13 @thedistractedagglomeration @thenerdyoldersister @mochie85 @peaches1958 @acidcasualties @mischief-dream

[katyspersonal]

I've connected the dots. I've connected them:

1) Jar Innards were attempts at creating a 'Saint', made out of multiple victims (mostly fellow Hornsent but at some point Shamans too)

2) Jar Innards have a glowing golden string inside

3) Divine Gate is made of multiple people too, maybe even willing sacrifices for all we know! In the trailer it was shown to be very... lively and organic lol. As opposed to the petrified state we found it at.

4) Marika pulls golden strings from a literal pussy in Divine Gate, which is "affair from which gold arose, and so, too, shadow was born" (refers to following creation of Erdtree and Scadutree)

5) Miquella, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have created anything, nor seduce anyone except for his half-brother lololololol, he simply entered the Divine Gate after having severed ties with his body and personality and it already made him a God. So, what Marika did with the strings was not required to become a God, but her own volition ("seduction and betrayal").

6) Extracting the golden string from it also presumably what "killed" it; it didn't lose its God-promoting quality, but it did petrify. Maybe she stole lifeform-creating feature of it in general with it.

7) She most likely didn't auto-own Elden Ring upon ascension. I mean, Miquella doesn't either. It was, however, owned by Ancient Dragons until Lord of Placidusax "was fled"! Considering that he "awaited his return outside of time" in which he was already wounded, it more likely refers to consequences of battle with Bayle than not!

8) Two Fingers were guiding Marika from the start, they are even featured in talismans depicting birth of the Erdtree from a seed form! Two Fingers ALSO will have a mental breakdown if there is no set 'Order' for five minutes. They don't care what laws of nature are or who establishes them, as long as things don't descent into primordial chaos (aka Elden Ring must not stay broken or otherwise vacant no matter what)

9) Rune of Death was plucked from Golden Order upon its creation, and is found guarded by Maliketh in the place which looks like this:

So, most likely, this is the location in which Elden Ring was placed, before Marika took it inside of her, EXCEPT for Death!

10) Death was owned by Gloam-Eyed Queen until Maliketh defeated her

11) This statue must depict someone who should have been well-liked by either Ancient Dragons or their OG followers (became Banished Knights)

12) It depicts a woman with Shadowbeast, a brand of Empyrean (although hers is unusual as three headed), and GEQ was an Empyrean chosen by Two Fingers

Okay so

After Bayle wounded Placidusax and God knows what else he caused, consequences were that Ancient Dragons no longer could keep Elden Ring, so it remained vacant. It would be nearly as bad as Shattering for the Two Fingers who need a concrete person to shape the laws of nature, nor Greater Will would like the state of primordial chaos! So, they called upon those they've chosen as Empyreans - much like thousands of years later they'd call upon Tarnisheds, and Marika was the most promising one + the one to succeed!

Perhaps this statue IS GEQ, after all! And she didn't really betray Ancients Dragons of course, they were in disarray and could not own Elden Ring anymore after having lost it! Things once broken... etc. But, she allied Marika as second fiddle in her wish to create controlled era glistening with life, rather than letting Death occur the way it used to! Certainly cut the influence of Deathbirds, for one!

I am not sure yet why that allyship went sour! Since GEQ was literal God-Slayer, but Marika killed Fell God herself, I questioned whether fall-out happened before War with the Giants! @val-of-the-north said maybe GEQ refused to kill that guy in particular, because his fire is the one and only threat to the Erdtree but GEQ never thought Marika wanted to actually live forever? Like, she assumed that when the time comes, she or them both would pass the mantle to the next cycle. All things must die someday. I really like this idea! (Also adds the weight to Messmer and Melina being born siblings and allies in being curse upon Marika that I never knew I needed lol)

__________________

Damn, Ymir might blame Metyr and Marika for disarray of the world, but at this rate Greyoll might just hold Bayle's beer hgjhjggh Curse Bayle, indeed. On the other hand, I am a believer that fate can't be outrun and even if one tyrant never existed, another would've taken their place, so...

[beesmygod]

alright, i dont know if this timeline/GAME THEORY works totally so im presenting it for peer review:

-marika, having been evidently driven to ascend to godhood to protect what remained of her people from the hornsent, plucks out and seals away the rune of death from the elden ring. she plans to suffer no more death or loss.

-this begins a cycle of stagnation the greater will struggles against. the process of removing the rune and mending its former location results in the creation of/transformation into radagon (as his ryne is present where the rune of death SHOULD be in the ring). its strange and complicated.

-radagon meets renalla, marries her, has kids. marika and godfrey are still together until things get scary. godfrey runs out of things to fight and kill, marika starts to resist the greater will. THIS BEGINS MARIKA'S GRAND GAMBIT

-marika, perhaps influenced by renalla and her kids who also question the greater will's influence, sends away godfrey and his men, now called tarnished, by removing their grace from their eyes and tells them to go, fight, and die in lands untouched by the greater will. eventually, when she needs to, she will return the guidance of grace to them and revive the dead. godfrey is no longer elden lord. radagon is recalled to serve as elden lord and leaves renalla utterly heartbroken.

-the greater will retaliates in a way directly designed to twist the knife. to restore the rune of death to the elden ring and end the stagnation, the greater will wants to targets marika's only publicly accepted son, godwyn the golden, to become the prince of death.

-however, ranni's meddling, due to her balking in horror at the idea of becoming a vassal of the greater will like marika and fury at what happened to her mother, results in godwyn's death totally getting fucked up and the new rune of death splitting in half, making it unusable. marika conspired to kill her son with ranni and provided her with the sliver of the rune of death used in his murder and the assassins. but its not clear how much of this was marika herself and how much was the greater will acting THROUGH marika.

-in a fit of grief at having lost what little of her family she had remaining and realizing the extent of her lack of agency, marika shatters the elden ring before the greater will crucifies her to a shard of it.

-whatever remains of marika returns the guidance of grace taken from the tarnished in the hopes that one of them will finally kill her and end the greater will's influence over the world and herself

-???

-profit

[darkdemeter]

WATCH IN SILENCE Origin: Rebirth

⚤ Horsemen x Watcher!FemaleReader none really, just some mention of bullying/physical maiming, some verbal insulting and reader feeling a bit alone :( ✎ k

↳ MASTERLIST | TAGLISTS ────────────────────────

Staring into the roaring flames of the fire, you have but to wonder, the world around you faded behind a dark shade that hinders concentration. Not even the voices of the Horsemen can penetrate through your stupor. What is it that you're remembering so intently? 

  "Incubation is a natural process. A stasis of maturity."

"All life must endure a similar state at one point or another in order to grow."

"Between the line of existence - of life and death - is rebirth." 

   Within a churning font, the manifestation of a cage, you lay curled at its center. The whirling void is cold around the safe yet peeling layer that surrounds you. For some years you have been contained. The hue of your skin dullened until your body is nothing more than the colour of shadow as the searing process began, meddling the powerful glow of tattooed runes into your flesh with a sizzling hiss. Your legs simply faded and the casting of a wispy torso replaced them, fluttery like a cloak that weighed nothing. The softness of your hair was set alight with a bright blue flame, it shocked you when it happened but there was no expected burning pain. It happened so fast and then was snuffed out with only the misty trail constantly wavering from your head. 

  Soon you stopped breathing all together. A final exhale and then it was gone, the desire - the need - to breath in again. It just stopped. Your features morphed ever so slowly, a process of shifting occurring. It was best to sleep during this stage and to ignore the pounding on your skull, the ache in your jaw that spread up into the back of your eyes, you wanted to pluck and claw them out from your head. Your fingers contorted, broken and reformed into spindling, lithe digits ended with daggered nails and coloured in a gradient hue of blue. 

  By the time your eyes finally open at the summoning call of your new masters, you realise your sight has improved immensely from that nauseating blur. The final security of that shroud is torn away from you and dissipates into the swarming well above, leaving you vulnerable to the many others of your kind around you. You don't like to think so, but... what else were you now? Only studied by them from that barrier, their eyes would squint at you, venomously unwelcoming and hauntingly vile. Hostile. It's horrible to feel so exposed before them and a few break from the endless cycle to meet you down in the crater's bottom.

  So ominous in the way they move towards you, like sharks moving in for the kill, you curl in on yourself and make yourself smaller. 

  "It... reeks," snarks the female with a reverberating groan. Her eyes wrinkle with disgust and her hand moves over to cover where a nose should be. 

  One of the males, based on the typical shape of his torso before he speaks tsks with a sway of his head. "What did you expect?"

  The female retorts with the same curt tone, "At least the eldest Horseman has the decency to smell putrid. This thing smells... ugh, foul..."

  To what they elude to, you have no idea. You can't conjure a single memory before awakening from your incubation. With a whispered groan, your hand nurses the drooping form of your head, cradled as a dizziness overtakes your senses. When you regain yourself, you look up to the two shadowy forms and intend to question them, only for your throat to violently convulse and constrict. It feels as though a belt is being strangled around your neck whenever you strain to speak. Only small noises come out, wane and thinly stretched, it makes you cough and grab at your neck only to freeze. Something thick and its weight now registers. A shackled collar. The male Watcher lets out a high pitched, disturbing warp of a giggle as if eager to see the hopelessness and utter defeat in your small, bleary eyes. "It will be most interesting to watch you grow accustomed, sprite. And to fail..."

  And with that, the two rejoin the plethora of dark, inky spirals that drift round and around, existing in this dwelling until they are summoned. All you suddenly know is the obedience to your masters, to answer to them alone, to serve their purpose. Beyond that and in the confinement of the Watcher's Well, you find naught but a sinking dread as you watch your fellow entities, or maybe siblings. You often keep out of their way, unable to join them in the current lest you wish to be berated and have your body torn, ripped and rendered. You'll recover of course but the stain of those memories will forever collect to haunt you.

  There was one Watcher who greeted you no sooner than your incubation. In fact, out of all of them, he appeared most eager to meet you. Though he was rather busy doing the council's bidding, barely returning to the well for long period of time before vanishing. His name was Panoptos. A kind and friendly entity. Eccentric and imbued with this powerful surge of energy, mostly tempered with this formality of compliance but he was his own unique sort. It could be heard among the rest of the Watchers that he was soft on you, caring and doting because you were the youngest; the strangest. The new experiment. But that was all hushed commentary, surely nothing more than filthy rumour to keep their droll existence alive somehow.    Panoptos would often come to you first and see how you were faring, asking of you were yet called upon the council and when you would shake your head no, he'd tut and solemnly shake his head. "All in due time, young sprite. You will soon have your chance, do not worry!" It was his stories that fuelled your imagination. His stories granted you this sliver of escape, to bask in the wonders of his journeys and tasks, what it was he was set out to do and quite a many tale of the Horsemen. These enforcers of your masters. Panoptos told you that sometimes you would accompany them on their missions, to keep the regulations of their bargain with the council in check. To ensure that they remain loyal. 

  But then Panoptos stopped coming. He was simply gone... 

  You lost the only kindness you knew in the Watcher's Well and the others laughed at you for it. Sometimes you wonder what goes through their minds and how it is they can exist in this constant motion. Do they even register or do they somehow blank it out, like being half asleep until they're awoken when the masters call on them? Meanwhile you just sit at the well's bottom, so deep and far below the glimmering surface of ethereal, blue and midnight essence that above it shimmers with an aura of reds, oranges and pinks; like a cosmos. 

  All you can do is wonder and fall into this dreamlike state. All you think you have is time. 

  Sometimes, in the rare accounts there is peace, but most of the time you dream about getting out of the well. Of seeing the countless realms as Panoptos had. You're curious to explore the worlds above, yearning to escape out there then be condemned to exist for eternity down here. 

Then it finally came. Your time to be beckoned upon, you are called to the surface and you spray upward with a mighty dash that leaves the others behind. They watch you go up towards the surface and with a giddiness that flutters within your core, you're taken into the quick blink of light, pulled through the veil of abyssal darkness and through a cluster of flames and smoke, you meet their eyes. 

THANKS FOR READING!

✎ a note from the author, Just another piece for Watch In Silence. One commenter in particular on AO3 actually guessed it right, so I thought I'd 'lightly' confirm reader's origin.

[thirtiethelement]

asking you about your in-depth trans ranni theory

Oh, THANK you, I'm always happy to infodump about that blue nerd.

Okay, so, before getting into the core of why I think trans Ranni is textually supported, let's go over some of the in-universe history with her:

In the setting, there's a force called Destined Death. It is the natural law of mortality, dictating that everything must eventually come to an end. However, when Queen Marika and her Golden Order came into power, she managed to somehow pluck that law out of the Elden Ring (a massive rune outlining how the world functions at a basic level), hiding it away and effectively banishing death. This allowed for people to live indefinitely by being reborn from the Erdtree when they otherwise would have died.

Marika, along with three of the demigod children of her Golden Lineage (Miquella, Malenia, and Ranni) was an Empyrean - an individual with the potential to channel the power of an Outer God, like Marika and the Greater Will. When Ranni was young, her mother, Rennala, took her to a cloistered spot in Liurnia where she had some sort of communion with another Outer God: the Dark Moon. And she was vibing with it! Whatever ideology it expressed to her, and whatever power it provided, she ended up wanting to work with it. Only one issue: The Outer Will had a vested interest in not being displaced from its position of power.

The Outer Will made its power known not only through deifying Marika and maintaining the Golden Order, but also by sending a number of creatures in service to act as its enforcers: The Two Fingers. Despite how ridiculous they look, they're apparently incredibly dangerous and just about immortal, which makes the fact that each Empyrean is shackled to one to force them to toe the line all the more difficult. Somehow, the presence of one of these linked Two Fingers influences the destiny of an Empyrean, preventing them from supplanting the Golden Order. But Ranni, being clever, figured out a loophole.

Ranni, through some means, found out that the Two Fingers' power over her actions was somehow bound to her body. To sever that link, she chose to do the unthinkable: Working with a group of co-conspirators that included at least her brother Rykard, Ranni arranged for the thievery of Destined Death, and committed ritual suicide in a fashion that managed to kill her body without killing her soul - which, incidentally, did kick off the entire horrific state the world of Elden Ring is currently in, but she was being a girlboss, so it's okay.

The evidence I can point to for her being transgender starts here. To still interact with the world after killing her own body, Ranni chose to let her soul inhabit a finely-made doll instead. It seems as though this may be why she kept Preceptor Seluvis around despite how utterly untrustworthy he is; for better or worse, he's a brilliant magician when it comes to the magic and maintenance behind the doll constructs Liurnia is known for. However, Ranni DIDN'T choose to have the doll made in her own former image, which was presumably well within her capabilities given the in-depth planning that went into her stealing and using Destined Death in the first place. Instead, she had it made to resemble a witch, Renna, who had taught her at some point in the past. In fact, during her first meeting with the player, she outright INTRODUCES herself as Renna, keeping her true identity close to her chest in the face of an unknown variable.

So, that explains it, right? She chose not to look like her old body because she wished to live in hiding, open and shut. But this is where small details start to get interesting. Ranni the Witch is called out by name by Morgott during his pre-fight cutscene, in which he looks across the various thrones in Leyndell abandoned by the other demigods. Radahn and Rykard's thrones are both much, much smaller than the forms we find them in during the course of the game - but oddly enough, RANNI'S is sized for the Renna doll she inhabits, a body that's outright shorter than the player character. We can find her original corpse at the top of Liurnia's divine tower, and she's just as huge as one might expect of a demigod.

This implies that, between the Night of the Black Knives when she performed her ritual and the Shattering, when the demigods went to war with one another over who got to take control of the Elden Ring, Ranni showed up to court with her fellow demigods in her doll body. This would completely defeat the purpose of trying to hide her identity from those who could pose a threat to her. In addition, Ranni shows that she can either extend her consciousness to other bodies, or inhabit other dolls entirely; during the latter part of her questline, you find her inhabiting a miniature version of her doll body, suggesting that she may be fully capable of switching to a different form if she was so inclined.

As a result, my suggestion is that Ranni wasn't just abandoning her original flesh because it was linked to the Two Fingers. If that was the case, she likely would have just stuck to that original body's form when choosing a replacement body to inhabit. It's not like there's some sort of overriding tactical, strategic, or even just physical benefit to the Renna doll, either; Ranni clearly LIKES to feel tall, judging by the stack of books she sits on in her tower to stay above eye level with the player character when they visit. In addition, while there's plenty of portraits and statues of the other demigods how they appeared pre-Shattering (save for the Omen brothers, for obvious reasons), Ranni's image is conspicuous for its absence throughout the entire game.

Ranni has enough incidental bits and pieces scattered around the game to suggest that she had deep personal reasons to inhabit her current form, reasons which go well beyond practicality. And honestly, the fact that signs point to the rest of her family being outright supportive of her (Rykard, who has portraits of the rest of his family, conspicuously leaving her out despite the implication that they were close, the fact that her throne is sized for the doll, etc.) is really heartwarming in an otherwise bleak setting if you choose to make this sort of reading.

Anyway thank you for allowing me to infodump about my blue nerdy-ass wife

[aurheatum]

and from your face i shall be hidden.

welcome present (?) for @divinecrest (it's okay. runes already taken the psychic damage. for everyone else warnings for: death obv. grief! badly dealt with grief! body horror based on the chest cavity/heart. the usual mix of consummate lying and religious fervor rhea is known for.)

The fire should anger her more, even if it does not surprise her.

The fire should anger her more, even if it does not surprise her.

She had seen Jeralt’s face when she first forced the babe upon him; the horror as he looked her in the eyes and followed her final order all the same (“take it”).

She hadn’t told him to leave, but he had all the same. Jeralt had made his choice then, and Rhea, turning back to cradle Sitri in her arms, had made hers.

They tell her that the funeral preparations can be made without her, if that is what she wishes. Rhea says nothing. Tells them she is the archbishop and that she will oversee things as she always has. No one contradicts her.

All of the monastery agrees that one tragedy has seemed to follow another with Sitri succumbing to her frailty and now her husband nowhere to be seen. They really had thought of Jeralt as one of them, after all – but those raised outside the church, well, what can one truly expect?

Rhea wants to force them all to stop talking. Stop talking as if they ever knew anything of Sitri. As if they have the right to mourn a soul such as hers. 

She purchases a casket, instead; similar to the ones of the Four Saints it is inlaid with smaller, but no less resplendent gold pleated crests of Seiros on each of its four corners. Rhea has prepared the body for this, repaired the damage again and again just for this moment where she can send Sitri onward into the tapestry of time. 

(Most of the other vessels she had burned under the stars. Each had a shining light named after them now).

She carries her to the Holy Tomb herself, ready to call upon one of her knights to carry the casket out when she is finished but Sitri swaddled against her chest fails to leave her arms

“You cannot,” Rhea pleads before the ghosts of the ten elites and her hundreds of siblings, “you cannot go now. Do not leave me here alone, please!”

(The Church of Seiros says that everything – plant, human, animal has a soul but Rhea has never seen one. This does not mean she does not believe.)

She decides then that she will not send Sitri off into the stars, or lay her here with so many who died in torment; neither will she give Sitri to the ground as if she were just another thing to be broken down by the ravages of age. Rhea will see her perfect, and whole.

The casket goes into the ground a day later but Sitri stays in Abyss.

There were plants that only ever grew in the dark of Abyss – weeds, really, that neither Rhea or Seteth could stop from growing in the cracks of the shadow library but Sitri, enchanted by the faint light they gave off, had loved.

She had loved so much.

Rhea magicks her a field of pampas grass to lay in, grown from the Immaculate One’s blood; it is simple enough to restrain the growth of the field to a single chamber in the underground for unlike the weeds Sitri so loved the grass does not take to the damp and the dark.

It is simple too to place a piece of her own crest stone within the empty cavity of Sitri’s chest; as Rhea has done it many times before (some children of man did not take to her Nabatean blood and so in order to promote the healing of their bodies she had needed to give them something which the Seiros crest could respond to).

She’s done it so many times now, dug her claws into her own heart just to chip away at it for flakes she thinks she could do it in her sleep.

For Sitri she does more. Bringing her regular infusions of blood alongside offerings of freshly plucked lilies and valerian blooms, she arranges them neatly around the palate where she lays and she speaks with her.

She talks to her of how work has piled up again, and what she would not give to have Seteth help her with redoing the library (“you never met, but I think you would have gotten along well”). She tells her with a smile when Seteth returns alongside his sister, and adds with a frown she is not sure how long this time they will stay.

One evening she walks down from her chambers to Sitri’s place in abyss and informs her that the winds of fate have seen fit to bring her children back to Garreg Mach.

“We have needed a military arts professor,” Rhea admits, with some embarrassment, “and Jeralt never could take to that kind of instruction, you know.”

Rhea pauses and admits: “they’ve taken to it very well, though; and the bonds forged with the students, well, it makes me wonder…”

Rhea does not continues the train of thought, merely puts a hand  to Sitri’s face and brushes a strand of hair from her eyes.

“That kindness… I am sure it can only come from you.”

[inthelittefrost]

This is lack of judgment or loj for short! basicly jimmy is taken from the watchers  and everyone thinks he died :) https://archiveofourown.org/works/46915633

It started quite slowly. Lewis never quite put the dots together. First, Martyn returned without his brother claiming Jimmy was right behind him. Then the next morning, netty broke down in tears. slowly one by one, everyone started to realize that Jimmy is gone. Dead. Killed in action. 

The police station offered to fund his funeral on the condition that those who know about Jimmy's death sign an NDA. Matytn refused. 

 A few weeks later, Netty couldn't get ahold of her brother. So Lewis, Spiff, Netty, and Marytn went out to go investigate it. And sure enough, Stampy's lovely farm was gone. Almost looked like it was plucked out of time.

Netty sobbed over the loss of her last remaining family member. After all, her parents died during “vacation” in Evo. It was all piling up on her. No one blamed her when she convinced Martyn to let her put a tracking spell on him. Not a major one. No no not like that. Just a small proof of life. Granted that did nothing when she disappeared two years later. No one blamed her for that either. Well, Martyn did a bit. Just a tad. He mostly was upset she didn't take him with her.

It took Marytn a week to confess that there were gods who want him dead and they might have killed Jimmy. So Lewis does what he does best. Protection runes embroidered in Martyn's clothes, the defense about the Jafa factory got turned up to a ten. Someone sleeps in the room next to Martyn in case he has a nightmare.

Off course that doesn't help when 4 years after Jimmy’s, Lewis finds Marytn nearly spitting his throat with an axe with spell books scattered around the room. Shit is that Ephraim’s guide to killing gods? Lewis swore that book disappeared

“What the hell are you doing?” Lewis screams. Fuck they should really have called that therapist. Is it too late to call one for him now?

“This isn't what it looks like!” Marytn yells at him.

“Then what the hell are you doing?” Lewis screams back 

“Trying to summon a god,” Marytn yells back.

“Dude you going to end up killing yourself with how dull that axe is. Give it to me.” Lewis said. Maryth only clings to it more. Maryth should know a dull axe is more dangerous than a sharpened one. Along with the risk of rust

“...what are you going to do with it?” Marytn asks somehow climbing to the axe even harder.

“I'm going to sharpen it so you don’t kill yourself while you're summoning this god. Get with the program Martyn.” Lew responds

Slowly Martyn hands the axe to Lewis. Just as he thought. Way too dull plus it's enchanted. That won't work well with summoning a god. If anything it's just going to work like bug spray. Lewis gestures for Marytn to walk with him. Honestly, it's a shock that Marytn hasn't noticed this yet. Did he just not notice the large shipments of pig blood? It is so quiet walking down the stars that Lewis could hear a pin drop. 

After a very awkward moment, they reach the grindstone. “You ever used one of these?” Lewis asks

Marytn hums “My use of magic normally has more chanting in it than blood.” 

“Well, what god are you summoning?” Lewis asks, expecting the answer to be a god of lost souls or a god of brothers. Something along those lines

“The Red King” Martyn casualty repays. Lewis stops sharpening the axe and just stares at him. What now? Is Martyn fucking insane? 

“You've met Jimmy right?” Marytn asks. Lewis has never met Jimmy before. Normally when Martyn and them hang out, Lewis pays for a babysitter Jimmy to go tour the Jaffa factory. “Wherever Jimmy goes, fights follow. I know he's still alive. I'm hoping he starts a war. A massive one. One so large, that the gods are forced to bear witness.” 

[thegatesofinfinitespace]

For Kane's shrine: Matching blades, their hilts are simple, lacking ornate carvings. They are made with only what they need. Only what could be found in the wastes. One is new and clean, the other stained with its first kill. Still sharp. Still strong. A pedant made of obsidian and bloodstone. Thorns of both stones spider around the vial at its core, before splaying out in unfinished wings. They are vines, they are nerves and sinew. The glass vial is full of deep crimson, the blood of the offeror. A gift of devotion. Of sacrifice. Preserved for all time. Last, a page of runes, hand written. Old knowledge with no purpose, no meaning, but a taste of old magic. A reverence for the unknown, and the long death of the Gods who came before.

If my Muse was a Deity, what Offerings Would you Leave at Their Shrine?

Clinking of heels cease at the scene laid before him, the sands of the Wastes scuffing under his boots. Crimson eyes narrow, a threat and an evaluation. His helmet is held at his side; he is returning from an excursion, no, an expulsion, an exorcism.

There is fresh blood on his blades, dripping fresh on the dirt, just as there is on the offerings set upon a slab of obsidian and thorn. It is not a shrine he made, but made for him, made from someone who believed they knew him.

...Their accuracy is quite impressive. Armor that ends in clawed points plucks the pendant from the bunch, holds it up to the red sun that sends it shimmering between his thumb and forefinger. It... is pretty.

He allows it to settle in his palm before closing his fist around it, squeezing until he feels the glass and gems crunch under the pressure. The remains drip like liquid to the Grounds of his Province, eaten whole. A beautiful offering, one that would be committed to memory. He has no need for such frivolous items, even if they are made with him in mind.

The God of the Wasteland's eyes drift to the paper, ancient and old. It is magic he feels, and he is far more delicate in picking it up; his clawed hands are not used, the item hovering over his open palm. Thorns rise, encircle the paper like a birdcage, kept safe. It too is swallowed by the earth, but not destroyed.

It is archived.

Finally, the blades. They are ripped from the stone, unharmed. He turns them over in his grasp, keen eyes scrolling over the craftsmanship. They are made with the intent to kill. Have been used to do so. They are... of very good make, truthfully. He'll keep them. Use them, as they were intended.

His Province's web vibrates with the steps of a stranger, the one who made this altar. He walks with purpose, with muted fury. Only a fool would dare enter the territory of the God of Destruction. At the base of his tower, a lone woman is waiting, her hands bloody. Kane's gaze is a threat, an assessment, the swords in his hands. She will be killed by her own offerings if she is not careful enough.

"...If you left those there, you must believe your plight is more important than those who came and met their end before you." He presses the end of one of her gifts to her throat, its tip swallowing the slightest drop of blood.

"Persuade me."

[maytheoddshq]

Willow Hawthorn (She/her). District Seven Tribute. 20. Melissa Barrera.

What was their childhood like?

Willow grew up in a home that knew hunger – her father was always sick, out of work, unable to keep food on the table for everyone while her mother traded in what she could – divination. Spiritualism was rare in Panem, of course, but the people in the backwoods in Seven seemed to have a small enjoyment of it. Scraps of meat for a reading from the trees to tell their future, reading the fallen leaves from every single oak. Pine needles and sap were curative and Willow knew how to make mistletoe medicinal before she could write her own name. 

Her family is just the three of them, a small trio that kept each other afloat despite their all around eccentricities. Willow spent the vast majority of her mid-to-late teens caring for her father, who would come and go from working cutting down the forest, or in the lumber mills until his body brunt out and he was done with work for a few months until he was well enough – thanks to Willow and her mother’s careful work in restoring him – to return. 

Friendship on the other hand was rare for Willow, she spent as much of her time as she could in the woods, learning trees, plucking each little medicinal thing she could from the branches and vines around her. It never felt lonely, she felt a connection to the green, to nature, like the life growing from the earth could be her friends. If she nurtured Mother Nature the same way her own mother had nurtured her, it would give back everything she needed. 

How do they feel about the Games

Unnecessary, evil, the tower reversed, a sudden upheaval; The Games were set to an end. Finished. They were not meant to be on the road ahead so why were they back on the past, this hadn’t been in the cards or divined in a reading of any tea leaves. She couldn’t go on the front lines where she could certainly die, not when her father needed her. She could win the Games though, Willow was certain of it, she was certain she could be gone for a week, maybe two, come back and care for him. If she went to fight Tarrenfree, she knew she would die with a bullet between her eyes or bleeding out a field while wishing she was under the stars of southern Seven. 

What is their personality like?

Flighty, not all there – Willow seems like she is fully fifteen feet away from herself at all given times, seeing something ahead of herself that she can’t fully describe or even see herself. Willow is as friendly as possible, however, extroverted, willing to put herself in uncomfortable situations even if she cannot read the social situation because after this Game, after all of it nature will return to its natural order. No more blood sacrifices, no more killing for the name of peace. However, she isn’t afraid to put her hands on someone if it means she has the opportunity to return home because they’re waiting for her – they won’t survive without her, she knows this and it eats at the back of her mind like a virus, a sickness waiting to take hold. 

What is their district token?

Slices of a tree branch with a rune, Algiz for life, beginning, protection on one side and on the other side Yr for death, end, war. 

Three strengths and three weaknesses.

+ brave, intuitive, sneaky

Flighty, trusting, eccentric

[goldhunt]

HIS FACE TWISTS INTO SOMETHING NEW, a grimace of pain and an aching heart. never before has he seen vyke like this. as if he were plucked from himself and wavering, trying to find his shape again. gripping his hand and pleading for purpose. again and again he feels it: the dull feeling of the impact, piercing him as if it were nothing. don't make me leave you, he pleads, as if d ever could.

❛ i searched for you. ❜ despite his better efforts, tears burn in darian's eyes. a mercy, perhaps, to weep even in death. the tension holds, not yet spilling over. ❛ for weeks, i searched. they said ❜ darian looks him over, tracing the lines pressed into his skin. pale blue shades of something ... they said you committed a cardinal sin.

a small shake of his head, lips pressed together keeping in what threatens to spill out. his clouded gaze lifts, to the dark tree above, as if mockery of its true self. to the drapery above, a baldachin of misery caging them in. once upon a time, it was his own blessings of gold that brought relief. that soothed aches and closed wounds, renewed their vigor and lightened their burdens. now, his seal is gone, and gold become the only real danger to him.

at last, he turns to vyke again. vyke who was ever the best of them. vyke who won two great runes, who was curious and valiant, and the first to show him love. vyke who, d was once so sure, would one day be their lord. how lost he seems now, how small in his uncertainty. how darian wishes to soothe him, still. ❛ i don't know what to do, i don't ... i don't even know where we are. why i awoke here, among so many kinds of death, i— ❜ oh, marika has forsaken them all. ❛ what is this place, vyke? why are you here, dressed in gold? what touched you so? ❜ a hundred questions, a hundred more waiting their turn, but all leading back to the one:

why did you leave?

here, on the dusty ground in auburn grass spattered with blackened blood, darian swallows the question. it stays there, burning itself into the lining of his insides, but for now it is silenced.

❛ perhaps i can stitch it. but i cannot know if it will heal, if my body still ❜ he peers down at himself, peeling back his hand to look at the wound, the blackened veins around it. disgust wells up in his throat, making him feel almost sick. how can he ask vyke to stay when he has become so revolting? his hand releases its grip on vyke's, now purely resting in the other's grasp. ❛ perhaps a warming stone or ... i don't know. i'm sorry. ❜ all that time in the lands between, the path had always been clear before him. his knowledge of gold a reliable tool, ever pointing him the right way. now there is nothing. nothing but vyke's hand, warmer than it used to be. ❛ gurranq would know, ❜ darian murmurs half to himself, defeated.

then something occurs to him, lifting his head. ❛ do you have a seal? ❜ bestial vitality, gifted to him for his loyalty, may yet come to him even here, in this forsaken place.

He cannot keep from staring at the wound. A wound he has created no less. One he never thought he would. A trick of the mind, of anxiety that crawls its way up and down his spine since the Three Fingers. ( The chaos of the Outer God is felt no more, but the vestiges of the pain he had endured once still find an echo within him. ) Vyke wants to reverse the damage done somehow. To stop the congealed blood, stitch the greying flesh closed, and go back to when Darian was whole again.

But he is not … is he? Not anymore. Not the one he has known for years and years since their parting. The blood too dark, too thick, too worrisome to be healthy. The hue, the marks upon his flesh, everything. Vyke's free hand twitches in its inaction. He needs to do something, but what? How does one cure the dead? How does one do anything when the Death Blight has already taken its hold, grasping with thick barbs upon the flesh of the soul and never letting go? Vyke stares hopelessly at the wound, and then at Darian when he answers.

❛ Fia … to think she would be so bold … ❜

No other is named witch with such disgust by Darian. Vyke knows as much, seeing the woman for himself, content in drawing forth what little she can from the Tarnished who passed through and allowed it. He had found an apathetic coexistence with her in his time. Darian, on the other hand … did not. It seems it all came to a head in his absence, bringing the golden warrior here, with a rotted soul, and her one more step in achieving a fitting end for her own self. A bitter irony, that. The Lands Between is rife with such fates for many of those who step foot upon its sanctified ground. The grace may keep one sane for a time, but the horrors are never far behind.

And now … he is here, amongst those fallen. Yet he is no shade. Is this but a symptom of the Death Blight, or something far more sinister at play? Where is peace given, or is this all there is for Darian now?

A statement that brings with it some clarity. To look back at the oozing wound, to the tight grip on his hand mere breadth from the flesh itself. ( His other hand hovering close, idling in its uselessness. ) ❛ But you—do you expect me to sit here and watch you bleed out from my own foolish actions? You are dead, stars above, you're dead. Oh Darian, forgive me. ❜ The breath leaves him in an agitated moan. He hates the realization, the helplessness, one that continues for it is not what he wants to believe. His teeth grit, his grip on Darian's hand tightens. ❛ Tell me what to do. Don't make me leave you. Not like this. I will not touch it, just … what do I do? ❜

[katyspersonal]

Chat help me gdhgjghg I have an idea but I think I am not able to quite untangle it

1) Godskins are connected with snakes: the tails of Nobles and ELONGATION of Apostles, as well as their weapon featuring serpentine motif

2) Them and GEQ are also connected to wind: their whirlwind attacks and her tornado-looking sword, multiply this by 3 if you believe the statue in Farum Azula where we access Destined Death is of her

3) Long before Rykard rediscovered it, Gelmir used to be owned by Hexers that worshipped "serpent god" (Eiglay) and brought it sacrifices, she was once killed by a wind spear before

4) There had to be SOME "gods" that GEQ had to slay since her fire got reputation for it, but that could not have been anyone from Marika's family since Godwyn was the FIRST Demigod to die and that happened long after GEQ's defeat

5) GEQ was an Empyrean chosen by the Two Fingers, Destined Death is "forbidden shadow plucked out of Golden Order upon its creation", and we are told that with birth of Erdtree and gold "so shadow, too, was born"! Maliketh only got control of Destined Death after the defeat of GEQ by him, and Destined Death was the part of OG Elden Ring. Marika's Rune was too, so she claimed that symbol, not created it (caged divinity much), and so Death was claimed by GEQ. Either, Marika allowed Death to lay around and came to regret it when that other Empyrean got chosen and picked it up... or she knew who was playing the second fiddle from the start and relied on GEQ to be her ally, but then she wasn't.

6) Serpent is seen as a traitor of the Erdtree, also something about original sin (not to be confused with cardinal sin... unless?)

7) God-Slaying Flame, God-Devouring Serpent.. themes against "gods". Also Eiglay's skin is found in Shadow Realm albeit smaller than in her temple

Like uh...

WHAT IF Gloam-Eyed Queen was an ally to Marika, trusted as her OG blade before Maliketh became that? Marika later took charge of who gets immortality and who dies for good via Maliketh owning Death later, but why not earlier, especially if she removed Death from Elden Ring as soon as she took it? Right, because there was someone else to carry this burden!

So, GEQ would be slaying those other "gods" off the face of the Lands Between, cleaning the path for Marika as THE new God, ensuring her political power and new world to prosper? There were 'old Gods' mentioned, frikin Deathbirds are called Gods, who knows what Outer Gods made appearance, who knows who ascended in other ways (like 'Malenia, Goddess of Rot' but not with Rot kinda thing).

But then, maybe, when the time came and GEQ "killed" Eiglay (not really, she can't die apparently), she decided "well, actually... 👀" and turned on path of blasphemy (as in against Erdtree's God, Marika) first? The "could not turn back after what she had seen" kind of change? So, the connection to snakes was not there from the start but something she acquired! Maybe, in fact, what transpired did make Eiglay 'God-devouring serpent' and not just some serpent God waiting for sacrifices?

...or maybe it was simpler, and her link with snakes WAS there from the beginning. In either case, in the timeline GEQ would have to betray before Marika killed Fell God, because... well, GEQ had god-slaying Flame and unless Marika was dumb enough to just let Death lay around until someone picked it, GEQ was her ally on that, right? But doesn't seem like anything of a kind was involved, Marika did it herself 🤔

Knowing myself I definitely had forgotten some piece of the puzzle, but I really start to wonder whether "serpent is seen as traitor of the Erdtree" started with GEQ and not like, Messmer? Especially since his Base Serpent nature was a secret but for sure everyone knew of Maliketh's victory over GEQ? Just some thoughts?

[bookshelfdreams]

Thoughts on Stede reading The Hobbit (bonus: to the crew)?

Wish you a cool evening!

i'm gonna sue you for damages that's what i'm thinking

how dare you put this concept in my head

just imagine!! Everyone is captivated from the very first second. Pete pretends to think it's dumb - "What even is a hobbit", he mutters under his breath. What is a hobbit? Stede reads. I suppose Hobbits need some description nowadays. Pete is stunned into silence (and he too has loved it from the very first moment, actually, though he wouldn't admit it under threat of death).

Stede does all the voices. His Bilbo is closest to his own voice, polite and chipper, but passive aggression always at the ready, like a hidden knife. His Gandalf speaks with gravitas, deep in his chest (Ed likes that a lot). All of the dwarves are introduced with their own voices, from excited, youthful, near (but not quite) identical Fili and Kili, to gravely Balin, voice rough and heavy with age.

The first song Stede tries to avoid. He reads up to But the dwarves only started to sing and skips right to and everything was cleaned and put away safe as quick as lightning, but then Frenchie wonders out loud.

"What kinds of songs do dwarves sing, do you suppose?", he asks no one in particular.

"Must be bloody", Pete says.

"It's about dishwashing", Olu says dryly.

Ed leans over Stede's shoulder. "You could have just read it, mate", he says and Stede has never felt more betrayed. "It's right here!"

"What?" Frenchie shoots upright. "Read it then!"

Stede, who doesn't mind reciting poetry but is mortified by the thought of singing in front of an audience, knows resistance is futile. He gives a deep sigh.

Chip the glass and crack the plates, he starts, voice as flat as possible. Doesn't even take to the end of the second line for Wee John to start tapping out a rhythm against the deck with his palm. Frenchie has his lute in hand, plucking out a simple melody.

"Start again", he says and is already humming along. He gets Stede to read through the whole poem twice, and then he's got it.

Chip the glass and crack the plates, and it's bouncy, catchy, a bit like a shanty. A simple melody to keep hands working steady in the same rhythm. The Swede is adding a beautiful harmony.

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates! So carefully, carefully with the plates!, they all shout as one, grinning.

"Can we sing it one more time?", Fang asks.

They don't finish the chapter that evening.

The next morning, Stede approaches Frenchie and Wee John somewhat secretly. "There's another song right after the one from yesterday", he tells them, "in case you want to. You know. Not that you have to, of course."

Frenchie is delighted. The Swede is quickly recruited.

The Song of the Lonely Mountain may or may not bring tears to the eyes of a hardened pirate or two, you have no proof.

Everyone is intrigued by the map. Of course Stede has an edition with a nice big map folded up in the back of the book; they carefully take it out and put it on deck so everyone can see it. "What's that?" Ed asks and points at the runes.

"Wait and we will find out", Stede answers, and already knows he will tell Ed later, when the rest of the crew can't hear it, should he still want to know.

The dwarves get caught by trolls and Jim is distraught. "Don't go there one by one, you morons!" they yell, and Olu has to hold their hand discreetly until Gandalf shows up to save the day. Roach has some sympathy for the poor trolls, who have been subsisting on nothing but mutton, but draws a line at squashing the dwarves to eat them later without removing the guts first.

They make it to Rivendell and there is another improv song. Stede maybe hums along. Off key. But he's hardly the only one with no great singing voice.

The mystery of the runes is lifted.

"Moon letters?"

"Oh so it was invisible this whole time!"

Everyone is delighted to have known a secret before the characters did.

The Misty Mountains rise up under our heroes's feet. Far, far away in the West, where things were blue and faint, Bilbo knew there lay his own country of safe and comfortable things, and his little hobbit-hole, Stede reads. It stirs something in Ed, and even though this chapter has an even bigger adventure than the trolls (AND a song! A song that Roach will be heard singing under his breath for days, Clash, crash! Crush, smash! Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!, and Lucius is not avoiding him, thank you very much)

Even though there is plenty else going on, that line still sticks in Ed's head. "Do you miss home, sometimes?" he asks Stede as they lay down for the night.

"Oh my love", Stede says, wrapped up in Ed's arms, with Ed's head pillowed on his chest, "I am home."

They meet Gollum next.

What has roots as nobody sees / Is taller than trees / Up, up it goes / And yet, never grows?

"A cathedral, obviously", Wee John shouts, before Stede can read on.

"Shut up, they don't have cathedrals", Pete says. "Do they?"

"Tall building, anyway", Frenchie backs Wee John up.

"Could be something else", the Swede muses.

"Like what?"

"No he's right", Roach says, "Building is too easy. It's um. A hot air balloon? No roots, it goes up but doesn't grow, does it?"

That earns him a round of impressed nods and agreeing hums. The actual answer - Mountain, I suppose! - is widely seen as anticlimactic.

Stede hisses and croaks as he speaks with Gollum's voice and that placates the crew somewhat. It must have a competition with us, my preciouss, he reads and dredges the sounds out of the back of his throat, speaks with his tongue between his teeth until he truly sounds like a creature that lives in dark, cold waters, eats raw fish and hasn't talked to anyone in centuries.

Every riddle is followed by debates and every member of the crew offers up their own best riddles for the others to solve. It takes three evenings to get through the chapter. It's just as well; Stede fears Gollum's voice might tear his throat to ribbons. It's worth it though.

They make it out of the goblin labyrinths eventually. They meet Beorn and giant eagles and an elven king. They fight wargs, and spiders, and spend a night adrift in a river, clinging to a barrel.

It's a fantastic story. The dragon is terrifying; the hoard everything any of them have ever dreamed of. The attack on Laketown, and finally the Battle of Five armies, has more than one of them hold tightly onto someone's hand.

Opinions on the ending are divided.

"How can he just go home?", Frenchie says, offended. "After everything they've been through together!"

"He misses it", Olu says. "Must be nice, I think. To know there's a home for you to return to."

"Bullshit", Jim says, shifting inconspicuously, so they're sitting just a tiny bit closer to him. "Home can be anywhere. Home is where your - y'know." They do not blush.

"But Thorin died", Lucius says. "It wouldn't be the same without him, would it? Maybe he needs to go back so he isn't always reminded of him."

"That's so deep, babe."

"Thanks babe."

Stede reads the last poem and nobody tries to sing.

It's quiet when he finishes. Wee John sniffles, but only a little.

Luckily, there's that whole business with the auction and Bilbo being declared dead so they end on a high note.

The next evening, Stede tries to bring a different book, but nobody will hear it.

"Read it again!"

Stede protests, but only a little.

"C'me on", Ed says, "they love it. Please?"

Really, there never was a choice.

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.