#between crying and feeling like throwing up and pretending i was an injured soldier bleeding out on the battlefield ofc

[genderqueeradrien]

im watching the new try guys period cramps video rn and its so funny to me . rachel just chilling while zach is writhing in pain LIke yeah u kinda just learn 2 live like that. also "imagine dealing witg this at work and then getting paid less" made me lose it

[annewritesfic]

Happy Endings Don’t Exist

y’all i’m so attached to this au-

anyways! based on chapter 58 of cress by marissa meyer!

tw: discussion of blood, violence, chess has a pretty gorey nightmare in the first section (you can skip the first few paragraphs and pick up at “Chess opened her eyes with a gasp” to miss it), blades, pain medication, mention of attempted murder/murder, hallucinations

word count: 2275

In Chess's dreams, she was being chased by a wolf.

She was running through a field of crops with thick mud that sucked at her shoes, fog soaking her jacket and leggings, her lungs burning and her eyes stinging and her heart thundering. Dry leaves crunched underfoot, quickly being swallowed by the mud, and something in the back of her head dimly registered that she was being chased through the sugar beet fields on the Benoit farm back home. Even as she thought it, something began to glow in the distance - the lights of a farmhouse. Her house. The house she’d grown up in, the house that had always been safe and warm. If she could just make it to the farmhouse, then everything would be okay.

But no matter how hard and fast Chess ran, the farmhouse didn’t get closer. It almost seemed that for every step she took, the farmhouse was three steps farther away. She might’ve been running for hours or days or months or years, but the farmhouse got no closer. Eventually, the fog closed in and swallowed the farmhouse, the warm glow blinking out of existence.

She tripped, landing on her hands and knees with a shout of pain, mud sticking to her clothes and caking her braid. The damp wetness soaked into her bones, making them ache from the cold. She looked up, and just a few feet away was the wolf, crouched low to the ground, eyes flashing with hunger and anger. Her hands desperately searched for a weapon on the ground, something, anything, as the wolf got closer, and closer, and closer…

There. Something smooth and hard under her fingers. It was surprisingly easy to yank from the mud. She barely had time to look at it, to register the blade glistening in the moonlight under the layer of mud, the sanded wooden handle - an axe - before the wolf leaped in the air, jaws unhinged, sharp teeth reflecting in the axe blade. Chess lifted the axe reflectively, bracing herself, just moments before the wolf would’ve landed on her chest and ripped her to shreds.

The axe cut clean through the wolf, slicing it in two pieces from snout to tail. Its blood splashed all over Chess’s face and chest, and she heard twin thumps as the two halves fell on either side of her head. A choking sob fought its way up her throat, and she pressed a hand to her mouth, sure she was going to throw up.

Then the two halves of the wolf began to move, shifting beside her into two human-like shapes, each wearing half of the pelt. The fog began to clear as two hands reached towards her, and Chess stifled a cry - her grandmother and Cairo, welcoming her home.

Chess opened her eyes with a gasp.

Instead of her grandmother’s old military jacket and Cairo’s shining eyes, all she saw were steel bars. The air was filled with the scent of ferns and moss. The chatter of birds was so overwhelming she almost covered her ears.

A soft yip came from somewhere to the side, sounding concerned - the white wolf. Chess rolled over to look at him - on the other side of the pathway, the wolf sat, watching her. He tilted his head a little bit, and it struck her how much he almost seemed like the neighbors’ dogs back home.

Home…

It wasn’t the first time she thought it, but Chess was still shocked by the near-physical pain in her chest, the longing for the rolling fields and blue skies and familiar faces. She wanted to go home.

“He likes you,” said a voice.

Chess inhaled sharply and sat up, eyes searching wildly for the source of the voice. A girl about her age was sitting in her cage, hands folded in her lap, watching her curiously, close enough to touch. Chess tried to move away, but pain shot through her hand, and she fell back to the ground with a hiss of pain. Her hand was wrapped in bandages, but her pinky was the worst of it - during her trial, Levana had forced her hand to pick up a hatchet and use it on the pinky finger of her other hand, taking it off at the second knuckle. The pain had been bad enough that she’d wished to pass out, although she hadn’t. But while that was the worst of her pain now, it wasn’t all of it - there were scratches and cuts and bruises all over her entire body, some from the scuffle on the satellite and some from that awful Lunar boy she’d stayed with for several days and most of the aches from sleeping on hard floors for more nights than she could count.

The strange girl didn’t react to Chess’s fear. She sat quietly against the wall, her back straight, looking interested and curious. She clearly wasn’t another prisoner - she wore a pale pink dress that looked out of place against the dark regolith Chess’s cage was carved from. Her honey-brown hair tumbled around her shoulders in healthy, shiny curls, half of it tied up in a ponytail. Her eyes were a pale blue, sparkling with excitement, and Chess realized that her left eye had three scars below it, cutting in straight, parallel lines down her cheek - almost like perpetual tear tracks.

She was the most beautiful person Chess had ever seen.

And it was that beauty that made Chess realize she was wearing another glamour - another trick.

“Ryu and I were wondering if that was a very good dream or a very bad one?” the girl asked in a sweet voice. “You were mumbling to yourself quite a lot.”

Chess pushed away the lingering memory of the dream, the image of Cairo and her grandmother smiling at her. “Who the hell are you? And-and who’s Ryu?”

The girl smiled. “Ryu is the wolf, silly!” She turned to look at the wolf across the path. “Haven’t you been neighbors for four months now? Ryu, why haven’t you introduced yourself?”

The wolf blinked big yellow eyes at her.

The girl looked back at Chess and leaned forward, like she was sharing a big secret. “And I am your new best friend. But you mustn't tell anyone, because all the guards think that I am your master and you are my pet - they don’t know that my pets are my dearest friends of all! We will fool all of them, you and I.”

Chess struggled to comprehend what the girl was saying. None of it made sense, or answered Chess’s question.

The girl reached for a basket beside her that Chess hadn’t noticed before. It seemed like a picnic basket, lined with some soft, silvery material. “I thought that today, we could perhaps play doctor and patient! I’ll be the doctor, of course. You seem in need of some care.”

Chess sat up and pressed herself against the opposite wall. “You’re not a doctor.”

“I know. That’s why it’s pretend.” The girl smiled wider. “Aren’t you having fun?”

“No, actually, I’m really not.” Chess’s fingers pressed against the rough stone floor. “I’ve been mentally and physically tortured, I’m starving, I’m thirsty, I’m locked up in a cage in a goddamn zoo-”

“Menagerie.”

“-and I’m hurting in a thousand different places. And now some crazy girl comes in here and wants to play make-believe? Like we’re best friends or some shit?” Chess scoffed. “I’m good. Go away.”

The girl sighed and leaned her chin on her hand, resting her elbow on her knee. “You shouldn’t call me crazy. The guards don’t like that. Even though it’s true.”

Neither of them broke the silence for a moment.

“I know it’s true. You want to know how I know?” The girl leaned forward again. “The palace walls have been bleeding for years, but I am the only one who sees.”

More silence.

“No one believes me, no matter how many times I say it,” the girl continued. “Sometimes I can’t help but step in it, and then I track bloody footprints everywhere, and I worry that perhaps a wolf soldier will smell it and come for me. But if the blood was real, don’t you think the palace maids would clean it up?”

Chess tried and failed to think of an answer.

The girl pulled a small box wrapped in ribbon. “These are for you. Doctor’s orders are to take one pill twice a day.” She handed Chess the box with a wink. “It isn’t real medicine, of course. It’s just candy. Sour apple petites - they’re my favorite.”

“I’m not eating one of those.”

“Why not? It’s a gift.” The girl opened the box and held it out to Chess - four small, round red candies, shiny and smooth. Chess didn’t move, and after a moment, the girl set the open box down on the floor between them.

“What do you want from me?” Chess asked.

“I want to be friends.”

“A friendship based on lies?” Chess laughed sharply, humorlessly. “Of course you don’t mind that. You’re Lunar. Lying is all you know how to do.”

The girl looked at her lap. “I’ve only ever had two friends - two human friends. One became a pile of girl-shaped ashes when we were very little, and the other has gone missing. I don’t know if he’ll ever return.” She shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut. “But I asked the stars to send me a sign that he was all right, and the next day was a trial like any other trial, except standing before me was an Earthen girl who’d seen him.”

“Can you make sense? Please?”

The girl leaned forward, closer than she had before, close enough that Chess could almost feel her breath across her face. “Is he all right? Sybil said he was still alive, that he probably was supposed to be piloting that ship, but she didn’t say whether he’d been injured. Do you think he’s safe?”

“Who?”

The girl smiled again, almost wistfully. “Clark Winslett. Sybil’s guard. The man with the blond hair and the kind eyes and the smile that holds the sun. Is he all right?”

Chess blinked, baffled. She didn’t remember much from the fight on the Rampion, and what few memories she did have were blurry. But while her focus had been mostly on the thaumaturge, she did faintly remember a blond guard.

But the smile that holds the sun? Bullshit.

“I remember two people that tried to kill us,” she muttered.

“And he was one of them?” the girl pressed, seemingly unconcerned with the killing part.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The girl smiled gleefully. “Did he look okay?”

“He looked like he was trying to kill me,” Chess said. “But I bet my friends killed him first. That’s our typical procedure for people who work for your queen.”

The girl’s smile vanished. “You’re lying.”

“Nope. And he deserved it.”

The girl began to shake, almost hyperventilating. The wolf - Ryu - pawed at the bars of his enclosure, whimpering. Chess tamped down her guilt and told herself she wouldn’t call for the guard’s help.

The girl got her breathing under control and sat up, her hand resting on her basket. “I see. Well, I-I should go.” She moved as if to stand, but then stopped. “I wasn’t lying about the bleeding walls. Soon, the palace will be so soaked with blood that Artemisia Lake will be so red, even Earthens will see it.”

“I don’t care,” Chess said. “And I’m not going to feel sorry for you. Your glamours and your mind control - you people have built your entire civilization around those lies, and I don’t want anything to do with it.”

The girl crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Chess, but said nothing for almost a minute. Chess lifted her chin and looked the girl in the eye, refusing to be afraid.

“I haven’t used my glamour since I was twelve years old,” the girl said at last. “That’s why I have these visions. Why I’m going mad.”

Chess didn’t show her surprise as the steel bars of the cage opened and the girl ducked out, taking her basket but leaving the candy. “Your Highness,” said the guard as he closed and relocked the cage door.

Chess listened to the footprints retreat down the path, staring at the candies, her heart thundering in her ears.

Your Highness.

Princess Annleigh.

The queen’s stepdaughter.

Annleigh was rumored to be more beautiful than Levana herself - which was why the queen had given her those scars. Even Earth knew about her, about her unspeakable beauty, about her scars… though Chess had never heard about the girl going mad.

The candies lay in front of her still, tempting her. Chess had no reason to trust her, but she’d finished her one small meal hours ago, and she wouldn’t be fed until the next day. Her stomach began to ache, and her head spun, and while she was proud of how long she made it, eventually she reached for the box and lifted one of the candies from the shreds of paper it was nestled in. It was smooth as glass between her teeth and cracked easily, the warm, melty center sweet and sour on her tongue. Nothing, nothing, had ever tasted so good.

But it was nothing compared to the sensation that expanded through her chest, down to her legs and into her fingers. A feeling of warmth, of comfort, that took her pain away with it.

Chess managed a smile up at the glass ceiling, at the stars beyond it. Perhaps the princess wasn’t so cruel after all.

[smellerbeesting]

plot drop 2 - open town hall meeting

“everything said today will be taken into consideration when i begin to develop our plans for transformation.”

yeah, not likely.

oh the poor soldiers who had to burn down homes and watch children cry over dead parents. oh the poor fire nation villages that didn’t get to see their fire lord come and visit. the pitiful lives they had to lead as they stood by and let the world burn down feeling helpless. it was no surprise it was an earth kingdom boy-- one she didn’t recognize but she was going to have to remember-- teo found a stash of hidden information. if only she could have gotten into the palace walls to find out what other secrets were hidden there. her fingers twitched in her gloves and she wished she had her swords on her back.

obviously the guard wouldn’t let her in carrying three weapons. they didn’t know about the one hidden in her chest plate. for her own protection. it wouldn’t exactly take out a fire bender from across the room, but if she was attacked, she was going to go down with a weapon in her hand.

smellerbee desperately wished for the easy air with which jet carried himself through rooms. people turned to look at him, captured by the way he walked and talked and the stupid stalk he liked to keep between his teeth. when she put her hand down hard on the podium, people had to turn to look at her, startled someone was there at all.

“i represent the freedom fighters, a civilian militia group that defended lands from the fire nation, and protected innocent people during the war. i saw the exact kinds of crimes the fire lord’s council was hiding.” rage was bubbling up in her chest, the memories, the images, and she clenched her hands until the familiar fabric of her dingy gloves reminded her to exhale. if she started screaming now, they’d throw her out before she so much as got two words in.

“if the fire nation intends at all to make reparations to the people it has slaughtered, injured, used, and imprisoned then the entirety of the council needs to be eliminated.and that includes the fire lord.” eliminated was an intentional word. they leave the council one way or another. smellerbee’s eyes shot to zuko and she hoped that even through the black warpaint under them he could see that she hated him. “no person who has committed a crime against the earth kingdom, and for that matter the water tribes either, should be making decisions about how to somehow make it better. your words mean nothing to the people of the earth kingdom when they come from the mouths of conquerors and liars.”

“i met the fire lord before he became the fire lord. then he was just a prince, no, not even a prince. he told us his name was lee. he was sneaking into ba sing se as an earth kingdom refugee, taking advantage of the kindness offered for people who had lost homes to his people, his actions. prince zuko destroyed villages, destroyed incomes, he left people bleeding and dying. and he has the--” smellerbee paused, inhaling again. she didn’t realize she had been getting louder until her voice choked. she composed herself again and flexed her hands. “he came into ba sing se pretending to be someone he wasn’t. he took a job that could have gone to someone in need. he lied to the police force when questioned about his heritage. he let a man be sent to jail for standing up to him when he was right to be accused of being a fire bender. and despite all the kindness the city showed him and the general, his uncle iroh, who tried once to conquer it, he was nothing but a spy sent there to help his sister overthrow the king, take the city from the inside out, and kill the avatar. our so called last hope for peace.”

the sneer on her mouth was involuntary as she finally looked away from zuko and crossed her arms over her chest. “the only reason he sits on the throne is because he had the avatar beat his father, and he had his sister thrown into jail. his actions have not proven he has remorse for what he did to the other nations of the world. this change he claims to have gone through is at the expense of earth kingdom blood. he is covered in it. that doesn’t make him any different than ozai or azula. it doesn’t mean he won’t turn on the nations again as soon as the avatar turns his back. fire lord zuko will just keep kicking change down the road and claiming it’s because he’s young and he needs time. and before we know it, it’ll be another hundred years and the colonies will still be there and the fire nation will just keep expanding their land and pretending they deserve any place in the earth kingdom.” jet would have been proud of that. he loved theatrics. smellerbee was never much good at them. jet also would have finished by taking the knife out of its hiding place and throwing it across the table between lee’s zuko’s eyes and hoping it hit its mark before anyone noticed. but she wasn’t jet. she wasn’t trying to be jet. not right now, anyway. she was trying to be smellerbee and lead the freedom fighters her way. it just so happened that what she wanted now was for no member of the old royal family to be on the throne, and jet would have done the same thing.

“that’s my piece.” she threw the words over her shoulder as she left the podium with a flick of her wrist, feeling much more confident in her walk and the fact that people seemed to notice her now, even without the stupid grass between her lips.

[sinkingcanoe]

Stand Without Flinching

Summary: “She's my princess, and my friend,” Pidge replied, unsteady but certain. Unprepared but vicious. “You can't have her.”

“She is nothing to you!” Lotor shouted, fists clenched. He stayed in motion, pacing half-circles that came ever closer.

“She's my family. That's everything to me.”

Warnings: Major character injury, minor character death, semi-graphic (mostly suggestive) description of injury and death 

Pairings: Gen, Allura and Pidge/Katie Holt, Pidge and paladins 

Characters: Pidge/Katie Holt, Lotor, Shiro, Allura, Lance, all the other mains appear briefly

Complete, chapter 1/1, wordcount: 1403

On AO3

Pidge panted, humid air clogging in her screaming lungs. Her hands shook, her legs threatened to collapse. It would be… so easy to give up.

She’d done so much; she’d been fighting so long. Surely it wasn't dishonorable to stop now. Surely she'd done her duty. She could stop.

Pidge growled, clenching her jaw. “Get out of my head.”

Lotor smiled, charming if not for the blood coating his too-sharp teeth. “Let go, little paladin. You can rest now.”

“I'm not going to give up,” she insisted.

Pidge could hear Allura’s faint, gurgling breathing; punctured lungs and a multitude of small injuries kept her pinned to the floor, helpless.

Shiro was banging on the door, shouting and screaming like the sound would make him strong enough to do the impossible. Even his arm wasn't getting through that barrier, apparently.

The rest of her team crackled in her ear, reassurances and promises of aid even as they fought for their own lives.

They made her strong. Pidge wasn't fighting for her own life--she was fighting for theirs.

“So determined to protect,” Lotor whispered, creeping closer in a drifting pattern. “But you can't save everyone.”

As if on cue, Hunk whimpered over the comm., and Keith shouted for him.

“I can try,” Pidge replied, never taking her eyes off the threat. “Hang in there, Hunk.”

“The choice is simple, little paladin. The princess… or your family.”

A hologram activated with a wave of Lotor’s hand. There, in chains, was her father. He looked so tired; worn down and aged a few centuries by over a year of imprisonment and slavery. Manual labor hadn't been kind to Mr. Holt.

Pidge jerked her gaze away from the image, back to Lotor. He'd advanced a few steps in her distraction, but she raised her bayard higher and balanced her weight. It was harder to breathe, harder to focus. Her mind was spinning out in a wild tangle of Dad, Dad, so close, Dad...

“Choose,” Lotor said, his voice slimy and cold.

“N-no,” Pidge wheezed, “no.”

“Why is this hard?” her enemy cajoled. “This is your family; your father. What is she compared to that?”

“No.”

“She's a princess of a planet that doesn't exist and a people that were destroyed ten thousand years ago! She's a relic of the past, an unnecessary annoyance!” Lotor swung wildly from rage to pleading, “Give her to me, and your father can go free.”

Tendrils of his influence plucked at Pidge's mind--they insisted that his command was perfectly reasonable, was in fact in her best interest. Why shouldn’t she listen to him? Allura was nothing to her.

Pidge back up a step, keeping her body between the snake-like prince and Allura’s prone form.

“She's my princess, and my friend,” Pidge replied, unsteady but certain. Unprepared but vicious. “You can't have her. ”

“She is nothing to you!” Lotor shouted, fists clenched. He stayed in motion, pacing half-circles that came ever closer.

“She's my family. That's everything to me.”

“Why,” Lotor cried out in frustration, quintessence crackling off his skin, “won't you just give up?”

Pidge smirked. “Why do you need me to? Big, bad galra prince can't handle one injured paladin?”

“Pidge!” Shiro begged in her ear, barely audible over the pounding of his fists on the reinforced door. It echoed through the room Pidge and the princess were trapped in, a cacophony of panic. “Pidge, run!”

Pidge ignored the way Shiro’s adrenalin, Hunk’s pain, and Keith's exhaustion pulled at her through the paladin bond--Lance alone was a source of steadiness.

She could feel him like a phantom limb, an extra body that was hers but not-hers, lying on a rooftop with regular breathing and merciless intent.

Pidge reached into the paladin bond, asked for strength, and despite their struggle all four of her partners shared theirs. Keith gave her his ferocity, Hunk his ability to push through toxic fear. Lance lent her the calm, careful beat of his heart, evening out her own so she could think.

Shiro shoved at her the only thing keeping him going: the will to live, despite the odds, and the determination to not let these bastards win.

If you can't run, they told her, fight.

The paladins’ mental bond helped her throw off the lingering magic, and she was ready.

Pidge didn't wait for Lotor to craft a reply; she made the first move.

Pidge swiped her bayard at him twice before his reflexes kicked in-- thanks, Keith --and when he went to blast her in return Lotor hit empty air. Every move he made, Pidge was one step ahead.

The real challenge was keeping him away from the princess. Relentless defense had gotten them cornered in the first place, but Pidge couldn't leave Allura vulnerable.

Hold out and hope for rescue, or go on offense and hope to win? Pidge wasn't the best at stand-and-fight combat. Her bayard and her skills were suited to evasion and sabotage, not going head to head with an angry druid.

Still, she had no time left to stall.

Pidge committed to offense.

Instead of fleeing every attack, Pidge deflected and responded, trapping Lotor with his own momentum and shortsightedness. Even teleportation could be predicted, if the target was predictable, and as long as he was focused on Pidge he wasn't focused on Allura.

She stopped telling herself she was buying time, stopped telling herself just hold out a little longer. She had to fight to win.

And because Pidge was relentless, and vicious, and stubborn, she did.

Because Pidge would do anything for her family, she did.

Lotor choked to death on his own blood while Pidge opened the door for Shiro, and by the time Keith and Lance arrived, supporting Hunk together, his eyes had glazed over and his fingers had stopped twitching.

Shiro was the least injured, and with Pidge's help he got Allura in a careful hold, trying not to disturb her ribs.

Allura was incoherent at best, drifting in and out with unfocused eyes and pained sounds. She called for Pidge, panicked, and Pidge fell back from her front guard position to hold Allura’s hand and reassure her until she faded out again.

All of the paladins were worried, and despite his broken leg even Hunk straightened up as best he could, alert for danger. Coran guided them out from the helm of the Castle, directing them around the remaining soldiers on board based on Pidge's ongoing scans.

At that moment, Pidge couldn't care less about the scans, about the troop and supply counts, even about the prisoner ID logs. Allura was dying in Shiro’s arms. All that mattered was getting her to a healing pod.

The retreat faded away from Pidge in flickers of time, parts of the process crystal clear and others just gone. She felt like she should be falling apart, but there was fresh blood on her bayard and her hands were steady.

Pidge watched Coran hustle around, carefully removing the knife in Allura’s side despite her scream. They had left it still staunching the bleeding until aid was available. Shiro was opening several pods, Keith was stripping Hunk’s leg armor off while he gritted his teeth in pain.

Pidge only really came back to herself when Lance started trying to stuff her in a pod, too.

“Wha--no, stop! Allura, I need to-”

“Allura is gonna be fine, and so is Hunk,” Lance soothed, hoping he was telling the truth. “You need to heal up too, Pidgey. I can feel those burns, buddy.”

“No, I have to-”

“Pidge.” She looked up at Shiro where he was resting against an empty pod, black and white armor coated in Allura’s blood. “Please get in the healing pod. We'll keep her safe while you rest.”

Pidge hesitated, so exhausted she would cry if there was any water left in her body. “Promise?”

Shiro looked back at her, unwavering. “I promise. She's our princess, too.”

Pidge nodded and let Lance help her into a pod.

Coran was adjusting settings on the pods while Keith tried to pretend he had totally escaped repeated close combat completely unscathed. Lance was already eyeing him up as the next target for medical attention. Allura was in the pod right next to her, Hunk on the princess's far side. Shiro was handling things.

And finally Pidge could rest.

Her family, best she could manage, was safe.