#best shoulder perches for parrots

[tiktokparrot]

African Grey on Your Shoulder: Is It Safe to Perch There?

Is it safe for your African Grey Parrot to perch on your shoulder? Discover the perks, risks, and tips for safe shoulder time with your feathered friend!

[rafeysbafey]

✮ COOKIES ARE READY — ETHAN LANDRY

SUMMARY. you do the “avoiding my boyfriends kisses” prank on tiktok with ethan

WARNINGS. soft!ethan, fluff, vv suggestive content at end

WORD COUNT. 0.8k

you were lazily scrolling through tiktok as you laid comfortably on the couch, humming to yourself as you waited for ethan to get back from econ.

you were about to leave the app and go find something else to occupy the time, but stopped when a certain video caught your eye.

‘avoiding my boyfriend’s kisses prank.’

you watched the video with curiosity, giggling when you saw how confused the girls boyfriend was—soon ending with them both on the floor play fighting when he found out.

a new idea sparked in your head as you now impatiently waited for ethan to come back, deciding to bake yourself some cookies in the meantime.

about an hour went by as you finished baking, pulling the tray of baked goods out of the oven with a satisfied smile on your face.

just as you were about to set a timer for them to cool, the door opened to reveal just the person you’ve been waiting for.

“something smells good!” he said, immediately picking up on the faint smell of chocolate that floated through the air.

quickly—you set the timer before perching your phone up between a few cook books, making sure to drape a small hand towel over to cover it more.

“hey eth,” you smiled, trying to act normal as you started to clean up your mess, “i made your fav.”

you heard him approach you from behind, his arms wrapping around your waist as he squeezed you gently.

“you’re the best, babe,” he said, leaning down to kiss the side of your neck before letting his chin rest on your shoulder.

ethan was a very clingy boyfriend, always finding someway to have you both touching whenever you both were together—which was pretty much 24/7.

you never complained though, actually developing a love for physical touch after dating ethan.

you went to bend down and open the kitchen sink, ethan letting his arms drop as he waited patiently for you to rise back up.

when you did, grabbing the wipes you would use on the counter, he stood to your side—waiting for you to turn his way.

“when will the cookies be ready?”

“they need to cool for a few minutes, id say give it ten,” you responded, turning to answer him in the process.

he gave you a warm smile before leaning over and kissing your lips—except failing when you quickly turned your head to the side.

he was met with your cheek, causing him to furrow his brows as he watched you wipe down the counter.

thinking you just moved suddenly to clean up the hardening chocolate batter, he went to try again.

instead this time, you stepped back before turning to toss the now used wipes in the trash.

“y/n,” he suddenly spoke, causing you to look at him with a smile—you weren’t sure if he caught on or not.

his hands suddenly cupped your face and pulled you into him, going to give you a kiss but failing once again as you turned your head.

“y/n!”

“ethan!” you parroted back, giving him a teasing smile as he huffed in annoyance.

his hands stayed put on the sides of your face, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he tried a second time.

again, you did the same thing, causing him to finally drop his hands in defeat.

“did i do something?” his voice dropped, your smile faulting at realizing he was actually hurt.

“eth, no, no—you didn’t,” you quickly assured, now your turn to cup his face as you pulled him into a quick kiss, followed by many more on his lips and cheeks.

“it was just a prank, baby.”

he pouted in your hands as you tried kissing it away, becoming successful when he couldn’t help but smile into you.

“i saw it on tiktok,” you continued, pointing at the counter where in the corner was your phone—partially covered by the towel you had placed over it.

ethan moved closer to the device, quickly realizing it was recording and had been this entire time.

before you could get his reaction, he spun around and grabbed your waist, throwing you over his shoulder as you screamed in surprise.

“ethan!” you laughed, hitting his back lightly as you demanded he put you down—although you didn’t sound angry considering how your giggles were betraying you.

he quickly threw you on the couch, his body climbing over yours as he started attacking you with kisses, his hands holding your face impossibly close to his.

before you could pull away for air, you heard the familiar timer go off in the background, ethan pulling away for a second to look across the kitchen.

“cookies are ready,” you said, a wide smile taking over your features as he leaned back down—now inches away from you.

“you’re not going anywhere until im done.”

and let’s just say, that silly tiktok prank you filmed had to be quickly deleted after it took a turn.

instead turning into a more inappropriate film that would probably be more suitable on another video platform.

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Next chapter incoming

I didn't except it this soon, either.

It's still writing itself and dear GODS I hope this momentum continues.

Flight Risk

Young!Mihawk x Marine!AFAB!Reader

Ch.8 of who even fcking knows like maybe ten-ish...? First Chapter Link for newcomers, will update with other chapter links soon

Brief summary of The Story So Far: Your mission, as a Marine and Zoan type devil fruit user (gray parrot), is to gather intel on Dracule Mihawk, a pirate on the Grand Line who has become a thorn in the Marines' side over a relatively short period of time. You're his prisoner now, and you have no real hope left that you can see aside from his acceptance of the Warlord proposal.

We're venturing into NSFW territory in this chapter. So Warnings for that, and continued Yandere stuff.

Wordcount: 3588

Taglist: @i-am-vita, @browneyedhufflepuff, @h0n3y-l3m0n05, @littleleelee, @nerium-lil, @dragon-bubs , @animefreak818 , @byysandra , @lufemia , @gizamalblythe, @lufemia @schanwow

You guys are all amazing tysm!!!!!

The first time you had awoken in the castle on Kuraigana Island, you had jumped so badly you had very nearly reverted straight out of your devil fruit form—and that in itself would have marked the end of your mission before it had even truly begun, given you had fallen asleep perched on Mihawk’s shoulder.

You jolted awake just as violently this time, and the first thing your gaze fixed upon was his sharp yellow eyes. You did panic for a moment, attempting to shift back into the avian form you had grown so accustomed to over the past two months, before remembering exactly where you were—lying across the cold stone floor of the dungeons.

Exactly how you had come to be here—by making the mistake of sneaking about in the middle of the night to call Bogard and inform him that you had no choice but to shift to plan B and propose the offer of Warlord status to your target.

Your target, who was seated in a chair in your damp, dark dungeon cell, staring down at you with a speculative frown.

“Awake at last.”

You winced as you strained against the floor to pull yourself up into a sitting position, too groggy for a moment to register why you were having such a difficult time, until the seastone shackles around your ankles clinked and rattled with your movements. Right. He had made completely sure that you wouldn’t be capable of escaping.

“You chose a particularly inopportune moment to faint earlier,” he commented, crossing his arms. “We were discussing this Warlord offer your superiors are considering presenting me with.”

You only vaguely recalled bringing it up—it must have been in the moments just before you lost consciousness. It was clear he had left you alone at some point during your slumber. He now had his open trench coat draped around his shoulders, his sword leaning against the corner of the cell. He traced your line of sight over to it and gave a small chuckle.

“Don’t worry yourself, dear. I simply prefer having my blade close. Though I’m sure you know that. You know a great deal more about me than I do you, after all. But I’m sure,” he went on, standing from the chair. You pressed your back against the wall as he approached you slowly, the toes of his boots coming to stop mere inches from your bare feet as he looked down at you, “that will come to change in time.”

He held his hand down toward you. You stared at it for a moment, before slowly lifting your hand, your breath catching as he took it in his with an almost gentle grip, this thumb tracing across your knuckles for a moment.

“You don’t have a fighter’s hands,” he said, turning your hand over, his much larger, rougher fingers tracing across your smooth palm. “Have you trained in anything aside from subterfuge?”

“Basic combat,” you said. “I’m best with throwing weapons and small blades.”

“Ideal for your stature and talent in stealth operations,” he commented.

He gave a small, thoughtful hum—then wrapped his hand around yours and pulled you to your feet, grabbing you by your hip before you could stumble straight into him. He turned with you and moved a hand to your shoulder, pushing you down into the chair he had just vacated himself.

“And, purely out of curiosity, what of your knowledge in birds?” he asked, pacing around the side of the chair slowly. “I can’t imagine you learned any of that from your Marine comrades.”

You shook your head, swallowing as his shadow fell over you from behind, glancing over at his hand resting against the back of the chair. “M...my mom,” you said quietly, your stomach churning at the sudden thought that you would probably never see her again. “She’s an ornithologist. Specializing in parrots and corvids. She runs a rescue service for them. I learned everything from her.”

“And yet you chose to join the Marines?” he said, amused. “Perhaps your father’s influence?” You gave a short nod. “Of course. Could have stayed at home on the farm, safe and sound, and yet...here you are. But I suppose it did give you the experience necessary to utilize your devil fruit to its fullest effect. I can see why your superiors chose you for this task. Not many could have pulled it off as well as you did.”

You felt the chair creak behind you as he leaned down against it, sending a cold chill down your spine as he reached up to brush your hair behind your ear, to tilt his head and fix you with an amused smirk as your shoulders grew stiff as stone.

“That was a compliment, little bird,” he said lightly, tracing his index finger slowly down the curve of your neck. “What do we say when someone compliments us?”

“Th—thank you,” you forced out, swallowing. “S-sir.”

“Good girl,” he lilted softly, close to your ear.

You thought you might faint all over again when he briefly pressed his lips to your temple before straightening back out and lightly ruffling your hair. As gentle as his actions seemed, they were laced with a thinly veiled threat—a threat that if you did anything other than what was asked of you, what he expected of you, there would be swift and severe repercussions. He didn’t have to say it for you to know it to be true.

“Are you able to provide me with the full details of this whole Warlord proposal?” he asked, moving around to the other side of the chair. He stopped in front of you, crossing his arms. “Or will you need to contact your superiors?”

“They would know more than I would,” you said quietly—and that wasn’t a lie. You had been given the basic details, but he would need to speak with someone of much higher rank than you to garner any further information. “I—I can call them. They’d likely want to set a meeting if you’re interested—”

“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves,” he said. “I’m interested to hear more of what the World Government might consider a mutually beneficial arrangement between pirates and Marines. I haven’t said I’m interested in the offer itself yet. That being said…”

You shifted back in the chair when he knelt down in front of you, reaching into his pocket—but all he pulled out was a small ring of keys. You recognized the Marine insignia etched into the metal ring before he lifted your foot and turned one of the keys in the shackle wrapped around your ankle.

“I am interested to speak to your commanding officers,” he said, lowering your foot back down. He lifted the other, and paused with the key in the lock, his sharp eyes darting up to meet yours. “You will accompany me to the study in the tower below my bedchambers. Should you make any attempt to escape or use your devil fruit ability, I don’t think I have to tell you what will happen.”

You swallowed, nodding quickly in understanding. “Y-yes, sir.”

“Very good. I was fairly sure you’d understand.” You bit your lip as he slipped his hand slowly up the length of your calf, his palm coming to rest against the side of your thigh just above your knee, his eyes remaining on yours as he turned the key and pulled the shackles away from you. You flinched as he lightly squeezed his hand around your thigh, keeping his hand there as he stood and rested his other hand against the back of the chair, hovering over you. “You’ll stand slowly, and you’ll walk in front of me. I don’t think there’s any need for me to hold your hand like a child. You ought to know your way around fairly well by now.”

“Y...yes, sir,” you repeated weakly.

Hundreds of thoughts swam through your head as you lead the way from the ground floor of the old, expansive castle to the eastern tower—whether you would ever see or speak to your mother again, how Garp and Bogard would respond to the news that you were compromised, whether or not you would even live to see the light of the next morning, why Mihawk was being so gentle with you, why you felt a flutter deep in your stomach every time he touched you.

Why, for the entire duration of the walk up to the study, with him even stopping once to allow you to venture alone into a small bathroom to clean yourself up and tend to any other personal needs—why you didn’t once consider the possibility of a potential escape plan.

He expected you to comply—he wouldn’t expect you to shift into your devil fruit form at the nearest window and take flight off into the quickly darkening evening sky.

Yet the thought only crossed your mind once he sat in the armchair behind the desk in the study, the thought of why you hadn’t considered the possibility. Before you could consider it any further, he lifted his hand and motioned for you to come over, leaning forward to pull the den den mushi across the desk toward him.

“You’ll call your superiors,” he said, his gaze not once leaving you as you slowly crossed the room. You nodded, stopping in front of the desk and reaching for the device. “No.” He pulled it further out of your reach, motioning for you again. “Come here.”

You tensed at the sharpening of his tone, and moved around to the opposite side of the desk with a little more urgency, stopping a few feet away from him, your eyes flickering between his yellow irises and the snail.

Closer, when he motioned for you again, stopping at the side of the chair, staring down at your feet as you shifted your weight between them.

You glanced up when he lifted his head again, pointing down at the floor and making a small, tight circular motion. “Turn,” he instructed.

You obeyed immediately, turning around slowly, arms crossed tight across your churning stomach.

“Better. Now…”

Your eyes clenched shut when he wrapped his hand around your wrist, gasping in alarm when he pulled you down, down onto the chair with him, your back against his chest. His hand left your wrist to brush against your hair, tucking the strands behind your ear and your shoulder.

And they shot open again when you felt him lean forward behind you, his broad torso pressed against your back, watching him grab the receiver of the den den mushi.

“Make the call for me, pet,” he said, handing it to you before pulling his arm tight around your waist, holding you against him as he leaned back again. “And keep quiet unless I say otherwise. Is that clear?”

“Y-yes, sir.” You couldn’t speak in anything more than a strained whisper, your face flaring with heat, immediately reaching forward to dial the number at his command and holding the receiver between his ear and your own.

You shut your eyes again when you heard a familiar, gruff voice answer.

“Vice Admiral Garp. If you have this number you know what to do.”

“Vice Admiral Garp,” repeated Mihawk, sincerely surprised. “Garp the Fist. Hero of the Marines. My, my. I suppose I should be honored.” You drew in a sharp breath as his fingers curled lightly, possessively around your waist, as he turned his head and rest his forehead against your temple, his voice soft and warm against your ear. “I had no idea the adorable little pet you sent me was so important.”

You flinched at the sharp static that came through the other line for a moment, as if the old vice admiral had tightened his hand considerably around his own den den mushi.

“Dracule Mihawk,” he growled in response. “Where the hell is she?”

“Safe,” he responded. “Unharmed...relatively. Though I imagine she must be quite frightened, wondering what I plan to do with her.” You nearly whimpered when he reached across, curling a strand of your hair around his index finger. “Quite the gifted little spy. I might never have known what she truly was had I not overheard her conversation two nights ago.”

“Dammit, kid…” you heard Garp grumble under his breath. Then, louder, in a more commanding tone, “You’ve got two options, Hawk-Eye. You can let her go, or I can come get her myself.”

“With an entire armada of Navy vessels in tow, I presume?” he responded, sounding as if the idea bored him. “You’re not really in the position to be making threats, old man. The cadet is unharmed...for now. And really. You send me such a pretty little pet and expect me to sen her right back before I’ve even had any time to enjoy her company?”

You held your breath as his hand drifted down from your waist, his fingers brushing against the top of your thigh just below the hem of the over-sized shirt he had given you to wear.

“Call her your pet again, you sick son of a b—don’t—let go of that—”

“Mmm?” Mihawk hummed quietly, curiously at the sound of the brief scuffle at the other end of the call. You were fairly certain you knew what it meant, and...it was probably better that Garp didn’t handle this. Your suspicions were confirmed a moment later when another voice came through the call, far more curt but just as familiar to you.

“Read Admiral Bogard. My apologies for the vice admiral’s boorish behavior. He doesn’t handle negotiations well when it concerns one of our own. I presume this is a negotiation and you didn’t simply call for the sake of gloating?”

“Your presumption would be correct,” said Mihawk. “Though I admit, it was also to sate my own curisoty. I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of supposed men would send such an innocent, vulnerable young woman on what could easily have turned out to be a suicide mission.” He rested his chin against your shoulder, trailing his dingers slowly back up the length of your thigh, smirking as you pressed your legs together tightly and tiny goosebumps raised across the surface of your skin. “I guess I have my answer.”

“I take it you have no intention of returning her without hostile measures being taken,” said Bogard, ignoring the taunt from the pirate. “I will ask yhat you allow her to speak so I can ascertain for myself that she is, as you claim, unharmed.”

“Oh, but of course,” said Mihawk, his voice low and dripping with mockery, his mouth nearly brushing your ear. “She’s right here, after all. Go on, pet. Speak.”

“I’m not hurt,” you said quietly.

“You’re sure?” You gave a quiet affirmative hum in response to Bogard’s question—and then jumped in alarm when Mihawk jerked the receiver from your hand, only to push it into your oposite hand. You swallowed, keeping your eyes turned down to your lap, to his hand splayed across your stomach. “Am I correct in assuming he’s listening?”

“Y—yes, sir.”

It became immediately clear why he had moved the receiver to your opposite hand, to the opposite side of your head—you pulled in a small, sharp gasp as his mouth touched the shell of your ear.

“H-he can hear me,” you added quietly, clenching your eyes shut as his hand clenched around the thin material of his shirt that covered your stomach and half of your thighs, tugging it a few inches higher. You could feel his lips curl into a smirk against the edge of your jaw.

“I wonder,” he murmured, “how long you can keep your composure, pretty bird.” He chuckled lightly at the shiver his voice sent through you—a shiver that, no matter how much you wanted it to be, wasn’t entirely in fear.

“Does he have any intention of harming you that you’re aware of?” asked Bogard. His tone was lighter now, but still kept its usual air of authority

“I—I don’t think so,” you said, fighting to keep your breath level as Mihawk trailed his lips lightly down the length of your neck, lifting his free hand to your jaw, urging you to lie your head back. You obeyed the silent command, your shoulders tensing as the back of your head fell back against his shoulder. “H—he-he wanted more details on the offer. The—the Warlord—”

“I’m sure he does,” said Bogard curtly. “And I’m more than willing to discuss it with him. Our immediate concern at the present is your safety. Are you able to tell us where you are?”

“I…”

“Go ahead, little cadet.” You swallowed at Mihawk’s low, amused murmur against your neck, his words affirming that he could still hear both ends of the conversation. “Tell Mommy and Daddy exactly where you are.” You bit back a whimper as he nipped lightly at your neck, his hand at your chin drifting down the column of your throat, stopping to circle a finger around the top button of your shirt.

“A study in one of the towers in the castle on Kuraigana Island,” you forced out quickly, tour words pressing together as he lifted you by your hip and shifted your position, pressing his knee between your thighs to push them further open.

“Alright. Good.” Bogard’s words sounded more distant to you with every passing second, your focus shifting to Mihawk’s hand slipping open the top button of your shirt. “You sound weak.”

“S-seastone,” you said quietly, fighting to keep the tremor out of your voice as the second button came loose, revealing the top of your plain white bra. You bit your lip, watching him push the shirt open enough to trace his fingers along the edge of the undergarment. “Seastone shackles. So I can’t use my devil fruit ability to escape.”

Even though he had removed the shackles before leading you up here, it was the first explanation that jumped to your mind to account for the low, trembling quality of your voice.

“Seastone. Of course,” Bogard said coolly. “Should have guessed. Wouldn’t have been difficult to salvage from one of the hundreds of our ships he’s destroyed…” He let out a sigh. “Do your best to stay safe. Do not attempt to escape on your own. Is that understood?”

“Mm—mm-hmm,” you hummed, almost whimpered, biting down on your bottom lip as Mihawk tugged the last few buttons of the shirt open, moving his hands to your shoulders to push the material down.

“Off,” he murmured against you jaw. “And you’ll hand the phone back to me.”

“H—he wants to—”

“Then put him back on,” said Bogard.

You quickly shifted the phone back to your other hand, and Mihawk plucked it away, holding it out at arm’s length as he briefly leaned in, his lips brushing the corner of your mouth as he commanded once more, “Off, pretty girl. Let me see you. I won’t ask again.” He pulled the receiver to his ear as you complied, trembling as you slowly shrugged the material away from your shoulders, pulling it free from your arms. “Bogard, was it?” you heard him say. “Oh, yes. I am very interested to hear more of how your people think any pirate might be inclined to consider becoming a government lapdog.”

He tugged you back against him again the moment you were free of the shirt, his fingertips tracing leisurely circles over the plane of your stomach.

Drifting higher and higher, playing against the edge of your ribs.

Slipping just beneath the lower edge of your bra, his lips curling into a smirk at the way you tensed against him, in some mix of anxiety and anticipation, growing less and less able to differentiate between the two.

Clenching your eyes shut and biting your tongue against a small whimper as he pushed his hand higher, cupping the swell of your breast in his palm, squeezing his fingers lightly around the pliable flesh.

You could hear his voice as the conversation dragged on, his tone as curt and professional as Bogard’s, but you could scarcely make out a single detail of his words with his rough hand brushing across your breasts, occasionally rolling around the sensitive points of your nipples, forced to use every ounce of your will to keep yourself silent—to pull your own hand up to cover your mouth and muffle a small cry when he lightly pinched one of the sensitive protrusions near the end of the conversation.

“Well, that’s all very intriguing,” he said with a light chuckle as he pulled you tighter against him. “I’ll have to take a bit of time to consider such a tempting proposal. I think...oh, forty-eight hours? Well, if that’s acceptable for you, then it’s more than acceptable for me.” You tensed as he shifted his hand beneath your bra, whimpering as he pinched your nipple a bit harder. “Ten o’clock, two days from now. Perfect. And be sure to inform your vice admiral that I’ll take very good care of our little cadet in the meantime. Oh, of course. No harm at all.”

He lowered his head, continuing in a murmur against your ear, his breath hot against your neck.

“She might not even want to return to your command once I’m through with her.”

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Dirty Work 42

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.

Characters: Loki

Note: I've had a headache every day this week. I swear I want one good day.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You sit on the sofa, the bird still firmly perched on your shoulder. Bragi shows you the twelve-string, strumming lightly between stories about his travel abroad. Laufeyson glowers as he sits in the high-backed chair recently cleared of its clutter. The stout blond is quite talkative, it makes you wonder why your boss even brought you here.

"I'll be playing at Walpurgisnacht, so you will see me tomorrow," Bragi stands and places the guitar in a stand among several other stringed instruments, "perhaps Fossegrim will come too... he likes to sneak into my bag."

The bird squawks and tilts up and down.

"Likes you too," Bragi remarks. "Not as fond as your companion, I'm afraid."

Laufeyson shifts with a huff, "shall we continue to ramble? I did come for a reason."

"I nearly forgot," Bragi declares, "you requested it so long ago I nearly forgot."

"Yes, well, I left in a hurry my last visit and could not drop by, my apologies," Laufeyson rises and dusts off his trousers.

"Right, up in my office."

They leave you without much regard. You set aside your empty cup as Fossegrim rests his beak against your hair. He is rather big, your shoulder is sore from his weight, and yet he is comforting. You sit straight and hold out your fingers shyly. He bends to touch them and dips his head. You pet his feathers, uncertain what to do with yourself.

You hear a thump from above and a grunt. You look up as the bird hops down to the cushion. You rub your hands together and stay as you are. You don't want to intrude, besides, the place is so crowded, there isn't much space to move. 

At last, you hear the stairs creak and the men's voices precede their reappearance. Laufeyson holds a wrapped parcel under his arm as a shank of hair hangs past his ear, dangling along his cheek before he sweeps it back. You wonder what happened.

"Sorry about the rug," Bragi chuckles as he scratches his neck.

"Yes, not to worry," Laufeyson dismisses, "as it were," he looks at his watch, "my mother will be less impressed with our delay."

"You will send my regards," Bragi smirks crookedly.

"I will let her know we saw you," he retorts, "let us be off."

He waves you over. You say goodbye to Bragi as you cross the room and the parrot wings over your head, rustling your hair as he lands on the banister post once more. He lets out a chitter and receives a hush from his owner.

"Best go before he grows more obnoxious."

You offer a tight smile as Mr. Laufeyson opens the door and you step outside. It's dark and the moon beams down brightly. You silently descend the steps and near the car. He doesn't say a word as he unlocks the door and you climb in opposite him.

He starts the car and steers onto the street without a word. You feel as if you've done something terribly wrong. You look at your lap and drag your sweat palms over your skirt.

"We need to be very clear about things, pet," he begins as the leather squeaks beneath his grip, "tomorrow, you must stay close to me. No more breaking the rules."

"Yes, Mr. Laufeyson. I'm sorry--"

"Do you remember the rules? That I asked you to be honest with me," he hisses, "yes? I know you recall, you are brighter than you look, aren't you?" He slaps the wheel, "if you need... time, or anything, you can tell me. You must tell me otherwise... otherwise how can our arrangement work? If I am ignorant of what you require, how can I provide it? You cannot be upset that I do not know."

"I... I'm not upset," you murmur.

"Yes, but if you were upset," he exhales heavily, "then I would like to know the reason for it. I--" He stops himself and shakes his head at the road, "I am only saying, if there is some issue between us, you cannot merely run away and hide."

"I didn't--"

"Yes, yes, you were reading," he cuts in, "I do hope you enjoyed your little story."

"It won't happen again, Mr. Laufeyson," you avow.

He takes a deep breath, "that's all?"

"I... I'm not upset, I said, I only..." you mull the words on your tongue, wondering if they'll even matter. "I've never been far from home."

He nods as he slows, idling at a sign, "very well."

You accept his response as he accepts yours. Tension lingers but neither of you wants to add to the boiling stew. So you look out the window and he glares out the windshield, driving on in repressed agitation.

✨

Mr. Laufeyson leaves you alone that night, bidding you to keep the door locked and nothing else. You know for certain he's unhappy with you. You've already put a damper Walpurgisnacht and it's not even begun.

You sit in the small cone of light cast by the lamp and try to read but find the task impossible. So you tuck away Jane and her troubles and lay down to sink into your own. You don't see the next day going well at all. No better than any that have come before.

Perhaps it might be better if you found a reason not to be there. You could keep the white dress on the hanger and just stay inside where you can't do anything wrong. No one would miss you very much.

It's Frigga's celebration and you aren't an Odinson, no one would know any better. Mr. Laufeyson would be free to enjoy himself and not worry about you irritating him. That's all you seem to do.

Your eyes close heavily and you tumble down into a turbulent sleep. Dread colours your dreams and wakes you several times in the grim hues of the moonlight. The fitful night drags on into a dull morning, shining over you until it sears through your eyelids.

Walpurgisnacht. April 30th. A day that feels like a page turning.

You sit up and sift slowly through the early hours as if wading through sand. You wash and ready in the bathroom, ignoring the memories of two nights ago, the echoes of your whines, and the coiling of his touch. Now, he won't even use you. This could be it. When you leave this place, you may also be departing this life. It might just be for the better.

The event doesn't begin until the afternoon. Frigga said as much before. So you pull on a pair of tan pants and a peachy shirt. You near the door but don't flip back the lock. You should wait for a cue. For permission.

You stand at the window and watch the day bloom. The dew gleams on the leaves and petals and the air is fragrant with spring. Oddly, it does feel refreshing.

There's a soft tap, one you're not certain you heard. You turn and lean on the window ledge and hug yourself. It comes again followed by your name. Mr. Laufeyson's voice is just as even-keeled as the night before. Empty of any expression. That's worse to you than anger.

You emerge, head down, and bid him a good morning. You're met by a curt 'morning' and he ushers you down the hall. You smell bacon as you descend and the crackle of grease hisses in a pan. You walk side-by-side with Laufeyson out onto the veranda.

Odin sits, stirring a cup of coffee with a silver spoon.

"Ah, good morning," he chimes, "Joyous Walpurgisnacht!"

"Yes, happy day," Laufeyson intones and sits. You take the seat at his shoulder.

Your attention is drawn by men in work clothes out in the yard. They must be setting up for the celebration. You wonder how you should ask to excuse yourself from the event. You might pretend to be unwell. You don't entirely feel great.

"Happy Walpurgisnacht!" A thunderous boom makes you jump and grab Laufeyson's arm. He merely groans as Thor approaches and drags out a chair, dropping down with a sigh, "father, brother... lady, isn't it a wonderful morning?"

"Son," Odin squints at his son's open shirt, his chest shamelessly bare to the sunlight.

"Mmm, coffee," Thor pours from the carafe then adds a handful of sugar cubs to his cup. Laufeyson helps himself to tea before offering you some with a twitch of the spout. You accept with a nod and a please.

"Coffeeeeee," an echo drawls in the air as Hela strides in, chewing a strip of bacon absconded from the kitchen.

"Ghostly as ever, sister," Thor guffaws.

"Ugh, must you?" She snarls as she slumps into a chair, "ew, do those buttons not work?"

Thor smiles as he looks down at his torso, "it's warm."

"Or maybe it's the hot air stuck in your head," she retorts.

"Children," Odin rebuffs, "please, it is a holiday. Let's try to get along."

Laufeyson says nothing as he sips from his tea. You peek at him, finding his eyes narrowly set on his father. Another twinge pinches in your chest. You hope you haven't made things worse between them.

"Oh, we are all here already," Frigga flutters in, canary fabric swishing around her, "wonderful."

"Wife," Odin outstretches an arm and she goes to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"Mother," the siblings murmur in unison as you eke out her name.

"We will begin breakfast soon, I just checked with the staff, it is almost ready, but first," she pokes her elegant nail in the air, "there is one matter I need attend to. It won't take very long at all."

She smiles at Odin as he returns the sweet expression, then her eyes meet yours. Her cheeks pinken just a little. She sweeps away and disappears through the open doors. You hear her trill as she speaks to the staff.

"She is up to something," Hela slithers.

Laufeyson hums in agreement.

"Father," Thor peers over at Odin as he brushes his fingertips over his beard.

Odin shrugs, "I haven't any idea."

"Liar," Hela accuses, "you are not so sly as you think."

"I swear--"

"He definitely knows," Thor insists, "Loki, doesn't he? You see it, can't you?"

"I suppose..." Laufeyson squints and lets his voice dissolve into nothing.

"Here we go..." you hear Frigga chime before she appears again, "happy birthday to you..."

The song begins as two maids carry between them a double-tiered cake decorated with perfect white dollops of icing topped with raspberries. Your stomach gurgles and your chest racks as you sit up, caught in headlights as Thor and Odin join in on the melody but Hela and Laufeyson merely lean forward curiously. You gulp and look down at your lap.

As Frigga leads the chorus into your name, your shoulders slope and you turn your face away, tears stinging your eyes. How could she know? As nice as it all is, it's too much. You don't deserve any of this.

"Birthday..." you hear Laufeyson whisper quizzically.

You brace the armrests and push yourself to your feet as the song ends and the cakes placed before you. Your lips tremble as you look around the table. You can barely squeak out your apology before you flee, Frigga's hand glancing off yours as she tries to stop you.

You hurry away from the veranda, hurtling up the path blindly. You plunge into the brush and around the curving trails, retracing the same route Odin led you the day before. You clamour up to the gazebo and hide within, collapsing onto a bench as you fold over and shield your head.

Why would she do it? You don't matter! It's all too much. You don't want to pretend anymore. You don't want to act like you belong. You want them to let you go. You want Laufeyson to just do it already and throw you away.

You sit, bent over, weak and shaking, just breathing, paralysed. You hunch amid the songs of birds and the rippling of water. You can't move. You just want to stay and never come out.

A scuff makes you flinch. You lift your head to look over as a shadow steps into the archway. You raise yourself up straight and face Mr. Laufeyson.

"I didn't know it's your birthday," he says.

You don't say anything. Why would you tell him? Why would he care?

He lowers his chin, sliding his hands into his pockets as he steps into the stone structure, "if I'd known--"

"It doesn't matter," you say, "it's just another day."

"Mm, well..." he begins in a fragile tone, "I wouldn't agree. Birthdays are special..."

"Not mine," you pout.

His cheek ticks and bows his head, nodding as he thinks, "but... my mother did try to make it special..." he chews on his lip as he looks at you, "she's worried."

"She shouldn't care so much. She isn't my mother."

"But she is a good mother," he argues, "and she only wanted to include you."

"And I'm just as ungrateful as my father said," you sniff, "I'm sure you'd agree."

"I don't."

"Sure. It's why you left me alone all night. It's why you were so mad that I dare read a book. I know, Mr. Laufeyson, I know."

"Know what?"

You huff and cross your arms.

"I know better," you stand and jut your chin out. "I broke the rules again, I'm sorry."

"The rules... that isn't-- why are you being like this?"

"Like what?" You challenge. 

"Please, I didn't come to lecture me--"

"I know the rules. I remember. I will be good," you drop your arms and force your spine straight, "I will apologise to Frigga and thank her. You're right. You're always right. I was wrong."

You go to step past him and he catches your arm, pulling you to face him, "stop."

"Mr. Laufeyson, is that not what you want? For me to be good? I'm sorry I made you look bad. I only... was surprised," you carefully measure your voice and force a smile, "tell me what to do, Mr. Laufeyson and I will obey."

His brows slant and he swallows tightly. He squeezes your wrist then releases you, "apologise," he breathes, "say thank you."

"Yes, Mr. Laufeyson," you reply and march through the door, "whatever you wish."

You keep your gait steady and set. He follows behind you and catches up. You return to the veranda in curdling silence. As the rest look up at you, you gather what's left of your strength.

"I'm sorry," you say, "I was only surprised and I... panicked."

"Dear, it's okay, I should've warned you," Frigga coos.

"I really appreciate it," you sit as Laufeyson pulls out your chair, "really..." you look at the pink cake, "I never had a birthday cake before."

As the words escape, you clamp your lips shut. It's only the silence that makes you realise how pathetic that must sound. You put your chin down and try to hide your embarrassment.

"Of course, dear," Frigga fills the dead air, "would you like to cut the first piece?”

[chronicowboy]

Eddie has known exactly what he was going to come home to ever since Buck texted him to say he was going out for some afternoon drinks with Hen—Karen visiting her parents with the kids for the weekend, Eddie covering a shift for Julie, and Chris being spoiled rotten by his visiting tias—but it still warms his heart when he finds Buck dozing on the couch, all curled up like a house cat in a perfect ray of sun.

See, Buck's a big guy and he's still young, so he can handle his alcohol. But day drinking makes Buck adorably sleepy. Golden retriever Buck transforms into a clinging, cuddly koala bear—minus the Chlamydia because that's something Eddie knows now, thanks Buck. And Eddie loves every version of Buck equally, but this might be one of his favourites.

Eddie drops his duffel at the door, toeing off his shoes before crossing to the couch. He perches on the arm of the chair and runs a hand through Buck's curls, product displaced by his impromptu nap. Buck blinks awake slowly and curls up tighter, pushing his face deeper into the couch cushion before his body relaxes. His eyes find Eddie in seconds, and Eddie lets the joy rush through him like his very own intoxicant.

"Hey, baby," Buck murmurs thickly, dragging the 'y' out for long enough that Eddie can't bite back his chuckle. "Good shift?"

"Good shift," Eddie replies with a smile. "Good day with Hen?"

"Good day with Hen," Buck parrots, nodding against the couch before a yawn cracks his jaw. "Missed you."

A surprisingly strong arm reaches up to wrap around his waist, and Buck pulls him down onto the couch in a move so agile Eddie can't help wondering if he and Hen were on virgin piña coladas. He huffs a small noise of shock as Buck rearranges himself to fit against Eddie's side, nuzzling his face into the crook of Eddie's neck.

"I missed you too, baby," Eddie laughs, reburying his hand in Buck's hair when he's settled. "You hungry?"

"Mm." Buck drops a handful of lazy kisses to his shoulder, tightening his hold on Eddie. "Lenny's burgers and a movie?"

"Buck." Eddie presses his chuckle to Buck's temple. "You wouldn't stay awake through an episode of The Good Place."

"'s not really about the movie though," Buck argues, endearingly petulant as his brow furrows in discontent. Eddie cranes his neck to press a kiss to the wrinkle of his skin, satisfied when it disappears under his lips. "It's about you."

"Me?" It's Eddie's turn to frown then, barely able to follow Buck's mind on the best of days, unable to follow drunk Buck's erratic train of thought through all of its many, many stops.

"Like movie night." Buck yawns again, pressung it into Eddie's skin. "Was never about the movie. Was always about you and Chris."

"Oh." Eddie blinks, eyes stinging suddenly.

When Buck had shown up on his doorstep three nights after he and Marisol fizzled out to tell him that he'd broken up with Natalia, Eddie never thought Buck would be able to shock him more than that. Then Buck had told him he was in love, in love with Eddie of all people, and Eddie knew nothing would ever blindside him quite so brilliantly as that. But this is Evan Buckley. Evan Buckley who can say something so simple, yet so mindbogglingly romantic and loving even drunk and half-asleep. Eddie should know better by now.

"I love you," Eddie whispers. His only answer is a soft, snuffling snore. "Alright, cowboy." He laughs, scratching at Buck's scalp to hear his purring snore. "Guess I'm ordering our food then."

And Eddie can't wait to spend the rest of his life watching movies, even if Buck sleeps through them all.

[diejager]

Saw your requests are open.😊😊

Can you please do some fluff for my boys Alejandro and Rudy (I just need some fluff right now). They can be together or separate,(don't matter to me).

Please and thank you. 🙇🏼‍♀️🙇🏼‍♀️

Cw: fluff, tell me if I missed any.

The house was loud and lively, bustling and full of life despite being the only one home, but you weren’t truly alone. You never were. You had a chatty parrot, a pretty thing with blue and green plumage that loved to sing and purr around the house. She hopped and jumped from one perch to the next, occasionally returning to her nest or resting on your shoulder. And you had a ball of sunshine running around, barking and huffing with flappy ears and golden fur that glowed under sunlight. Lola and Milo were your sweet companions when you were home alone. 

They were bright, Milo keeping watch over you while Lola flew and helped you pick things from spoons to pots. She was your little helper and him, your protector, but they never got in your way. Especially when you were busy, mixing and stirring, preparing a meal for a family under the warmth of the setting sun, it’s golden ray lighting you up in an ethereal hue. It made your house feel so welcoming. 

“Lola, spoons on the table, please!” You called out to the blue-headed parrot, sliding the drawer open for her and returning to the steaming pot.

“Spoon! Spoon!”

“Thank you, Lola.”

You let her set the table, spoons and forks beside the plates and bowls you’d placed while you finished up the broth. You wanted it done by the time they were home, a warm, homemade meal after a tiring day at work was the best welcome. You had everything done and ready, desert cooling in the fridge, cups cleaned and dried for drinks, bread still warm and a salad fresh and crispy. All that was missing was supper and your hardworking lovers. 

You often found yourself staring at the hanging picture around the house, eyes straying to stare at Rudy’s gentle grin and Ale’s smug smirk. Although you saw them every week, the simple thought of them made you melancholic. You called, you texted and you spoke, but you still missed them. It was always a busy night when they came home after a long week at base. Gone were the bland meals. Gone were the stressful and restless nights alone. Gone were the posturing and expectation of a leader. 

At home, Alejandro and Rudolfo were lovers, men whose hearts were given to each other as they gave it to you. There weren’t any expectation at home, only a warm welcome and loving kiss. Last week’s kisses still lingered in your mind, the soft pressure of their smooth lips pressing on yours, the taste of moss and lavender. The same fragrance that filled your home, a mix of cinnamon and moss, lavender and ocean, and your rosemary and lilac. It made home feel like home.

You thought so fondly of them as you stirred the last of the meat in the broth when you heard a car drive into the driveway, the rumbling of the engine cutting off and doors closing. Milo scrambled to the door, panting and tail excitedly wagging, and Lola flew off your shoulder with a happy “Home! Home!”. You turned off the stove, hands patting down your apron, smiling brightly on your way out the kitchen.

“Corazõn,” Rudy pressed himself against you, his arms wrapped around your waist, “I missed you.”

He kissed you softly, murmuring sweet words. You ran your fingers through his hair, sliding to caress his jaw and down to his nape to hold him firmly. You were unwilling to part ways with him just yet, kissing until you were both breathless, pulling away with gasps and pants. You both grinned dopily, drunk off each others.

“Where’s my kiss, Amor?” Alejandro mumbled against your shoulder, kissing it up until you turned your head and met his lips, arching your back to him.

He had both of you in his embrace, tugging you both into him in a steady cradle. You parted and he leaned over you to share the taste of your lips with Rudy, both groaning with you pressed between them. You missed this, you really missed being between them, spooned on both sides while they shared their love.

“I have supper ready, ” you sighed blissfully, hands grabbing their wrists.

You pulled them down the hall and into the kitchen, where a meal awaited you three —a love-filled and happy moment under the setting sun. 

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @im-making-an-effort @daisychainsinknots @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @danielle143 @tuttifuckinfruttifriday @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @petwifed @randominstake @haven-1307 @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @cod-z @sweetnanah @aldis-nuts @evolutionarry @kaoyamamegami @cassiecasluciluce

[quitealotofsodapop]

Wukong quickly becomes on3 of the twins' favorite perches. For one thing, that's Wukong-Mama. Sure they don't know much about him but with all the times they've heard Macaque talking about his Peaches and the short interactions they had with Wukong they love him and know how important he is to their adopted dad. He's really, really important and special and Macaque told them they have to keep him safe without letting him know they're keeping him safe when they learned Wukong-Mama was having a baby, so they decide to become his little guard monkeys.

Prev.

In the case of the twins in the SlowBoiled au; they've come into the world by stowing-away on Papa Macaque's revival, as opposed to the Penumbra Au where they are "shadow clones + Wukong dao = babies".

So in the SlowBoiled au; Rumble and Savage have just met Wukong, and already adore him. Wukong is really soft with the pair once he realises that they're little monkeys, and pretty much force-adopts them as his own (as monkeys often do to orphans) and is reluctant to let them return to Macaque.

Pre the end of S3, Macaque has been trying his best with his "weird baby clones" by pretty much stealing supplies and asking Jiuweihuli for help. The Vixen shrieked with joy the first time she saw the twins - reminded of her own twin kits - and helps Macaque revise basic infant care (he had experience babysitting FFM cubs and Jin & Yin but it's been a while).

The presence of the Eclipse Twins in the au accidentally makes the demon world assume Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque had a Parent Trap-style break-up that left Wukong with his Egg and Macaque with the twins. XD

Macaque basically tells the twins to "keep an eye on Wukong"; since in his heart he can't bare hurting Wukong in his delicate state. The Twins take their job very seriously. Perched on Mama's shoulders like a pair of gargoyles. Anyone who gets too close gets bitten (except Gege MK). And if anyone tries touching Wukong's stomach, they're getting mauled. Wukong thinks it's adorable, especially since the "baby clones" chirp and parrot all the things their "Papa" says about Wukong when Mac thinks no one else can hear.

Wukong: "What else did he say?" Rumble, chirping happily: "Mama is the Sun, and Papa is the moon!" Savage: "Papa only shines in Mama's light!" Wukong, blushing and giggling like a teenager: "Oh! That flatterer! He always did love his poetry." Rumble & Savage: "Yes yes!" "Papa loves Mama's poetry too!" "Even if Mama gets scared to tell it." Wukong: (*now a blushing mess, nuzzling the twins' faces*) MK: (*confused cus he's only hearing chirping sounds*)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hey there, friend!! I was wondering if you could give me any advice on writing pirates and kingpin type characters? Im trying to write a love story about this lesbian pirate falling in love with a kingpins daughter, but her mission is to carry out her late captains legacy - which is to make sure both him and his daughter are dead (i hope that makes sense 😭)

Writing Notes: Pirates

The word "pirate" typically conjures up images of a/an:

Slightly comical seaborne ruffian

Parrot perched on the shoulder

Peg leg

Bandana

Eye patch

Gold teeth

Skull and crossbones flag

This comes from a century or more of cartoonish depictions of pirates in Peter Pan, Treasure Island and The Pirates of the Caribbean.

Pirate - a robber who travels by water. Though most pirates targeted ships, some also launched attacks on coastal towns.

We often think of pirates as swashbuckling and daring or evil and brutish, but in actual fact most of them were ordinary people who had been forced to turn to criminal activity to make ends meet.

Nowadays these sanitized pirates are used to sell everything from rum to home insurance. The pirate has become an instantly recognizable symbol whose meaning is far removed from its dark and sinister origins.

The term ‘pirate’ has been changed over the years.

A ‘privateer’ was a government-sanctioned pirate who did not attack his own people.

The French called these people ‘corsairs’, although even this term became associated with Mediterranean ‘pirates’ instead of ‘privateers’.

A ‘buccaneer’ was a 17th-century raider who preyed on the Spanish in the Caribbean, while a

‘filibuster’ (or ‘freebooter’) was simply a French word for a ‘buccaneer’.

As for ‘swashbuckler’, the term meant a 16th-century brigand, or a 17th-century swordsman, but in the 20th century it was adopted by the writers of pirate fiction, and then by Hollywood. In the piratical heyday most of these terms were never used the way they are today.

Finally, there were ‘pirates’. The dictionary specifies that a ‘pirate’ is someone who robs from others at sea, and who acts beyond the law. Usually, they attacked whatever ships they came across, regardless of nationality.

Sometimes, though, these ‘pirates’ themselves crossed the line from one category to another.

HISTORY OF PIRACY

Spans the time of the Egyptian pharaohs to the present day. The real "heyday" of piracy falls neatly into two halves:

The colourful era of the 17th-century buccaneers who preyed on the Spanish Main – men like Henry Morgan or the bloodthirsty François L’Olonnais.

The ‘Golden Age of Piracy’. The phrase was first coined by the creators of pirate fiction rather than by people who experienced piracy for themselves. There was nothing golden or romantic about the real thing. Still, the term serves as a useful historical shorthand for a time when some of the best-known pirates in history were sailing the world’s oceans in search of prey. This was the brief but heady period in the early 18th century when the likes of Blackbeard, Black Bart and Charles Vane roamed the seas.

This early 18th-century French slave ship is typical of the slavers that were often captured by pirates, and sometimes converted into pirate vessels themselves. They had a reputation for being fast, an important feature for ships engaged in transporting a human cargo across the Atlantic.

Pirate ships usually carried far more crew than ordinary ships of a similar size.

This meant they could easily outnumber their victims.

Pirates altered their ships so that they could carry far more cannon than merchant ships of the same size.

Stories about pirate brutality meant that many of the most famous pirates had a terrifying reputation, and they advertised this by flying various gruesome flags including the 'Jolly Roger' with its picture of skull and crossbones.

All these things together meant that victims often surrendered very quickly. Sometimes there was no fighting at all.

It's likely that most victims of pirates were just thrown overboard rather than being made to ‘walk the plank’.

FEMALE PIRATES

The capture of the two female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, in 1720 provoked the outrage of a society where women were simply not supposed to become seamen, or pirates, or fight. As a result, the pair became some of the best-known pirates of the ‘Golden Age’.

In this 19th-century illustration, Mary Read, having vanquished a fellow pirate in a duel, exposes her breast to reveal to her dying adversary that he was shot by a woman. After their capture it was said that she and Anne Bonny put up more of a fight than all the rest of Rackam’s pirate crew.

While this depiction of Anne Bonny is probably fairly accurate – she wears the standard clothing of a sailor from this period – the artist felt obliged to emphasise her gender by giving her a low-cut shirt.

Like the depiction of Anne Bonny by the same artist, Mary Read is shown wearing the outfit of a European sailor from the period. A contemporary said of the two women that they ‘wore men’s jackets and long trousers, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads’.

A lot of what is known about pirates is not true, and a lot of what is true is not known.

Pirates could also be civil, neighborly, and law-abiding.

One reason piracy was often an act or a phase, and not a way of life, was simply because humans have not evolved to live on the sea. The sea is a hostile place, offering few of the pleasures of terrestrial society.

The expansion of commercial trade, particularly the slave trade, cemented a colonial social order increasingly threatened by instability at sea and less tolerant of social mobility on land. This change in attitudes led to the period we call the “War on Pirates”—roughly 1716 to 1726—and the advent of sea marauders who, with little hope of ever resettling on land, attacked their own nation.

Some Pirate-Related Tropes - you could use to help guide you write your own character.

Writing Notes: Kingpin

A character trope also referred to as "Big Bad", specifically a crime boss (usually a drug lord).

A character with evil plans (some popular examples of "evil plans").

"The Don"

A similar character trope.

The patriarch of a crime family — most often the mafia.

He is shrewd, ruthless, and very dangerous to cross.

Often he will hold to an arcane code of honor, which is perhaps incomprehensible to non-mobsters.

He will be very protective of his family and he will ensure that his dear little girl wants for nothing, all while maintaining the illusion of morality.

Read or watch media that depict this trope to help guide you write your own character, such as:

Vito and Michael Corleone in The Godfather.

Batman's The Penguin fills this role in Gotham City, having retired from committing crimes personally — for the most part.

Mr. Big from Zootopia is Tundratown's most notorious crime boss (right down to being a parody of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone), despite being a diminutive arctic shrew. Judy is lucky enough to get in his good graces by saving his daughter's life.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

Already sounds like such an interesting story, thanks for sharing it with me! Choose which of these notes to help you build your characters :)

[geeky-politics-46]

Like Bunnies

Smut - Explicit content - NSFW - 18+ only!

Pairing: Sinister Stephen Strange x Reader

Summary: What better way to celebrate Easter than by doing what bunnies do best?

Warnings: Smut (NSFW) - 18+ ONLY - dirty talk, pet names, language, costume play, slight dom/sub, slight breeding kink, fingering, reference to oral sex, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, creampie, inappropriate use of the names mommy & daddy, slight mommy kink if you squint.

You and Stephen had spent all afternoon painting Easter eggs with Donna. Granted you did most of the painting. Donna spent more time playing in the vegetable dye and Stephen tried to keep the mess under control. That included keeping Donna's favorite little stuffed bunny, Bunny, it's original white color by keeping it perched on his shoulder like it was a parrot. Much to her delight and admittedly your own.

He drew the line at sporting a pair of bunny ears though. Even if they matched the ones both you and Donna were wearing, and even if no one else would see it. He was much better at being carefree and silly than he used to be, but he was still stubborn in keeping up his dark appearance. Just in case anyone entered your universe unexpectedly. 

The bright colored eggs looked nearly fluorescent against the Sanctum decor as they finished drying. Even though a good majority of them had ended up in varying shades of purple, Donna's favorite color because it matched her father's magic. She was a daddy's girl through and through.

--------------------------------

By the time he put her to bed you had changed into your pajamas and started hiding the painted eggs throughout the Sanctum. You left the bunny ears on. It just seemed right. 

You were in your own little world as you went about your business and were completely oblivious to the sounds of your husband entering the living room once again. Flopping down on the couch and putting his feet up on the ottoman.

"Well now, how did a Playboy bunny sneak in here? Too bad there's no way she could be any sexier than my wife is already."

Peeking over your shoulder, you saw him smiling seductively at you. One eyebrow raised as if he was daring you to come over and respond to him. His blue eyes twinkling in the lights. 

"Ha, ha, Stephen. Very funny. Are you gonna help me hide these or are you just gonna sit there and watch?" 

He gestured for you to continue. Crossing his ankles. Reclining as much as he could on the settee. Resting his chin on one hand and following your figure as you moved through the room.

"Oh, I'm just gonna watch. Save my energy for other bunny activities. Especially with such a pretty little mama bunny hopping about. I will help with one thing though…" 

A wide mischievous grin on his face as he snapped his fingers and your pj's magically transformed into a skin tight black satin Playboy bunny costume paired with sky-high black stiletto boots. Complete with white collar, cuffs, black satin bunny ears, and white fluffy cotton tail.

You couldn't help but start laughing, setting down the basket of dyed eggs you had been holding before walking over to the mirror to get a better look at yourself. On one hand you thought you looked absurd, but on the other you had to admit the bustier part of the costume did make your boobs look incredible. You also happened to notice that your name tag, which was pinned to one hip, simply said Mrs. Strange

So as you adjusted your ears so one was bent down a little more than the other you let your eyes lock with Stephen's through the mirror. Giving him an exaggerated wink and a wiggle of your puffy tail adorned bottom. Hearing the little entertained and excited growl that came from your husband gave you the most devious smile.

You turned on a heel and promptly started to sashay over to where Stephen sat on the couch. Adding an extra bounce in your step so your breasts would jiggle as you walked. Swinging your hips a little more when you caught his eyes trailing hungrily up and down your form.

"So these other bunny activities, the ones you are saving your energy for, that must be hutch building and carrot farming right? What else could a sweet little mama bunny, like me, and a big strong daddy bunny, like you, get up to all by ourselves?" 

He took your hand in his and led you over, encouraging you to straddle his lap. Your hands coming to rest on his shoulders and his hands rubbing gently up and down your fishnet stocking clad thighs. As you went to settle yourself down in his lap you gave your tail another little wiggle, making him laugh before reaching up to squeeze the soft white puff with one hand and one of your ass cheeks with the other.

You leaned down to press a quick innocent kiss to his lips before pulling back to sit up.  Checking the placement of your bunny ears while you waited for him to come up with his response. 

"Well there is something else that bunnies are quite well known for, my dear. Although I feel like we could give lots of those other bunnies a run for their money with as much fun as we have. As much as we like to fuck like bunnies." 

He teasingly trailed his index finger up and down you arms, dancing along the tops of your breasts before skimming down the center of your body. Feeling every curve and valley, all exaggerated and made more lush by your costume. His eyes glazed over in lust and adoration. Licking his lips in anticipation. 

You hummed in pleasure and let your eyes close. Enjoying the delicate way he touched you. Even when he was rougher he always paid such careful attention to how he touched and held you. Knew just the right pressure and which buttons to press to tread the line between pain and pleasure. 

You were one of the most precious things he had ever beheld, and he always treated you that way. With reverence. 

"I do believe that's how we ended up with our baby bunny."

You went to stand back up so you could finish hiding the Easter eggs before Stephen could get carried away and your evening would take a turn towards the explicit. You knew it was going that way sooner or later, and you could only hold yourself back for so long too.

He stopped you in place and refused to let you off of his lap. Instead he buried his face in your cleavage, now very much on display, leaving a trail of kisses and love nips behind. Finally letting his chin rest on your sternum and looking up at you through hooded eyes.

"Maybe I wouldn't mind making a few more baby bunnies with you. At the very least I want to keep practicing like bunnies. So what do you think mama? Gonna hop up and down on my cock like a good little bunny?"

You leaned down and pressed a deep kiss to his lips. Letting your tongue lick into his mouth as your fingers began to teasingly pull at his hair at the nape of his neck. Smiling as you heard him moan into your kiss. Slowly pulling back just enough to speak, letting your nose continue to rub against his.

"I'm always your good little bunny, aren't I?" 

You raised up off his lap just enough for him to put his legs down from the ottoman. Slowly you started to slide your body down his, moving to spread his legs and position yourself on your knees between them. Peeking up at him innocently through your eyelashes. 

"You are always very good, and very good to me too. Which is why as much as you know I enjoy seeing you on your knees for me, that's not where I want you tonight." 

You started to undo his belt and his robes. Luckily you had plenty of practice undoing all the intricate buckles and fastenings. Making quick work to get to his pants so you begin undoing them too.

"Well I just figured that really good little bunnies, especially mommy bunnies who want to take care of daddy bunnies, should help get those daddy bunny cocks ready to bounce on." 

You leaned down to press a kiss in the quickly growing bulge in his pants. Nuzzling your cheek against the shaft of his erection. Looking far too innocent and utterly sinful at the same time.

"Ears, collar, and cuffs stay on darling. I would say the boots stay on too, but my sexy little bunny can probably bounce better without them. Maybe we can have some fun with them tomorrow night. Now get that cute little ass back up here on my lap right this second, you've already done quite enough to get me ready."

Again with the snap of his fingers, as you crawled back up to straddle him once more, your costume and Stephen's robes vanished. Leaving the two of you bare except for the aforementioned accessories. He growled as he felt the heat from your skin against his. Pulling you closer and stretching his fingers to feel as much of you in his grasp as possible.

"The question is, is my sweet bunny ready for me? Hmm?" 

He wrapped one arm around your waist and let his other hand trail between your bodies. Bringing his fingertips to tease at your sex. Sliding them along your slit before pulling your pussy lips apart with his index and ring fingers just far enough to dip his middle finger inside you. Gathering your slick before moving his fingers back up to begin rubbing small circles on your clit. 

Your eyes closed and your back arched, pushing you farther into his touch. His lips attacking your neck and chest. Your hips starting to roll forwards and backwards. Eventually lowering yourself down so his hard cock slotted directly between your wet pussy lips. Not only working to get even more direct stimulation but working to spread your arousal along Stephen's shaft, getting him nice and lubed up for you.

He let his hand that had been playing with your clit drift up to play with your nipple that wasn't already being circled with his tongue. Holding his other palm on the small of your back to help you grind against him. You could feel him smiling against your breast when he heard you whimpering softly and your fingers gripping in his hair.

"You feel so perfect baby. I will never ever get enough of you darling. Love everything about you. Such a good wife and mama. My sweet, perfect, sexy bunny." 

He brought his lips up to yours and kissed you passionately. Wrapping both arms tight around you and thrusting his hips up against you. Your bodies working to mold to each other, wanting to have as much skin in contact as possible. 

"Mmm, love you too Stephen. I got so lucky when I found you here. Need to feel you inside me now baby. Need to bounce on your cock like a good slutty little bunny."

He let you pull away just enough so you could reach down and position the blunt head of his leaking cock at your opening. Exhaling in relief as you started to press your hips down, feeling your cunt start to stretch around him. The intrusion of his warm hard length making you feel whole. Feeling more complete with each veiny velvety inch.

You couldn't help but smile at the blissed out expression on Stephen's face. His eyes closed and his mouth hung open. His breathing slow and deep. All the normal lines and wrinkles on his face smoothed out or softened. He was never as at peace as he was when he was inside you.

On one hand you always wanted to stay in this moment forever. This was the side of him that you fell head over heels for. All pretense of his formidable power and all the weight he carried from what he had down forgotten momentarily, this side of him was just a normal man. This was a man that you knew you were the only one to ever witness. 

On the other hand you desperately needed to move. To make him feel good. To take your pleasure in him and let him take pleasure in you. You couldn't possibly stay still much longer.

So after getting a better grip on Stephen's shoulders, you slowly started to rock forwards and backwards. Hardly lifting up to start. Moving just enough to bring both of you back to focus. You were currently in the middle of the living room, and with a little one running around you two couldn't drag your romp out for too long.

Stephen's fingers were starting to dig tighter into your hips as each second passed. Urging you to keep going. The needy little huffs he gave through his nose were really what egged you on though. 

"That feel good Stephen? Does my pussy feel good? Tell me what you want, baby. Tell me how you want me to ride you daddy." 

A needy little groan came from the back of his throat. He knew that you already knew how good you felt and knew exactly what he wanted. The fact that you wanted him to explicitly tell you made him melt. For all his big talk you knew your big scary sorcerer had a tendency to like being a sub once you got started.

"Your pussy feels incredible, baby. You know I would spend every second of every day inside you if I could. I pretty much did before Donna. Fuck! So good." 

He bit his lower lip and emitted yet another needy high pitched moan. Finally opening his pretty blue eyes to look up directly into yours. The normal clear bright blue orbs now hazy and glassy, already so lost in the pleasure you were giving him.

"Want it harder my love. Ride me harder mommy. Want to hear you bouncing on my cock. Want you to bounce so hard you knock those bunny ears off. Need it. Need to be nice and deep in your perfect cunt.”

You took his cheek in the palm of our hand, stroking his cheekbone with your thumb. Cooing at your sweet sorcerer. You had to admit that the Playboy bunny costume had made you feel kind of powerful. The idea of not just being the subject of your husband's desires, but of so many men.

"Oh baby, let me hear you ask all nice. Say please. Say 'please my sexy little bunny, hop on my cock until i cum'. Then I will gladly do whatever you want, Stephen."

You felt his hips start to gently thrust up underneath you. Your words getting him even more excited. You could practically feel him throb as he spoke.

"Please baby, my sexy little bunny. Hop on my cock until I cum. Wanna fill you up mama. Pretty please baby."

A sly grin forming on your lips as you started to lift up and down with a little more vigor. Still starting nice and easy but picking up both your speed and force. The sound of your wet cunt gripping his length and the sound of your hips coming down on him made Stephen whimper.

You leaned down to kiss him softly, stopping your movements and placing a teasing lick across his lips. Pulling back just enough to whisper against the soft swollen flesh.

"Good boy."

His hips lurched upward at the praise and you took that as your cue to really start moving. Lifting yourself up all the way to his tip and slamming yourself back down in his lap all the way. The delicious yelp that came from your sweet sorcerer's lips was nearly enough to throw you over the edge all by itself. 

As you started to ride him hard and fast you felt his grip on your ass tighten. Holding onto you for dear life as you did exactly as he wanted, having made him ask so nicely for it. 

The sound of skin on skin became louder in tandem with the moans that fell from both of you. Your volume increasing as you felt his tip rub up against that perfect little spongy spot on the front of your inner wall. The heat starting to build in your low belly growing as you started to lose a steady rhythm. 

Chasing after your climax and rolling your hips to grind your clit against Stephen's pubic bone. You grit your teeth and dug your nails into his shoulders. Moving faster and faster. Knowing that feeling you squeeze his cock as you came would make him fall apart for you.

"Oh fuck Stephen, I'm gonna cum. Fuck up into me daddy, don't fucking stop until you feel me cum on your cock. Wanna cum so you can fill me full baby. Make me cum Stephen." 

You kept doing your best to bounce up and down on him as he started thrusting up into you. His balls slapping up into your ass and your slick starting to drip down his balls. Your black satin bunny ears finally starting to inch backwards on your head.

He gave a quick slap to your ass with both hands before he tightened his arms around you and began pounding his hips up into you. The blood rushing in his ears and your sweet little whimpers were the only things he could hear. His need to bring you to climax driving him closer to his own end.

"I can tell you're close. bunny. That's it my sexy bunny. Need to cum in you mommy. You take my cock so good. Perfect bunny, perfect fucking pussy." 

You felt yourself clamp down on his cock and drench him. Throwing your head back and successfully knocking your bunny ears off. Bringing one hand up to cover your mouth and muffle your own moans and screams your delicious release. 

Finally letting your head fall against Stephen's shoulder burying your face in his soft warm skin. Biting at the flesh there with each aftershock. Your cunt milking him more with each burst. 

His own head buried in your neck as he suddenly broke apart underneath you. Spilling inside you and filling you with his thick warm cum. His whines and pleas whispered into your ear. Slowly moving back to your lips and posessively thrusting his tongue into your mouth. Letting your kisses and your cunt battle over which one could suck his soul from his body first.

You two stayed there only a few moments. Holding each other tight and feeling both your bodies come down from their high together. You snuggled into his neck and inhaled deeply, feeling content to stay right where you were despite knowing the two of you should move from the living room to a more private space. Just in case your daughter woke up and wandered out of her room. 

Without warning you felt Stephen let one arm go from your waist and gesture into the air. Just like they had vanished before, suddenly you found yourself dressed again. 

Stephen was back in his robes but this time, instead if your pajamas or the Playboy bunny outfit you were wearing a short silky black robe. Clearly communicating that your husband had more plans for you yet that night. 

"Come on darling, let's go to the bedroom. Why don't you take a nice hot bath while I finish hiding all those eggs? Then we can get back to our bunny activities." 

With a quick kiss and swat to you ass he sent you off to prepare for what was sure to be a long and fun night. You knew you would be spending it occupied with lots more naughty bunny activities.

--------------------------------

The next day the three of you were piled in the large bed you shared with Stephen. Donna was contently laying across the foot of the bed coloring in the new book the Easter Bunny had brought, with her little stuffed bunny tucked under one arm, while you and Stephen were busy snuggling and sharing a bag of jelly bird eggs. He had very kindly agreed to eat all the black licorice ones that you hated. 

After Stephen gave you a thank you kiss for feeding him a jelly bean Donna cleared her throat to get both of your attention. Suddenly you found her sitting up on her little knees, arms crossed and staring at you both. Bunny was staring at you both too. She was clearly doing her best to look as authoritative as possible.

"Bunny says he thinks I need a brother or sister. We love you and daddy, but we get bored and want someone else to play with. So I don’t know how we get one, but I want one."

You aren't sure whether Stephen had talked her into asking for a sibling, and the mischievous excited smile on his face was making you doubt his innocence even more. You arched an eyebrow at him suspiciously before letting out a tiny little snort, failing to contain a chuckle. You simply shook your head before answering, speaking as much to Stephen as you were to Donna.

"Does he now? Well tell Bunny that maybe your daddy and I will see what we can do about that. If all three of you are good. You, Bunny, and Daddy."

You sneakily offered your husband an extra little wink that you knew your daughter wouldn't catch. It wasn't a promise, but it was a little acknowledgement that you would think about it. 

--------------------------------

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[jeonginify]

star lost (01) — hwang hyunjin. ·˚ ༘♡

↝ pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader ↝ genre: humor, romance, angst, soulmate!au ↝ word count: 5.7k ↝ warnings: alcohol consumption, glitter bath bombs, changbin and jisung are menaces to society and should probably be stopped, general pessimism, hwang hyunjin (he should come w a label himself), reader is shirtless for like half a scene but nothing suggestive happens, this is like the song invisible string but like... more depressing

↝ summary: in a world where you can see every red string that connects soulmates to each other except your own, you have long given up on the idea of love. then, in a flurry of glitter and wonder, you meet hwang hyunjin under the most unlikely of circumstances, and find that maybe (just maybe) things aren’t as simple as you initially thought they were. OR, after years of wondering if your soulmate is out there, you finally meet him. too bad he is in love with your best friend.

PART ONE | next. series masterlist

You never expect to meet your soulmate at 2am in Changbin’s bathtub and yet, with the resounding clarity of his garish white bathroom lightbulbs as the backdrop for your utter demise, that is exactly how it happens. 

It is a good thing, you suppose, that you don’t believe in soulmates anyways. You know they exist—after so many years, how could you not? It’s just that you don’t believe in a soulmate for you.

The funny part is that you weren’t even going to go to Changbin’s tonight. He had spent the last week bugging you about the party, but you told him ages ago that you wouldn’t be able to make it. Some bullshit assignment or another had been your go-to excuse, but really, you just didn’t have another alcohol-strobe light-bad decision-hazed night in you for at least another month...

Not after the dayger Jisung had dragged you along to last week, where the two of you drank so much you both blacked out and woke up hours later in a communal tomato garden.

“So you’ll come Friday?” Changbin had asked hopefully earlier that Monday.

Despite the sunny day, your hoodie was pulled tight around your face and a pair of sunglasses were perched on your nose. By then, your bender with Jisung had been three days ago, and yet somehow—you were still hungover. 

Not that Changbin cared.

To make matters (read: your pounding headache) worse, he was wearing a red shirt that day. On a normal day, the color red was a mild nuisance—a reminder of something you would like to try your hardest to forget. 

On a bad day, however? Let’s just say the red really wasn’t doing anything to help Changbin’s case.

The reason you hate the color red and the reason you don’t believe in soulmates is one in the same. Since you were young, the color red has been synonymous with love... Not because of societal conventions, but because of the elusive red strings of fate that bind soulmates together—elusive red strings that, for some reason, you have always been able to see.

Sometimes, you think the universe is condemning you. You must have done something horrible in your past life, there must be something you are repenting for. Why else would you be one of the few people who can actually see the threads of fate?

“Bin,” you sighed as your best friend trailed behind you.

“Y/N,” Changbin parroted back, keeping perfect pace with you.

“I’m not going.” The blood thrumming through your ears was so loud that you almost didn’t hear the whine he let out.

The hangover was just heavy enough for you to pretend like you didn’t hear it anyways.

You were resolute in your decision not to go to the party. It was final. After the week that you had, frankly, you felt like you deserved a break from the chaos (read: Changbin’s horrible drinking habits.)

Which is why, when Yuna called you on Wednesday, your answer remained the same.

“Please?”

Your phone was wedged between your shoulder and your ear as you shuffled the stack of papers in your hands.

You weren’t technically allowed to be on your phone during work hours, but the office had been empty that afternoon and your boss never cared much anyways—so when the name of your favoritest friend (a fact that Changbin would sorely disagree with) flashed across your phone screen, you barely hesitated before pressing answer.

“Yuns, I already told you,” you squinted, trying to make out the last four digits on the account number you were processing. 

“I’m not going.”

“But—”

“—Nope,” you cut her off.

Even though the three of you have been friends since childhood, you have always found it much harder to say no to Yuna than it is to say no to Changbin. It’s probably because she is so cute, and he is so... annoying, but something about her puppy dog eyes makes it impossible for you to refuse her.

Which is why on any other day, for any other occasion, it wouldn’t have taken you much to cave to Yuna’s pleading.

You haven’t seen much of her ever since she started seeing someone new a few months back, and frankly—you did miss her. A lot. 

But... you really didn’t have another night out in you. So, resolutely, you stood your ground.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Yuna’s pout was tangible, even through the phone.

“Yes I do,” you retorted. “Changbin obviously put you up to this.”

“No he didn’t!”

Your silence was enough of an indication that you didn’t believe her.

“Okay,” Yuna said quickly. “He did ask me to try and convince you, but in his defense, I was going to ask you anyways!”

“I really can’t make it Friday.”

“...Really?” The disappointment was thick in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized, but a tiny seed of guilt had already taken root in the front of your mind.

You hadn’t felt bad about saying no to Changbin because, well, he was always throwing parties, and after attending every single one this year, missing this one wasn’t that big of a deal. 

But something about the genuine disappointment in Yuna’s voice was turning your stomach inside out.

“It’s no big deal,” Yuna sighed after a moment. “There’s always the next party, I guess...”

“Knowing Changbin, we’ll be at his place again next week,” you said wryly.

“I just...” Yuna began, almost chagrined. “I was thinking about maybe bringing my boyfriend this time. But I guess I can always bring him around later...”

“Wait,” you paused them, your fingers fluttering anxiously. “Say that again?”

“Well, I mean, you’ve been badgering me to introduce him for so long, so,” she blabbered.

“Yuns, you bitch!” You exclaimed shrilly, dropping the papers in your hand.

“Thanks?” Yuna said unsurely.

You took a deep, steeling breath, and then you said, “what time is the party?”

Which is exactly how, despite your best efforts, you end up at Changbin’s place at 11:30pm on Friday.

On your walk over, you consider turning around and going home at least three times. God knows how insufferable Changbin is going to be when he sees you show up despite your insistence on not coming... But the mystery of Yuna’s new boyfriend has been killing you for so long that you have no choice but to go.

She hadn’t been exaggerating when she said you have been begging her to introduce her new boyfriend for forever. Throughout the many years that you have known her, you and Changbin have always been particularly protective over her. She has always had a tendency to dive headfirst into things with no regard for her heart, and after a few too many sleazy guys and failed relationships, it is only natural for you to be worried.

Even though you can see the red strings of fate, you have always done your best to ignore their presence. In your experience, the knowing just complicates things. If things are meant to be, they will be, and being caught in the middle doesn’t hurt anyone but you. And yet—you love Yuna so much that you can’t help but check her red string every time she meets someone new.

Maybe that is why it is such a big deal to you, to meet her new boyfriend. Or maybe it is because recently, she has been happier than usual. Much happier. You can’t remember the last time you saw her smile this much. Even Changbin has noticed—which is saying a lot when you consider the time you dyed your hair bright orange and he didn’t notice for a week and a half.

Despite it all, however, she still hasn’t introduced you two to him.

“I’m just taking it slow,” Yuna insisted the first time you brought it up.

“Slow?” Changbin had said, his mouth full of the Chinese takeout you had picked up on your way over to his place.

“When have you ever taken anything slow?”

A cheesy “your mom” joke was on the tip of your tongue, but one look from Yuna was enough to silence you.

“I’m serious,” she said, looking vaguely embarrassed. 

Her response remained the same every time you asked after that, and that was that.

Until tonight.

When you walk into Changbin’s apartment, the strobe lights are the first thing that greets you.

The second is a jello shot, shoved so close to your face that you can’t even see who is offering it to you.

The jello shot is red, and you regret leaving your apartment tonight.

“Entry fee,” someone says gleefully, shaking the shot in your face.

“Bottoms up!”

“Jisung, if you don’t get that out of my face in three seconds, you’ll learn a whole new meaning to the phrase ’bottoms up,’” you threaten.

The jello shot is gone in an instant, replaced by Jisung’s concerned face.

“Y/N, being mean and turning down free alcohol? What’s has the world come to?” He wonders.

Then, his face pales and he quickly says, “is this about the garlic incident? Because I swear, I really don’t know it ended up in your socks!”

You wrinkle your nose and shove him away from you.

“No, this is not about the garlic thing...” You grumble.

Despite how early in the night it is, the apartment is already pretty packed. A beer pong table is set up in the corner, where Chan and Felix seem to be losing horribly against two guys you don’t recognize. The couch has been pushed to the side, creating a makeshift dance floor, and a murky cooler of jungle juice takes up the majority of the tiny kitchen.

The entire apartment is cast in a hazy purple glow, and for a moment, you feel a little too underdressed in your sweats. Then you remember that you are only here for Yuna and that you don’t really care what anyone else thinks, and the feeling fades as quick as it came.

“And,” you add, “thanks for making me sound like an alcoholic. Is it a crime for me to turn down a shot?”

“Yes,” Jisung says seriously. 

“Woah there,” An arm wraps around you from behind. “Peer pressure is not cool, Ji.”

“It’s not peer pressure,” Jisung insists. “It’s Y/N. If anything, she does the peer pressuring.”

“I’m going to ignore that,” you flip him off.

“And you,” you jab Changbin in the arm, shoving him off of you, “are one to talk. Remind me again, who was bothering me all week to come tonight even after I said no?”

“Who was it? Just point and I’ll take them out,” he feigns ignorance, looking around the apartment as if searching for a culprit.

“You are insufferable.”

“And you loooooove me anyways,” Changbin declares gleefully, puckering his lips at you.

You take one look at his expression and crack.

“Give me that,” you say to Jisung, snatching the jello shot out of his hand.

He whoops loudly when you run your fingers along the rim of the plastic cup, and then wipes a fake tear when you throw the shot back.

“I knew my Y/N was in there somewhere,” he says dramatically, his hand held to his heart.

“I’ll kick your ass if you ever say anything like that again,” you smile sweetly.

A cackle bursts forth from Changbin’s lips.

“You shouldn’t say things like that when you know Jisung is into it,” your best friend crows.

“Oh, don’t you have someone’s dick to be sucking?” Jisung glares at him, but a faint dusting of pink covers his cheeks.

Almost unconsciously, your eyes trail down to his pinky finger where a bright red thread is wound tightly. Your heart clenches as you follow the thread across the room and towards the wall until it fades away, disappearing into the distance.

The bass of whatever EDM song is playing through the speakers fills the silence and you purse your lips. You have known for a while about Jisung’s little crush, but the reminder isn’t a pleasant one. Not because you dislike him—precisely because you like him too much. 

In another life, even, you could see yourself falling for him. But the weight of his red thread, the weight of your ability to see it... It isn’t something you can just overlook.

You already tried it, once. At the beginning of college, you decided you weren’t going to let the red string control you, and you started dating a guy. It started off well—the string was just a string, and you were content. Happy, even.

But eventually, the doubt started to creep in. Every time you saw him, the red thread taunted you, and little by little, the obsession began. It ate away at you like a rot, the wondering about who was at the other end of his thread. Eventually, you couldn’t do it anymore.

That is why you could never act on anything with Jisung... Because despite how annoying he can be, he means too much to you.

So when the silence between you stretches out a little bit too long, you roll your eyes and scoff.

“Jisung, you click your tongue, patting his cheek affectionately. “You know it would never work out between us, right? People should date within their league.”

He pouts, and the awkwardness breaks in an instant.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you’re pretty great.”

“Oh, I know.”

It takes a moment for it to click in his head. Then,

“Hey!”

“Anyways,” you brush him off. “Have either of you losers seen Yuna?”

“I saw her a while ago. I think she’s... somewhere.” Changbin waves.

The red solo cup in his hands hovers close enough to you that the burn of vodka, layered between something sweet and syrupy, overwhelms your senses.

“Okay...” You trail off, ruing the day you became friends with such a nuisance.

“And did she happen to come with anyone?”

Changbin shrugs. You turn to Jisung, and his face pales.

“Uh...” He guesses. “Maybe?”

You guys are useless,” you groan.

The only reason you were here tonight was for Yuna. A quick scan of the room, however, told you that she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“Actually, now that I think about it, I remember her stepping out a few minutes ago,” Changbin muses. “She told me she’d be back soon though.”

The satisfied look on his face, as if he is waiting to be praised for telling you that, makes you narrow your eyes.

“Give me another,” you mutter at Jisung, motioning to the tray in his hand.

He offers you a shot without a word and—thankfully—this time, it isn’t red.

You don’t hesitate in snatching it up, and then before either of them can say anything more, you turn on your heel and walk away.

“Y/N?” Changbin calls after you. “Wait, Y/N, where are you going?”

But you have already disappeared into the crowd.

You aren’t sure how, but the second shot is strong than the first one. It burns as it goes down, but you find that you care much less than you would have a few hours ago. Somewhere between walking into the apartment and realizing that Yuna wasn’t here, you decided that the only way you were getting through the night was if you were at least a little intoxicated.

It feels like a cop out after your undying resolve that you wouldn’t get wasted tonight, but your irritation outweighs your embarrassment.

Another shot passes, and you still can’t find Yuna. When you dial her number, the call immediately goes to voicemail, and the text you send afterwards remains unanswered.

Your search for her begins in the kitchen, mostly because it is the place furthest away from Changbin. Yuna isn’t there, but you do run into a few classmates from your history class last semester. Almost against your will, you find yourself caught up in small talk. 

Once the conversation finally fizzles out to awkward silence, you make your way out to the living room, where Chan and Felix are desperately trying to recruit one more player for beer pong.

Yuna isn’t anywhere to be seen, and so when Felix hits you with his signature pout, it doesn’t take much for you to give in.

The game is 2 versus 1, probably because most people have spent the night skirting the duo, and somehow—you still end up winning.

Three times.

After the fourth game, at least half an hour has passed. A drink or two in between has made the world a little bit more hazy, and after playing for so long, victory has started to taste a little bit less sweet.

The truth is, you can only play beer pong (and absolutely decimate your opponents) so many times before you start to get bored, and so you quickly move on from the game despite Chan and Felix’s protests.

An hour more and five increasingly worried texts directed to Yuna later, Changbin finally manages to catch up to you again.

“Y/NNNNNN!” He slurs, swaying as he throws his arms around you.

“Bin,” You wrinkle your nose at the feeling of his flushed skin.

Changbin has always been a touchy drunk, but it was never truly an issue until a year ago, when he started taking his commitment to the gym much more seriously. With all the added muscles, it is that much harder for you in dire times like this, when he throws himself onto you.

“Where—where have you beeeeen?” He asks, then giggles.

“Get it? Beeeeen? Bin?”

“Shut up,” you roll your eyes, trying (to no avail) to shove him off of you.

“Don’t you have a babysitter tonight?”

Changbin nods solemnly. “Jisung’s over there.”

He points behind you. Then, he shakes his head and points to the left of you.

You quickly find that Jisung is in neither of those directions, and instead is leaning against a wall in the far corner chatting up not one, not two, but three girls. His face is flushed deep enough that you can tell how red it is even from across the room, and you are (once again) reminded why you didn’t want to come out tonight.

Both your friends are shit faced, and there is nobody left to take care of them but you. Lovely.

“You guys do this every time,” you mutter (more to yourself than to Changbin) but his face scrunches into a frown.

“Not true!” He pouts. “I—I took care of you last week when you got drunk.”

“Took care of me?” You scoff. “Two hours into the party, Jisung ran off, and you were too busy flirting with Chan to notice me chasing after him.”

“It’s not my fault,” he whines. “He was wearing one of those stupid muscle tees, and I was drunk!”

It is true that Changbin gets particularly flirty when he’s drunk. (It is also true that he has a strange obsession with Chan’s arms.)

Changbin buries his face in your shoulder, and most of his weight is on you as he breathes deeply. His breath smells like a combination of cherry and mint and alcohol, and you wrinkle your nose.

“That sounds really homosexual, Changbin.”

“Nooooo,” he shakes his head. “It’s not homosexual to be distracted by the homies...”

“Don’t say it—” You start. 

“...If anything, it’s homie-sexual.”

Exasperation wells up inside of you, only made worse by the painfully smug look on his face. On any normal day, sober Changbin is barely funny. Drunk Changbin somehow manages to take it to the next level... And not in a good way.

“Get it?” He asks gleefully, waving his arm wildly. “Homie-sexual?”

“Yes,” you say warily, wondering just how much he has had to drink tonight. “I do.”

The drink inside his cup sloshes around audibly, and you smack his arm. 

“Stop waving that around like that!”

Of course, he does the exact opposite of what you tell him. 

And then, in almost comical slow motion, the vodka-and-juice cocktail splashes out of his cup, and you aren’t sure what surprise you more—the cold, sticky feeling of his drink as it drenches the front of your shirt, or the way he manages to not get any of it on himself, despite the way he is clinging onto you.

“Changbin,” you mutter, your voice dangerously low. 

THe sharp edge of your voice is enough to make him pause, and you can see the color drain away from his face at the weight of your glare.

“W-What’s that?” He says loudly, his skin a sickly shade of white. “Sorry, I think Jisung is calling me!”

It takes only a few seconds for him to drunkenly stumble away—in the opposite direction of Jisung. You take a steeling breath through your nose as he rounds the corner, disappearing into the kitchen.

What a night this is turning out to be... You are at a party you didn’t want to be at in the first place, Yuna is still nowhere to be found, and now your favorite shirt is stained pink.

Despite the few drinks you’ve had tonight, the smell of alcohol on you is pungent, borderline revolting. The bass of the music thumps louder still, and irritation wells up inside of you. 

An overwhelming urge to chase Changbin down and kick him in the shins (maybe even somewhere else, too) grips you by the neck, and you have to take at least four more deep breaths to ground yourself.

Still—the noise of the party sits on top of your very being like a sticky layer of tar, and you are only able to fully exhale once it is muted behind the closed door of Changbin’s bathroom: your preferred (and only) option of escape.

It feels like the alcohol is seeping through your thin shirt and into your skin, and when you look in the mirror, you wince.

The reflection staring back at you is, in simple terms, a mess. Deep purple bruises pressed under your eyes, a messy ponytail hung lifelessly at the base of your neck, an unforgiving line in place of your lips... And that isn’t even the worst part.

No, the worst part is your clothes. Worn gray sweatpants that you have slept in for the past three nights, and your ruined shirt—sheer and sticking to your bra in the most skin-crawling way.

You huff and, in a flash of irritation, yank the shirt off. If you don’t wash it now, the stain will set permanently, and if you wear it for one more second, you think you might implode.

The only problem is that your best friend, the one that you chose, just so happens to be an absolutely slob. Ego, his sink is a mess, and ergo, you cannot use it to clean your shirt... Which leaves you with only one option: the bathtub.

“Seo Changbin, when you’re sober, I’m going to end you,” you seethe, dropping to your knees beside the tub.

In a choked sputter, the faucet turns on, drowning out the residual noise of the party. The steady stream of water is strangely comforting, and some of the tension dissolves from your shoulders.

You run your ruined shirt under the tap, fascinated as the water runs a pale red beneath your fingers. The shirt crumples into a thin, soggy heap and you scrub the fabric between your fingers, trying your best to work the warm water between the fibers.

The furrow between your eyebrows deepens. A concoction of excitement and relief swells in your chest as you notice the stain become lighter the longer you hold it under the water.

You are so preoccupied with the burgeoning hope that maybe your shirt isn’t ruined, after all, that it completely slips your mind that you forgot to lock the door—until the knob begins to turn with a rattle. 

There is only a split second before the door swings open, and your head turns just a moment too late.

“Woah!” The exclamation startles you almost as much as the appearance of the guy who walks through the door.

With windswept black hair, feline eyes, and the sharpest jawline you have ever seen, only two thoughts register in your head before you begin to short circuit.

First: damn, he’s hot.

Second, barely a moment later: fuck, you’re shirtless and look like a mess.

“I-I’m sorry!” He exclaims immediately, his slender fingers shooting up to cover his eyes.

It pains you that his voice is deep and just as attractive as you imagined it would be.

You glance down at yourself, a blush rising to your cheeks when you realize just how ridiculous you look on the floor like this without your top on. Your shirt remains hanging from your fingers, and the shock of the handsome stranger sends your elbow jerking in surprise.

A loud clatter resounds, and then—you watch as one of Changbin’s bath bombs tumbles into the tub, straight into the water. The hissing fizz as the bath bomb dissolves under the running water registers only mutely in the back of your mind.

With a resigned sense of horror, all you can do is watch as the bright purple glitter spiderwebs outwards through the water and over your shirt.

“I—Is everything okay?” The guy asks, and when you look up, you see that his hands are still covering his eyes.

Slowly, you lift your shirt out of the water. A faint pang echoes in your heart as you look at the faint purple hue that the fabric has taken on.

You don’t think that will be coming out any time soon.

“I-I’m really sorry, again!” He blabbers on. “I didn’t know anyone was in here, I swear! I wasn’t trying to—like, peep, or anything, it’s just—”

“D’you have to pee?” You interrupt him.

“—like, really loud out there, and—” He stops, his fingers dropping in surprise.

“—I’m sorry, what?”

His eyes fall on you on your knees by the tub, and his hands are back over his eyes in an instant. 

“This is a bathroom,” you point out. “So... Do you have to pee?”

“Oh,” he says, sounding unsure.

It’s almost funny how he shifts from one foot to the other, his nerves palpable within the four walls of the tiny bathroom.

Almost.

“Um, no I don’t,” the words come out stilted. 

Then, he says, “do you?”

Unbidden, a bark of laughter escapes your lips. 

“What do you think?”

“I mean... I can’t really see anything, so...” he reasons.

You raise a brow. “You can uncover your eyes, you know.”

“Are you sure?” He asks hesitantly.

“And maybe close the door while you’re at it,” you add wryly.

“Okay...”

His joints are stiff as he pushes the door shut behind him, and even though he (reluctantly) lowers his hands, his gaze remains fixed on the ceiling.

Then, to your surprise, he shrugs off the sweater he is wearing and offers it to you.

“...Thank you,” you say awkwardly, touched by the gesture.

“I’m Hyunjin, by the way,” he says, finally looking at you after you have wrapped the sweater around yourself and buttoned it up.

It is a few sizes too big, and the v-neck is so low that it doesn’t really hide anything very well, but he seems a little bit more at ease now that you are covered up, and it is soft enough that you can’t really complain.

“Y/N,” you return.

Silence settles over the two of you, only interrupted by the splash of the tub faucet. Your fingers are stained a glittery purple as you fidget with them, the awkwardness almost too much for you to handle. Your shirt, you determine, is a lost cause, and so you abandon it where it is in the tub and turn off the water.

“So, are you hiding in here, too?” he asks once the silence becomes a little too painful.

“Hiding is just the bonus,” you tell him, chagrined as you hold up your ruined shirt. “I was actually trying to wash out a stain, but... well, I’m sure you can see how well that turned out.”

“That... makes a lot more sense...” He says after a moment.

“What? I don’t look like the type to sit shirtless on the floor of a bathroom during a party for fun?” You ask jokingly.

“Not really, no,” he laughs, leaning against the wall.

You sigh, pulling your knees to your chest.

“No, unfortunately, I have stupid friends who get stupid drunk and spill their stupid drinks all over me, hence the lack of a shirt.”

He grimaces. 

“Why are you hiding in here?” You ask, not wanting the awkward silence to settle over the two of you again.

“Parties aren’t really my thing,” he says after a moment.

“I get that,” you say, thinking about just how much you wish you didn’t come tonight. Despite your track record with parties (which, you would like to make clear, are usually Jisung’s fault) you can’t help but sympathize with him anyways.

“So,” you continue. “Who do you know here?”

“No one, really,” he says sheepishly. “I think that might be why I feel so out of it. I don’t usually resort to hiding in bathrooms with shirtless women.”

A blush rises to your cheeks at the joke.

“No one?” You ask. “Then why did you come at all? No offense, but if I was you, I would have stayed home.”

I really tried my best to, you think to yourself.

“You know,” he says, “that is a great question. I was supposed to meet someone here, but she never showed.”

You wince. “Stood up? At Changbin’s party, of all places? I think you might be having a worse night than me.”

He buries his face in his hands.

“Oh, please,” he groans. “Don’t remind me. I’ll spend the next few weeks trying to live the embarrassment down. Especially after my best friend told me not to come...”

“It’s okay,” you tell him soberly. “Lucky for you, I have the best cure for embarrassment.”

“Do you really?” He asks hopefully.

You nod. “Oh, yes. In fact, I’ve found that tequila is the solution for all problems.”

He purses his lips at the suggestion, but a moment later when you stand up and open the bathroom door, he follows you out into the chaos of the party without a word.

“Don’t tell anyone,” you say as you enter the kitchen, “but this is where Bin keeps the good stuff.”

Luckily, most of the party has crowded in the living room, distracted by some (rather horrible) dance moves Jisung has pulled out of his pocket. When you bend down to retrieve a particularly expensive bottle from where it is hidden under the sink, Hyunjin seems a bit skeptical.

“You don’t think he’ll be annoyed?” He raises a brow.

You scoff.

“After all the shit he’s put me through? I’d like to see him try.”

His brow remains creased, and you deadpan.

“Hyunjin, who do you think ruined my shirt?”

“Oh,” realization flickers in his eyes. 

“And besides,” you declare as you grab two red Solo cups and set them on the counter. “He’ll understand. It’s for a good cause, after all.”

You pour a very generous amount of tequila in both cups, and then place the bottle back where you found it.

“Cheers?” Hyunjin raises one of the cups towards you.

“Cheers.” You mirror him, clicking your cup against his before tapping the bottom down on the counter. Then, you finally throw the contents back.

The tequila is smooth enough that you barely feel it go down, but Hyunjin still winces at the taste.

“That good?” You ask him with a laugh.

“I can already feel the embarrassment fading,” he says, his face still sour. “...Or maybe that’s just the taste.”

You laugh again. “You’re funny.”

“...Thank you.”

“I don’t really see why you got stood up,” you say offhandedly. “But I guess it’s her loss. It’s not like you’re secretly a troll, or something.”

A moment passes.

“...Are you?”

He shrugs, a smile playing on his lips.

“Ooooh, mysterious,” you return his smile with a smirk. “I like it.”

“Thank you,” he says, this time his tone more playful.

“Y/N,” the sound of your name reminds you where you are, distracting you from your conversation. “Y/N, there you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“What happened now?” You ask wearily, your eyes narrowed as they land on Chan. Hyunjin looks at you curiously, then at Chan, and then back at you.

Chan’s face crumples in worry, and you know immediately that you won’t like what he has to say.

“It’s Changbin.”

“Of course it is,” you mutter.

Of course it is Changbin, being yet again an absolute nuisance to you tonight.

“Alright,” you exhale after a moment. “Where is he?”

Chan wordlessly points towards the balcony.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” you tell him, resignation thick in your voice.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Chan tells you.

“Well,” you turn to Hyunjin. “Sorry about this, but my aforementioned stupid friend is being stupid, so I have to go. It was nice to meet you, though, and feel free to drink as much tequila as you need.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” Hyunjin says sincerely, not at all bothered by the interruption. “I hope your friend is okay.”

“I hope he isn’t,” you say darkly. 

“Y/N!” Chan’s voice calls, sounding even more anxious than before. 

“Coming!” You sigh, setting down your cup before heading towards the balcony. Hyunjin remains in the kitchen, his eyes glued on you until you disappear into the hazy night.

It is only an hour later, after you have finally pumped Changbin full of water and tucked him into bed, that you come a startling, heartstopping, almost terrifying realization.

You had been too distracted for it to register earlier, but—for the first time ever, when you had been talking with Hyunjin earlier, you had not see his red string of fate. 

[polaritiesoop]

Lemme just share here this one-shot? I guess? based on the what-if Scar was left in the SL server for way too long of a time? So yeah, its just Scar all on his own. Trapped in SL for some unforeseeable future. This is supposed to be prologue to a fic idea I have, but I don't know if I'll be able to write it in entirety really. BUT because this took me long to write, I want to share it regardless. Its nothing special. Just Angst. Hurt.... but is there comfort? Technically yes?

Title: Far From Home

Words: 5,000+

Scar is still trapped in the Secret Life Server. With nothing much to do but wait for a miracle to bring him home. But in the mean time, he fixes what he could fix, and tends to animals left on the server.

--------

And that was the last block placed.

Scar take steps back to survey his work. It looks right from what he could remember of the Heart Foundation. There wasn't much interior in it, right? It was just some big heart on the middle of an island filled with cherry wood leaves.  Not like Scar was a frequent visitor inside either.

But! ...this was the last structure to rebuild. He has done best on the terrain surrounding the Heart Foundation.  Truly can be called pink land at how cherry trees lined up the lake, its petals fluttering on the grass and on the rippling water.

Scar did his best. He never was the closest ally toward Tango, Big B, and Skizz in this server. He resented them. The first few people on his kill list. But they weren't the cruelest either.

This would be the prettiest place at night second after Lizzie's cute little cottage, which he thinks he can never give justice on rebuilding. Though Scar doesn't plan to stick around long for the night to come and see. He has all the time in the world after all.

Scar felt a peck on his cheeks he grew accustomed to along with little chirps and loud squawks near his ear. He looks at the parrot companions perched on his shoulders, a gray and a cyan parrot.

"Wouldn't this be a lovely home for you, Tango and Skizz?" Scar asked all jolly. A peck on his forehead caught his attention, crossing his eyes up to peak at the tilted head of a blue parrot. "And of course you too, Big B!" the blue parrot clambered on his palm. He chuckles at inquisitive looks it give toward the build. It mimics his words rather poorly.

Sinister as it is to call these parrots after the fallen members of the Heart Foundation. One of them...he personally killed. Sure. In his defense, he admits to it now, he did his best to bury what was left of Tango's body. Even burying him with his allies, though it took long to find BigB's and Skizz's body. He just couldn't think of better names when he visited the jungle yesterday, and he was busy making progress in rebuilding the Heart Foundation that he could only think of them, when he saw these three were the only parrots left, as far as he was aware, he plans to return later in hopes to find more.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to let the birds stay in here. They might adjust fine to the cherry wood trees! And Scar could always feed them seeds every day.

"What do you say, if you three stay here?" He asks again expecting a reply, somehow. He lays down some pumpkin seeds on the ground. The birds munch on them quickly. Big B, the parrot, stares at him oddly flapping its wings and squawking. As if trying to communicate, or so was his wishful thinking.

"You guys stay here. I'll come back tomorrow morning." They seem to understand the command, despite being only tamed yesterday. Man, he could be a zookeeper at how many animals he saved and bred! All bases had some animals left that he fed and provided with better areas to live. Scar could go crazy if all he did was rebuild, he had made it his personal mission in keeping the remaining animals in this server. Which came with some extensive farming too.

Scar does leave the Heart Foundation once he was finish surveying his work. The birds were not following him, so he felt comfortable at leaving them be.

Scar hops onto his camel. His petulant camel, he called Cheerio. Cheerio 2.0, he did lose his first camel but he found a camel egg at one of the chests at the abandoned bases of Gem and the Scotts.

"Cheerio, let's go!" Scar got what he would call an equivalent of an eye-roll before Cheerio lifts off the ground and she starts walking. Slowly.

Thus, a petulant camel.

"C'mon, you had plenty of grass to eat!" He pats at her neck, like a complaint she grunts. Horses and other steads would've been better but they weren't quite friendly when Scar tried to ride them. They still remembered their owners even though they seemed scattered about the server, most likely abadoned or forgotten. The best Scar did for them was to build stables, and lead their infuriating butts inside.

But Cheerio 2.0 feels familiar like an old friend that Scar cannot hate.

At the back of his mind, he wonders if any llamas were roaming the server.

-

Just passing by Trader Scar's, he decided it would be better to leave Cheerio inside opting to walk the rest to the Jungle nearby.

The sun was nearly setting. The sky was on its red and orange hues. Usually Scar would avoid spending the night in a forest area. But today? he was feeling brave!

"Maybe not the best biome..." he thought to himself. The Jungle was green as ever, a creeper's favorite place, definitely. This biome is small, still imposing with its large trees. Scar could hear bugs, yet no birds at all.

He was starting to think it was a bust, it was not worth it, climbing vines peeking on the shades of trees and on the branches, or any signs of nests which last time led him on finding Tango, Skizz, and Big B.

His last resort was to climb the largest tree, trying to spot a different color other than green on the forest floor. Or spot anything moving below, there are green parrots too. The sun sinks beyond the horizon, the cold air was tell tale signs of mobs spawning soon. He should just return tomorrow morning.

"I should get outta here." Scar was about to climb down a vine when he heard a creeper hiss directly behind him. The man yelps and fell off, a flash of pain on his ankle caused him to yell and stay laid on the ground. He manages to realize just in time that the creeper was shuffling towards him. With all the force he could muster, the creeper died at a slash of his diamond sword. It vanishes into gunpowder.

He tries to catch his breathe before checking if he did not just sprained his ankle. To his relief, he could move it with minimal pain, "Oh man, atleast the worst did not happen." Scar laughs, "but it'll be faster to get back to spawn."

There was another hiss.

Scar scrambles to swing his sword behind him. Only not to see any creeper. He quickly turns to look around, but he saw nothing.

Hiss.

There was it again! But there weren't any creepers to see!

"Void, I must be going crazy, huh?" Scar lifts up his shield near his body. He could hear skeletons and spiders too, "serves me right for winning this stupid game."

"Stupid game."

Scar jumped at hearing those words behind him accompanied by a wicked laugh. It was a witch. He twisted to look and parry at an upcoming potion throw, ignoring the sting of pain on his ankle, only for him to be meet with ... nothing.

No large purple hats, no purple robes, no weird long flabby nose.

His pulse quickens and his body is shaken by a cold shiver, "What, what is going on?"

He felt something wet on his nape. Scar wonders if it was going to rain despite the clear skies. His palm wipes at whatever that wet feeling is.

What he sees on his finger pads at the moon light is... white and yellow.

His question is answered to him when he hears a squawk. Fear and confusion was exchanged by excitement. Above him, on pearly light, was a red parrot. It was looking at him. It was squawking. What he got on his fingers was definitely bird poop but he could not be anymore happier at seeing another bird.

"Oh my gosh. Okay, okay... we need seeds." Without looking away, he digs through his pockets for seeds, happy that he still a got a few and thankful that he had not thrown it all out.

"Come here, birdie, birdie. I've got some delicious seeds for you." He offers up a palm full of seeds. The parrot did not move for a second, simply mimicking nearby sounds and flapping its wings. It was just staring.

"Geez, are you picky or something- ow!" Scar felt a prick on his arm. He sees an arrow imbedded on a tree trunk. A skeleton had sneaked behind him. Quick on his feet, he put up his shield and grips his sword. Scar made a quick work of the skeleton but another emerged out of the bushes. Now, he is paying close attention to the surroundings, there were many mobs moving towards him.

He could barely dodge all arrows firing at him, "Awful timing! awful timing!"

He fought every mob coming at him. Until there were none left. He was left breathless but at least the bird did not get hit by an arrow.

Speaking of the bird, he searches around for where it could've gone. It was squawking around while he was fighting.

He was surprised that the seeds he accidentally thrown on the ground were... not there. Consumed by the looks of it.

Scar gasps, "this means it's tamed!"

There were wings flappings overhead. "There you are, young man! I was worried you would fly off somewhere. I'll give you a name later, let's go home for now." Scar extends out his arm for the bird to land on.

Except, it didn't respond. It fled away to the tree tops.

"Hey! Where are you going?!" Scar groans at himself, that was not a tamed parrot at all. Of course those seeds were not enough.

Chasing the parrot to wherever it was going was probably not the best idea. At every angle he's getting assaulted by mobs. To climb the treetops instead was hard, spiders could still follow him. The darn parrot just cannot be caught, always airs away from Scar's reach. He does not even have seeds on hand that he needed to climb down again, to try quickly get some watermelons and shove his hand inside to pick some seeds. He had to do it all without keeping his eyes off that parrot.

Oh, and run right after it with arrows sticking up every where on his aching body.

Finally, for what seems like an hour, the parrot landed on the tallest tree. Scar wasn't gonna give up now.

Through panting breaths he yelled pointing a finger at that stoic face, "You better stay there! I am coming to get you!" against his body's protests, he climbs the vines all the way to the top nearly letting go, surprised by the squawk that greets him. How funny.

Scar wheezes as he drags his body to prone on the precarious branch of the tree, "Man, I don't think this is worth it."

"Squawk!"

Scar glares at the parrot. It pecks at its feather in a way for Scar looks like a person picking on their nails. "Oh, you must be sooo proud of yourself, huh."

"Squawk!"

"Alright, alright. You've won the race."

"Squawk!"

"But bet you don't know what a runner does after a marathon."

"Squawk."

"You got it. By after any race, what's better than some hearty refreshments?" Scar presents the wet seeds in his hands, gripped with so much strength during the run his nails left marks on his palm. "This is newly harvested, just so you know from the most finest hands on this server. Well, the only ones really working. Have a taste?" He starts sweating when the parrot tilts its head longer than it probably should. When it did let out a sweet trill and hop near his palm to peck at a seed that Scar lets out a relieved sigh.

Never mind the sharp beak pecking his skin, it could not compare at the burn he feels on his muscles.

"No skipping leg day." He said defeatedly.

"Squawk!"

"Word."

Scar ends up watching the parrot devour the seeds to its hearts content. To lay on his front and having to keep his arm extended is not a comfortable position for the rest of the hour. Scar feels more tired than ever when he could see the sun shining on the hills.

"Would be nice to get a nap."

This time the parrot simply whistles. He wonders if it's already done eating, it kept pecking while he watched the stars and the moon fade away.

Scar felt a sharp pinch. He retracted his hand in shock. "Ouch! What was that for?!" The parrot does not look guilty being hit by an accustory look. It oddly looks satisfied. He would be angry if it wasn't cute to see a seed stuck on its top beak.

"Void, tell me atleast you are tamed." Scar pleads, groaning as he sits up to try and extend his forearm again. The parrot lifts up, circling as if it is acting like it's running away again, but Scar felt happiness welling up when it landed on his forearm.

"Okay this is good. Geez, you took so much seed to tame!" Scar complains right at the parrot's face. It retaliates in the form of a full warm poop. Great.

"...And you're so not friendly. What is wrong with you?" He tuts.

The parrot squawks and he scoffs pointing a finger on its head, "Your companions were perfectly friendly! And not greedy! Skizz and Tango were loud, sure, but they were loveable. Big B loved hiding, acting all sinister, but he loves my hair. But you little man?" Scar huffs, "You are such-... such a ..." Scar trails off. A certain word hangs at the tip of his tongue. And there was that. The sinking feeling in his stomach that clenches him on his ribs to his heart.

His croaks, " ... what a pesky bird."

What is wrong with him? Really, over a word?

The parrot blinks, gnawing his finger without much a reply.

His breath constricts at the wave of it hitting him. A sense of painful nostalgia, flashing to him in a memory of a Jungle far larger and warmer than this - this little excuse of a biome. In a server where he once belongs to now out of his reach... taken out of his reach.

Scar blinks at the tears welling up. He uses his dirty sleeves to brush it off furiously, "Not this again, danggit. Geez!"

The parrot seems to stop gnawing to stare at him in blank confusion.

He lets out a wet laugh. "I miss him."

Scar missed them a lot. It's been how many fucking days has it been since he won? since he realized that he is forever stuck here with a task already fulfilled?

The parrots could not understand that. Nor can Cheerio, nor the steads, Lizzie's bees, nor Etho's sheep. No one's coming back for those animals other than Scar.

Good for them, because who the hell is coming back for Scar?

"He did not even come back for me, stupid... Grian." Scar wipes at his tears, and forces a breath pass to his lungs. "This is pathetic."

When is anyone going to come back for him? he questions this everyday. He has nightmares of Pearl, of Etho, of Tango, of anyone, choking and killing and crying at them his question more like a plea. He screams at the Secret Keeper of his question.

But curse the gods and all, no one will hear him.

"Squawk."

Except a parrot obviously. Scar couldn't help chuckling at the parrot's antics, it landed on his head doing whatever on his hair. He wipes his tears away, finding this whole thing ridiculous. This bird is ridiculous. It pooped again, on his hair.

"Yeah, I'm calling you Grian." Scar smiles, the name carries a heavy weight on his heart.

"Squawk!"

"Not the best person to be named after I tell you."

-----

Trying to get Cheerio to hurry up her pace while keeping an eye on Grian so as not fly off anywhere, overcame Scar's whole being with absolute exhaustion when they finally reached the Heart Foundation. It would be best to leave the new parrot here too, where he can live and be taken care of too. Scar knows how parrots are not solitary animals.

"Off you go now, shoo! I had enough of you squawking at my ear and pooping on my cape!" Scar scolds urging other parrots to get accustomed with their newest addition. He can already tell they are familiar with each other. Plus, Scar is not too keen on having this kind of parrot companion admittedly amusing but a very obnoxious bird. Something, something namesake.

"I am leaving you guys now." Scar offers up more seeds for the birds before leaving the island.

He couldn't help but stare at the flock, they were flying around well and playing by the looks of it. There shouldn't be any concern then in leaving them.

Scar realized halfway to spawn that he does not have any more goals in mind. He was relieved to find Grian, and he was sure there were no more other birds in that Jungle.

In like some sort of trance, Scar steers Cheerio on the way to the base of Etho and Cleo. The sheep and cows need tending to for sure. Before he knew it, he was making rounds around the server to check on the animals leaving the mounders for last.

Scar replaced the water and gave more hay to one of Bdub's horse. That he might as well call Bdubs! His mane does remind him of that man's hair when it was blond. Scar chuckles at it, heart achingly, because he misses that little man too. They were at petty odds fighting over who is Cleo's favorite child, but his angry shouts and jolly attitude... Scar misses him.

"Oh, the sun's setting." Scar murmurs to himself. He got caught in the chores again, geez.

So, what to do next? Scar wonders. He decided to walk Cheerio instead of riding on. He was in his thoughts when the sky darkens around him.

Subconsciously, Scar came to the Secret Keeper.

It was a mess. He had left so many papers on the ground, some teared up and some empty, scattered with leather covers. There is a serious overgrowth all over this area. Foliage and wildflowers, moss and cracks on the concrete.

When was the last time he visited this area? 10 days? 20 days? Scar knew he managed to steer clear for a while.  He has lost count of days, as making a diary felt like an unnecessary chore.

He feels his fingers itch. Right in front of him was the button, never quite worn up at all unlike the fail and the reroll buttons.

He lets Cheerio stay out, as he walks near it. A part of him is anticipating, which is funny how he still got this glimmer of hope that something would change one day if he just presses that button again. But he knew he would be only disappointed.

"I'm here." Scar announces. He hovers over the button. He stares at the statue through tired eyes. Of course, it does not respond.

Scar slams the succeed button and the incorporeal voices were near comfort to his ears despite the gibberish whispers. He hears that music saying he succeeded, but he once again hears the whispers and another book has popped and landed on his hands.

Win Secret Life.

Scar sighs, "Same thing." and the new book joins the others on the ground. Scar sat down, his back against the button. He closes his eyes and breathes out. He wraps his arms around his legs, never opening his eyes as he feels for the moonlight and the night breeze.

-------

There was a rumble.

It had awoken Scar up. Though his back aches and his vision was blurry from sleep, he managed to see a bright object dropping down from the sky and its blast illuminating an area of the server before disappearing with a boom followed by a shockwave that made Scar stumble to his front.

He groans at the impact and the scrape the cobbled ground gave him. Other than that and a faint ringing in his ears, he was okay. Thank the void he was okay.

Scar could only stay sat on the ground. He could see that there is smoke on the distance but not too far. When he realized where it went, he felt the urge to run for it, even though he knew it was just his destroyed base.

Cheerio was being loud, the poor animal is probably in distress. As gentle as he could, he stood up to comfort the camel.

"Shhh, Cheerio... everything's fine. We're okay." He said soothing her to calm down. It seems to help, though she seems agitated still. Scar doesn't know what to do other than continue patting her.

....What in the world happen?

It was good that whatever the thing that flew and crash landed on his base was not a bigger blast. The shockwave made him believe it's radius of explosion would expand all across the server. The Mounder's base looks perfectly intact from what Scar could see from the secret keeper atleast. Was it a meteor?

Scar pushes the camel to sit, "Sit down, Cheerio. That rumbled must've got you off balanced. I'll go investigate." and surprisingly, she listened to him. For the most part she looks to be calming down, so Scar felt good enough to leave her to make his way to his base.

It was mostly curiosity than concern of what happened to his base. It wasn't intact at all when he left it, only its walls and parts of the court house were destroyed because of tnt traps.

So when Scar was near enough to see what really hit it.... things were mostly fine. Like the impact was from another tnt not some space object. There was a small crater at the front of what used to be Trader's Scar....yet oddly, no space object to see.  But the sunflowers and berry bushes near it were scorched around the assumed point of impact.  Scar was beyond confused. He wonders if this is another hallucination or a weird dream.

His eyes searches around. Nothing is amiss. He contemplates if he should just go back to Cheerio until there was an echoing sound, of something high pitched that made him jump.

He looks at his back at the ruins of Trader's Scar. There was it again, it sounded like a child crying and the thought of a baby suddenly spawning in this server made Scar shiver. He asked to get out of here, for god's sake!

Scar was going to run away but it sounds more and more insistent and faded. It rings a bell, somehow, that Scar felt a sense of deja vu. That echoing cry of something could only come from the mine shaft and mob farm he made long exposed to weather. Probably dangerous to go down its ladders.

Scar observes. The ladders are intact and not erroding as he thought. There's no more light, all torches burned off since he stopped coming here. A cold air passes through him from the hole. Is it actual air or fear seeping in his skin? Because this feels like the start of a horror movie!

"Do I really have to?" Scar whines. He hadn't expected a response yet he got one akin to an ominous drone that made him want to sprint to the secret keeper for protection.

"Okay! When did my mineshaft become such a place of nightmares?" He laughs nervously, hair rising as his words echo down and that sound suddenly stopped.

Does he really want to go down there? There has to be so many mobs Scar will struggle to defeat. He breathes in deeply thinking about how worth it is to face whatever creature that is.  On the bright side its something new! Scar is curious and bored, worst case scenario? Nothing! He will always respawn back at the secret keeper and he can curse at it for bringing a haunted creature at him, and not some getaway helicopter back to home!

Scar's hands has made the decision before his brain starts to function. The ladder felt rickety to his sweaty grip.

"Why am I doing this to myself?"

Only eerie silence met him this time. A normal person would think thats cue to leave.

Unfortunately for everyone, Scar is far from normal.

His feet finally hit cobble. He was surprise that there is still a torch lighting the tunnels dim. No immediate attack from some mob, no hideous clown face coming to gnaw him.

"I did come all the way down here." Scar sighs, "There's no going back."

He takes another torch to light from his inventory. He is surprised of his own bravery of looking and exploring tunnels. So far he cannot hear that crying sound from everywhere.

Nothing really remarkable caught his attention. Everything looks normal, too normal and somehow strange for Scar. This was his mineshaft, sure everything looks the same, but there is no attachment to this place, it was simply a reminder of that urgency Scar felt because of the unfortunate tasks that brought him to this situation.

He hears a shuffle. That couldn't have come from him as he was stood on a little room carved out to accomodate chests of random items. He was starting to hear his pulse because of the silence, now he hears it gallop because of that odd noise.

"A-alright! What comes there?!" Scar decides to bravely ask. He wants to get this over with. He equips his sword, ready to face whatever is at the dark, "Just know that I can and will kill you once I find you."

He hears that cry, now much closer but still echoing around the walls he could never quite pinpoint the source. His eyes frantically looks around, for any thing thats moving.

Scar picks to march on another tunnel. Staying silent to observe that cry, where he could hear it closest. He follows it, the turns he takes are almost dizzying that makes him feel lost forever or that he was in some labyrinth that BigB made. But he could hear it clearer and he knew he was close, he wasn't gonna turn around. He reaches another room. This ones bigger and was obviously a section of a cave he found. The crying stopped. Scar held his breath anticipating to hear it at any of the tunnels.

At the corner of his eyes, he spots movement. He was swift to turn to his feet onto the long winding tunnel. He dropped the torch away to equip his shield and approaches the shadow he can see at the end of it. It turns at him, and he hears a hiss. He knew it was too late to hit it, so he braces for impact with his shield but it never came. None of the familiar blast. Instead, the creeper seems to back away. Unmoving. Scar tilts his head in confusion. Why was the creeper not blowing up, and when he did adjust his eyes to the dark, its back was turned on him.

Then, he felt something brush at his thigh. He screams in panic, lets go of his shield, lands on his butt rather painfully, and realizes that the creeper was suddenly shuffling closer towards him. It flashes before Scar's hand could hold up the shield. He could only close his eyes, knowing it hurts more to get his eyeballs blasted.

'Well, I'm coming home, Secret Keeper.'

Something landed on his head. He heard more hissing but this one... this one hiss wasn't the kind of distinct hiss of a creeper.

Scar froze unable to really move at whatever it was on his head. But it was lightweight. Oddly familiar. His scalp is hurting and getting pricked by something, and the creeper was... running away?

"What just happened?" He asks. Expecting an answer. Something landed on his stomach. His hands comes around it. The silhouette of what was....

"Meow."

...a cat?

Scar knows that Impulse has a villager along with Scott and Gem that they used to trade with. He found the villager, but it was only singular that couldn't form a village on his own that Scar set free to be killed by mobs. There were no village on the server, nor any beyond the border. So, how was there a cat existing in this server? And here in a mineshaft of all areas?

Scar holds the cat. The torch he left on the ground long extinguished.

"Who are you?" He asks. He got a paw on his mouth.

However, he was stupid to turn his back on the creeper still on the tunnel with them that it blew up behind him sending him to fall forward on his front. The cat definitely jumped out his hold.

Scar groans, "Yep, hurts. Everything hurts." He turns on his back. Just laying there unable to move much. He doesn't really care if it stings to... he just wants to lay down and take everything in.

That cat clambered on him. He would've told it to get off because its claws were scraping at new wounds when he felt a lick on his chin. What a sweet cat! He couldn't help but pet it even if the cat starts to nip at his nose.

"I don't know how you got here, but you're coming with me." Scar chuckles, hated how his ribs were definitely cracked. He remembers that he had a lantern on his inventory.

"Alright, mysterious cave cat. Let's see what you look like, and I'll name whatever first name I could think of." Scar grunts with what little strength he had on his hand, he gets the lantern to materialize. The cat mewls.

Scar turns to look at wherever he could put it and light it with a flint and steel.

His eyes shut at the pain of even moving, willing out the sudden lightheadedness he felt swaying his vision. He holds onto the cat,  "Let's see... I'm naming you..." and lifts it up to see it clearly.

His breath caught in his throat. Heat pools behind his eyes at the familiarity of those eyes. Green eyes blinking down at him owlishly. The cat was of white fur and grey patterns so familiar to Scar that he knew right away that this cat wasn't just any cat at all.

"...Jellie?" His voice wavesr, unsure if he has truly gone out of his mind.

The cat mewls and bumps her head onto him. Fluffy and warm, a gesture so familiar that Scar tears up.

"Jellie... god, is it really you?" She purred, pawing on him and rubbing her head on his chin. Scar sobs.

It was Jellie. Jellie came for him. His sweet girl was here for him.

He holds her up laughing, and sobbing at how ridiculous this dream was but he wishes... how he fucking wishes to the secret keeper that he won't wake up ever.

"I've been...so alone, Jellie. You don't know how much I've missed you." Scar sobs out.

Jellie was here! Jellie is in his arms now, and god, crying hurts his chest but he couldn't stop. He never thought a piece of home would come for him at all in this endless game. Jellie was warm, and safe, and purring.

Scar was a mess on the cave floor, in utter agony from his injuries but the happiness and relief he feels at the moment has made the pain worth it.

Scar wasn't still in hermitcraft. This isn't Scarland. This isn't his tree house. His friends were not here. Scar was far from home. That constant hum of life was still in his bones.

But Scar has never felt any safer and happier than having Jellie in his embrace. He chokes out words he cannot understand himself.

But he murmurs it anyway at the top of Jellie's head, "I'm home."

[forest-hashira]

Noble Blood - Chapter Eight

hey everyone! i know the break between chapters was a little bit longer again this time, but given that this is now the longest chapter so far at over 7k words, you'll all understand why it took so long! lots of big happenings in this chapter too, so i hope you enjoy! (also peep the new dividers... wonder what those are for... hm...)

fic masterlist | read on ao3 | wc: ~7.3k | cw: gender neutral reader, light angst, minor injuries (no descriptions of blood or anything!), sneaking around, breaking the rules, big things afoot

For the most part, life stayed the same after your birthday. You went to school with Shoko, Utahime, Kento, and the other kids your age; you played with your friends; you ran errands for your parents; and Satoru and Suguru continued to be kept on a short leash by Satoru’s father, rarely being allowed to leave the Gojo estate to see anyone else.

A few months after your birthday, though, you were finally able to introduce Suguru to the rest of your friend group. As you expected, he and Shoko hit it off almost instantly, and Kento seemed to warm up to him rather quickly, too. Kento’s quick welcome of Suguru into the group irritated Satoru a bit, you thought, but he said nothing about it, because really you were both glad he blended into the group so well right away. 

And so, things settled into another new normal – something that seemed to be happening a lot lately, though it was out of your control. As usual when you got comfortable with a routine, time began to fly by: the seasons came and went, and everyone’s birthdays with them. Before you knew it, a little over a year had gone by. Now you, Shoko, and Utahime were of age to begin meeting hatchlings, and most likely within the year you would all have your dragons.

Shoko found her dragon first. It was a little over a month after her birthday, and she had gone with her mother to visit one of the older couples in the settlement, just as a general check up. The couple’s own dragons had a clutch of eggs – what would likely be their last, given their ages – that had hatched just a couple days before, and she’d been given permission to go and see them. She’d returned to her mother and the elderly couple with a baby dragon in her hands, sound asleep. He was a cute little thing, long and lanky, covered in brown and white splotches, and besides that, he had the most striking eyes you’d ever seen – bright turquoise and almost too big for his little head. She’d decided to name him Ryoji, after days of consideration and talking it out with your friend group; even Satoru and Suguru had been able to give their opinions – Satoru thought it was boring, Suguru thought it was very elegant.

A few months after that, Utahime went on a trip with her parents during a break in the school year. They were gone for two weeks, and when they came home, Utahime had a dragon perched on her shoulder like a parrot. Her dragon was white – an even purer white than Kenji, in fact – with a red belly, a large red spot on the top of her head, and red spots on the tips of her wings and the end of her tail. She looked incredibly delicate, and you rarely saw her anywhere but on your friend’s shoulder. Her name was Patience, which Utahime had always believed was the most important virtue. You found it a somewhat odd choice, but you never said anything.

The rest of the year came and went, and though you’d been introduced to almost a dozen hatchlings since your birthday, none of them were your dragon. You did your best not to let it discourage you – plenty of people had to wait nearly a year for their own dragon, including your own father. So you kept your chin up, looking forward to the day you would meet your destined dragon. It hadn’t happened the same year as Shoko and Utahime, though you were all the same age, but you were confident it would happen soon. Besides that, Kento was now old enough to begin meeting hatchlings in order to find his dragon, and getting to talk with him about it was a great comfort to you.

Your eleventh birthday passed quietly, yet again without an appearance from your best friends. They did manage to sneak away from Yaga for an hour or so the following day, though, and you spent that time hiding in the peach orchard, Kenji and Niji working on improving their flying. They were both clumsy, still trying to get the hang of it, but Kenji frequently got ahead of himself and crashed into trees, or the ground, or one of you; at one point he crashed into Niji and sent them both tumbling to the ground, and the three of you had to pull them off of each other when they started to fight.

Kento’s birthday wasn’t too long after your own, and his parents made a much bigger deal of it than any of his previous birthdays. His cake was huge and decorated with delicately piped frosting dragons, soaring across the dessert in various colors and sizes. Ginger lit the candles for your friend to blow out, and Cinnamon delivered everyone their own slice of the cake. 

The next day, the farmer who supplied the bakery with their flour said his dragon’s clutch of eggs had just hatched, if Kento was interested in seeing them. He’d agreed, but only after making sure you could come with him. Thankfully the farmer didn’t live too terribly far outside the settlement, so the trip wasn’t unbearably long.

When you’d arrived at the barn where the farmer’s dragon had built her nest, he said he was going to have to take you in one at a time. “She’s been a bit jumpy since the eggs hatched,” he’d explained. “Don’t want to spook her by bringing too many people in at once.”

After a bit of discussion, the pair of you agreed that Kento would go in first, since he was the one to receive the invitation in the first place. You’d waited patiently outside the barn while the farmer led him in to see the hatchlings, and a few minutes later he’d exited with a baby dragon roughly the size of a dinner roll tucked into the pocket of the shirt he wore. Though he didn’t wear the same beaming smile most of your friends had upon introducing their dragons to your friend group, you could see how excited he was by the way his eyes sparkled.

Invigorated by the knowledge that your friend had just met his dragon, you eagerly followed the farmer inside, peeking around him and stepping closer to the nest when he told you it was alright.

The mother dragon – who was about the size of a bear – watched you closely as you approached the nest, though she made no move to stop you, which you took as a good sign. You were careful not to get too close, though, giving the nest as much space as you could while still being able to see the rest of the hatchlings. They were all rather cute, and you smiled slightly as you watched them crawl over each other, fighting for space in the warmest spot in the nest. 

You spent a few moments watching them, then turned slightly over your shoulder to speak to the farmer. “How do I know if one of them is mine?” you asked quietly. He was far from the first person you’d asked that question, and you knew enough about bonds between riders and their destined dragons to know that it wasn’t simply a matter of picking the hatchling you thought was the cutest out of the first clutch you saw, but beyond that it was still a mystery to you.

“You’ll feel it in your chest,” the farmer replied,and from what you could see of his expression from the corner of your eye, you could tell he was looking at you sympathetically. “If one of these hatchlings was yours, you’d’ve felt it by now.”

The disappointment you felt was undeniable, but you hoped it didn’t show too obviously in your face as you nodded, then turned away from the nest and walked back outside with the farmer to meet Kento.

You didn’t hide your disappointment as well as you thought, apparently, because almost as soon as you exited the barn, Kento was giving you an apologetic look. The walk back was silent for the most part, and once again you were thankful the farm wasn’t as far from the settlement as many other farms were, because you were eager to go back to your bed, where you could curl up beneath your blankets and hide away from the rest of the world for a little while.

Just before leaving you at your house, though, Kento paused, placing a hand lightly on your arm as he looked over at you. “You’ll find your dragon someday.” Though his voice was soft, the certainty in his words was stronger than you expected. All you could do for a moment was stare, but eventually you nodded, swallowing the lump that had begun to form in your throat.

“Thanks, Kento.”

He gave you a slight nod and bid you farewell, and you turned down the path that led back to your family’s home. When you walked in the door, and your parents saw your face, they knew better than to ask how meeting the hatchlings had gone. Instead, they said nothing, your mother pulling you into a brief hug, and your father kissing the top of your head, before they let you slip back to your room.

Their small comforts were appreciated every time, but you always needed a bit of time alone after another disappointment like this one. But you also knew that, once you emerged from your room again later, they would have a snack and a creamy hot chocolate waiting for you on the table, just like always. 

And so the rest of the year carried on, with everything being the same for you while everyone else around you had their lives changed forever. Because it wasn’t just your friends that were finding their dragons, it never had been. You’d watched as your schoolmates found their dragons, one by one, until, by the time winter break rolled around at the end of the year, you were the only one without a dragon.

During that time, it had gone from disappointing to be behind your peers in this aspect, to embarrassing, to downright humiliating. It was only a few more months before you turned twelve, and yet you’d still had no luck with finding the dragon who was destined to be at your side for the rest of your lives.

It was clear that most of your classmates pitied you, wondered if maybe there was something wrong – a worry that practically never left your own mind – but where was another subgroup of your peers who loved to actively taunt and harass you for not yet having a dragon.

For some reason, they really seemed to have it out for you on the last day of school for the year, following you as you made your way home, calling insults after you, some of them even sending their dragons forward to trip you, or bite at your clothes, or tangle your hair, and they would laugh every time you would stumble or try fruitlessly to swat the creatures away from you. Somehow you managed not to cry through the assaults, though, and for that you were glad, at least.

Hoping they would leave you alone when they had to split up and go their separate ways to go home, you continued on towards your own home, doing everything in your power to ignore your bullies. When they continued to follow well past where you knew some of them should have turned and taken a different path, though, you began to grow a bit worried. Were they going to follow you all the way to your house?

Before you could fully spiral over that anxiety, you heard a familiar voice call out your name, and you looked up to see your best friends standing at the base of the path that led up to the Gojo estate.

Both boys looked displeased by the sight of you being harassed by your classmates and their dragons; Suguru looked a little more concerned for your wellbeing, while Satoru looked angrier that people were treating you this way.

Kenji and Niji, now too big to curl around their masters’ shoulders like they used to, stood and began to pace around them, eyeing you and your current predicament. They looked uneasy, ready to jump in and help you, but their training had apparently schooled them into being more attentive to their masters’ wishes and commands.

“Are you alright?” Suguru asked, as you changed directions slightly, eager to be near them. He glanced from you, to the small dragons nipping at your heels and swooping around your head, then back to you. His features were pinched with worry, and it made your heart squeeze to know you were the reason he was upset.

“I’m fine,” you answered, hoping it wouldn’t be too obvious that you were lying. Unfortunately for you, one of the bullies’s dragons felt particularly bold and sank its sharp little baby teeth into your calf. With a small shriek of pain, you stumbled forward, trying to catch yourself while simultaneously trying to grab hold of the reptile that had a death grip on your leg.

“Hey!” One of the bullies shouted – presumably the one whose dragon was latched onto you like a leech. “Don’t you dare touch him!”

“But he’s biting me!” you shouted back, still flailing to try and get the dragon without busting your head open on the cobblestones. Thankfully, Suguru was within reach now, and he caught you before you could go face first into the ground.

“It was self defense, right guys?” The whole group of bullies chorused their agreement, most of them smirking or grinning at you maliciously, some of them even laughing as they watched you struggle. “You tried to kick him, he just reacted on instinct to protect himself.”

You stared at them all, open mouthed, in disbelief. Before you could say anything, though, Satoru was stepping between you and the group. You watched, somewhat anxiously, as he grabbed the back of the dragon’s neck with one hand, and with the other he pried its jaws open, ignoring how the dragon fought him and tore up the skin on his fingers, and pulling it away quickly once its teeth were no longer buried in your leg.

He stood then, turning back to face the group, dragon still in hand, the fingers of his free hand slowly dripping blood onto the ground. “Learn to keep your animal under control,” he spat. “If this happens again I’ll speak to my father about having your dragon rehomed.”

The bully paled at that; having a dragon rehomed – taken away from their bonded human – was a very serious threat, and everyone knew that Satoru’s father was one of the very few people who had the power to make it happen. After a moment, though, he only seemed to grow angry all over again, going red in the face, and you swore you could see steam coming from his ears.

“For what?” he demanded. “It was self defense, like I said, and I have witnesses!” He gestured toward the group of other schoolkids behind him, though their faces were a mix of angry and nervous, after hearing the threat of having their dragons rehomed. “Besides, I’m just a kid, I’m still learning to train my dragon.”

“Even an idiot knows not to let their dragon bite someone,” Satoru retorted. “Now go home and leave my friend alone.” With that, he adjusted his hold on the dragon in his hand, then tossed him towards the bully.

With a sputtering sound of protest, the bully caught his dragon – Satoru didn’t throw him all that hard, after all – and shot your friend a murderous glare. “You could’ve killed him!” he fumed, and the next second, all the other dragons were screeching and racing towards the three of you.

You felt your heart begin to race, not at all sure how this was going to turn out, but neither of your friends seemed worried about it in the least. 

“Kenji,” Satoru said calmly, not even looking down at his companion. Even still, Kenji stopped his pacing, gaze locked on Satoru’s profile. “Tosshin.”

Faster than you could blink, Kenji was tearing away from Satoru’s side, launching himself headfirst into the group of oncoming dragons, not looking worried in the least that he was outnumbered – he was a lot bigger than they were, after all.

Niji squirmed beside Suguru, letting out a soft chuff as he looked up at his master. Suguru glanced over at his own dragon for a moment, giving him a small nod before turning back to you, looking over the bite wound in your leg.

Having gotten approval to join the tussle, Niji was quick to jump over you and race to Kenji’s side. Even though you knew you should’ve been more worried about your bleeding bite – dragon bites could get infected very quickly if not properly treated – you couldn’t help but watch your friends’ dragons.

They moved in tandem, coordinated even without communication or instruction; you wondered absently if that were a result of training together practically their whole lives. They were still a little clumsy on their feet, given they were still growing, but you could already tell they would be incredibly graceful once they were fully grown. The thought of how big they would likely get sent a shiver down your spine; even now, at just a few years old, they were bigger than most dogs you’d met in your life, their shoulders even with their masters’ hips when they stood beside them.

Kenji seemed to prefer to get above his opponents, standing up on his hind legs and swiping at the dragons that came for him, even snapping his teeth at them. He never actually bit any of the other dragons, though; the clicking of his teeth was more of a warning than anything, a threat of his strength should the other not back down.

Niji, on the other hand, stayed lower, racing forward and slamming into the knees of the bullies, knocking them all over as if it were nothing, growling and whipping his tail at them when they attempted to get up or tried to grab at him. He only let up when the other, smaller dragons scrambled away from Kenji and back towards their own masters.

Your friends called their dragons back almost simultaneously, and instantly both dragons were stepping away from the group and returning to their masters’ sides.

“Go. Home.” Satoru’s voice held no room for argument as he glared at the group, looking a bit like he wanted to walk over and start kicking them all while they were down, but he stayed where he was. “If we ever find out you were harassing our friend again, we won’t call them off so quickly.” 

The group raced off without another word, and you swore you could see at least one of the kids crying, which gave you a small sense of satisfaction, knowing the people who had been bullying you were now also upset.

“You okay?” Satoru asked, turning around to face you again, all traces of anger and frustration gone from his expression as he looked you over. “That bite looks pretty deep. You should get it looked at.”

You stared dumbly at him for a moment, though you jumped as you felt a cold, scaly nose brush over the broken skin. A hiss of pain escaped your lips, and you knew your friend was right. If you didn’t get this looked at and properly treated soon, you’d probably wind up with a nasty infection. “I’ll have my parents call for one of Shoko’s parents after I get home."

“Why wait that long?” Suguru asked, still kind of holding you steady, though you were back on your own feet again now. “My guess is you won’t be able to walk home on that leg very easily, either. We’ll take you to the clinic, then help you get home.”

“Thanks, but you really don’t—” You cut yourself off mid-sentence with a squeak as Satoru lifted you into his arms like it was the easiest thing in the world. The heat in your cheeks over the show of strength – even at only age twelve – was undeniable, but you said nothing, knowing there was no arguing with your friends; they were easily the two most stubborn people you’d ever known.

“Nonsense!” Satoru said, already beginning to walk with you towards the clinic. Suguru was barely a step behind him, and Kenji and Niji were on either side of your little group as you walked. “What kinds of friends would we be if we left you stranded and injured away from home, or some other kind of help?”

His words drew a small laugh out of you, and you shook your head slightly. As you settled back down in Satoru’s hold, though, you noticed Suguru watching you with a soft smile on his face, and you felt your face burn a bit hotter before you looked away.

The clinic wasn’t too far from where you’d run into the boys, so getting there only took a few minutes. Shoko’s mother sat at the table in the front room, and she looked more than a little surprised to see Satoru carry you through the door, Suguru close on his heels.

“What happened?” she asked, standing from her seat and ushering the three of you back into an exam room. Satoru put you down on the exam table once you were all in the room, but he didn’t look very pleased about it.

“There was a group of bullies,” Suguru explained, watching you closely as Shoko’s mother stepped closer to look you over.

“One of the dragons bit their leg,” Satoru added, scowling at the bite mark and crossing his arms over his chest as he stepped back to stand beside Suguru.

“It’s really not that bad,” you tried to insist, even though the wound was already growing itchy and deeply uncomfortable. 

Shoko’s mother said nothing, just rolled up the leg of your pants so they rested above the wound in your calf, and her expression grew concerned. “That’s quite a deep bite, sweetheart,” she said, glancing up at you. “I’ll need to clean it, which might hurt a bit. Once it’s clean I’ll be better able to determine if you’ll need stitches for it or not.” 

You nodded, though you really weren’t fond of the idea of getting stitches. But you also weren’t a doctor, so you weren’t going to argue if Ieiri-san decided you needed them. As the healer walked away from you, presumably to gather the supplies she would need to clean and dress your leg, your gaze went back to your friends, who stood across the room from you. There was silence for a moment, with none of you really knowing what to say, when suddenly a thought occurred to you.

“Where were you guys going?” you asked curiously. 

“What do you mean?” Suguru asked, tilting his head slightly as he awaited your response.

“I know you don’t get to leave the estate with your dragons very often unless you’re running an errand or something,” you explained. “So I was just curious if Yaga had sent you somewhere specific.”

The boys exchanged a look, one that communicated much more than you ever would have expected without either of them saying a word. Feeling like you were intruding on a personal moment between them, you dropped your gaze, and you smiled slightly when you saw Kenji and Niji laid quietly on the floor; Niji had curled himself up so as not to take up too much space, but Kenji apparently didn’t care about any of that, and was sprawled out on his side beside him, legs and tail spread out almost as far as he could get them, as if he were intentionally taking up every possible inch of floor space that he could cover. 

“We were coming to see you, actually.” 

The sound of your raven haired friend’s voice had you lifting your head again as you blinked in surprise. “You were?”

“What?” Satoru asked, pouting exaggeratedly as he looked at you. “Are we not allowed to come see our friend just because we feel like it?”

His words left you feeling a little flustered, and though you tried to mask it with a scowl, you felt fairly certain you failed miserably in that regard. “I never said that,” you huffed. “It’s just that I don’t get to see you guys very often, so I was surprised that you would choose to use your free time away from the estate just to come see me.”

“Well, if you don’t see yourself as worthy of our time— OW! Why did you hit me?” Satoru turned and glared at Suguru then, scowling as he rubbed the back of his head, where the other boy had struck him. After a pointed look from Suguru, Satoru sighed dramatically, then turned back to you with a sheepish expression. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I was just kidding. We really like spending time with you.” 

“We do like spending time with you,” Suguru confirmed. “But this time specifically we were looking for you to extend an invitation.”

“An invitation?” you asked curiously, but your view of your friends was briefly cut off as Shoko’s mother returned to her spot in front of you.

“I’m going to clean your wound now,” she said. “It will probably sting, but it shouldn’t hurt. If it hurts I need you to tell me, because that means something else might be wrong.” She waited until you nodded your understanding, then knelt on the floor in front of you to have a better angle at which to clean your leg. You watched as she poured some sort of antiseptic on a cloth, the scent of it burning your nose, before the boys called for your attention again.

“Yes, an invitation,” Suguru confirmed, then bumped Satoru lightly, as if cuing him to speak.

“An invitation for what, exactly?”

“Another dragon on the estate has a clutch of eggs that are predicted to hatch at some point today,” Satoru explained. “And we wanted you to come meet them.”

There was a small burst of hope in your chest, and you could practically feel the way your eyes lit up, but that hope quickly died away. It wasn’t just the fact that you had met so many hatchlings over the last two years and had never felt a bond form with any of them; turning a bit more towards Satoru, you voiced your concern. 

“I thought your father didn’t like me, and didn’t want me on the estate anymore.” Just as you finished speaking, Ieiri-san pressed the cloth to the bite in your leg, carefully beginning to clean away the dried blood, both to sanitize the area and to make it easier to get a good look at the wound itself. She murmured an apology when it made you jump, but kept at her task.

“It’s not that he doesn’t like you,” Satoru began, then seemed to struggle to come up with an alternative. “It’s just… he thinks you’re a bad influence?” 

“I’m a bad influence?”

“Yes.”

“On you.”

“And Suguru! But… yeah.”

You exchanged a look with the raven haired boy, arching a brow at him slightly; all he offered in response was a shrug. Neither of you believed that, but it also seemed like something Gojo-sama would tell his son as his reason for not wanting you around Satoru, as much as he could prevent it.

“But he’s okay with me coming to meet the hatchlings?” you asked, trying not to get your hopes up too high. 

“He knows you haven’t had any luck finding your dragon yet, and he knows your family can’t afford to visit any other villages or cities to see if your dragon is somewhere else,” Satoru replied. You didn't doubt that his father did, in fact, know all of that, but you did doubt that that changed his feelings about you at all.

Apparently also feeling suspicious about the boy’s vague answer, Shoko’s mother paused her task, turning to look over her shoulder at the Gojo heir. “Gojo-sama is aware that you’re bringing someone to see a new clutch of hatchlings before anyone else gets to see them?”

“Yes,” Satoru answered confidently.

Both you and Shoko’s mother narrowed your eyes at him, scrutinizing him to see if you could detect any trace of a lie, but when he didn’t waver under your intense gazes, you both decided to drop it.

“If the three of you get into any trouble over this,” Ieiri-san sighed. “I don’t want to be roped into it. I never heard this conversation.”

That statement had a small, smug snicker smirk spread across Satoru’s face, though he yelped and did his best to distance himself from Suguru when the other boy pinched his arm harshly. “Stop hurting me!”

Once Ieiri-san had finished with your leg – she had ultimately decided that you did not need stitches, but she told you to keep an eye on it and make sure it stayed clean, and to come back to see her if it appeared to get worse – your friends had walked you home, and this time you insisted on walking on your own two feet, even if you did need to hold onto one of them the whole way because you couldn’t put your full weight on your injured leg. 

Your mother was absolutely frantic when she saw the state you were in, and she only began to calm when Suguru promised that the school bullies wouldn’t be bothering you anymore, if he and Satoru had anything to say about it.

They then explained the situation about the hatchlings to your parents, the same way they’d explained it to you. Unsurprisingly, your parents – especially your mother – were also skeptical, but after reassuring them with the same words he’d used to reassure you, your parents agreed that you could go.

Barely containing their excitement, the boys promised to come back that night to pick you up. 

“Why are you going so late?” your mother questioned, though you couldn’t tell if she was merely curious or beginning to grow suspicious again.

“The clutch still hasn’t hatched yet,” Suguru explained. “They’re expected to hatch today, but nobody is quite sure when. Hopefully sometime this evening, and then they can be left alone for a few hours with their mother before they receive any visitors.”

Seeming satisfied by this answer, your mother nodded, and you and the boys all shared bright smiles; even if your hopes weren’t especially high that you’d find your dragon this time, either, excitement was rolling off your friends in waves, and it was contagious.

Later that night – a few hours after the sun had set, though given the time of year, that wasn’t particularly difficult – Satoru and Suguru knocked on your door. Your father was the one to answer, as your mother fussed over you, insisting you put on at least a light jacket and asking, for at least the tenth time, if you were really ok to walk all the way to the estate on your own.

“I’m not on my own,” you reminded her calmly, though you could feel your patience waning now that your friends had arrived. “Satoru and Suguru are walking with me. They won’t let me fall behind.”

“One of us will carry them if we have to!” Satoru chimed in helpfully from the door, a much too cheeky grin on his face as he spoke.

You just rolled your eyes at him, but his words seemed to appease your mother, and she at last let you go. “Alright, alright,” she relented with a sigh. “You’ll come straight home, won’t you? I don’t want you to impose unnecessarily.”

I don’t want to give Gojo-sama any further reason not to like you was what she really meant, and you knew it, but neither of you were going to say that out loud.

“I’ll come home as soon as I can,” you promised, and you really did mean it. You couldn’t imagine this excursion would take long anyways; it never had in the past.

With one last hug from each of your parents, you stepped outside with your friends, smiling as both Kenji and Niji rubbed their heads against you in greeting; you weren’t quite as tall as the boys anymore, so their scaly, horned heads came just below your ribcage. After giving them each a small stroke to their heads, you all made for the Gojo estate.

It was silent between the three of you for a bit, until you’d made it a little ways from your house. Satoru glanced over his shoulder, as if checking to see that you weren’t being followed, or to make sure no one was listening, then turned back to face you.

“So,” he began. “I may or may not have lied a little bit about this.”

A sigh slipped from your lips at his words, though you weren’t exactly surprised. “What part did you lie about, exactly?” 

“My father doesn’t know I’m bringing you to see the hatchlings.”

Those words weren’t a surprise either, but they still made your stomach churn with anxiety. You turned to look up at your friend then, your gaze sharp; he avoided making eye contact with you. “So you lied when you said your father knew you were bringing someone to see the hatchlings before anyone else?”

“No! I mean… not technically?” Despite the fact that the snowy haired boy was defending himself from your accusation, he at least had the decency to look a little chastised. “He knows I’m bringing someone, he just doesn’t know I’m bringing you, specifically.”

“Who does he think you’re bringing?”

“...Suguru.”

You groaned. “Satoru! That barely even counts! He lives with you!”

“Please don’t shout,” Suguru cut in, voice much lower than yours had just been. “We really would prefer not to get caught sneaking you onto the estate.”

“I’d feel better if you weren’t sneaking me at all,” you groused, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Don’t blame Satoru,” Suguru insisted, now looking a bit sheepish himself. “This was my idea, he just helped make it happen.”

You stared at him in shock, your eyes wide and mouth hung open as you stopped in your tracks. Assuming you were having trouble walking, Kenji and Niji pressed into you from either side, as if holding you upright.

Both Satoru and Suguru stopped walking as well, turning back to face you. They each had a blush high across their cheeks, and they looked almost nervous, as if they expected you to change your mind, to turn around and go home without meeting the hatchlings.

“Please don’t be upset,” Satoru pleaded. “We really want you to find your dragon, and we don’t want you to miss out on any opportunities to meet new hatchlings just because an adult doesn’t want you to.”

Still left speechless by everything you were hearing, you didn’t answer right away. The longer you stared at them in silence, the more antsy your friends seemed to grow, and that was enough to snap you out of whatever trance you’d been in. You quickly snapped your jaw shut, clearing your throat softly and blinking back the tears you suddenly felt burning at your eyes. “Thank you,” you said quietly, feeling your own face beginning to burn.

The boys visibly relaxed at your words, and they both offered you small, relieved smiles. “C’mon then,” Satoru encouraged. “Let’s go meet some dragons.”

The rest of the walk to the estate was quiet, though this time it was a comfortable silence. That, and the closer you got to the estate, the more likely it was that you would get caught, so you kept quiet.

You followed Satoru’s lead as he walked further around the walls of the estate than you ever had, you assumed back to where the housing for the dragons was. “I really hope you don’t expect me to climb any walls this time,” you whispered to him, really only half joking. You’d gotten a concussion last time you’d tried it, and that was without an injury to your leg.

“I don’t,” Satoru assured, glancing over his shoulder and smiling at you. “There’s a gate around back, right by the housing for the flightless and nesting dragons. I made sure it was unlocked before we left to get you.”

You let out a soft sigh of relief; at least you wouldn’t have to worry about getting another concussion or worse.

It was only a few moments longer until you reached the gate, which Satoru quietly unlatched and pushed open. Much to your surprise, the hinges didn’t squeak at all, though you certainly weren’t complaining. 

Satoru stepped through first and held the gate open, followed by Kenji, then you, then Niji, and finally Suguru. Once everyone was through, Satoru closed and latched the gate back just as quietly as he had opened it. “This way,” he whispered, gesturing for you to follow him again.

He led you along the space between the trees and the wall of the estate until you reached a large building. It was almost like a barn in shape, but it was made entirely from granite, and had large, elaborate wooden doors that you could tell just from looking at them were heavy. Thankfully there was a smaller, more easily opened door on the side of the building, presumably for staff, rather than the dragons themselves.

This time Suguru was the one to open the door, ushering you and Satoru inside, though this time Kenji and Niji waited outside, as if on some unspoken order.

“Are they not allowed in here?” you asked quietly as Suguru closed the door. 

“I guess technically there’s no rule saying they can’t come in here,” Satoru answered. “But they stayed outside last time we came to look at the eggs, so they probably just don’t like it.”

“Plus,” Suguru added. “It’s nice to know they’re keeping watch for us in case someone comes looking for us, or something.”

You nodded slightly after a moment, realizing he was right. You didn’t have long to dwell on that, though, as Satoru took your hand and lightly tugged you forward again. As the three of you walked further and further back into the building, you caught a few glimpses of sleeping dragons in various stalls; some of the dragons were the size of draft horses, while others were barely the size of barn cats. The whole space was lit with just a few lanterns hung here and there, so it was dim, but that was fine; if it was much brighter than it had been outside under the moonlight it probably would have hurt your eyes.

Eventually you reached the very back of the structure, where a stall much larger than all the others sat; the sight of it made you a bit nervous.

“Is the mother dragon really that big?” you asked, glancing between your friends.

“No, she’s not,” Suguru soothed.

“Nesting dragons are just given a lot more space than usual,” Satoru added, squeezing your hand lightly. “Go ahead, we’ll be right behind you.”

You hesitated a moment longer, then slowly walked forward, pulling the stall door open and stepping into the stall itself. The mother dragon – a beautiful dusty pink and lavender creature about twice the size that Kenji and Niji currently were – laid against the back wall, her tail encircling her nest. She opened her eyes when you opened the stall door, but beyond that she didn’t move, just watched you carefully as you approached.

Before you got too close, you crouched down, wanting to make yourself look smaller and less like a threat, and you shuffled the rest of the way to the nest on your knees. Though their footsteps were dampened by the layer of straw on the floor, you could still hear your friends behind you, and that gave you the courage to finally look down at the hatchlings.

As most clutches of hatchlings tended to do, they were asleep in a pile, doing their best to keep themselves and each other warm. While the sight was cute, it meant that you couldn’t tell how many there were, or really what any of them looked like, especially in the near complete darkness. Something tugged in your chest as you eyed the pile of hatchlings, which had never happened before, and though the tugging feeling had you wanting to reach out and pull the pile apart, you didn’t want to risk getting your hand getting bitten off by a protective mama dragon. So, instead, you turned to look at her and found her eyes still locked on you.

“I can’t see all of them,” you told her, not even entirely certain she would understand what you were saying. “Can I move them apart?”

The dragon let out a small huff at the question, then lifted her head from where it had been resting on her feet. She turned away from you for a moment, nosing lightly at her little pile of hatchlings until they weren’t completely hiding each other from you, then rested her chin back on her feet, still watching you closely.

You thanked her quietly, glad that she had actually understood what you had asked. A bright glint of moonlight shone in the corner of your vision, and you quickly turned to investigate it.

“Holy shit,” Satoru said behind you.

“Oh my god.” This time it was Suguru’s voice. “Is that…?”

“It can’t be,” Satoru replied. “Nobody’s seen one in almost three hundred years!” His voice was hushed but his words were near frantic.

You barely heard the exchange, though, your eyes locked on the impossible thing in front of you. 

In the middle of the nest was a metallic dragon hatchling, and even in the moonlight you could see its scales shimmer like new copper. The longer you stared at it, the stronger that tugging feeling in your chest grew, and your heart began to pound. You stared, transfixed, as the little thing wiggled around, turning its body to face you before slowly opening its eyes. The second those green eyes locked with yours, you felt something snap into place, and for a moment your mind was empty for everything except for one thing you knew for certain.

This dragon – the first metallic to be seen in nearly three centuries – was your dragon.

Without even thinking about it, as if led by instinct, you reached forward and scooped the hatchling into your hands. The mother dragon made no fuss, and neither did the hatchling, the baby settling right down into your warmth as you held her close and closing her eyes again. She looked almost exactly the same as you remembered Kenji looking when he was a little hatchling like this, though she showed no signs of having horns like he had; you couldn’t help but wonder if she would develop them as she grew older, or if only male dragons had horns.

Unfortunately, you didn’t have much time to linger on the thought, because you heard several sets of hurried footsteps rushing through the building, and a harsh voice calling out to you and your friends. “Who goes there? And what do you think you’re doing in here?”

going forward, pretty much all commands characters use for their dragons will be in japanese, but i will writing them out in the english alphabet (romaji) and providing translations at the end of the chapters. in this case, "tosshin" means "rush/charge"

taglist: @ghost-1-y @kentohours @whatthefucksatan @mitsuristoleme @lu-dao-writes 

@peachdues @here-for-the-tea-baby @staryukis @roselleviennesstuff @witchbybirth

@marinnnnnnnnn @dr-runs-with-scissors

[chaoskirin]

She's Home!!!

Picked Rio up today.

She's a rescue parrotlet, about 4 years old.

She already seems to be very attached to me. She doesn't want me out of her sight, and she's perched on my shoulder right now crunching her beak together.

She's eaten some millet out of my hand, too!

Unfortunately, she doesn't know how to play with toys, so I'll have to teach her, but that shouldn't be too hard. As soon as she gets the reward spike from playing with the toys as opposed to the treat, she'll be chewin' away at them.

Thankfully I haven't noticed any feather plucking. I'm gonna do my best to prevent that from ever happening.

Never thought I'd adopt a parrot, but here we are.

[aliensandanxiety]

Pirate AU Avdol would be funny since pirates are associated with parrots and his stand is a bird, so maybe Magician's Red is a pet parrot perched on his shoulder? 😂

Also if he dies and becomes a merman like Caesar did perhaps he grows a fiery orange tail with frilly fins like a lionfish.

I'm doing the parrot 100% I love when people give me such delicious food like this.

Thank you anon, people like you and the other people that wanna discuss my AU are the best

[witchofthesouls]

(Crossover snippet between Bayverse and TFP!Other!humans-into-Cybertronians with Cyber!Unfathomable!June Ayooo, shoutout to @skyite for that particular tag!)

"That has to be the most undog-like dog in existence."

Major William Lennox silently agreed with the ranger. The mechanical animal was massive and seemed far more akin to a prehistoric canid rather than the modern domestic dog.

On its hind legs, it easily towered over the tallest Autobot on the base. A terrifying fact, considering that the Big Guy, both of them, was already a solid 30 feet, and it really hammered in that it could hunt other things just as large.

It sat eerily still and absolutely silent. Not a yip, a growl, or a chuff from the beast. Not even when Miko tugged on its upright ears with a delighted scream, swinging like an energetic parakeet on its favorite perch before whipping over to slide down its back and scurry elsewhere. Preferably the higher ground of another bot's shoulder or to the roof to jump off again.

Its ghost-white eyes burned far brighter with its dark frame, lenses unblinking as it tracked the kids, especially Jack’s flickering wingspan, as it did its best to mimic a giant statue not out of place on the steps of a gothic mansion.

Bonecrusher would be an apt name for the thing; everyone had seen its teeth, jarring to see it so gentle when picking up the kids by the scruffbar.

Agent Fowler was already inoculated by his experience with the Other Half of his dimension’s reality, so seeing mechanical children that greatly outsized the average human adult running amuck across the walls and ceiling wasn't the tip of the iceberg of weirdness that could happen.

The species change was alarming, but no other issues arose from the artifact as it was sequestered by Jasper Hospital for further containment.

The rest of the base? Not as well.

Jack had already spooked nearly everyone, including this universe’s version of the Autobots, by being his strange self; unique even here with the ability to suppress himself completely, frame falling eerily silent with the lack of weight in his steps and the lack of the usual noise that Cybertronian bodies had whenever they needed to move. No whirrs, no pneumatic hiss of joints, no crack or slide of plating and seams. Appearing and disappearing like a ghost bird-cat-like boy that chased his curiosity, especially since Jack was still small enough to duck under human-sized doors and happily feed the growing murder outside. Crows that hadn't existed before their dimensional hop.

Miko was Miko. Loud and demanding and practically had another Ratchet and Optimus to jungle gym all over, shrieking and chirping over their shoulders like a pink-plated parrot. She caused her own mayhem with her multiple attempts to dart outside for an unauthorized venture into the sea. She howled and screamed whenever one ‘bot managed to catch her before she hit the waves. Her aggressive clawing into the bot’s plating had made the humans leery of her; as did her vicious gnawing in the multi-faced cephalopod of a squishmallow, digging those sharp teeth into a fat tentacle with gusto as one of the 'bots indulged her with a game of tug-of-war or a modified fetch.

Raf commanded most of the positivity by the Diego Garcia base personnel. After all, who could say they have a dragon at their place. A fire-breathing one, too. 

Granted, it was only small licks of flame, but it set the excitement ablaze throughout the base and implemented far more fire extinguishers with Jack’s and Miko’s pyro-derived artistic tendencies to tickle Raf’s softer underbelly to play with ash and soot remains.

Compared to a polite, yet terror-inducing Jack and a hyper, bite-happy Miko, Raf was absolutely easy-going, adorableness with his chubby frame and rounded limbs and fat tail. 

More than one human had been delighted over the sight of it wagging with a suitable rock and it kicked off a new game to see what kinds of minerals would make the baby dragon the happiest. Puppy-like with his outside digging habit, voracious appetite, and constant need for nuzzles and scratches.

The mechanics and diagnostic crews started to bring in large bits of metal and rocks to pay tribute to the Predacon to spare their own equipment from being rummaged and eaten. Agent Fowler would bet his savings that quite a few people had taken videos of little dragon nosing and pawing and chirping at various Autobots for his uppsies and getting tuck up in an arm to be carted around like a football.

"That’s because you're not seeing it properly," came an amused voice from above. Both of the men looked up to see June looming over them. “Agent Fowler. Major Lennox.” 

"Ms. Darby." The ranger nodded as the other man hid his startlement well, only a small flinch; something as tall as Optimus Prime shouldn't move that sudden and silent. "Anything to share with the class?"

"I made contact with this world's version of the Foundation." The off-beat blue of her optics swirled, even far above, eddying like water. "They initialized the return procedures for our universe."

Of course, there would be procedures for multiverse dimensional-hopping.

"Good. Anything they need from our end?"

She chuckled, ponytail flicking in a serpentine motion, and she smiled. Unlike Jack's careful, closed smiles, June was far more willing to show off her own wicked teeth. Not the wide one that broke her face, but a curl of her lips for a knife-sharp gleam.

“Oh, gentlemen,” she purred. “The Foundation is so very interested in what’s going on here.”

[maniacwatchestheworld]

Shameless Chapter 1: Lost Part 1

[Story is also available on AO3 and can be read here.]

Fredrick Jones slowly opened his eyes, his head cradled in his arms. He had fallen asleep in the library. Again. Slowly blinking himself awake, he tried to remember... Something… There was a feeling nagging at the back of his mind that his dream had been important somehow and that he needed to remember... Something about it… But the more he tried to grasp at whatever it was that had been so important, the more it slipped between his fingers like smoke.

With a sigh he gave up, shaking the tiredness out of his body before he started to pack the books he was intending on checking out into his bag, leaving the rest behind at the table to be reshelved by the university library’s staff. However as he packed, he couldn’t help but to take notice of the group of people- Teenagers right around his age that were gathered, whispering amongst one another some distance away, only partially concealed by the stacks. He noticed that every once in a while, one or two members of the group would glance his way before quickly turning back to their friends to continue chattering amongst one another.

By accident, Fredrick met the gaze of one of the group’s members- A young man with light hair and an athletic build, dressed in shades of greenish blues. Upon realizing that their eyes had met, Fredrick narrowed them, examining the other boy with suspicion. At that, the boy blushed and turned away. Had Fredrick met these kids before? He was scouring his memory for any clue as to if he had met these people somewhere previously or if there was any reason for them to be looking his way. As he did, the pretty blond girl standing next to the athletic-looking boy turned to look at Fredrick, giving him a smile. He made no movements to return the favor as he determined that, no, he didn’t recognize this group.

“But are you, like, sure that it’s him?” A lanky boy with brown hair and the beginnings of some facial hair on his face asked the rest of the group.

“I think that it is reasonable to think that it is.” There was a parrot wearing a scarf perched on one of the lanky boy’s shoulders. Fredrick thought that it was odd to see a pet in a library like this, but soon realized that the parrot must have been one of those who could do more than just mimic human sounds completely disconnected from meaning. It must have been one of that rare breed of animals that was capable of fully human speech and intellect.

“Well, there’s only one way to check.” A black girl with thick-lensed glasses and short but natural densely curled hair said, turning from the group.

“Cassidy! Wait! We don’t want to be rude and disturb him, especially if he’s not the guy!” The lanky boy panickedly whispered. Too late for that.

Marching right up to him, the girl with glasses gave him a smile. “Excuse me, but would you happen to be Fred Jones?”

He examined her for a long moment. “Fredrick. It’s Fredrick Jones. No one calls me ‘Fred.’” He pressed, standing, fully intending on leaving.

However the girl’s excitement made him hesitate. “We’ve heard that you’re something of a Mesoamerican and colonial era American history prodigy here. Is that true?”

There was surprise and confusion clear on his face. “I wouldn’t say that I’m a prodigy, but I do study and specialize in pre-modern American history…”

She had an excited and determined look on her face at hearing that. “It’s him!” She quietly called to her friends, trying her best not to disturb the other library patrons.

-

He had been recommended to them through a friend of a friend. After finding the scroll, the gang were excited to figure out what it was, but for as brilliant as Professor Pericles was, he didn't even know where to start with deciphering it. The scroll was decorated with mesoamerican iconography, and was inscribed in at least three different languages, Pericles only able to read one of them. The least useful one of them at that. And if Professor Pericles, their supergenius parrot friend couldn’t make heads or tails of it, then none of the others had even a hope of being able to read it. For as brilliant as Mystery Incorporated could be when they put their heads together, it was just a fact that this was completely out of any of their wheelhouses. So they needed to find a specialist.

It was hard to pin down exactly where they first heard about him from. Some weird kid their age from out of town who had graduated high school early and was now attending Darrow University. Something of a recluse, he could often be found sleeping in the library, knee deep in a pile of books. But when it came to the colonial era, or mesoamerican history, he was apparently the guy to talk to.

When they first met him, it was more than a promising start. He could read it. He even knew what the scroll was. And as he studied and talked about it, there was a burning in his eyes.

Something about his eyes made Professor Pericles curious. There was something about them that felt… Empty. Perhaps there was Something like a hollow apathy behind them. And he always looked tired, which as they got to know Fredrick Jones more, the more they would worry and advise him to get some sleep. A suggestion that he waved off every time.

From the first moment Professor Pericles had met Fredrick Jones, he was hopeful, thinking that he had found another kindred spirit.

“A Planispheric disc. It’s a kind of navigational tool that was used by some sailors throughout the 1400’s. They’re exceedingly rare, actually. They were thought to be magic and able to transcribe themselves with each location that it went to. They were made to be able to split into six pieces. Presently no one knows if a complete one is still in existence.”

“Why six?” The pretty blond girl, Judy asked.

He shrugged. “It’s said that each piece represents a sacred role. The Patron. The Champion. The Beloved. The Dreamer. The Mind. And the Outsider. There are stories that groups of heroes have appeared throughout history and that each of them bore one of these titles. It says here that the knowledge that this Planispheric Disc possesses must not fall into the wrong hands. Therefore one must embody all of these roles to be able to find and put together these pieces. That’s what the alchemical documents say at least. But that’s all just superstition. None of it really matters.”

“So… That's all well and good and all, but what are we supposed to do with this Planispheric Disc once we find it?”

“Oh. So you didn’t figure it out yet?”

“Figure what out?”

“This is essentially a treasure map to the pieces of the Planispheric Disc. And the Planispheric Disc itself is a treasure map of sorts.”

“Okay, that’s cool and all. But where do all of these treasure maps lead to? More treasure maps?”

Fredrick gave the athletic boy whose name he had just learned was Brad an eager smile that quickened Brad’s heart rate. “Have you ever heard the legend of the Treasure of Crystal Cove?”

“That old story?”

Fredrick nodded. “The treasure is real. Find the Planispheric Disc and you can find the famed Treasure of Crystal Cove.”

And so they agreed to work on the scroll together. Fredrick would provide translations, and Professor Pericles would try to calculate coordinates from those translations. Though they all knew that this was going to be a slow process. The scroll was meant to be used by a person who already had a piece of the Planispheric disc. So it was going to be an uphill battle.

“So why didn’t you tell them what it was?” Fredrick had pulled the bird aside after their first meeting.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You knew what the scroll is. You didn’t need me to tell you. So why did you keep it a secret?”

“My friends… They love a good mystery. I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“If you say so.”

“So what do you think of the warning?”

“There was one in German too?”

“Yes. It said to not search for the treasure and to beware the Curse of Crystal Cove. What do you think of it?”

Fredrick shrugged. “Just an old superstition. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. But I think that they’re laying it on a bit thick. I saw at least another five warnings. There’s probably more if I looked for them. Don’t tell me that you believe in curses.”

-

Professor Pericles really did start liking his partner in trying to decipher the scroll. As it turned out, he had been looking into the treasure of Crystal Cove for a while already, so he couldn’t have been much more of a perfect match. And as they continued their work, the group started to get closer to their new acquaintance and eventually they started to invite him to hang out with them outside of this particular mystery. It was a gesture that he seemed confused by, but one that he was obviously grateful for. And eventually they started calling him their friend. He even went on a mystery or two with them, albeit mostly because they were down a member.

“Well… It’s kinda just always been the five of us…” Ricky insisted, his voice faltering and soft as he tried not to offend.

“It’s alright. I get it. You’ve all been friends since forever. You don’t know me that well. I’m just a bench player. A substitute for when you need one. Now that you’re all back together, you don’t need me anymore. I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”

“Fredrick… You don’t have to go…”

“It’s okay. Honest. I have a lot of things that I could be doing instead. Trust me. I’m fine.” There was something emotionless and surprisingly lacking hurt by how he talked about it. “I personally have no intentions of super-subbing for you guys any time soon.”

“Well, maybe we could use a super-sub sometimes. Though I didn’t exactly take you for a bottom, Fredrick.” Judy teased, nudging his arm.

“Ew. Gross.” Fredrick stuck his tongue out in mock disgust, but was smiling despite himself. They all shared a moment of laughter before turning serious once more.

“But really... It was fun having you around… I hope that we can do this again sometime.”

“You want Brad here to run off and refuse to go on another mystery again sometime? Wouldn’t expect that from you, Judy, but whatever floats your boat.”

-

And after a while, he started to become a greatly appreciated asset for their team. Professor Pericles even came to admire his work ethic.

“Why do I want to find the treasure…? Well… I guess that the fame, wealth, and glory that would come with it would be pretty nice. I mean, if you solve the mystery and find the treasure, someone would probably put you into a history book somewhere. You’d get to have your own display and plaque about you in the Crystal Cove Museum. But mostly… I guess that at this point… I just have to know.” He clenched a hand, his manner becoming more intense than usual. “I have to learn the secrets. I want to know everything that this treasure has to offer. I need to find it… I must find the pieces of the Planispheric Disc… I need to see that treasure with my own eyes… Or I'll at least die trying.”

It was like he was being pulled by some innate desire to keep working on this, even as everyone else grew tired of the search. It sometimes even felt like he had an unnatural compulsion to search for it. But it kept them going. Kept their morale up, even when it felt like they were finding nothing but dead ends. Pushed them to keep trying harder. And it was good. But it couldn’t last forever.

-

It was unclear when things first started to take a turn. Maybe things had always been rotting at their core but they realized it only too late. As time went on, Mystery Incorporated had the feeling that someone or something was watching them from the shadows. It wasn't a persistent feeling. But sometimes they thought that they caught the sight of something. Matted hair. A horn. A crooked mouth. Eyes glaring at them from where it was just a little too dark for them to see. But for the most part, they just pushed it aside. They were probably just imagining things. There was a lot of talk about curses between them lately, so while their minds were conjuring up monsters and people envying their gains, it was probably just in their minds. Some wild animal at most. They were wrong, but they wouldn’t have known. The first time anyone fully realized that something might have been wrong was when the nightmares started.

Professor Pericles was the first victim. The animal patron always is.

He had found himself in a strange place. Halls of curtains, black and white tile floor. An unseen ceiling, stretching up so high that you might think that it just gave way to empty sky. And just as he was starting to get some kind of bearings, he heard a monsterous growl some distance behind him, making him fly. He didn’t know how far he had come from his starting point, and he was clearly lost. He didn’t dare to look back. If he did, it might give the monster time to gain on him. He didn’t know what was happening. What would happen if he was caught. But as he was flying, his thoughts and panic were taking hold of him, and he didn’t fully notice two hands pop out from behind one of the curtains, grabbing him out of the air.

Pulling the parrot through the curtain, Pericles could feel that whoever it was had pinned his wings to his side, and while the grip was firm, it wasn’t hurting him. Once he stopped struggling enough to see who had grabbed him, realizing that whoever it was didn’t intend to hurt him, he looked to see Fredrick. Taking one hand, while still keeping a reassuring grip on the bird with the other, Fredrick put a finger to his lips. A soundless sush.

The two listened as the monster got closer and closer. Heavy footprints. The sound of deep breathing. A low growl. The shadow of a hulking, humanoid mass could be seen on the other side of the curtain. It paused just in front of the entryway the two were hiding behind. Was it smelling the air for them? But just as the tension was getting to the parrot and he wanted to scream for help, the monster passed them by with dragging movements. Once they couldn’t hear it anymore, the two let out a shared breath of relief.

“Okay. Good. It’s decided to leave us alone.”

“Decided to… What was that? Where are we?!”

Fredrick merely sighed, letting the bird go. Now that they weren’t pressed against the wall by the entryway as they were being pursued by some creature, Pericles saw that they were in a room, velvety chairs and the like scattered about. Fredrick took a seat on a somewhat long ottoman and patiently waited for Pericles to make himself comfortable. There was a sadness clear in Fredrick’s eyes.

Professor Pericles couldn’t help but to find himself drawn to those eyes again. They still had an empty quality to them, but now they were somehow different. Where he had seen emptiness before, there was something there, but in its place, something else was missing. Where there had been apathy and a terrifying sort of determination, there was now something far more gentle about them.

Pericles perched himself on the arm of a chair, tucking his legs underneath him. Once he was settled, Fredrick smiled at him, a certain kind of grief in his manner. “So… You’re here now… That’s a real shame… It’s started for you… I can’t help but feel a bit responsible…”

“What are you…? Fredrick, where are we?” He insisted again.

“Well… you’re dreaming.”

“Oh… So none of this is real. Thank goodness. A monster like that can’t...”

“Oh. No. This is all still very real. You just also happen to be asleep right now. You can give it a try if you like. You can usually control normal dreams once you become aware of it. But you’ll find that you don’t have any control in here. This place is called the Sitting Room. It’s somewhere between an alternate reality and a dream… And I really wish that you weren’t here…”

“Fredrick… What…?” The bird was something at a loss of words.

Fredrick sighed in response. “I guess that since I put you into this mess… That I have a duty to tell you what’s going on.”

“You what?”

“ This ” he indicated to the room around them. “Is the curse of the lost treasure of Crystal Cove. You really should’ve listened to the warnings…”

“Curse? You can’t be serious… You don’t actually believe in curses, do you?”

“Oh. I don’t just believe in them. I know that curses are real. My other self was lying to you before. Your being here is a sign that the curse is starting to take hold of you… You need to stop looking for the treasure now. I don’t care if you take the scroll away and hide or destroy it, or if you just leave it to the other me. But you need to stop. Please. There’s still a chance for you… That’s your only chance.”

Pericles listened with confusion clear in his manner. “I don’t know that I understand.”

“Okay. It’s actually pretty simple, really. The more you search for and desire the treasure of Crystal Cove, the more the curse effects you, the more you become tied to this room. First it brings you here once every few nights. If you keep searching for the treasure, you’ll keep coming here until…”

“Until…?”

“I’m trapped in here… Professor… I… If you spend enough time in here, eventually this place will split you into pieces and keep one of them here. Trapped. Forever. It takes something important from your waking self… And you can’t act on or feel that part of you anymore while you’re awake. The more you keep searching… The more you want the treasure… The more it takes away from you.” Fredrick wrapped his arms around himself as if that would help to hold himself together. “It’s too late for me… My other self… My waking self… He’s obsessed with that treasure… He’s already traded so much of himself… Of me away to get the information… To get his hands on it... Please… Don’t end up like me… Don’t let the others end up like me either… You still have a chance. A choice. You can stop the search. You’ll be fine. You can all go back and continue to live your normal lives… But If you keep going on this path, this treasure will haunt you and begin to dominate your life.”

“Why are you telling me this…?”

“... Because you’re my friend…? Because you’re all my friends… You’re important to me and… And I love all of you… That’s never really happened to me before... I don’t think that either of us expected to actually end up caring about you all… I gave you all this cursed information. If anything happens… It’ll be my fault... But my other self wants you to succumb to the curse… It’ll be easier for him to find the treasure if you succumb to the curse… If you become like me… If you want to find it as much as he does… You’ll be bound to this place… We would be bound together. Forever. But you’re my friends! Aren’t I supposed to look out for and take care of you? I don’t want you to end up like this… Existing in halves like this… It’s agony… You don’t deserve this… So please...”

“How do I know that any of this is real?”

“... I don’t know that you can… You mostly just have to trust me on this one… You can read the warnings for yourself… I’ve translated and transcribed just about all the ones that I’ve found… I’ll try to think of anything more concrete to convince you…”

It was then that a growl could be heard rumbling throughout the maze.

“What was that?” Pericles asked, panicked.

“It’s just the monster. He’s coming back.”

“What!? I thought that we lost him!”

“I don’t really think that we lost him so much as he decided to leave us alone… I don’t know if it actually has to look for us.”

“What’s a monster like that doing in a place like this anyway?”

“Well… He’s here to discourage people like you from wanting to continue the search for the treasure… And he’s also here to punish those of us who are trapped in here… People like me…”

“There are other people in here?”

Fredrick nodded. “I hope that you never have the chance to meet them… There’s nearly an army of dead in here…”

There was another bellowing growl roaring its way through the halls. “What do we do!?”

“About the monster?” He asked going towards the entryway into this room and pulling the curtain aside. “I recommend that you start running. He can only go after one of us if we split up. I’ll do what I can to make certain that’s me.”

-

When Pericles woke up that morning, his head ached. The morning had just started and he was already feeling exhausted. When he and the rest of Mystery Incorporated met up in the private room in the library to study the scroll, Fredrick was acting completely normal.

“Can I see your translation log?” Pericles asked out of the blue as they were brainstorming what to do next.

“Uh. Alright. Sure. Here.” Fredrick handed a binder over to the bird who began to flip through the pages.

“Looking for anything specific…? It’s not exactly the most organized.”

“I’m looking for… Details on the curse…” Pericles was hesitant to admit it.

“Alright… Interesting… Well you can start…” Fredrick flipped through the pages before settling on a page that had two whole pages of warnings that he had translated. “Here. Odd subject. Don’t tell me that you’re actually starting to believe in that superstitious crap.”

“I’m not! I just… I had a strange dream last night…”

“What are you suddenly having prophetic visions?” Fredrick scoffed.

“No… You were there…”

“Oh. I’m flattered.” But he certainly didn’t sound particularly emotional one way or the other about the flattery.

“You were acting… Strangely…”

“Okay…? Dreams can be like that. Anything in particular that you want me to know about?”

“I don’t know… You were telling me… You wanted me to stop looking for the treasure… You were saying that you were cursed.”

“... And you believed that.” Fredrick looked at the parrot incredulously. “Come on. You know better than to think that dreams are real. I mean… Curses are mostly just confirmation bias. You know that, right? Reading these translations is probably just getting to your subconscious and making you have weird dreams.”

“So you really don’t have anything to do with that dream…?”

“I guess not…? What? Do you think that we share dreams or something? That’s ridiculous.”

“I guess so… We should get back to work.”

“Whatever you say, chief.”

-

The dream did return, about once a week at first. But Pericles didn’t always see Fredrick there. When he did, there was still that sad look in his eyes.

“You’re still looking for the treasure.”

“Yes. And this is just a dream. You’re just a figment of my imagination, probably born out of my mind internalizing the details of that supposed curse.”

“I wish that you were right about that. My other self was lying to you. He remembers these dreams just about as well as you do. I don’t want to add fuel to the fire, but he’s trying to gaslight you. You probably shouldn’t listen to him when it comes to this kind of stuff.”

“You still haven’t proved that this is real…”

“I know… But him and I... We both know the same things. We have the same knowledge. I’m just… Different from him… So how am I supposed to give you instructions that prove that this is real that he can’t interfere with?”

“That’s not my problem.”

“What about the fact that you’ve been having this dream over and over again?”

“Reoccurring nightmares are a phenomenon that happens. If this is real, why haven’t you been in here to keep trying to get me to stop?”

“... I can’t control my other self… He’s been intentionally messing with our sleep schedule to make it less likely that we’ll meet… We’ve been staying up all night. Sleeping during class and any small moment he can find. He doesn’t sleep much anyway In the first place… These nightmares… That monster… He tries to avoid being here… Being me as much as he can… He… He hates me… He hates being me… I understand why. I don’t blame him. I mean, I am him after all, but it still stings to know that he despises me, everything that used to come so naturally to him…”

Pericles looked a little confused. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Remember how I told you that this place breaks you into pieces and keeps one trapped in here?”

“Yes?”

“What I didn’t fully explain is that it takes the very best parts of yourself first. It finds the piece of you that is most important to who you are and what pushes you to be your best self… Your load bearing traits you could say, and then takes that from you.”

“So… If this is true… What did it trap here for you?”

“I’m not quite certain that I know what I am… But I have something to do with embarrassment and shame…? I embody some form of restraint…? I don’t know if I have the right word for it though… If you want proof of this being real, that’s what you can do… Try to embarrass my other self. You’ll find that you can’t…”

“I… I guess that I’ll try to keep that in mind…”

“Thank you. That’s all that I ask…”

And to his credit, Pericles started to pay attention to how Fredrick acted on a day to day basis. Fredrick responded… Oddly to teasing and insults. He didn’t have any particularly impassioned response either way. Sometimes it looked like he was trying to push himself to act embarrassed, but it was never particularly convincing. And when he was found in compromising situations, he certainly didn’t act ashamed, usually having a good sense of humor about it. His reactions were indeed not quite right, and he didn’t seem to get embarrassed hardly ever if at all. But maybe that’s just how he was. Some people out there are more shameless than others and don’t get embarrassed. Maybe he was just one of those people.

-

“What’s that?" Fredrick asked peering over Cassidy’s shoulder as she scribbled a figure onto the pad of paper. But before she could answer...

“It’s the Freak!” Brad answered for her, popping his head out from behind a pile of books and reference materials.

“Freak…?”

“Brad!” Judy said in a scolding tone from next to him. “Sorry about that, Cassidy, go on.”

Cassidy was holding back an amused grin. “Oh, no. It’s alright. I guess that you can call him that.”

“Told you it was a good name.” Brad cheekily grinned at his girlfriend who playfully pretended to hit his arm.

Ignoring the two as they began to mutter silly flirtations under their breaths to each other, Cassidy explained, “We’ve been talking lately and compiled all of our accounts, and if it was real, this is what we think the thing that’s been following us would look like.”

“Well, that is one freaky looking… Guy? Creature? But he isn’t real, right?”

“Of course he’s not.” A very tired-looking Ricky sighed, rolling his head over to look at them. “All of this cursed treasure and supernatural, magical scroll things are just getting to us.”

“Hey! I know what I saw!” Brad insisted. “Bears don’t usually wear whatever that… Frilly… Suit… Thing is!”

“I don’t know what you saw, but It was dark. The moonlight was just playing tricks with your eyes,” Ricky muttered, rolling back onto his face.

“What’s up with him?” Fredrick asked in a mutter to Cassidy.

“Didn’t get much sleep last night.” She muttered back, but clearly Ricky heard it anyway.

“Pericles had another nightmare last night. He was chirping in his sleep all night long… Didn’t get much sleep…”

“Oh. That’s probably not good.”

“Like you’re one to talk. How much sleep did you get last night?” Ricky muttered to Fredrick.

After a long pause he answered, “I didn’t sleep last night...”

“Exactly! You don’t get to say anything about how much sleep I get until you fix that fucked-up sleep schedule of yours!”

“I mean, fair… But I have gotten some sleep today! I slept for an hour during my global environmental history class and another hour during lunch!”

“How are you not flunking out of college yet?” Cassidy sighed.

“I’ve got that big brain, duh.” He joked.

“Fredrick!” Judy piped up, disapproval in her voice. “You said that you’d stop sleeping through that class!”

“No, I said that I would stop sleeping through it when they stopped talking about Europe. The professor started talking about pre-colonial North America for a week and then he went straight back to Western Europe! And so that counts. I can sleep through it if I want. Isn’t that right, Brad?”

“Yeah! Stick it to the man! Sleeping through that class is fighting against…. What was that word again?”

Judy sighed as she and Fredrick said the word in unison. “Eurocentrism.”

“Yeah! That’s it!”

“See Judy? Brad’s got my back” Fredrick teased with a grin.

She rolled her eyes pretending to be upset before pinching Fredrick’s cheek, a smile pretty clear on her face. “You’re just lucky that you’re too cute for me to be mad at you.”

“Hey! I’ll take it!”

Turning to the nearly passed out Ricky, Judy asked, “so did he ever tell you what this nightmare was about?”

“Apparently it’s some reoccurring nightmare…” He muttered before finally lifting his head off of the table. “He did mention that you were in it, Fredrick.” Ricky mentioned, looking at him.

“I think that he mentioned that to me before.”

“Isn’t it so nice to be popular?” Ricky was joking as he rolled his eyes.

“Guess that I’m just the man of his dreams!” He grinned.

-

But as time passed, things were not getting much better for the party’s parrot friend. If anything, they were getting worse as the nightmares became a nearly nightly occurrence.

Pericles was trying to get some bearings on how to find his way around. He didn’t always awake in the same location, and he always woke up alone. He was just going through the halls one day when he came across a very strange room indeed. It was a room full of people, standing so still you could mistake them for statues. Had he seen these people before? There was something about them that pulled at Pericles’ memory but he wasn’t entirely certain that he could remember what it was.

However there was one statue among the rest that he did recognize.

Pericles looked at the man curiously before deciding to land on his shoulder. His was as good of a place as any to rest as he tried to decide where to go next. But the moment he touched the statue, he came to life with a start.

Fredrick sucked in a lungful of air as he awoke as his other self, clearly startled. “Ah! Fuck! What just…? Professor Pericles? What are… Okay. That’s a weird feeling. I’m suddenly sober now… So that’s why they hate being touched.”

Pericles was forced to flap away, as his perch just came to life. “Fredrick! What were you doing standing so still like that!?”

Putting his hands out in front of him, Fredrick allowed himself to be a perch for Pericles to rest on so that he didn’t have to keep himself suspended in the air as he talked. “I was just at a fraternity party! A pretty wild one at that… I guess that you touching me here made me wake up… Well… Pass out in the real world… I hope they don’t do anything to my body while I’m asleep…”

“You’re not old enough to drink.”

“I know. But come on. I live in a frat house. You can’t honestly expect me to not participate sometimes at least! Besides, I’m not going to do anything too stupid. Pinky promise. Don’t be a narc.”

Pericles sighed. “Fine. But where are we?”

“Here? This is just where many people who’re trapped here decided to stay. It’s where I usually stay while my other self is awake. I suppose that you could say that this is where we all, ‘sleep’ so to speak.”

“Sleep?”

“Well… For me at least, it’s kinda hard and impossible to be awake in both dimensions? So when I’m awake here, my other self is sleeping. This is sort of a dream after all. And so that means that when my other self is awake, I ‘go to sleep.’ But it doesn’t really look like normal sleep… You getting this?”

“I think so…”

“Basically when you saw me standing here, my other half was awake and that’s what it looks like when I’m asleep in this reality.”

“Okay… And so who are all of these people?”

“Everyone else who has succumbed to the curse.” He began to point to the different parties. “Fernando El Aguirre and his men, the Hunters of Secrets, the Benevolent Lodge of Mystery, La Alianza Misterio, Fraternitas Misterium… And me... I was hoping that you would never get the chance to see them…”

“That is a lot of people.”

“Yes… The curse has claimed a lot of victims…”

“They look so realistic… Almost like they’re alive…” Pericles started to flap towards one of the Fraternitas Misterium and was about to land on his shoulder before Fredrick grabbed him out of the air. However his feathers managed to just brush the monk’s cheek.

“Pericles! You can’t just go up to one of them like that!” Fredrick scolded as the monk was startled awake. “They’re sleeping!” Turning to the monk he said, “Ignosce mihi, quia avis est amicus meus. Doleo pro eo. Doleo. Is novus est. Putat hoc malum esse somnium. Non credit hunc locum esse verum.” 

In return the monk said, “Scilicet concessum est. Vellem extendere et movere. Sed triste est videre proximum animal maledictioni patronorum succumbere. Sed si maledictus erit nobis similis et in principio sequentis coetus, cur iam hic coram eo captus es?”

“Ego sum Foris. Sextus socius sum. Numquam ero fragmen Cordis Onagri.”

“Ah. Video. Quam miserum est tibi vigilare amicos tuos, succumbere maledictioni circa te, quin possis adiuvare, Extraneus.”

“Maledictio nonrapuit eos. Nondum.”

“O! Id quod placet audire! Sed habeo quaerere- Anglice loqui possum. Paucis centum annis illud exercui. Quid vis mihi in hac lingua tam aliena a te loqui?”

“Sum valde perturbatus est hic amicus. Si insultare ei forte, sermone uti mallem quam non intelligat.”

The monk laughed. “Valde interesting responsum! Forsitan erit nice tecum loqui semel mortuus es cum ceteris nobis. Opto tibi optimam fortunam in eam convertendo et alios amicos tuos in via.” And with that, the monk started walking away, out of the room and out of sight.

“That was an actual person…” Pericles sounded shaken.

“Well… They’re all people…”

“All of them? So any one of these… People around us could just wake up, start moving around, and walk out of here?”

“Of course. I mean, not even everyone is in here right now. Actually a lot of people decide to not sleep here at all. So please be a bit considerate and try not to wake them up.”

“Wait… These people… They’re all dead… And they have firsthand experience from the times that they lived in…! You must be fascinated and love this!”

“I mean, I kinda do but… Since they’re dead, they don’t really like talking to those of us who are still living for the most part. I’ve tried to have a few conversations with them, but they mostly tend to tell me to go away and let them go back to sleep.”

“Oh…  I wonder why I’m dreaming this… This would all be very interesting if this was real.”

“Pericles… Please stop listening to my other self… Isn’t it obvious that this is getting worse for you? Ricky says that you’re having this nightmare almost every night. Things like this don’t usually happen…”

“No. What you’re suggesting is fairies and curses and magic. That’s impossible. There has to be a logical explanation to this… Besides! I can’t stop now! We’re getting so close… Any day now, we’re finally going to land on the right coordinates…”

“And you think that all of this will be worth it?”

“Maybe. It’s a mystery. We’re Mystery Incorporated. We can’t just leave something like this hanging…”

Fredrick sighed. “I wish that I could, but I can’t make you stop… Pericles… It’s fine to let things be sometimes. To let things remain unsolved. Not everything needs an answer, and those answers don’t always have to be discovered by you.”

“Do you hear yourself right now? Do you actually believe that it’s better to let things just stay the way they are? When crimes are being committed and you’re the only one who sees beyond the theatrics… You think that it’s better to just let it go!?”

Fredrick remained silent. Pericles was right, but he wished so badly that he wasn’t. “It’s stubbornness like that that got me trapped in here, you know…”

“Fredrick, you know that we can’t let this go… If for nothing other than to stop future generations from trying to find this treasure themselves.”

“Fine… And what about the monster? Is being chased by the monster for the rest of eternity worth it?”

“None of this is real. That monster is probably just reflecting the image of the thing that we keep imagining is following us on our mysteries…”

Fredrick scoffed. “I based that costume off of what I saw in my nightmares. In this nightmare. Not the other way around.”

“Costume…?”

“Something has been following you…” There was a heavy shame in his voice. “And that something is me . That ‘Freak’ as you’ve all started to call him… That’s me…”

“That’s not true.”

“I mean… I don’t think that I have any chance of convincing you otherwise anymore… But please reconsider. Please at least just humor the thought that all of this is real.”

“Maybe.”

“... That’s all I ask… Just… When you wake up, ask my other self how my hangover is, would you?”

-

And things just kept going on like that. Pericles, Fredrick, and the gang would continue their work on the scroll during the day, while by night Pericles had nightmares that he was being pursued by a monster which were broken up by the occasional conversation with a different Fredrick who would try to sway him into stopping the search for the treasure. But one day, everything changed.

When Pericles awoke in the Sitting Room that night, he found himself in the same room where he had left Fredrick in the night before as he awoke in the real world. That didn’t tend to happen. And sitting on a chair near him, Fredrick sat. Usually they had to find each other. But here he was. He was already awake and when Pericles came to life in this dimension there was a great sadness in his eyes as he turned to look at the bird.

“Fredrick? You’re already up? You’re here… How did you know where I was going to wake up?”

“You never left…” There was a somber tone to his voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The curse has claimed you… That… Thing has made you another one of his puppets, just like me… You’re trapped here… I’m sorry, but you can’t say that I didn’t warn and try to stop you…”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. When you woke up in the real world today, you just stayed here… You’ve always vanished before. But not this time. Some part of you was left behind last night… Your waking self isn’t getting it back… I’m really sorry…” His voice was so weak when he said those last words...

“But this isn’t real.”

“Did something feel off about you today?”

The bird tilted his head in curiosity.

“You almost don’t recognize it at first. At least that’s what I experienced. You just feel a little off. You say or do some things that you wouldn’t expect out of yourself. You start thinking a little differently and after a while, it feels normal. But when you come back here, you can feel a difference. There’s just a little bit of emptiness in your waking self’s heart that isn’t felt nearly as strongly here. No one told me this, mind you. I had to figure it out on my own. Something must’ve felt off about you today. For me it was being rude and doing things that I never thought that I could ever be talked into doing… And I would just do them on a whim.”

Pericles’ eyes flicked to the floor. Fredrick was right. Something had felt off about him today. He spoke more frankly and cruelty to his friends than he usually did. And for some reason he wasn’t looking at them the same way that he had been for years. He didn’t understand it, but he was seeing his friends in shades that only highlighted their flaws. He chalked it up to him not getting enough sleep the night before and being tired. But maybe Fredrick was right.

“When you wake up as your other self, focus on what that missing part is. I wasn’t able to prove that this was all real before but now… You’ll feel that emptiness… I’m sorry that I pulled you into this…”

-

That next day, Pericles did feel a difference within himself, though he was having a hard time putting his feathers on exactly what it was. But soon that fell to the wayside as a new mystery had fallen into their lap. Something had been sulking around down in the Crystal Cove caves and that night, it was an easy job of capturing it and sending him off to the police for processing.

Mystery Incorporated were chatting, laughing as they wandered the caves, knowing a shortcut home through them, still basking in the glow of their victory. For his part Pericles was quiet as he sat perched on Ricky’s shoulder. He was feeling troubled. However their celebration was cut short when they heard a rasping laugh echo around them.

The group all froze in their places as they looked around them for the source of the noise, except for Pericles who took flight to get a better view of the caves around them. Suddenly the darkness around them felt oppressive and the light from their flashlights too dim. They had solved the mystery. Right? They thought that they were in the clear that there was no more danger. What they didn’t realize was that someone had been watching them go about their usual routine with intense interest, waiting for them to let down their guards.

“Long have I been watching you. Since that first day down in the pews.

The lost treasure of Crystal Cove, Into its tale you foolishly dove.

As you’ve ignored that kindly verse Warning you of the treasure’s curse,

You must cease your searching now, Or your life will end. Of this I vow.

I’m here before you to make you see, That the next Freak you’ll face is me.”

The voice seemed to be coming from all around them as they continued to shine their flashlights into the dark to catch a glimpse of whatever this thing in here with them was. Brad put an arm in front of Judy to protect her, not realizing that she had already turned to watch his back. Ricky for his part shrank behind Cassidy, grabbing her arm, ready to start pulling her away at the first sign of danger while she stood firm, unafraid. Pericles was still fluttering in the air in between the two couples.

“Who are you!?” Cassidy demanded, taking a step towards the darkness. “Show yourself!”

They heard a shuffle of feet and rocks clattering as they came loose under some kind of weight. Before something heavy landed in front of them.

The group shined their lights on a thing that could only be called a monster. It was so much like Cassidy’s drawings, only horrifyingly come to life. A cruel smile spread its way across its broken mouth, leaking into its crooked eyes.

“Who… What are you?!” A shaking Ricky asked from behind Cassidy, his grip on her arm growing tighter as his worry for his friends grew.

It let out a rough, heaving laugh. “No name.” It's movements were unnatural and jerking. “You!” The thing pointed at Brad with a long, gnarled fingernail.

Brad looked concerned. “Me?” he asked in a rather alarmed tone.

The creature nodded. “Called me, ‘Freak.’”

“Oh! Uh… Sorry about that! But I didn’t actually know that you were… Real...”

It let out a chuckle that could easily be mistaken for a cough. “‘Freak.’ Sounds good. I like.” The Freak took a sliding step closer to them. “I am the Freak of Crystal Cove. Leave. Stop searching for the treasure.”

“The treasure?”

The not quite human-looking creature nodded. “You.” It looked at them all evenly. “Not ready for the curse.” It shook its head. “Stop. You still can.”

However if anything, that made the group want to dig their heels in even more, and it showed clearly in their manner.

“No listen? Fine. I protect treasure. Treasure is mine . You will regret. I watch. Always. See you soon.” The last sentence was said in an almost sweet kind of tone.

The group only had a second to react before the Freak darted between them, taking them by surprise. Cassidy tried to come at the monster, but Ricky pulled her back, and while Brad and Judy both went in to grab it, they missed.

All of them falling to the ground, they looked at eachother, shadows thrown across their faces.

“What was that?” Ricky asked with a shaking voice.

“... The Freak…” Cassidy let out a resigned sigh pulling her knees closer to her.

“Hah! I told you that he was real!” Brad couldn’t help but to burst out, just making Cassidy shake her head.

“Alright, Brad. You were right… I was wrong… That thing…” Cassidy trailed off as the others looked at each other in the silence.

It was Judy who broke it. “Where’s Professor Pericles?”