#blended with original fiction

[axl-ul]

The Flight of the Western Crane: Chapter Nineteen

(A reupload/repost of my fic/dark retellingof Journey to the West which can be also found on AO3 under the same name)

(General info about this fic/wip/retelling is here)

****

The stars shone brightly. Their watchful gaze glided from stone to stone, from one den to another, even to the sturgeons and minnows that hailed from a great distance to pass the Tiger Leaping Gorge in order to meet the splattering waters of Yangtze. Where their everlasting light couldn’t reach, the wind did its job instead by checking the deep burrows. Under the soil’s thick green hair, rabbits came to run around. Frogs and toads made their way out of the waters and added to the charm with their ribbit - an idyllic scenery perfect for an artist to admire and to immortalise in his craft.

The valley’s lowland, a blessed child of Heaven and Earth’s union, offered peace and rest to anyone except one poor soul.

Wukong twitched and trembled several times that night. His dreams started with the humming of a waterfall which progressed into screams. Amber eyes like his own glared at him from the shadows surrounding him and yet when he followed them, they vanished. Instead of them, hands grabbed onto him like shackles. A person stood behind him and put something on his head. She hissed in his ear and the jungle around transformed into a palace chamber with a chaise. The air was filled with burning poppy seeds. Yawen was sitting atop of him while the chaise pressed into his back. Her slimy fingers crept into his hair. Her pretty face was beyond recognition - unnaturally angular and long with unblinking eyes that carried a horrifying mockery. She flickered her tongue before her lipless mouth drew nearer to peck his forehead. “Only a fool thinks they can escape Death or Fate. Are you a fool, Dasheng?“

He fell into the dark of the night. Momentarily, he came back to his senses to see Márgerdra laying on her back next to him, the sheets around a complete wreck. The sun hadn’t rosen yet. At first glance it seemed she was fully awake and observing the details of the ceiling above like those of a temple’s roof. Listening closer, the Monkey King discovered her lovely voice hummed something. At least so the macaque deducted in the dark. Their fingers, no matter how stiffened, remained inweaved. Not even Wukong’s unusually cold skin made her let go.

Wukong slowly blinked before his vision went blank. He woke up only when the sun’s first rays flew inside the bedchamber. His head must’ve slipped as his pillow sat beside, not to mention the thud still travelling through his skull.

The Lady Wolf Witch, combing her hair with one hand, turned. Remains of the night’s fleeting touch reflected within her gaze.

“Good morning. Hopefully, it’s not painful as well.“

“Morning. Did you…“ Wukong changed his mind at the last second,“You could’ve let go. The brushing’d be twice as fast.“

“It was the only option to calm you down. Just please, don’t yank those fingers.“

He shot a confused look. Following a long strand, he came to understand. When changing his position, Wukong’s right hand had entangled in blonde hair and had been grasping it since.

“Sometimes, there’s more than meets the eye. It’s not just the aesthetics. However, I can’t deny I’m proud of my mane.“

“Mar,“ Wukong’s hand moved from under the yellow veil. It gently directed Márgerdra’s face to meet his. Her expression seemed flat and disinterested. Only when they drew closer, he noticed her subtle delight but also sadness whenever he spoke the name. “Yesterday-“

“Don’t think about it. It wasn’t your fault. You’re safe now.“

The demon took a deep breath - there was almost no trace of her perfume, yet her smell was still lovely; he yearned to pull her into his arms and cradle and soothe her there,“Thank you for everything. For having my back. And that you allowed me to know you better.“

They laid in silence until the matrace beneath heated up again.

Márgerdra helped the monkey demon to adjust on his pillow. Her bloodied fingers left behind fingerprints on the white glaze but the witch quickly wiped them off. The headache came back. Fortunately, those were barely remains of what her restless mind would experience.

“Is your knee fine? Do you really dare to go and participate in the match?“

“And to make myself look like a coward? Blondie, it’s as good as new anyway.“

Arched over Wukong, her empty stare darted between him and the door shut behind her back.

“You truly see me as your friend?“

“Where does this come from? I don’t think I can follow.“

“Does our relationship have any value to you? Yes or no.“

“Of course, it does.“

“I misunderstood at first, then. It’ll be fine. A broken twig means nothing if the trunk with the roots lives further. Why fight something that’s already decided anyway?“ she whispered but continued before he had any chance to ask,“Wukong, promise me one thing. Whatever happens, you’ll follow your Master’s path. You’ll protect the boy just like you defended your tribe and the people around. The whole world. You are one of the Pilgrims. Together, you’ll travel to the Western Paradise and retrieve the scriptures. Even if it means to move on.“

“Mar, what are you-?“

“Promise it. Swear it. One day, you’ll understand.“

Wukong shot up on the bed, grabbing and pulling Márgerdra closer until her palms rested on his cheeks,“What if I want to know now? I’m no hero, if that’s what’s on your mind-“

“There’s too many of those. Just somebody who learnt what’s right. Somebody who doesn’t give up easily. Or forgets about the others. Buddha taught your Master and he taught you. Now it’s time to teach the rest.“ The breeze slithered down the shutters. It crawled above the floor until it hit the two with the freshness from the peak of the mountain while the birds gathered there to fly again, freely, unbound to meet the sun while their shadows nonexistent on the land far underneath.

The woman said before he had any chance to reply,“Let’s go. We better hurry up.“

****

The numerous banners wafted in the wind under the cloudless sky. Since the earliest of the morning the sun hadn’t given up on its strength. It already provided so much heat that the local folks waved around with fans as colourful as a peacock’s feathers or used the very fabric of their robes to cool down.

The courtyard needed only the last few touches to be fully prepared. Considering the size and the number of the guests, this strange organised chaos erupted. Tables were breaking under the amount of plates and bowls being brought. Mere fanning wasn’t enough, the servants had to use spells to repel the annoying insects. Despite the initial sulky mood, the servants, officials and nobles whose heads and bodies were covered not only in fine clothes and mesmerising jewellery but in antlers, trunks, fur, feathers and scales and even bones, too, or possessed a human skin of an intriguing texture and colour soon came to enjoy themselves. Even a young handmaiden with a glass-like skin paid no attention to the amazed monk.

“This is a real deal. What do ya reckon, Shifu?“ Bajie, chewing on an apple he’d grabbed from the glass servant passing by, whispered to the man in a light blue robe with a round collar as they passed by a group of female dancers rehearsing their opening number.

“It’s truly fascinating, to say the least, Wuneng,“ Sanzang casted a worried look at Wujing, who ran around asking about the purpose of the pillars and excitedly noted down in his journal the process of building the different stages,“To be fair, I’m quite nervous.“

“Shifu, don’t say you’ve got a stage fright. You’ve spoken in front of many crowds before!“

“But those were either prayers or lectures. Not poetry. And there certainly weren’t demons but humans,“ the young Buddhist halted, his gaze fell to the floor,“Wuneng, I didn’t mean it. It’s just that… I know we’re in great danger. I don’t want anything to happen to anyone.“

“Shifu,“ Bajie hugged him around the shoulders,“we, the yaoguai folk, are scary. Yeah, we for sure have strange customs and can be rougher sometimes. It’s natural for you to be worried. But we’re here, your disciples, fine?“

“You’re right. By the way, speaking of you all, where’s Lie and Wukong? It’s never good when they aren’t around, especially the latter one.“

“Afraid we’d cause trouble again?“ Two heads popped behind the monk. The monkey and the dragon horse were visibly in a great mood, bumping into each other like two little boys. Soon, Ol’ Sha jumped at them and hung on their necks causing them to playfully fight.

Once they calmed down, the monk used to their advantage that the group distanced itself to a far southern corner and continued in a hushed voice,“Disciples, we may not have enough time and trust me, I’d like to say more. But all of you taught me that even the big words can’t sometimes reveal what the mind and most importantly the heart yearns to say. Therefore, I’m grateful and honoured that Bodhisattva Guanyin elected you four to be my bodyguards, my companions, sometimes even teachers.“

The four disciples looked the monk up and down. Only when Sanzang started playing with his sleeves did they break the act. They launched at their master and made sure to squeeze him tightly altogether.

“Shifu, we’re just as glad to have you,“ Lie started.

“To be honest, you were annoying at first. Too strict for us.“

“Also we truly needed some time to adjust to the different schedule,“ Wujing added to Baje.

Lastly, the eldest disciple finished,“But you proved to be brave and kind in your heart. Now, let’s go. The Dragon’s hour approaches and you with Brother Lie shall perform.“

Lie grinned,“You’re saying this like your fight won’t be the cherry on top.“

The disciples briskly ran up to their places, yet the Master and the senior disciple remained.

As the monkey was about to turn to follow his three juniors, the monk tapped on the blue ornaments dancing on the striking golden silk. It made the young man think of the tapestries with the Tang Emperor and, admittedly, with the wide sleeves flowing around, the demon would easily blend in such scenery with his decisive posture. All that Wukong was missing was a crown with a pair of phoenix feathers. And yet, Sanzang could no longer associate such a possession with his beloved disciple, not until the monkey stopped carrying the untraditional calmness in his deep gaze.

“Wukong, I wanted to thank you personally. Yes, I’ve repeated myself that we ought not to be bound to earthly matters as they’re but a fleeting touch, a reflection of the stars on the pond’s surface. But as you once asked about my parents, about my…“ although it was only a buzz of a tiny bee flying past him, Sanzang thought fingers, rough due to the hardships of life but also as tender as only a mother could ever have, caressed his ruffled hair,“As your Shifu, I should be both your teacher and father, guiding you through the teachings to achieve understanding. However, it’s often the opposite - you taught me a lot as well. I’m sorry I judged you harshly.“ Sanzang caught himself at the last moment; his lips dried out while rethinking his words. “Thanks for everything.“

“No problem, Shifu,“ Wukong’s uplifted spirit shone through and through,“you can count on me the same way I count on you. The same goes for my brothers. We won’t ever let anyone hurt you. We’ll get to the Western Paradise and bring the sutras to enlighten everyone.“

“Yeah, exactly,“ the monk rubbed the side of his eye,“Anyway, where’s Her Highness and Lady Wolf Witch?“

“No idea. She said she’d get prepared with the princess. She really thinks they’ll get here before the start,“ the monkey snorted and put his hands on his hips.

“Wukong? Aren’t those two…?“

The Monkey King turned in the direction of the Tripitaka’s pointing finger. In front of the main entrance, two women walked out of the palace’s shadows and ascended the stairs tanning in the sun’s gold. Even from the great distance, the demon and his master recognised the hopping pattern of the smaller woman whose pomegranate skirt flailed around as if it were a cat’s tail. Two pearly hairpins peeped from her tied up hair, mimicking a pair of ears. Her waistcoat added to the impression of a tigress given the turmeric dye and rubies sewed on the shoulders in several rows of stripes. Even the petite woman’s voice ringing with heartfelt cheerfulness made her seem not childish but charmful, especially when her feet firmly landed on the last stair. Mei, at last, straightened her spine and with a subtly stuck out chin stepped out. “Hello there, gentlemen!“ she waved at them.

It took plenty of effort for Sanzang to stop staring. Listening to his instincts, Sanzang turned his head just to scowl at drooling Bajie. He bumped into Wukong, too, whose legs turned stiff and made the demon persist in his place, unknowingly mimicking his master.

Despite the monk’s effort, the disciple couldn’t tear his eyes off of the demoness.

Like any other day, Márgerdra outshined other women easily yet today was somewhat different. Elegance and grace radiated from her. The hidden passion burnt so much it became a perfect contrast to the cool colours of her blue scarf where gold bits shone like tiny tears. Her skirt waved whenever her slim legs in fine mauve slippers moved as if she floated through air. Although of a quite loose cut, the garment still did her curves justice whenever the breeze picked up as a moderate wind and outlined her figure.

“Are you alright? Don’t tell me you caught something. A flu perhaps? I told you to take the whole blanket for yourself!“ When neither of the men responded, Mei waved again and briskly pressed her palm against the monk’s forehead. Sanzang distanced himself but quickly assured both were as healthy as a fish.

Mei and Sanzang surely chirped like sparrows on a roof as they made their way towards the rest. However their protectors couldn’t follow without a moment of privacy.

Wukong bowed his head. “It really suits you.”

“You don’t look that bad either.“ Márgerdra squinted as she sized up Qitian Dasheng. Suddenly, he felt smaller than ever. It all went away the moment she spoke in a voice that could melt the coldest ice. “Let me fix your collar,“ the small wrinkles retracted as the she-wolf faintly smiled and ran her hand by his neck,“now you look perfect.“

“Careful there, I may outshine you any moment soon.“

“I’d love to see you try. Honestly, however, I can’t complain much.“

He cackled and offered his forearm. The demoness caressed it and let her arm settle there like a swallow,“What a gentleman. Anyway, the servants told us your match got delayed. You and the captain shall fight by the evening. I was thinking I may help you to get prepared. I guess it would be more believable than if I stayed in the crowd. Besides, I’m afraid that Yawen and Golden Wind may strike soon. I highly doubt they’re going to wait for the full moon.“

“What makes you think that?“

“I haven’t heard a word about her this whole morning. I guess I don’t need to remind you twice that she isn’t one of the quiet folks. No way she wouldn't make herself known. Am I allowed to make sure your armour won’t loosen upon the first strike, then?“

“You’d made your way there even if I told you no,“ the disciple whispered back,“Plus, I’m not sure whether I wanna risk anyone getting a black eye or broken ribs like myself in case they stand in your way.“

Márgerdra took the hint, yet acted as if having no clue. “Like who? The captain?“

“Perhaps. Maybe a few soldiers as well.“

“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing.“

Wukong threw his head back as he laughed at Márgerdra’s pretended innocence. 

At first, those were but foolish words echoing within the dead space of his mind. Alas, the Monkey King caught himself too late and replied out loud,“Quite the opposite. It’s that irresistible part of your charm.“

The Wolf Witch halted. Her eyes, so bright till that moment, lost their spark. Her teeth vanished behind her lips that formed a thin line as her nose wrinkled. She untangled their arms and continued forward keeping merely a former proximity. Neither she or the Monkey King uttered anything until they reached their seats.

****

The sun opened its eye to the fullest and blessed the earth beneath with the sacred light. Upon her arrival, Queen Shufen seemed to become the personification of that light. Her face was bright and clearer than the horizon. The phoenix crown’s gold, thousands of pearls, sapphires and rubies, the shining kingfisher feathers emphasised the unearthly look of the Immortality Crane whose blackest eyes were like soft velvet trying to hug the world and give it all the care she held within.

Musicians and dancers amazed the spectators as well. The sword dance left a trace of bliss behind. The colourful robes painted the air whenever they twirled around. Such a vibrant mix reminded of butterflies that visited the courtyard. Even the queen’s elephant was brought to perform with acrobats before standing next to her owner.

Shufen caressed the grey hide. “Look who finally showed up, Xiao Tao. Are you excited, my little girl?“ the queen gave her another apple and pointed to the young erhu player with white streaks in his hair. Immediately, the elephant threw her head back to trumpet.

Lie didn’t mind. Quite the opposite, he smirked upon seeing the majestic creature play with the queen’s crown during his number. Later, she directed her attention to the young captain who sat next to his aunt. It cost Lie a great effort not to burst into laughter when Xiao Tao tucked on the crane’s coat. Despite such a bold move, the captain himself smiled and scratched Xiao Tao on her trunk and let her rest it on his shoulder.

As he changed the upbeat tunes with more melancholic ones for the actors to finally join and introduce the story of a celestial bird meeting a dragon, the crowd calmed down and eagerly dived into the play with their interest. The story was longer than what the Pilgrims expected, yet they found themselves enjoying it. Márgerdra let the princess hide into her chest when the dragon showed up for the first time, scaring Mei with its long whiskers and flaming antlers despite being merely an impressive costume carried by half a dozen of skilled actors. Sha Seng briskly joined and soothed her along with the witch.

The play continued long into the late evening. At last, Ao Lie positioned himself next to the actors and welcomed the young monk. The disciple reassuringly squeezed his teacher’s shoulder. The Tripitaka felt the courage waking up inside although the sun had disappeared behind the bumpy horizon. It flared up even more when he saw all four disciples and even their companions from the Great Tiger Kingdom waving at him. Suddenly, the need to use the scribbles he made under Mei’s supervision left him disappeared. Instead, he turned to face the queen. His voice, at first a flock of cracks yet now a sound as nice to hear as the sandalwood to smell, spoke of high mountains, ravishing lowlands and the souls freed from pain that found happiness in the compassion their hearts treasured altogether. “Because the people are the world’s mirror as well for the ocean is too a myriad of droplets, each as significant as the other so as to nurture each other.“ A small pause and the monk started his last few verses not noticing the silent ruffle behind.

“I better get going,“ Wukong whispered once he noticed Jun standing up from his seat behind his master; he vanished behind a thick curtain that had to hide a stairway to the stage hosting the royal family,“See you soon.“ He nodded to the Wolf Witch, hoping she would eventually come to see him at the arsenal.

****

Márgerdra surely began to think she got lost in the vast space where the sole residents seemed to be the racks with spears, swords and bows. Soon she realised that in her hurry she passed by the corridor she was looking for. It was long yet the supporting pillars made Márgerdra hunch down after she accidently hit her forehead. As she scanned the corridor poorly lit with torches and the stone walls overgrown with mould and moss clumps, the witch doubted a mere human would find their way around the place. The air was heavy and moist, hard to breathe in. Hence her lungs significantly enlarged whenever she took a deep but calm inhale.

She didn’t mind the eerie space nor the noise of water dripping from the ceiling here and there. The arsenal was, after all, located under the courtyard and thus carved into the mountain itself. Yet, she couldn’t lose the feeling of not being alone. Still, she was certain nobody had followed her. Only when she walked to the crossroad did she stop. The main path was narrow and straight, the second one crooked like a worm. The woman was prepared to set out into the tight space ahead when somebody bumped into her.

Both stumbled down with grunts and curses. Márgerdra quickly got on her knees and started brushing off the dirt. Annoyed, she took a good look at whoever it was. Although the person had a hood, it was rather easy to conclude the identity due to the hunched stance and scrawny figure. After shuffling closer and seeing the brown eyes glowing with an amber hew, she was sure. “Wukong, are you crazy?! I’m no wooden dummy to train crazy stunts on!“

The demon drew closer, trapping Márgerdra between his body and the walls. She shivered when his wild look settled down on her - malicious, dangerous and filled with an unmatched curiosity. As if he were recalling something he passionately hated but couldn’t bury.

He dived into the curve of her neck. He sniffed deeply, sharply. The rough fingertips ran up and down her shoulder. He seemed not to realise that Márgerdra could hear his muttering. “You did not change a bit. The same ghostly woman that matched the cool forest all too well. I…scared you back then, didn’t I?“

She thought he already finished, then he snarled again. “How come that he was allowed to lie his head next to yours and be lulled like a newborn while I had to sleep in places where vermin dug into my skin and hair? A stranger bound to me yet should I forget the scriptures? My Shifu? My destiny?“ he growled,“I… He’s such a fool. But what else to expect? That coward could never bid farewell. One must forget to ascend.“ He brushed his lips, colder than that stone around, against her skin, still hugging her tightly despite his trembling hands.

The initial shock remelted into a letdown, then sheer anger from witnessing the gall.

While still in the hug, her hands shot up. Her claws dug into the back, tearing the cloak and shirt first, then mercilessly attacked the flesh.

The macaque hissed. Márgerdra couldn’t afford to hesitate further. Kicking him off of her, she sent herself back to her upright legs. Yet his tail slammed and put her back to her place.

Márgerdra’s vision went black.

Thankfully, she regained her senses, yet found herself to be alone. The only evidence of other presence was the hood she was clutching and an image of the demon before Márgerdra collided with the wall.

****

Finally, she reached her destination. Upon entering, the witch discovered there were four doors in the arsenal, an octagonal room of a moderate size inlaid with wood that was appropriately lit up with lamps. The first door was the one that she’d just used, two on the opposite walls that connected to other armouries and one the right which surely led outside to the courtyard. Looking around, the number of weapons and armour pieces wasn’t inherently great. Yet each impressed the witch with its simple though flawless iron and steel.

Wukong was standing in the centre. He’d already changed his robes for a tunic and much looser trousers. The boots he’d been previously wearing were now thrown under a bench since the monkey found the simple legwraps more suitable for his style.

Tying the last knot on the legwrap, the monkey turned around to greet the much awaited she-wolf who watched him from the entrance,“Blondie! What took you so long? I nearly started thinking you aren't coming. Anyway, could you handle that shoulder pad for me? The one on the right with a dragon head.“

Márgerdra let out a fume. She grabbed the shoulder pad and in less than four long steps stood in front of the Sage. Her movements when securing the straps were rough. By accident, she yanked the monkey’s fur, at which Wukong scowled,“Watch that!“

“I’ve tolerated your pranks too long. You better stop it immediately! You were scaring me! I almost thought you were after my neck again.“

“Blondie, listen, I don’t know what happened on your way here. I got no witnesses to have my back. But I’ve been here the entire time. Are you sure you didn’t meet a servant?“

“Wukong, I swear I know who I saw.“ The Wolf Witch took notice of him when he faced her. His eyebrows furrowed, eyes narrowed until a thin line remained while the demon tilted his head. He wasn’t lying, only equally confused. There was a question they didn’t need to pronounce out loud, but surely understood from each other,“If it weren’t you, then who?“

One of the doors slid open. Two guards followed the captain, whose garbs were similar to that of Wukong. The two opponents only differed in the colours they chose - Wukong stood tall in brown, yellow, red and black while Jun proudly kept to white, azure, purple and green.

Jun politely bowed to both before asking,“Prepared, Huang?“

“Like never before in my life, captain,“ Wukong nodded.

Just as the captain marched out to the courtyard, he changed his mind and turned on his heel. Facing the imp, the captain’s face relaxed as he bowed once more,“Keep this to yourself. But I want to apologise for the childish quarrel. You all were a great help.“

“What made you change your mind, captain?“

“I’ve never seen my aunt this excited or happy. Besides, I got my evidence on your… innocence. I also saw that you truly are a master of your craft. Please, let’s fight like opponents, like two fellows in martial arts, not enemies.“

Wukong bowed his entire upper body, then helped Jun to regain his stance with a broad smirk. “Aye, I guess that could be doable.“

Jun returned the friendliness, but he sheepishly retracted after looking behind the monkey. “I think you may want to talk to Miss Yaling. I’ll wait outside. Don’t take too long.“

Wukong let out a chuckle when the door behind the captain and his retinue shut tight.

“Oh man, have you seen his sour face? Priceless! I bet you secretly growled at him!“

Márgerdra took her time. Uttering nothing, she chose a pole that Wukong had prepared for himself on a rack and closed the distance between them. Shivers conquered her heart and soul but she brought herself to speak at last,“Say only one thing. That you’ll come back in one piece.“

“Blondie, am I not the Great Sage Equal to Heaven? The disciple of the Golden Cicada?“

Márgerdra’s voice trembled, yet not a single tear glistened in her eyes,“Please, promise that you’re coming back. Returning to your Shifu and brothers. Just like always.“

Wukong’s palm encircled the witch’s hand, the one grasping the pole. Uncertain about the idea at first, the demon then let his forehead rest against hers and replied,“I do, Mar.“

The two no longer hesitated. The witch threw herself around his neck and the disciple clutched his powerful arm around her back. Neither let go for a while, unsure whether breaking such a moment would shatter them both became equally fragile like the two old lion statues guarding the courtyard.

Márgerdra’s words marched out with Wukong, giving him hope and reassurance, although he caught a strange tint of alien sternness there,“Good luck, Qitian Dasheng.“

****

The silver threads of the full moon glided down onto the Jade Valley and the agitated guests in the courtyard. The moment they saw the tight knot with a crane hairpin, they all started cheering and welcoming the queen’s nephew. The leather scales on his armour were as white as snow, it made the crane look as if he shone in the evening’s gloom.

Jun stuck out his chest and bowed deeply to his aunt and then to the crowd as the drums picked up on the rhythm.

“Dearest guests!“ Shufen stood up in her seat and proudly began,“Once again I’m thanking you for your wishes. All the presents are lovely, yet two warm my heart the most. The first - the presence of my beloved nephew that never ceases to amaze me with his loyalty and capability. Since the sun has embraced this little boy, I knew he shall achieve great things. He’s been protecting me, this city, our whole kingdom. He’s fought against our enemies and traitors. One of which has impudently shown up right here, in our fortress!“

Simple whispers and speculations from the smug nobles and servants soon turned into an uproar when ten guards dragged chained Golden Wind Viper from the darkness of the palace. The muzzle kept the snake from spitting his venom just like the enchanted iron collar prevented his neck from elongating. Despite the precautions, the guards struggled to walk in a straight line as Golden Wind Viper was putting up a fight. He only stopped twitching when a cangue was put around his neck.

Golden Wind Viper no longer snarled. Scorn emitted from his very core when he cast gaze on Shufen. The fact that his spit landed right in front of him instead and splashed him didn’t take away his boldness as he exclaimed,“Your Majesty! How lovely to see you! It felt like ages I dare to say. I bet you must’ve been missing me. Has anyone replaced me as your general?“

In spite of his tone, his effort to gain attention went ignored. Shufen was far more calculated and chose an approach that made Golden Wind Viper turn even greener than what he already was from envy. “Captain of the Royal Guard kept to the promise. After being informed by the eldest of the Huang brothers, he heroically dived into the danger and arrested this scoundrel once and for all. At last, we may rest at peace. For everything that Captain Jun has done, I, Queen Shufen, a woman of my word, proudly announce that from this day on you shall be recognised as my general!“

The crowd applauded while Jun gracefully, yet with easily recognisable pride, bowed to show his gratitude towards the congratulations. Once he spotted the golden-haired woman walking up the stairs and reclaiming her seat, he grinned.

Yet, Márgerdra paid little attention to the man’s parade. She and Mei wondered,“Brother Monkey helped him, jiejie?“

“I’m confused, too, little plum. I don’t remember him mentioning a thing.“ Márgerdra lightly tapped on her chin. Something still made her come back in thoughts to the strange interaction she’d with Wukong. Neither her or the princess had enough space to think, however. The queen’s following statement took their breath away. Sandy and Lie’s jaws dropped as well. Bajie choked on his drink while Wukong almost stumbled back to the armoury.

“Master Huang Shui has helped us significantly with his whole family. Your intelligence, compassion and now the poem you wrote, such gentleness and affection towards everything living can’t be found anywhere else. With you, I realised my happiness. Although your family would like to venture forth towards their further research, I must ask one thing. A simple offer where our lives would seal our fates altogether. Not only do I promise you immortality coming from Golden Cicada’s flesh, Master Shui. Would you like to become my husband, too, and rule this country with me?”

Sanzang’s throat went dry. He felt as if the whole world was watching his every move.

He briskly stood from his seat below the queen’s throne. The Dragon Prince had to grab the monk under his armpit to prevent him from collapsing.

The young man’s lips opened and closed several times without uttering a single noise. He did not dare to guess the consequences if he rejected the proposal, although he didn’t find a single hint of malice. Yet, aware after countless Wukong’s warnings and lectures, the monk didn’t let his eyes be deceived by the first glance this time. What now seems to be a curiosity can easily turn into a vengeance from a broken heart.

The guests started whispering to one another when he gave no reply. Even Xiao Tao stumped her heavy foot as if the animal hoped for the noise to bring the man back to his senses.

Fortunately, it did. Even more, it gave Sanzang a bright idea. Although it didn’t solve the Pilgrim’s problem immediately, he managed to buy some time anyway. “Your Majesty, it was all lovely to meet you as well. Please, don’t doubt my manners due to my long answer. You see, the question came so suddenly. At first, this sounds like a simple question. Yet I am no simple man and I dare not to reveal my decision right away. My beloved brother is about to fight your nephew, Your Majesty. Hence I suggest we let them fight first as the great news could affect their thinking, judgement and so their decisions within the match! Please, let this fight be fair not for their own sake, not ours.“

His dance around the words seemed to have worked as Shufen nodded,“Master Shui, I expected no less from you. Your reasoning provides a sober mind to where my heart sings. Of course, as you wish.“ She deliberately waved her hand at the drummers to resume their rhythm. “General Jun of the Azure Crane Dynasty. Master Huang Wei. May the skill of each decide tonight, not the luck,“ Shufen sternly let out and lifted her palms to face the starry sky.

Meanwhile Jun and Wukong bowed to one another for the last time, effortlessly ignoring Golden Wind Viper’s cackle in the background.

The Azure Crane General unsheathed his sword and rose the ringing steel above his head.

The Monkey King responded by lowering himself till his front calf became parallel with the ground. The tip pointed at the opponent.

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Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added): @vanessaroades-author @morganmaietto @aohendo @rbbess110 @jgmartin @outpost51

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List of chapters:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Epilogue

[fictionadventurer]

A Biltmore Christmas may be the first Hallmark movie to drive me to fanfic.

[k--havok]

Working on Rane and Korzan again since me and my partner finally had time to and we just hit 50 pages!!

Honestly I thought this story would be a lot shorter than it is but I love my flowy descriptions and going into detail about magic and alchemy wayyy too much.

Luckily we aren't planning on selling the story or anything since its basically fanfic of an existing property (dungeons & dragons) even though 85% of it is my own canon and world building.

I'll probably post it online to AO3 at most... and maybe tumblr? We'll see.

[danielpowell]

Had this incredibly bizarre dream that I hope becomes a series because... wow. But the most striking part was the 'main character' of it joined this filmed household and was required to play a video game to assess their personality for the project and they died almost immediately (in a brutal fashion)

And they turned to the group to say "what was the reason behind the scream ?"

No one screamed.

[s0dium]

𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑!!!

𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫!𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐮 𝐱 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d find out that your crush, Geto Suguru, was just like you: a murderer. Not only that but you share the same passion; killing criminals and pedophiles! (Happy Kinktober) 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: DARK CONTENT, gore, mutilation, murder, mentions of pedophiles (y/n kills them), serial killing, unprotected sex, breeding, choking, teasing, knife play, whipped Suguru 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 10.3k 𝐀/𝐧: This is based HEAVILY on the novel Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver. The original idea is credited to Brynne Weaver ONLY. This work is fan fiction and is not intended for commercial purposes or to infringe on the intellectual property rights of the original author.

Being a serial killer who kills other killers, pedophiles, and rapists is a great hobby.

Until you find yourself locked in a cage.

For three days.

No AC.

With a body you carved up.

You glare at the fly-riddled corpse whose legs are kneeling opposite of you in the locked cage you were both trapped in. The air is thick with the putrid stench of decay, a relentless assault on your senses. The body's skin is pallid, marred by the writhing mass of white maggots that feast mercilessly. Where eyes once held gaze, now only hollow sockets remain, tediously scooped out and vacant. The ears too have been sheared off, leaving clean edges that blend into the mottled, blood-stained flesh. Its chest has been cracked open; ribs pried apart in a macabre mimicry of an unhinged broken cocoon, revealing the dark, empty cavity where a heart once beat.

Then, of course, the piste de resistance of your work, the removed eyes, ears, and heart rest in the corpse's upturned palms—placed with ceremonial care amidst the chaos of mutilation.

So now, if anyone were to walk down the steps of Gary Green House's basement, they would not only find his mutilated body, but the person who did it, trapped in a cage together.

"Fuck." You curse at yourself for the millionth time since you've been trapped here for the last three days. The cold realization that you've fallen into Gary’s final trap gnaws at your mind as relentlessly as the maggots at the corpse across from you. The cage, a cruel relic of Gary’s twisted pleasures, had seemed the perfect place for your ritual—turning the hunter into the hunted in his own den of horrors. But in your fervor to see him pay, you overlooked one crucial detail: the cage's sinister design, which sealed shut the moment its door swung closed.

The remote control, now a mocking symbol of freedom, lies just beyond the bars, on a small, grimy table. You remember the sickening click of the lock, the finality of it echoing in the cramped space as you turned back from the grisly task of dismembering Gary—his last, silent victory.

Even the idiot police could deduce that this was all your doing, seeing as all your bloody tools were still with you in your backpack. With fingerprints. It was just a matter of time before they opened the basement door.

You could practically hear Gary’s voice from beyond the grave: "Hah! Serves you right, you stupid bitch! That's what you get for killing me!" The taunt echoes in your head like a song over and over again and you're seriously contemplating banging your head against the iron bars.

"FUCK FINE!" You yell into the darkness. "I renounce my wicked ways!"

"That's a shame. I bet I would like your wicked ways."

You jump at the sound of a man's deep, smooth voice, the cadence of slight raspiness warming every note. Your curses cut the humid air from the startlement of the man's presence. How the hell did he even get in here? You didn't hear the basement door open. You scurry out of reach of the man who saunters into the thin thread of light from the narrow window, the glass opaque with fly shit.

"You seem to be in a predicament." He says stepping into view. The thin light from the window partially illuminates him, allowing you to make out his face. Oh rather, what is on his face.

Holy shit.

A ghost mask stares back at you, its hollow eyes and elongated mouth frozen in a chilling scream. The stark white of the mask contrasts sharply with the surrounding shadows, and you watch with wide eyes as he tilts his head.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit.

In any other situation, you might be fan-girling. You know exactly who you're staring at: the infamous Crucifer, a killer, like you, but notorious for his crucifixion of criminals in rather, flamboyant displays. The few eyewitness accounts of the Crucifer all mention the ghost mask, leaving no doubt in your mind about his identity.

While your hunting grounds have been Osaka, his have typically been Tokyo, but despite the geographical difference, his reputation precedes him. In all honesty, you shouldn’t be surprised he’s here. Your victim, Gary Greenwich, is notorious even among the authorities. Despite his crimes, the lack of solid evidence has always allowed him to slip through the cracks of the justice system, leaving him free to continue his heinous activities. He was high on your kill list, and it’s no surprise he was high on Crucifers as well.

He takes a few steps closer toward the cage to stare down at the corpse, bending to take a closer look.

"Well what happened here?" He chuckles.

You are on day three of no food. No water. The gnawing hunger in your stomach feels like a relentless beast, clawing at your insides with increasing ferocity. You wonder if your body has started to eat its own organs at this point.

You can't deal with this shit.

"Self defense." You say.

The man chuckles. "I doubt that, you're not his type." Despite his mask you can feel his eyes shift from the corpse to linger on you.

"And how would you know that?"

"Well disregarding the state in which you "self defense" left him, you're not a 6 year old boy. And," he steps closer so now he is inches away from the bars and his whole body is illuminated. "I make it my business to know."

You don't answer. Instead you watch as he crouches down to meet your gaze. You try to hide behind your tangled hair and folded limbs, giving him only your eyes.

And of course, just your luck, he is stunning

Black hair flows behind his mask and down his shoulder. He's wearing a black compression shirt that hugs every muscle of his biceps and forearms, accentuating his athletic build. His broad shoulders enhance his imposing presence, giving him the aura of a seasoned athlete. Black cargo pants complete his ensemble, practical and intimidating, with a hunting knife sticking out of his pocket, probably what he would've used on Gary if you hadn't got to him first.

Something about him looks familiar, something you can't put your finger on.

"I guess you made it your business to know too." He pauses before moving even closer so his mask is practically pressed against the iron bars. "Hey, you look pretty familiar."

You shift uncomfortably, feeling the prickle of anxiety creeping up your spine. Instinctively, you brush a tangled lock of hair from your face, wincing as it catches on your dry lips. The man's shoulders tense as if he has been electrocuted.

"Y/n?" His voice cuts through the thick silence like a knife.

Oh, what the hell.

You jerk your head up from your hunched posture, eyes wide in shock, meeting the unsettling, hollow eyes of the ghost mask. Your heart races, pounding loudly in your chest.

"Wha-"

"Oh my god, it is you!" He exclaims, his loud deep voice echoing through the basement.

"I'm sorry, I don't-" you stammer, confusion and fear knotting in your stomach.

"It's me," he interrupts, and with a swift motion, he takes off his mask. The sight of his familiar face makes your breath catch in your throat. "Suguru Geto."

Suguru Geto. The name alone sent ripples through your thoughts, dragging along memories and emotions you had long buried. Suguru wasn’t just any ordinary guy; he was a micro-celebrity in Tokyo, renowned for his breathtaking tattoo artistry. His ink adorned the bodies of celebrities, flaunted in TikToks and Instagram posts that garnered thousands of likes. His reputation was impeccable, his designs sought after by the elite.

You had crossed paths with Suguru a few times at various parties, your social circles occasionally overlapping due to mutual friends. Each encounter left an indelible mark on you. His presence was magnetic, drawing you in like a moth to a flame. It wasn’t just his talent that made him irresistible; it was everything about him. Those hawk-like eyes that seemed to pierce through to your very soul, the perfect curve of his lips that could shift from a smirk to a genuine smile in an instant, and those dimples that appeared whenever he graced you with that smile—each feature was a weapon, effortlessly disarming.

You, like many other girls, harbored a secret crush on Suguru Geto. It was impossible not to. That face alone could kill, and his charisma was the final blow.

And now, here he was, standing right in front of you, unmasked and undeniably real. The reality of it all hit you like a tidal wave, leaving you breathless and a little overwhelmed.

Suguru clears his throat, a small smirk playing on his lips from how obviously you are gawking at him.

"Shot in the dark here but are you the Mute Collector?"

You part your lips to say something but you can't seem to form the right words.

"I-"

Suguru's grin widens and a sharp laugh escapes his perfect mouth. "Oh my god. I knew it. I fucking knew they had it wrong about you with that bull shit profile they built. What was it, they said you were a 30 year old white man?" Suguru throws his head back and smiles at the ceiling. "And the Mute Collector? You? That's just awesome. I'm such a huge fan."

"Yeah..." You clear your throat and push your hair completely out of your face. He grins at you, as though awe struck, and if you weren't wearing 100 layers of grime on your skin you are sure he'd be able to see the blush flaming in your cheeks for a second.

"And you?" You nod toward the mask. "You are?" You don't know why you are feigning ignorance but something about humbling him seems tastier than actual food right now.

"Oh come on." Suguru's tone flattens and he brings the mask up next to his face.

"The Crucifer?"

You shake your head.

"The cross maker?"

You shake your head again. Lying through your teeth is fun.

"The Tokyo Butcher?" When you shake your head he sighs and stands up. "Well," he glances to Gary whose maggots have made their way to the empty eye sockets. "What do you say? We ditch this lousy scene and get something to eat. Maybe when you get food in your stomach you will remember some of my little nicknames."

Your eyes widen and your stomach growls loudly, reminding you of how long it's been since you last ate. You glance up at your Suguru, a mix of hope and suspicion in your gaze.

"Are you serious?" you ask, your voice hoarse from dehydration.

"Yeah, after we get you a shower, some clothes and burn the house down."

You gulp and stand to your feet. "Could we get burgers?"

Suguru grins before grabbing the remote and pointing it at the cage.

"Fine by me."

~

The Mute Collector.

Geto Suguru is sitting across from the fucking Mute Collector.

And god you are beautiful.

Not that he just realized it now. Like many others, he has always known how attractive you are; he just pushed it to the back of his mind. But now, knowing who you really are and what you do in your free time, your body has practically been encompassed in bright warm light and your head adorned with a halo. He watches as you down your 6th cup of water with a sigh and wipe your mouth with your sleeve.

The two of you sit in a cozy booth at a restaurant, the warm, smoky aroma filling the air. Suguru leans back with a beer in hand, watching you with a mix of amusement and caution. The waitress approaches, placing a large plate with a double cheeseburger and fries in front of you. Your eyes light up, and without wasting a second, you pick up the cheeseburger with your fingers and take a big bite, savoring the flavors.

Suguru chuckles, raising his beer in a mock toast. "You look like you've just found the Holy Grail."

He doesn't miss the way you stifle back a laugh, trying to speak through a mouthful of burger. "If the Holy Grail were covered in cheese and ketchup, then yeah, maybe."

He takes a sip of his beer, grinning. "I’ve never seen someone so excited about food. Maybe you should give up your little hobby and do food reviews."

"Well, that's what being trapped in a cage with the rotting corpse of a pedophile does to you I guess." You grumble, setting down the burger and taking another drink of water.

Suguru's eyes stay on you, and he takes the opportunity to really assess you. Your hair is damp, and the wetness seeps into the white Mickey Mouse shirt you're wearing, causing it to cling slightly to your skin and reveal the elegant lines of your collarbone. He bought that shirt and the shorts for you at a thrift store, and despite the fact that such clothes should look bad on anyone, you are rocking them effortlessly.

He can't help but notice that you didn't buy a bra, a fact that makes him smile to himself.

No bra.

"So tell me." Suguru sets his beer back on the table and leans in.

"The whole ears, eyes and heart thing." He waves his left hand in the air. "The police say it's satanic ritual stuff but I don't buy it."

You pause, a hint of a smile playing at your lips as you meet his gaze. "It's simple, really. Hear no evil, see no evil, fear no evil."

Suguru raises an eyebrow. "You have a way of making the macabre sound poetic."

You're about to reach for a fry, but he snatches it before your fingers could reach it.

"Why not the tongue?" He says. "You know, speak no evil."

You roll your eyes and snatch the fry out of his fingers. "Tongues are hard to cut, too slippery and make a mess."

He nods thoughtfully, leaning back in his seat. "You know, most people would be horrified to hear you talk like that."

"Good thing you’re not most people," you reply with a smirk.

"Touché."

He watches as your lips wrap around the thick fry and your teeth rip off half of it into your mouth.

No bra.

"What about you Suguru?" You lock eyes with him. "Why are you here?"

"Why am I here?"

"You heard me. You swoop in all superman-like, save me from the dipshit’s pedo dungeon and take me out for a double cheeseburger. Why are you here?"

Suguru shrugs and averts his gaze from your unyielding stare. Shit, your piercing eyes are almost making him sweat.

"Same thing you already did. I was going to skin him alive and and display the fucking monkey Jesus style infront of his house. At least, something like that."

"Yeah but why him? I thought your hunting grounds were in Tokyo?"

Your eyes widen slightly as the words hang in the air, the weight of your mistake sinking in immediately. You feel a rush of heat to your cheeks, a telltale sign of your embarrassment. Your lips part as if to take back the words, but it's too late; they've already been spoken.

A sly smile spreads across Sugurus face as he watches your face fall.

"Oh you totally know who I am Y/n."

"Fucking hell."

"You do! You know that I like to hunt near my home, how long have you been a part of my fan club?"

You roll your eyes and fall back into your seat. You blink rapidly, trying to maintain your composure, but the subtle tension in your jaw and the furrowing of your brow betray your embarrassment.

"So which one was your favorite? The monkey I strung up next to the police station? Or the one I flayed inside the Tokyo Union Church?"

"Oh my god I can already tell you are going to be insufferable." You grumble, the heat of embarrassment slowly dissipating as you take a deep breath. Suguru leans back, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he swirls the beer in his hand, watching you with an almost predatory curiosity. As seconds pass, Suguru assesses your face, following how your eyes dart around the room, searching for an escape route, and Suguru’s playful expression falters for a split second. He realizes with a sudden jolt that you're trying to leave. He can't have that. He needs to see you again.

"Hey speaking of suffering," Suguru clears his throat. "Have you heard about the women killings in Kyoto?"

Your eyebrows raise, curiosity piqued. "Yeah, I've heard. Pretty gruesome stuff. Why do you ask?"

A playful smile tugs at his lips. "How about a friendly competition? The killer's already taken six lives so far."

You tilt your head, your eyes narrowing slightly as you try to decipher his intentions. "What do you mean by a competition?"

Suguru leans in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "That's exactly what it sounds like. Who can hunt him down first?"

For a moment, you're taken aback, your eyes widening as you process his proposal. A mix of surprise and intrigue flickers across your face. "Are you serious?"

He chuckles, clearly enjoying your reaction. "As sin."

"And what do we get if we win?"

Suguru's eyes gleam with amusement and something else—admiration. "Bragging rights, of course. And maybe... another dinner like this one."

You throw your head back and let out a laugh. "Oh yeah? Who says I'll need you to get me another dinner?"

"Can't let you go hungry again. What do you say?”

~

You sit at your desk, the dim light of your laptop casting a pale glow on your face as you scroll through articles about the woman killer from Kyoto. The room is quiet, save for the occasional click of your mouse and the hum of the laptop. Your phone buzzes, and you glance at the screen to see Shoko’s name. With a smile, you answer the call.

"Hey Shoko, how’s your night shift?" you greet her with a teasing tone.

Shoko’s laugh crackles through the speaker. "Busy as always. Just patched up a guy who thought he could outsmart a bulletproof vest with sheer willpower. Spoiler: he couldn’t."

You chuckle, shaking your head. "Sounds like my type of guy."

By day, Shoko is your best friend and a dedicated med student, excelling in her studies with a, albeit, half hearted, passion for helping others. But when the sun sets, she transforms into the notorious Dr. Reverse, the underground doctor every criminal and lowlife turns to in their time of need. Using her medical expertise, she serves those who cannot seek help through legal means, operating in the shadows and patching up criminals who live by a different set of rules. In addition to her medical skills, she also deals in poisons, further cementing her reputation in the underworld.

You first met Shoko in a moment of desperation. After cornering a serial rapist, you were attacked with a machete, almost severing your arm. With nowhere else to turn, you sought out Dr. Reverse. Shoko skillfully sewed you up and, in the process, deduced that you were the infamous Mute Collector. To your surprise, she didn't seem to care about your identity, and you, in turn, didn't question her underground business or her dealings with poison. This mutual understanding and acceptance laid the foundation for a strong bond, and you've been best friends ever since. 

Shoko laughed, a sound that always manages to lift your spirits. "Right? Anyway, what's up? I saw your SOS text."

You hesitate, glancing at the photo of Geto Suguru on your screen on a separate tab. His annoyingly white teeth glare back at you, and you try to resist staring at his six pack in an instagram photo someone took of him at a pool party.  His dark eyes seemed to stare right through you, as if mocking your indecision. "It's about Geto."

There was a brief pause before Shoko's voice came back, tinged with curiosity. "Geto? What about him?"

You take a deep breath, your fingers drumming nervously on the desk. "He's the Crucifier."

Shoko's reaction was immediate and loud. "Geto is what?" she practically yelled through the phone, causing you to wince.

"The Crucifier. I know." You scoffed, rolling your eyes at the absurdity of it all. "Can you believe it?"

Shoko let out a low whistle. "Wow. I mean, he always seemed like a guy with secrets, but I never pegged him for a serial killer, I mean, someone like you."

"Yeah, well, here we are," You mutter, rubbing your temples. You focus your attention back on your computer screen. Suguru is squeaky clean, not even a bad review on his website. There was only his questionable taste in best friends: Gojo Satoru—the biggest playboy and the infamous heir to the Gojo Company, Japan's largest and most influential corporation. Gojo's notoriety was legendary, his exploits plastered across tabloids and whispered in gossip circles. You’ve met, and been hit on by the man a few times, and not once did you fall for any of his slimy cheap antics. No, Geto Suguru is who your eyes fell on. 

 "And now he’s proposed some sort of competition."

"A competition?" Shoko's voice was practically dripping with amusement. "Like a hunting competition?”

You let out a snort of air through your nose. “Basically.”

Are you gonna do it?"

"I don't know," You admit, leaning forward and resting your chin on your hand. "I said I would, but I don't know. I barely know the guy. Well, I thought I did."

"Well, you should," Shoko said, her tone shifting to one of gentle teasing. "Besides, isn't this your chance to get closer to your crush?"

You feel your cheeks flush. "Shoko, seriously? Come on, that was ages ago."

"Hey, I'm just saying," she replies, laughter bubbling up again. "This could be your big break."

"You're impossible," you grumble, though you can't help but smile. "How's the side business, by the way?"

"Thriving," she says and you can practically see her small smile through the phone.. "You'd be amazed at how many people need a little untraceable something for their enemies."

"I don't doubt it," you say, shaking your head. "Just stay safe, okay?"

"You too, Mute Collector," Shoko says, her voice softening slightly. "And remember, if you ever need anything, you know where to find me."

"Always," you reply, your smile growing wider. "Thanks, Shoko. Talk to you soon."

"Later," she says, and the line goes dead.

You lean back in your chair again, your thoughts drifting back to Geto Suguru and the strange, dangerous world you both inhabit. As much as you hate to admit it, Shoko is right. This is your chance, not just to catch some sick killer, but to uncover the secrets that lie hidden beneath Suguru’s enigmatic exterior.

With a sigh, you close your laptop and stand up, determination settling in your chest. The competition awaits, and you have a feeling it's going to be a game changer.

~

“What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Suguru rolls his eyes at the white hair man’s mocking tone and continues to stare at his phone. It's been 10 minutes. How long does it take for someone to respond to a text. Suguru lay sprawled on the couch, his eyes fixed on his phone. Across the room, Gojo was bustling about in the kitchen, the sound of utensils clinking and food sizzling filling the air.

"Is this about Y/n? The Mute Collector or whatever?" Gojo asked, glancing over his shoulder with a mischievous grin.

Suguru didn't respond, his gaze unwavering from the screen. He could feel Gojo's eyes on him, the scrutiny almost tangible.

"I don't think I've seen you put this much effort into a woman since, like... ever," Gojo continued, his tone teasing. He turned back to his cooking, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement.

Suguru's jaw tightened, but he kept his silence. Gojo, undeterred, pressed on. "Besides the fact that she's the Mute Collector, what do you even see in Y/n? Well, I guess she does have other assets," he chuckled.

"Keep her name out of your fucking mouth, you prick," Suguru snapped, his voice low and menacing.

Gojo raised his hands in mock surrender, a laugh escaping his lips. "Alright, alright, no need to get all territorial."

Suguru continued to stare at his phone, his fingers hovering over the keys. "How long does it take for someone to respond to a fucking text" he mutters under his breath.

Gojo leaned against the counter, arms crossed. "Maybe she's busy. Or maybe she's just messing with you. You know, playing hard to get."

Suguru finally looks up, his eyes narrowing. "She doesn't play games. And she's not hard to get—she's hard to keep."

Gojo raises an eyebrow, clearly amused by Suguru's reaction. “Touchy, touchy,” he mutters, returning to his culinary task.

Just then, Suguru's phone pings. His heart skips a beat as he sees your name flash on the screen. He quickly opens the message, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he reads your response.

Y/n: Fine, I'll do it. But what are the details?

Suguru: Oh, I'm thrilled

Y/n: Shut up.

Suguru: The rules are simple: whoever deduces the monkey’s identity first and guts the bastard wins.

Y/n: And how do I know you don’t already have a head start?

Suguru: I guess you'll just have to trust me. 

Y/n: Trust you? That’s rich coming from someone who literally stabs people in the back.

Suguru lets out a snort of air from your comment catching Gojo’s attention. “Ah, there it is. The smile of a man who's finally gotten what he wants.”

Suguru doesn't dignify that with a response. Instead, he focuses on your message, feeling a grin grow on his lips.

Suguru: You wound me, truly. But where’s the fun without a little challenge? Besides, I wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you

Y/n: Easy, huh? I suppose you think you’re quite the genius, then?

Suguru: Only compared to the average monkey. You, on the other hand, might actually make this interesting.

Y/n: Is that a compliment or are you just trying to butter me up?

Suguru: Can’t it be both? 

Y/n: Oh, don't worry. You’re not the only one who enjoys a good chase. But don’t cry when I beat you at your own game.

Suguru: Cry? Please. I’ll be too busy admiring you in action. It’s a win-win for me.

Y/n: Flattery will get you nowhere, Suguru.

Suguru: Really?

Suguru: Not even a little bit princess 🥺?

Y/n: *One attachment*

You send an image of your hand flipping him off. Your middle finger nail is painted black and he assumes so are all your other fingers. His heart thuds against his chest. God, how he would love to have those nails dragging down his back. His dick twitches just thinking about it. 

Gojo snickers as if he can read Suguru’s thoughts and Suguru considers throwing his phone at the smug white hair man when Gojo’s phone rings. Any humor falls off Gojo’s features like snow from a shaken tree branch. He glances at the caller ID, his eyes narrowing, and picks up the phone with a serious tone.

“This is Gojo.” He says. His voice is gruff as he responds to the caller with clipped “yes” and “no” answers, his timbre low. “I'll be there in 30 minutes.” 

When he sets down the phone, Suguru meets his blue eyes, Gojo’s brief smile is grim.

“Trouble?” Suguru asks.

“Trouble.” Gojo repeats.

On the exterior Gojo is Japan's most infamous playboy and philanthropist. But by night he is the devil's tool, the country's most lethal assassin for anyone from politicians to presidents.  What Suguru and you do for a hobby, Gojo Satoru does for his job.

Gojo dumps his hot food in a container, grabs his hunting knife coat and bag and heads for the door. Before he exits, he turns around to lock eyes with Suguru.

“Be safe. A woman killer is a deadly combo.” He says.

Suguru chuckles, and for a second he doesn't know if Gojo’s talking about you or the guy in Kyoto. “You to ass hat.”  

~

You can't believe you are doing this. 

You can't believe that you took up Suguru’s competition, spent 120 dollars on a train and hotel room at Kyoto and an extra 20 on room service. Moreover you can't believe that you are here, hiding in a forest of bamboo shoots at the dead of night, watching some man who may or may not be the Kyoto women killer.

It’s a warm summer night, and every time the wind blows, the bamboo shoots rustle against each other, creating a haunting melody that sets your nerves on edge. The air is thick with the scent of earth and foliage, and the occasional hoot of an owl punctuates the silence. You’re crouched low, your body tense, watching a man named Noaya Zenin who you followed out here. He seems to be wandering aimlessly, but you know better than to underestimate him. The Zenin clan's reach is long and shadowy, and their involvement in the Kyoto women killings is a tangled web you’ve been unraveling. All key witnesses were either paid off by the Zenin clan or had lawyers representing them from the Zenin clan. The pattern was too precise to be a coincidence.

Your heart thuds in your chest, adrenaline coursing through your veins. The thrill of the chase, the hunt, makes your senses sharper, every movement and sound more pronounced. You can feel the need creeping up on you, slowly reaching your brain until your skin itches with anticipation. 

Each minute feels like an eternity as you scrutinize Noaya’s every move. He stops occasionally, looking around as if sensing he’s being watched, and you hold your breath, pressing yourself closer to the ground. The moonlight filters through the dense bamboo, casting eerie shadows that dance with the wind. Your mind races, piecing together fragments of evidence and suspicion. If Noaya Zenin is indeed the killer, catching him here could be the breakthrough you need.

“Hiya.”

A scream almost rips through you when you feel someone's breath against your ear, but you quickly cover your mouth and whip around. Of course, you’re met face to face with the man you least wanted to see right now. Familiar hazel eyes gaze back at you, glinting with mischief and amusement. Suguru is crouched right next to you, his nose mere inches from yours, a sly smirk on his face. You didn’t even hear him approach.

“Suguru, what the fuck?” you hiss, keeping your voice low. Your first instinct is to grab your knife out of your pocket and press it against his throat but he holds both his hands up as if surrendering, stopping you.

“Woah woah princess, let's cool our engines.” He chuckles softly, clearly enjoying your reaction.

Your pulse is still racing, but you force yourself to calm down. “You could have given me a heart attack. How did you even find me?” You seethe.

“I have my ways,” he replies cryptically, his smirk widening. “Besides, I couldn’t let you have all the fun, now could I? So,” his eyes flicker to Noaya, who still seems to be staring at his phone. “Who are we looking at?”

“We?” You scoff and roll your eyes. “Are you kidding me? There is no we. This is a competition, remember? Go do your own research.”

Suguru raises an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Oh, come on. You know you love my company.”

Before you can retort, Noaya picks up his phone. You both strain to listen, and you catch his words clearly.

“Yeah, I’m at the bamboo forest. See you soon, babe.” He then hangs up the phone with a click and puts it back in his backpack. But just when you're about to turn back to Suguru and rip into the man, Noaya pulls something else out too. A hunting knife. A large one at that with serrated ends and a pointed tip that glints in the moon light. Just like the one used on the victims. And as if things couldn't get any more apparent, you watch as a wicked grin spreads across his face when he draws the blade diagonally through the air.

“Oh shit,” you whisper, eyes wide. “That’s definitely him. That’s like some comically evil villain shit right there.”

“Dibs,” Suguru whispers back, a glint of excitement in his eyes as he puts on his ghost mask. “I call fucking dibs.” He stands up, the crunch of leaves making Noaya whip around and stare right at the area you both hid in.

For a solid 5 seconds your two flabbergasted to even form words, you can only watch as Suguru steps out from the bamboo shoots and onto the trail, slowly walking toward Noaya like a lion cornering a gazelle. 

Or course, Noaya turns, screams like a little girl, and makes a hard right straight into the forest of bamboos.

“Oh hell no,” you mutter, leaping up and chasing after him. You sprint through the forest, the warm summer air thick and humid around you. Each footfall is muffled by the dense undergrowth, but the occasional snap of a twig or crunch of leaves marks your frenzied pace. Moonlight filters through the dense canopy, casting ghostly shadows that dance along the forest floor, creating an ever-shifting maze of light and dark.

Your breath comes in quick, controlled bursts, each inhale filling your lungs with the earthy scent of the forest. Adrenaline surges through your veins, sharpening your senses. The rhythmic pounding of your heart in your chest matches the rapid beat of your footsteps. Ahead, you can just make out the faint silhouette of Noaya, his panicked movements betraying his desperation.

Branches claw at your clothes and face, but you push through, eyes locked on your target. The thrill of the chase ignites every nerve, propelling you forward with a singular focus. Suguru’s presence is a constant just behind you, his footsteps a steady reminder of the competition driving you both. You can hear his breaths, steady and calculated, mirroring your own.

The path twists and turns, the bamboo growing thicker, creating a claustrophobic tunnel. You duck and weave, dodging low-hanging branches and vaulting over fallen logs. The forest floor is uneven, riddled with roots and hidden pitfalls, but your reflexes are sharp, your movements instinctual.

The thrill, the excitement, the danger—it all converges in this moment. You are a predator in your element, and your prey is within reach. The bamboo forest seems to blur around you, time stretching and contracting with each heartbeat. This is what you live for, the ultimate test of skill and nerve, the ultimate game of life and death.

Just as you’re about to close the distance, your fingertips brushing the fabric of Noaya’s shirt, he whirls around with surprising speed. The moonlight catches the gleam of his hunting knife as it arcs through the air. Instinct takes over, and you try to dodge, but the blade slices across your palm, leaving a hot, stinging line of red in its wake.

For a split second, time seems to slow. You see the wild desperation in Noaya’s eyes, the way his chest heaves with exertion and fear. But there’s no pain, only a white-hot fury that floods your veins, fueling your next move.

Your grip tightens around the hilt of your own knife, slick with blood but steady. The cut on your palm feels like a mere scratch compared to the surge of adrenaline that courses through you. With a fierce snarl, you lunge forward, using the momentum to drive Noaya back a step.

He stumbles, his confidence faltering as he realizes the severity of his mistake. You don’t give him a chance to recover. You move with a predatory grace, every muscle coiled and ready to strike. The forest around you fades into a blur of green and shadow, all your focus locked on the man in front of you.

Noaya swings wildly, his movements frantic and uncoordinated. You sidestep his attacks with practiced ease, your fury giving you a sharp, clear edge. The scent of blood mingles with the earthy aroma of the forest, and your pulse pounds in your ears like a war drum.

You close the distance again, this time with a calculated precision. Your free hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist and twisting it until the knife clatters to the ground. Noaya yelps in pain, his eyes widening in terror. The tables have turned, and he knows it.

Your injured hand, still bleeding, clamps down on his shoulder with a vice-like grip. You lean in close, your breath hot against his ear. “Nice try,” you hiss, the fury in your voice making him shudder. “But it’s over.”

With a swift, brutal motion, you plunge your knife into his chest. The blade sinks into flesh with a sickening thud, and Noaya's eyes widen in shock and agony. Blood spurts from the wound, hot and sticky, spraying across your face in a macabre mist. The initial strike is met with a gasp, a desperate, choking sound that fuels the savage fire within you.

A wicked grin spreads across your face, the thrill of dominance electrifying your senses. You pull the knife out, feeling the resistance of tissue and bone, and then plunge it in again, and again. Each thrust is accompanied by a wet, squelching sound, a symphony of carnage that drowns out the world around you. Blood flows freely, pooling at your feet and soaking into the earth.

Noaya’s body jerks and spasms with each stab, his strength fading with every violent assault. His once panicked eyes grow dull, the life draining from them as you continue your relentless attack. The coppery tang of blood fills the air, mingling with the scent of the forest, creating a heady mixture that makes your pulse race even faster.

You lose yourself in the rhythm of the violence, the way your muscles strain and flex with each plunge of the knife. Blood splatters across your face and clothes, warm and viscous, painting you in the evidence of your victory. Your grin widens, a feral expression of triumph and fury.

Amidst your frenzied stabbings, Suguru places a hand on your shoulder. "I think—" he begins, but when you turn around to face him he immediately shuts up.

Your eyes are wide, pupils contracted like a deranged predator. Your hair flows wildly in the wind as you grab Suguru's throat with your bloody hand, smearing the crimson on his skin and pressing him against a tree. 

"This woman-killer fucker is mine." You seethe.

His dick strains against his cargo pants waistband. You look divine.

“ Of course, All yours baby.” He coos.

~

Geto Suguru would be lying if he said that watching you tear apart that woman-killer wasn't the hottest thing he had ever seen. 

To Suguru, you looked divine. The moonlight accentuated the sharp angles of your face, casting shadows that danced across your blood-splattered skin. Your eyes, wild with the remnants of fury, glowed with an unearthly intensity. The contrast of crimson against your complexion made you seem otherworldly, a dark goddess of vengeance. Suguru couldn’t tear his eyes away, mesmerized by the raw, primal beauty you exuded in that moment.

The walk back to your hotel was silent, but not because you were soaked in blood or because he felt awkward. More like it was because the only think he could think to say is “You are so fucking hot.”

Now here he is, twiddling his thumbs as he stands outside of your hotel door, trying to think of the right thing to say to you because god he needs to see your face one last time before he goes to bed.

He raises his hand to knock, but before he can, the door swings open. You stand there, your hair wet and smelling faintly of vanilla. You’ve clearly just come out of the shower. A tank top clings to your damp skin, and sports shorts hug your thighs. His eyes widen slightly, and he gulps, struggling to keep his composure. 

No bra.

The sight makes his mouth go dry.

"Just checking to see if everything is good," he says, nodding toward your bandaged hand.

You feel yourself fidget in your place and you try to flash a small smile but your emotions betray you. What if you freaked him out? What he saw back there, what you did back there, that was you, the raw you. Behind all the layers of kind smiles and pleasantries, in many ways, you were no different than an animal, consumed by your predatory instincts. You wouldn't blame him if he never contacted you again after this. Shit, did you just fuck up everything?

 His presence fills the doorway, and you’re acutely aware of the tension between you two.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” you reply, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. “Thanks for asking.”

His eyes flicker down to your hand, then back up to meet yours. “How’s the hand?” he asks, genuine concern in his voice.

You hold it up and wiggle your fingers slightly. “It’ll heal. No big deal.”

Silence fills the void between you two and you clear your throat, searching for something to say to break the awkward silence, but he beats you to it.

“Mind if I come in?” he asks, a smirk playing on his lips as he leans against the doorframe. “Or are you planning to keep all the fun out here in the hallway?”

You roll your eyes, though you can’t help the small smile tugging at your lips. “Sure, come in. But I warn you, it’s a mess.”

“I’m sure I can handle it,” he quips, stepping inside. His eyes scan the room, taking in the organized chaos. Bandages and clothes are scattered around the floor and he doesn't miss the splatter of blood on the white sheets of the hotel bed. After a moment, Suguru turns around and takes a step closer to you, like he’s examining you. 

You tilt your head slightly, letting a smirk play on your lips. "So, now that I’ve won the bet, what do I get?"

He chuckles, the sound low and smooth, as he takes another step closer, closing the distance between you. "I was wondering when you’d bring that up." 

You arch an eyebrow, trying to keep your composure despite the way he’s looking at you, like you’re the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. "Well? I’m waiting. What’s my prize?"

Suguru stops just inches from you. "I don’t know," he quips, "What do you want?"

You let out a short laugh, though it’s clear you’re testing him now. "That’s a big question."

Suguru's eyes darken slightly, his playful demeanor shifting into something more serious, more intense. He leans in just a fraction, his breath warm against your skin. "Try me."

The tension between you two is palpable, electric. You’re the first to break the silence, your voice quieter now, almost hesitant. "I want," you pause, averting your gaze from Suguru’s hawkish one. “I want to know if I scared you.” The question slips out before you can stop it, your bravado faltering as doubt creeps in.

Suguru blinks, then a slow smile spreads across his face. "Scare me?" He repeats, as if the idea itself is laughable. He steps even closer, forcing you to take a step back until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed. "Scare me?” He repeats again. “You didn’t scare me," he continues, his voice low and sincere. "You… captivated me. I have never, and I mean never, seen something so magnificent as what you did. And that's saying a lot because I've done a shit ton of magnificent things.”

You sit down on the bed, more out of necessity than choice, as he looms over you. Your heart is pounding in your chest, and you feel a mix of emotions—relief, curiosity, and something much more dangerous.

"What are you doing?" you ask, your voice barely above a whisper as he leans in, his hands resting on either side of you, trapping you in place.

He smiles, a slow, almost wicked grin that sends shivers down your spine. "Well, I thought I might kiss you now, you know, after telling you how magnificent you are.” He tilts his head. “Is that a bad idea?"

Your breath catches in your throat as the weight of his words sinks in. You forget to breathe.

You finally find your voice, though it’s a bit shakier than you’d like. "That depends…"

"On?" He asks, his face inching closer to yours, his gaze locked onto your lips.

"On how good you are at it," you murmur.

He doesn’t need any more encouragement. Suguru closes the remaining distance, his lips capturing yours in a kiss that’s as intense as it is tender. It’s a slow, deliberate connection, his hands moving to cradle your face as if you’re something precious, something worth savoring.

The kiss deepens, and all the tension that had been building between you two finally snaps, leaving nothing but raw desire in its wake. You respond in kind, your hands gripping the front of his shirt, pulling him closer as if you can’t get enough.

When you finally pull apart, both of you are breathless, and the world seems to have shrunk down to just the two of you in this moment. Suguru’s forehead rests against yours, and he smiles, a real, genuine smile that you can feel in your bones.

"So," he says, his voice husky and low. "How was that?"

You laugh softly, still trying to catch your breath. "Not bad," you admit, your fingers running through his black hair. "Not bad at all."

"Good," he replies, his lips brushing against yours in a whisper of a kiss. "Because I plan on doing it again."

Suguru’s lips are on yours again before you can even catch your breath, this time more insistent, more demanding. He’s not asking for permission anymore; he’s claiming what he wants, and it makes your head spin. The kiss deepens as his tongue slips past your lips, exploring your mouth with a slow, deliberate intensity that sends a shiver down your spine. You can taste him—warm, intoxicating—and you find yourself leaning into his lips, craving more.

His hand, warm and firm, slides down your side, tracing the curve of your waist before coming to rest between your thighs. The touch is electrifying, sending a jolt of sensation through you, and you gasp against his mouth, your heart pounding in your chest.

But it’s too much, too fast. Your mind races, and you instinctively pull back, breaking the kiss. “Wait,” you murmur, your voice breathless, “I dont know if we should….” You avert your gaze and turn your head toward the wall but Suguru grabs your chin, forcing you to look right into his hazel eyes. Then, he dips his head to whisper in your ear.

“Aw come one Y/n” He grazes your earlobe with his teeth. “I’ve been on my best behavior, a good boy,” Suguru pauses to deliver a soft kiss to your temple. “I've been waiting, waiting ever since I met you in that cage to do this. Don't I deserve a reward for my patience?” 

You thickly gulp as he rubs the sides of your neck with his lips.

“I’ve been-” He kisses your jaw. “Such a-” he kisses his way up to your mouth. “Good boy.”

You cave. 

As his words sink in, you feel your resolve crumbling, the weight of his desire pressing down on you in the most intoxicating way. Before you can even process what’s happening, Suguru's strong arms wrap around you, lifting you off the bed with effortless ease. His grip is firm but gentle, as if he's afraid of breaking you, and you can't help but let out a soft gasp as he lifts you off the bed and up so your head rests on the plush hotel pillow. His eyes lock onto yours, dark with intent, and you feel your breath hitch as the world narrows down to just the two of you. The room is filled with the sound of your breathing, heavy and uneven, mingling with the quiet rustle of sheets as he leans over you.

“I know you have been thinking about this too.” He coos. Suguru’s hands move with a deliberate slowness, as if savoring the moment. His fingers curl around the hem of your tank top, and with a slow, deliberate motion, he begins to lift it. The cool air hits your skin as he pulls the fabric up and over your head, exposing you to his hungry gaze. But before you can feel self-conscious, his lips are on your newly exposed skin, pressing gentle kisses along your collarbone, his warm breath fanning over your skin.

“Gorgeous,” he murmurs between kisses, his voice filled with awe and reverence. “Just so gorgeous.”

His hands are on your shorts next, tugging them down your hips with the same careful slowness, as if he’s unwrapping the most precious gift. As the fabric slips down your legs, he trails kisses along the newly exposed skin, his lips brushing against your thighs, your knees, your calves, until the shorts are discarded on the floor.

Now you’re lying before him in just your underwear, and the way he looks at you makes your heart pound. His eyes are dark and intense, filled with a hunger that makes your entire body flush with heat. “You’re gorgeous,” he repeats, his voice thick with emotion. “Just so damn gorgeous.”

Suguru straightens up slightly, his hands moving to the hem of his own shirt. In one fluid motion, he pulls it over his head and tosses it aside, revealing his bare chest. The sight of him makes your breath catch—his body is lean and athletic, muscles defined and sculpted from years of discipline and training. Tattoos cover his skin in an elaborate tapestry. He’s handsome, impossibly so, and the sight of him like this, just inches away, makes your pulse quicken.

He doesn’t stop there. His fingers move to the waistband of his sweatpants, and he slides them down, revealing more of his skin, his strong legs, until he’s kneeling before you in just his boxers. The fabric clings to him in a way that leaves little to the imagination, and you can’t help but stare, mesmerized by the sheer physicality of him.

Suguru catches your gaze, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips. “Something catches your eye princess?”

You nod, “Yes. You. All of you.” Your eyes tracing every line and curve of his body. He’s more than just handsome—he’s breathtaking, a perfect combination of strength and beauty that leaves you feeling weak in the best way possible.

He leans down again, his body hovering over yours, his lips brushing against your ear as he whispers, “Good, wouldn't want you to be disappointed.”

With that, he captures your lips in a heated kiss, his hands trailing down your sides, touching, feeling, exploring. 

You are too lost in the kiss not to notice his hands slipping under your underwear and making their way to your dripping cunt, and when they do, you jump at the feeling of his index finger tracing your slit.

"Gotta get you ready baby.?" Suguru hums and you shake you head vigorously.

"No please Sugu~, I can take it."

You don't have to tell him twice.

In one fluid motion Suguru tears off your underwear, lays you on your back and positions himself between your legs.

"Been waiting to do this for so long," he murmurs as he pulls down his boxers and whips out his dick. You thickly gulp at the sight, you could've guessed he was big not this big, could he even fit in you? A white bead of precum dribbled from his pretty pink tip and down his length and he uses the liquid to stroke himself in a few fluid motions.

You could hear your heart in your ears and adrenaline coursed through your veins at rocket fire speed. The need in between your legs was too much, it was clouding your head and twisting your stomach so tight you almost felt sick. You jolt when his fat tip bumps into your clit; collecting your juices before pressing against your quivering hole.

"Suguru please~" You whine and nearly miss the way his ears go bright red at your words

"I know baby, I know. Don't worry, lift your hips for me love?”

You oblige and immediately when you do so you're struck with the feeling of his length spreading you so helplessly wide and his tip smashing against something which must be your cervix you think. It’s painful, but in the pain is so much pleasure. He presses his forehead against yours as he slides into you, gripping the sheets with his supporting hand as your hot, wet entrance swallows his cock. Instinctively, you're cunt squeezed around the foreign intrusion, trying to push it out, making Suguru let out a low groan of his own and pushing even deeper into you. 

“F-fuck I can feel you doing it to me,” he said hoarsely.

His fingers gently press into the skin of your hip, guiding and steadying you as he pulls back and thrusts into you. The sudden friction and collision with your G-spot knocks the wind out of your lungs. Ticklish pleasure courses through your veins and you immediately throw your head back against the wall as Suguru thrusts into you.

"Hnghh, s-so good~~" You whine. It was dizzying, the curvature of his dick digging itself against your g-spot, scraping against your vaginal walls every time he backed his hips up.

Simultaneously, his other hand sought yours, finding it with a purposeful tenderness. His fingers intertwined with yours, locking them together in a grip that was both a clasp and a caress.

You dont even realize that your eyes are closed until Suguru whispers into your ear.

“Come on baby, open those pretty eyes, look at me.”

You do as he says and when you do you feel your heart thud in your chest. Suguru’s eyes were fixated completely on you, how you were reacting, as his hips were continuously slamming into your body as if it were clockwork. The sight alone had your walls clamping down on him, earning a groan from the base of his chest. 

Suddenly, the hand that had been intertwined with yours released its grip and began to rummage through Suguru’s discarded pants. Your breath hitched, eyes glazed over as you watched him retrieve a knife from his pocket, unsheathing it effortlessly with a flick of his finger. The sharp glint of the blade caught your attention from beneath Suguru’s body, even as he continued thrusting into you, not missing a beat.

Your body reacted instinctively, clenching at the sight, drawing a low, dark chuckle from Suguru.

“Hah, I knew it,” he said, his voice laced with a teasing edge as he brought the cold steel to the base of your throat. “You’re just a slut for knives, aren’t you?”

A moan escaped your lips, the sound betraying any chance of denial. Suguru took it as an admission, pressing the blade firmly against the skin of your throat as he angled his hips to hit even deeper inside you. The cool metal at your throat was electrifying, but it was his other hand, strong and unyielding, that sent a euphoric thrill coursing through you. His fingers flexed, tightening around your neck, the pressure intensifying.

It wasn’t just the air being cut off—it was the dizzying, intoxicating pleasure that came with it. The way his grip constricted, pushing you to the edge of control, ignited something raw inside. Every squeeze of his hand made your body burn hotter, a perfect balance between pain and pleasure, leaving you gasping for more.

What a primal dirty sight you where, being choked with a blade against your throat while fucked brutaly. Even the devil would clutch his rosaries.  

"Were we doing it like this in your head baby?" Suguru grunts, his Adam apple bobs as he groans from the pleasure of how fucking heavenly your pussy feels. “Because we were doing it like this in mine.” Good? Try euphoric, how could he ever think his fist could substitute the wet squeeze of your cunt?

You can't even open your mouth to respond. The friction of his dick against your walls and the adrenaline from the knife is just too good and as his pace intensified, a dizzying warmth spread through you, filling every corner of your being with a euphoric haze. The sensation of being completely enveloped, utterly connected, sent electric flesh arrows of pleasure through your body, making your eyes flutter and roll back slightly in sheer bliss. Every motion Suguru makes, every time his fat tip collides with your cervix, leaves behind a trail of sparkling heat that seems to light you from within.

"Come on eyes on me when I fuck you baby~" Suguru releases his hold from your neck and snakes his fingers between your body , finding your clit and pressing down on the pearl back and forth with the pad of index finger. "Tell me how good you feel, tell me how badly you want to cum.

He doesn’t slow the ministrations on your clit for a second as he snaps his hips into you with primal vigor, your breasts bouncing from the brutality.

"So good Sugu!" You sob. You cant even open your eyes from the colors you're seeing behind your lids. Every time your pussy squeezes around him not only do bolts of pleasure shoot up your body but a ring of milky white cum forms around the base of his cock.

Suguru’s eyes are locked on how good you're taking him - the fat of his head has a hard time popping out with how greedy your cunny is being. He lets out a sharp moan at how wet you are on the inside.

"S-shit baby wanna feel you cum on me, been waiting so long." Suguru is not a whining man but here he is practically stumbling over his words. Fuck, he wants to keep himself inside you forever. He wants your kisses, your skin, your touch, your blood, your lips, to be his to claim until you die together. No one has seen, truly seen him, before you. You are what he thinks about when he wakes up, when he is eating, when he is plunging his knife into some worthless monkey. You are his goddess. 

The world beyond this intimate cocoon of warmth and breath seemed distant, irrelevant. His gaze was locked with yours, deep and unwavering, a silent communication that tethered you through the mind numbing ecstasy.

Then, he reels his hips back and slams into you in a new angle that has your body jerking.

“Found it didn't I?” He breathes through a smile and pummels into you with vigor. And your about to disagree with him, insist that the feeling is too new and foreign to feel good when all of a sudden your body begins to shake and your head starts to feel fuzzy

And suddenly—you feel it. What you’ve been craving for and what you have seen in porn.

Its like all your body's energy centers are activating at once and your left utterly helpless to the feeling of tingling ecstasy wrapping your brain and stomach.

You dont know how to tell him that something is happening, not when the pleasure is too immense your barely breathing full breaths. But he understands once again the words you tried desperately to communicate.

“Do it baby. Cum. I’ll fill you up, and if it spills I'll fuck it back into you"

So you do.

Release washed over you in an all-encompassing wave, radiating out from your core to the very tips of your fingers and toes. It swept through you like a storm, leaving a trail of starbursts in its wake. Your body arched instinctively, clinging to Suguru as the wave crested, then gently, slowly, began to ebb.

“Ah, princess, please,” he moaned. “Be a good girl and take it all, yeah?” 

Your fingers trailed up his shoulder, only to drag them back down his spine, nails biting into his skin as he buried himself deep inside you, releasing with a powerful shudder. His movements grew erratic, hips pressing yours firmly into the mattress as his hot breath skimmed across your neck, ragged and heavy.

The world outside fades away, leaving just the two of you in this moment, lost in each other, with nothing but the sound of your breathing and the feel of his touch to guide you.

The warmth of his cum spreads through your body with a shiver, and you can feel the liquid expanding against your walls while he kept you plugged and full of him. As you both floated back down from the heights of bliss, your breaths came easier, softer, the lingering aftershocks of pleasure pulsing gently through you.

"You're mine ok?" Suguru coos, and all you can do is dumbly nod.

"I'll die for you, I'll kill a thousand monkeys for you, i'll hold them down so you can cut our their eyes. Just stay by my side."

[ryin-silverfish]

So You Want to Read More about Chinese Mythos: a rough list of primary sources

"How/Where can I learn more about Chinese mythology?" is a question I saw a lot on other sites, back when I was venturing outside of Shenmo novel booksphere and into IRL folk religions + general mythos, but had rarely found satisfying answers.

As such, this is my attempt at writing something past me will find useful.

(Built into it is the assumption that you can read Chinese, which I only realized after writing the post. I try to amend for it by adding links to existing translations, as well as links to digitalized Chinese versions when there doesn't seem to be one.)

The thing about all mythologies and legends is that they are 1) complicated, and 2) are products of their times. As such, it is very important to specify the "when" and "wheres" and "what are you looking for" when answering a question as broad as this.

-Do you want one or more "books with an overarching story"?

In that case, Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) serve as good starting points, made more accessible for general readers by the fact that they both had English translations——Anthony C. Yu's JTTW translation is very good, Gu Zhizhong's FSYY one, not so much.

Crucially, they are both Ming vernacular novels. Though they are fictional works that are not on the same level of "seriousness" as actual religious scriptures, these books still took inspiration from the popular religion of their times, at a point where the blending of the Three Teachings (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism) had become truly mainstream.

And for FSYY specifically, the book had a huge influence on subsequent popular worship because of its "pantheon-building" aspect, to the point of some Daoists actually putting characters from the novel into their temples.

(Vernacular novels + operas being a medium for the spread of popular worship and popular fictional characters eventually being worshipped IRL is a thing in Ming-Qing China. Meir Shahar has a paper that goes into detail about the relationship between the two.)

After that, if you want to read other Shenmo novels, works that are much less well-written but may be more reflective of Ming folk religions at the time, check out Journey to the North/South/East (named as such bc of what basically amounted to a Ming print house marketing strategy) too.

-Do you want to know about the priestly Daoist side of things, the "how the deities are organized and worshipped in a somewhat more formal setting" vs "how the stories are told"?

Though I won't recommend diving straight into the entire Daozang or Yunji Qiqian or some other books compiled in the Daoist text collections, I can think of a few "list of gods/immortals" type works, like Liexian Zhuan and Zhenling Weiye Tu.

Also, though it is much closer to the folk religion side than the organized Daoist side, the Yuan-Ming era Grand Compendium of the Three Religions' Deities, aka Sanjiao Soushen Daquan, is invaluable in understanding the origins and evolutions of certain popular deities.

(A quirk of historical Daoist scriptures is that they often come up with giant lists of gods that have never appeared in other prior texts, or enjoy any actual worship in temples.)

(The "organized/folk" divide is itself a dubious one, seeing how both state religion and "priestly" Daoism had channels to incorporate popular deities and practices into their systems. But if you are just looking at written materials, I feel like there is still a noticeable difference.)

Lastly, if you want to know more about Daoist immortal-hood and how to attain it: Ge Hong's Baopuzi (N & S. dynasty) and Zhonglv Chuandao Ji (late Tang/Five Dynasties) are both texts about external and internal alchemy with English translations.

-Do you want something older, more ancient, from Warring States and Qin-Han Era China?

Classics of Mountains and Seas, aka Shanhai Jing, is the way to go. It also reads like a bestiary-slash-fantastical cookbook, full of strange beasts, plants, kingdoms of unusual humanoids, and the occasional half-man, half-beast gods.

A later work, the Han-dynasty Huai Nan Zi, is an even denser read, being a collection of essays, but it's also where a lot of ancient legends like "Nvwa patches the sky" and "Chang'e steals the elixir of immortality" can be first found in bits and pieces.

Shenyi Jing might or might not be a Northern-Southern dynasties work masquerading as a Han one. It was written in a style that emulated the Classics of Mountains and Seas, and had some neat fantastic beasts and additional descriptions of gods/beasts mentioned in the previous 2 works.

-Do you have too much time on your hands, a willingness to get through lot of classical Chinese, and an obsession over yaoguais and ghosts?

Then it's time to flip open the encyclopedic folklore compendiums——Soushen Ji (N/S dynasty), You Yang Za Zu (Tang), Taiping Guangji (early Song), Yijian Zhi (Southern Song)...

Okay, to be honest, you probably can't read all of them from start to finish. I can't either. These aren't purely folklore compendiums, but giant encyclopedias collecting matters ranging from history and biography to medicine and geography, with specific sections on yaoguais, ghosts and "strange things that happened to someone".

As such, I recommend you only check the relevant sections and use the Full Text Search function well.

Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studios, aka Liaozhai Zhiyi, is in a similar vein, but a lot more entertaining and readable. Together with Yuewei Caotang Biji and Zi Buyu, they formed the "Big Three" of Qing dynasty folktale compendiums, all of which featured a lot of stories about fox spirits and ghosts.

Lastly...

The Yuan-Ming Zajus (a sort of folk opera) get an honorable mention. Apart from JTTW Zaju, an early, pre-novel version of the story that has very different characterization of SWK, there are also a few plays centered around Erlang (specifically, Zhao Erlang) and Nezha, such as "Erlang Drunkenly Shot the Demon-locking Mirror". Sadly, none of these had an English translation.

Because of the fragmented nature of Chinese mythos, you can always find some tidbits scattered inside history books like Zuo Zhuan or poetry collections like Qu Yuan's Chuci. Since they aren't really about mythology overall and are too numerous to cite, I do not include them in this post, but if you wanna go down even deeper in this already gigantic rabbit hole, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

[br0kenangel]

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ 𓇼 ࣪ 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐝♡𝐰𝐧 𓈒ㅤׂㅤ⭒⠀

Pairing: Yandere Survivors x Survivor Reader part 1

Summary: you survived. You survived the zombies. But you can't hide for too long. You have to go out. You have to find food and water. And you did but it didn't go according to plan now, did it?

˚꒰♡꒱‧ Hi there! Before you read this, you should know that English is not my first language. And yes it's basically watership down characters but in a zombie au where they are humans. Hope you enjoy!

Original gif by @mikelogan ♡

The days had blended into an endless stretch of silence, fear, and aching hunger. Y/N sat on the floor of the small, darkened house, her back pressed against the cold wall. The room was a suffocating tomb of shadows, barely illuminated by the slivers of light that crept through the cracks in the boarded windows. Her stomach had long stopped growling, replaced by a hollow, gnawing pain that felt like her insides were turning to dust. She had run out of food days ago—maybe longer. Time didn’t feel real anymore.

Her lips were dry and cracked, her throat burning from thirst. The last drop of water had been carefully rationed, but now even that was gone. She knew she couldn’t last much longer like this. Every muscle in her body screamed for rest, but sleep wasn’t an option—not when the slightest sound, the tiniest movement could bring them.

The zombies outside weren’t the shambling, mindless creatures of fiction. They were quick, calculating, and relentless. She had watched them, their movements eerily coordinated, like packs of wolves hunting. They were always looking, always listening. And they were smart. Smart enough to sense a human’s weakness, smart enough to track her down if she made the wrong move. The memory of their bloodshot eyes, snapping jaws, and the awful sounds of their shrieks haunted her every waking second.

She shifted, her body stiff from days of sitting in the same position, her limbs trembling from exhaustion. But she didn’t dare make a sound. Not even a whisper. Her breaths were shallow and slow, each one carefully measured as if the air itself might betray her.

Her eyes flicked to the window, the boards creaking slightly as the wind pressed against the house. She stared at the shadows outside, her heart racing in her chest as her mind played tricks on her. Was that movement? Was something out there? She couldn’t tell anymore. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen one of them, but that only made the fear worse. The quiet—the not knowing—was driving her insane.

Every small noise outside made her body tense up, her mind racing with the possibilities. Maybe they were waiting. Maybe they knew she was in here, hiding, too scared to leave. Maybe they were just biding their time, like hunters watching their prey, waiting for her to make a mistake.

Y/N's hands shook as she reached for the small knife she had kept beside her, the only weapon she had. It felt pitiful in her grasp, barely enough to protect her from anything, but it was all she had. Her fingers tightened around the handle until her knuckles turned white, as if gripping it harder would somehow give her more strength, more control over this nightmare.

She couldn't keep this up. The hunger was driving her mad, the constant edge of fear leaving her brain in a foggy haze. Her vision blurred, her head throbbing with each heartbeat. She had tried to sleep once, for just a few minutes, but every time she closed her eyes, the nightmares came. Horrors of being ripped apart, of being trapped, screaming but unable to make a sound.

Now, she was too scared to even try. If she slept, she would be vulnerable. If she slept, she wouldn’t hear them coming.

She bit down on her lip, hard, the metallic taste of blood flooding her mouth. It was the only thing she could do to stop herself from crying. She couldn’t cry. Crying would make noise. Noise would bring them.

Her stomach twisted violently, and she doubled over, gasping silently as the hunger pain sharpened into something unbearable. She had never felt so weak, so helpless. Her body was eating itself from the inside out, and all she could do was sit here, paralyzed by fear.

The worst part was the loneliness. She had been alone for so long, her mind starting to play cruel tricks on her. Sometimes, she thought she heard voices—whispers in the dark, like someone was calling to her. But when she strained to listen, there was only silence. Sometimes, she swore she could hear footsteps, slow and deliberate, right outside the door. But when she looked, there was nothing there.

She was going mad. Slowly, painfully, she was losing her grip on reality. The isolation was eating away at her, just as much as the hunger.

Her eyes darted back to the window. No movement. No sounds. Just the wind. But she knew better than to trust the quiet. The quiet was deceptive.

Her breath hitched as a shadow moved in the corner of her vision, darting past the window too quickly for her to see clearly. Her heart pounded in her chest, a sickening rhythm that made her feel like she was going to pass out. She held her breath, knife trembling in her hand, as she stared at the window, waiting for the inevitable.

She was going to die here. Alone. Starving. Too terrified to even try to escape.

The darkness of the room pressed in around her, suffocating, as her thoughts spiraled deeper into despair.

She didn’t want to die. Not like this. But what choice did she have?

The zombies were everywhere. The world was gone. And soon, so would she be.

Y/N’s hunger had become unbearable. The sharp, hollow ache in her stomach twisted and churned until it was impossible to ignore. She could feel her body weakening, her limbs trembling as she sat in the dark, staring at the front door of the house. She had resisted for so long, too afraid to make any noise, too terrified to go outside. But now, she was past the point of fear.

Her body screamed for food. Water. Anything. If she stayed here any longer, she would die.

She swallowed the thick lump in her throat, pushing herself up from the floor, her legs shaking beneath her. Every step toward the door felt like it took all her strength, her mind screaming at her to stay hidden, to stay safe. But her survival instincts—those primal, desperate needs—were louder.

With a trembling hand, she carefully unlatched the door, moving it just enough to slip out into the alleyway. The cold air hit her face, sharp and bracing, and she froze, listening for any sign of movement. But there was only the wind, a gentle rustling of leaves in the distance. No growls. No footsteps.

She moved quickly, keeping low as she crept through the deserted streets, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow. The store she had seen before—what was left of it—was only a few blocks away. She just needed to get there. Get something. Anything.

As she approached the crumbling remains of the building, her heart raced in her chest, her fingers twitching nervously. She knew it was a risk, but her body had overridden her fear. She needed food.

Slipping through the broken door, Y/N’s eyes scanned the dark, empty aisles. Shelves had been torn apart, broken glass scattered the floor, and debris littered every corner. But there were still a few things left—cans, boxes—anything she could find would do.

Without thinking, she grabbed a dusty can of soup, her hands shaking as she tore it open. She didn’t care that it was cold, that the smell of it was faintly metallic. She ate greedily, stuffing the food into her mouth, her stomach growling with hunger as if it had been waiting for this moment.

For a few blissful seconds, she forgot everything. The hunger, the fear, the world around her—it all faded away as she ate, her body rejoicing in the nourishment. But then, in the quiet, she heard it.

A low growl.

Her body went cold. She froze, her eyes wide as the sound echoed in the distance. She glanced toward the shattered window at the front of the store, her heart pounding in her chest. Shadows flickered outside—shapes, moving quickly.

They had heard her.

The growls grew louder, closer. Panic surged through her as she backed away, her breath quick and shallow. She had made a mistake.

Suddenly, the door slammed open, and they rushed in—three of them, snarling, their pale, sunken faces twisted in hunger as they lunged toward her.

She ran.

Her body screamed in protest, weak and exhausted, but fear drove her forward. She could hear their footsteps behind her, fast, relentless, like predators on her heels. She stumbled through the store, her breath ragged, her vision blurring as tears stung her eyes.

Just as one of the zombies leaped toward her, its teeth snapping inches from her neck, a blur of movement appeared in front of her—a man, tall and strong, slamming the zombie back with a brutal force.

“Go! Now!” he shouted, his voice urgent as he fought off the creature.

Y/N didn’t hesitate. She ran, her legs carrying her faster than she thought possible. The stranger was right behind her, the sounds of the zombies fading as they sprinted through the streets together. Her lungs burned, her muscles ached, but she couldn’t stop. Not yet.

It wasn’t until they reached the outskirts of the town, far enough away from the chaos, that they finally slowed down, gasping for breath. Y/N collapsed against a wall, her chest heaving, her heart still pounding in her ears.

For a moment, she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even process what had just happened. The adrenaline coursed through her veins, her entire body trembling. But when she looked up and saw him—really saw him—a wave of relief crashed over her like nothing she had ever felt before.

He was real. Another person. She wasn’t alone.

Tears filled her eyes, and before she could stop herself, she started laughing—soft at first, then uncontrollably. The sound was strange, unhinged, mixed with sobs as the weight of everything came crashing down on her. The loneliness, the fear, the hunger—it all poured out of her in a wave of raw emotion.

“I-I thought it was just me,” she gasped between sobs and laughter. “I thought I was the only one left.”

As Y/N’s laughter faded into soft, hiccuping sobs, he remained kneeling beside her, his hand a steady presence on her shoulder. She wiped her eyes with trembling fingers, her breath still shaky from the emotional release. She could feel his eyes on her—kind, patient, as if he understood everything she had been through without her having to say a word.

“I... I’m sorry,” Y/N stammered, her voice hoarse and raw. “I just... I haven’t seen anyone in so long...”

He shook his head, offering her a gentle smile that eased the tightness in her chest. “Don’t apologize. I get it,” he said, his voice low and warm, like a calming breeze after a storm. “You’ve been through hell. We all have.”

Y/N took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. “Thank you... for saving me. I didn’t think anyone would...” Her voice trailed off, still unable to fully believe she had been rescued.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he replied, his tone firm but kind. “I couldn’t just leave you there. Not when I knew you needed help.”

For a moment, they sat in silence, the world around them eerily still, like it was waiting for the next move. Y/N glanced at him again, really taking him in—his sharp features, the light scruff on his jaw, and the intensity in his eyes that hinted at the weight of what he had been through. He looked strong, but there was something about him—something gentle, too.

“I’m Hazel,” he finally said, breaking the quiet. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N,” she managed to say, her voice still weak but steadier now. Saying her name aloud felt strange, like a reminder that she was still here, still alive.

Hazel nodded, as if committing her name to memory. “Y/N... it’s good to meet you, Y/N. Even if it’s in the middle of all this.”

She let out a small, shaky laugh at that. “Yeah... could’ve been better circumstances.”

Hazel’s smile widened a bit, though it was tinged with sadness. “You’re not alone, Y/N. There’s more of us. A group. We’ve been sticking together for a while now. Safety in numbers, you know?”

Y/N blinked, her heart skipping a beat. “A group? There’s... more of you?”

He nodded. “Yeah. It’s not just me. There’s a few of us—good people. We’ve been scavenging, keeping each other alive. It’s tough, but we’ve got a better chance together. You should come with me. Join us. The more we are, the better our chances.”

Y/N’s eyes widened as hope surged in her chest. She hadn’t even dared to dream of this—other survivors, people who could help her, protect her. After being alone for so long, the idea of being part of a group again seemed like a dream. A miracle.

“Really?” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “You’d... you’d let me join?”

Hazel’s expression softened even further, his gaze holding hers. “Of course. We don’t leave people behind. Not if we can help it.”

Tears welled up in Y/N’s eyes again, but this time, they were different—tears of relief, of gratitude. She had been so close to losing hope, so close to giving up entirely. But here, in front of her, was a lifeline. A chance at survival. At something more than just existing in fear and hunger.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, nodding quickly. “I... I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

Hazel’s smile returned, gentle and reassuring. “You don’t have to say anything. Just stick with us, and we’ll figure this out together.”

Y/N felt a surge of warmth in her chest at his words. She hadn’t felt this kind of connection with anyone in so long, hadn’t felt safe or cared for. But here, with Hazel, there was a glimmer of hope. A chance to live again, not just survive.

She managed a small, but sincere smile. “I’ll come with you. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Hazel’s hand gently squeezed her shoulder, his voice low and steady. “You’re not alone anymore, Y/N. You’ve got us now.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, Y/N believed him.

Y/N’s legs were shaking as she followed behind him, trying to keep pace. The hunger gnawed at her insides, and her body ached from exhaustion. Her throat was dry, her lips cracked, but the adrenaline from their earlier encounter with the dead still burned in her veins. He hadn’t left her behind. He’d saved her.

Now, he was leading her somewhere safe—or so he promised. But after days, maybe weeks, of hiding and surviving alone, the word safe felt foreign, almost unreal. The building they approached was crumbling like all the others. It felt as though it might fall apart at any moment, much like her frail body. Her mind screamed at her not to trust anyone, that safety didn’t exist anymore.

Still, she followed him. Because she had nothing else.

They slipped inside, through a small gap in the side of the building. Y/N had to squeeze through, her pulse racing as the walls seemed to close in on her. She didn’t speak. He had told her to keep quiet when they were running. The zombies were too fast, too clever. They could hear, smell, and even sense movement like animals on the hunt. She hadn’t made a sound since.

Inside, there was a hidden stairwell leading downward into darkness. Her heart pounded louder with every step, echoing in her ears as they descended into the depths. The air grew colder, heavier. Her stomach churned with nausea, and a deep, primal fear started crawling up her spine.

When they reached the bottom, a single dim light flickered on, illuminating the underground space. It was larger than she expected—too organized, too clean for this new world they were trapped in. And that was when she saw them—several figures, standing, watching her in silence.

Their eyes were hollow, dark with suspicion. Her pulse quickened again, her breath shallow and labored. She wanted to shrink back, to disappear. There was something unsettling about the way they stared—like predators deciding if she was worth the effort to keep alive. She felt raw, exposed, and very, very small.

One of them, tall and lean, stepped forward. His eyes weren’t as cold as the others, but there was still an edge to his gaze, as if he was trying to read her thoughts, her past, her worth.

"Who is she?" he asked, his voice calm but filled with doubt. He looked past her, speaking to the man who’d saved her.

"Someone who needs help," was the quiet response.

Y/N could feel every heartbeat echoing in her chest, each one louder than the last. She didn’t dare speak, afraid that if she opened her mouth, the wrong thing would come out, or worse—nothing at all. Her throat was too tight to form words. Fear hung over her like a shroud, suffocating and heavy.

Another figure, a woman this time, stepped forward. Her face was sharp, hard. She didn’t look at Y/N with anything close to kindness. “She’s a risk. What if she brings them here? We don’t know anything about her.”

Y/N swallowed, her mouth dry. She wanted to scream, to beg them to believe she wasn’t a threat, but the words tangled in her throat. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The room felt like it was closing in.

"She doesn’t look like much of a threat," came a low, gruff voice from somewhere in the shadows. The man who spoke stepped into the light, his arms crossed. His eyes were cold, calculating. “But we’re already stretched thin. We can’t afford dead weight.”

Dead weight. That’s what she was to them—useless. Disposable.

Her hands trembled at her sides. She could feel their eyes on her, boring into her skin, judging her every flaw, every weakness. She wasn’t strong like them. She wasn’t capable. She was nothing.

“Look at her,” someone else muttered from the back, a rough laugh following. “She’s already half-dead.”

The weight of the words made her chest tighten, her breath quickening. It felt like the room was spinning, tilting, and she had to fight the urge to collapse. The starvation, the terror, the constant silence—it had eaten away at her, and now, standing here, she felt like a ghost of herself.

The man who had saved her finally spoke again, his voice calm but firm. “She’s not a risk. She’s alone. She’s been hiding for who knows how long. We all know what it’s like.”

But his words didn’t seem to be enough to sway the others. The murmurs grew louder, more voices chiming in, each one cutting through her like a blade. She wasn’t wanted here. They didn’t trust her. Why should they?

Before the argument could escalate, one of the larger figures—the tallest in the room—moved forward. He was broad-shouldered, his presence commanding and hard to ignore. His gaze wasn’t cold, but there was something intense about the way he looked at her. He didn’t say anything at first, just stood between her and the others, as if creating a barrier. His eyes held hers for a moment, and in that brief second, she felt something shift—like he understood.

“She stays,” he said, his deep voice breaking through the noise.

The room fell silent, the tension thick in the air. His tone was final, not up for debate. The others exchanged uneasy glances, but no one challenged him.

Y/N’s legs trembled beneath her, the adrenaline finally wearing off, replaced by an overwhelming exhaustion. She wanted to collapse right there, to give in to the crushing weight of everything, but she forced herself to stay upright. She couldn’t show weakness, not now.

The tall man—her unexpected ally—looked at her again, his expression softening just slightly. “You’re with us now,” he said quietly, his voice a bit gentler than before.

She nodded, too drained to do anything else. The fear still lingered, but the relief was there too, creeping in like a slow tide. She wasn’t alone anymore. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, she wasn’t alone. But that didn’t mean the fear was gone. The hunger still gnawed at her, and the cold, calculating looks from some of the others told her this was far from over.

As the others dispersed, muttering to themselves, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, but when she turned, it was him—the man who had saved her. His eyes were soft, warm, filled with understanding.

“You’ll be okay,” he murmured. “We’ll keep you safe.”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that she could trust them, that this nightmare might finally be over. But as she looked around at the faces of her new group, the doubt still lingered. Safety was an illusion in this world.

And yet, it was all she had.

Y/N sat on the cold, dusty floor, leaning against the crumbling wall of their underground hideout. She couldn’t stop shaking, her body weak, almost numb from hunger and fear. The moment they’d brought her inside, she had felt an overwhelming rush of relief, but it had been quickly replaced by the gnawing need for food and water. The world around her seemed to blur as her mind focused on one thing—survival. She had been running on empty for far too long.

A large shadow approached, the tall man who had stood up for her in front of the others. He carried a small bottle of water and something wrapped in cloth—a bit of bread, maybe. She could hardly care what it was at this point; all that mattered was that it was food.

“Here,” he said, crouching down beside her and holding out the water. His voice was calm, though his presence was still intimidating in its size. “Drink this first.”

Y/N’s hands trembled violently as she reached for the bottle, fumbling with the cap before she could unscrew it. She took a sip, and the cool water hit her parched throat like a punch, almost too much at once. She coughed, sputtering, but forced herself to drink more. It was like tasting life itself after being so close to death.

The man—her savior, really—sat beside her, watching her carefully. His presence was strangely comforting, even though he was a stranger. “Take it slow,” he advised softly, though there was a trace of amusement in his voice.

But Y/N didn’t have time to listen. As soon as he handed her the food, she tore into it like a starved animal, her teeth sinking into the bread without hesitation. She barely chewed, forcing herself to swallow each piece. Her stomach roared with hunger, but the food felt like sandpaper against her throat. She was desperate, too desperate to care.

A piece of bread lodged in her throat, and for a moment, panic surged through her chest. She coughed violently, her eyes watering as she gasped for air, still trying to stuff more food into her mouth. She didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to risk the chance that it could all be taken away.

The man next to her—he was watching her with a raised brow, his lips twitching as if he was trying not to laugh. “Careful,” he said, his voice lighter now, the edge of seriousness softening. “You’re going to choke.”

Y/N sputtered, a piece of bread half-swallowed, half stuck in her throat as she coughed and gasped. The combination of hunger, exhaustion, and embarrassment hit her all at once, and she couldn’t help but glance at him, her face burning with shame. She didn’t want to be seen like this, so desperate, so weak.

“I—I’m fine,” she managed to choke out between gasps, waving her hand weakly as if to reassure him.

He chuckled, and it wasn’t unkind. “Yeah, sure looks like it.”

Her heart sank. She hadn’t meant to make him laugh, especially not at her expense. But the sound of his laughter wasn’t cruel. It was… warm. And something about that made her want to keep talking, even through her embarrassment.

She managed to swallow the rest of the food, sitting back against the wall, still clutching the water bottle tightly. Her hands were filthy, her face streaked with dirt and fear, but for a moment, just sitting here with him, she felt something that wasn’t pure terror.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, her voice raspy from both hunger and choking. “I… I haven’t eaten in a while.”

“I figured.” He leaned back, crossing his arms over his broad chest, still watching her with that calm, assessing gaze. “You looked like you’d been through hell when Hazel brought you here.”

Hazel. That was the man who had saved her in the store. The one who had promised her safety and a place with them. But now, this man—the one who had stood up for her—was sitting beside her, talking to her as if she weren’t just some desperate stranger. It felt surreal.

“I’m—" she started, hesitating for a moment before deciding to offer her name. "Y/N.”

“Bigwig,” he replied simply, his voice carrying a hint of pride in the name. It wasn’t a real name, not in the traditional sense, but it suited him somehow. Strong, unmovable.

Y/N blinked at the name, nearly choking on another piece of bread as she processed it. She tried to stifle the laugh, but a small, surprised giggle slipped out despite herself. She coughed again, covering her mouth, trying not to make a fool of herself.

Bigwig looked at her, and for a moment, his serious demeanor cracked. He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Yeah, I know. Weird name, huh?”

She nodded, still trying to swallow the last bit of bread, though her face burned with embarrassment again. She wasn’t laughing at him, but she felt like a mess—like this starving, desperate girl who was sitting next to this towering man, choking on food while he tried not to laugh at her. It was absurd, and for the first time in so long, the absurdity of it all made her feel something that wasn’t fear.

Bigwig leaned back against the wall beside her, his presence calm and steady. “You’ll get used to it,” he said, offering her a reassuring look. “The name, I mean. And everything else.”

Y/N smiled faintly, wiping at her face with her sleeve, the remnants of the meal still sticking in her throat. The tension in her chest started to ease, even if only a little. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “For… you know, sticking up for me.”

Bigwig shrugged, though there was something softer in his expression now. “Don’t mention it. You’ve been through enough already. Besides,” he added with a faint grin, “it’s better if we stick together. The more of us there are, the better chance we have.”

She nodded, taking another careful sip of water, feeling it soothe her dry throat. For the first time since all of this had begun, she felt a small flicker of hope. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And sitting here, with someone who had looked out for her, who didn’t see her as a burden, that flicker of hope felt like it might actually grow into something real.

Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t as alone as she thought.

It was night and Y/N was still catching her breath when she heard footsteps approaching, soft but steady. The moment she lifted her head, she saw Hazel’s familiar silhouette appear in the dim light. He carried something under his arm, something soft and warm-looking.

“You doing alright?” he asked, his voice quiet, careful not to disturb the others. He knelt down beside her, his presence so calm and reassuring. It was like the chaos of the outside world didn’t exist in his company.

Y/N nodded, her stomach still full from the food Bigwig had given her, though her throat was a little sore from nearly choking earlier. "Yeah... better," she murmured, though exhaustion weighed heavily in her bones.

Hazel smiled gently, his dark eyes scanning her face as if to check if she was really telling the truth. Then he unfolded the bundle he’d brought with him—a blanket, soft and worn but warm-looking—and draped it over her shoulders. The simple act of kindness nearly made her want to cry again. She hadn’t felt comfort like this in so long, not since before everything had fallen apart.

“Here, this’ll keep you warm tonight,” Hazel said softly. “It’s cold down here.”

Y/N clutched the blanket around herself, feeling the warmth of it immediately start to seep into her skin. She looked up at Hazel, her heart skipping a beat at how close he was, how gentle he seemed. His face was so beautiful, framed by the faint light. Even in the harshness of the world they lived in now, he still looked... perfect. Too perfect, almost. Like someone who belonged in a world before all the death and destruction.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice barely above a breath.

Hazel smiled again, a little more brightly this time, and he sat down beside her. “It’s nothing. You need to stay strong if you’re gonna survive this.”

There was a pause, a comfortable silence between them, but Y/N couldn’t stop staring at him. The more she looked, the more she noticed—his strong jaw, the softness in his eyes, the way his hair curled slightly at the ends. He looked tired, like he had been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, but still, there was something about him that made her feel safe.

“You... you saved me back there,” Y/N murmured, her voice wavering slightly. “I don’t even know how to thank you.”

Hazel shook his head gently. “You don’t need to. We’re all just trying to make it through this nightmare. And now... well, you’re part of the group. We look after each other.”

His words made her heart swell. Part of the group. After so much time alone, so much time spent hiding and starving, she had almost forgotten what it felt like to belong somewhere.

She shifted a little under the blanket, her gaze still fixed on him. “It’s just... I didn’t think anyone was left. I thought it was just me.”

Hazel’s expression softened, and he turned to face her more directly. “You’re not alone anymore. We’ve got a little group, and we stick together.” His voice was so steady, so certain.

Y/N smiled faintly, though her eyes were still filled with awe as she looked at him. She was so tired, so drained from everything that had happened, but sitting here with him, she felt... lighter. Less like a ghost of herself and more like a person again.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” Hazel said, standing up slowly. He gave her one last look, something soft and reassuring in his eyes. “Get some rest. You’ve been through a lot.”

Y/N nodded, pulling the blanket tighter around herself, feeling the warmth from his words and the blanket wrap around her like a protective shield. “Goodnight, Hazel.”

He gave her a small smile before turning and walking away, his footsteps fading into the background. She watched him leave, her heart still beating a little faster than it should have, but not from fear. This time, it was something else. Something warmer, something that made her feel like maybe... just maybe, she wasn’t as lost as she thought.

She lay down, curling up under the blanket. Her mind was still racing, but there was something different now—a spark of hope that hadn’t been there before. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in what felt like forever, a small, genuine smile tugged at her lips.

She was safe. And she wasn’t alone anymore.

Sleep came easier than it had in days.

In the dead of night, Y/N stirred, her body tense beneath the blanket. Something had pulled her from her sleep—no, someone. There was a noise, faint but unsettling, like the sound of muttering mixed with ragged breaths. Her heart jumped in her chest, and she instinctively reached for the blanket, clinging to it as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The room was dimly lit by the soft glow of an old lantern in the corner, casting long shadows on the walls. She blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of her surroundings, until her gaze landed on the source of the noise.

In the far corner, huddled against the cold stone wall, was a figure. At first, she thought it was just her mind playing tricks on her—a shadow—but no. It was a person. She squinted, heart pounding, and recognized the small, shaking form of one of the men from the group, the quiet one with wide, haunted eyes. His back was turned to her, his shoulders trembling violently as he whispered feverishly to himself, over and over, the same words that she couldn’t quite make out.

Her throat tightened. Something about the scene felt wrong, like she was witnessing something she shouldn’t. The darkness felt heavier, suffocating, and her own breath came in short, shallow gasps. Part of her wanted to stay where she was, stay silent, but another part of her—a stronger part—knew she had to do something.

Slowly, Y/N pushed the blanket off and sat up. The floor was cold beneath her feet, sending a shiver through her body, but she forced herself to stand. She took a hesitant step forward, the faint creak of the floorboards echoing in the eerie silence.

The man—Fiver, she remembered his name now—didn’t seem to notice her. His muttering had grown louder, more frantic. He rocked slightly, his arms wrapped around his knees as if trying to hold himself together. The closer she got, the clearer his words became.

“They’re coming... they’re coming... we’re all going to die...”

Her stomach churned at the sound of it. There was something off in his voice, something desperate, like he was trapped in his own mind. Her heart ached for him, but fear gnawed at her too. What had made him like this?

Y/N crouched down beside him, hesitating only for a moment before she reached out to touch his shoulder. The instant her fingers brushed his skin, he flinched violently, a sharp, guttural sound escaping his throat as he recoiled from her touch. His head snapped toward her, his wide, terrified eyes locking with hers, and for a split second, he didn’t seem to recognize her.

“No!” he gasped, scrambling back as if she were one of the undead. “No, don’t—don’t touch me! It’s too late! They’re coming, they’re coming!”

His voice was raw with terror, and Y/N’s heart shattered at the sight of him. She wanted to help, but she didn’t know how. He was unraveling right in front of her, consumed by whatever horror was playing in his mind.

“Hey,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “It’s okay. It’s just me. You’re safe. We’re safe here.”

But Fiver’s eyes darted around the room, seeing things that weren’t there, his breath coming in rapid, panicked bursts. “No... no, you don’t understand... I’ve seen it. I know what's going to happen. It’s all going to fall apart. They’ll break through. We’ll all die. You... you’ll die.”

Y/N swallowed, a cold dread creeping down her spine at his words. His fear was contagious, and she could feel it sinking into her bones, making her hands tremble. But she couldn’t let him spiral any further. She had to do something.

“Fiver,” she said more firmly, trying to make her voice soothing despite her own fear. “Look at me. Please, look at me.”

He was shaking harder now, on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. His hands clawed at the floor, his breath hitching painfully in his chest as if he couldn’t get enough air. His muttering had devolved into incoherent gasps, and Y/N knew if she didn’t calm him down soon, he would lose himself completely.

Without thinking, she reached out again, more forcefully this time, and pulled him into her arms. He resisted at first, his body stiff and trembling against hers, but she didn’t let go. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, holding him as he struggled, whispering soothing words even though her heart was hammering in her chest.

“Shh... it’s okay... it’s okay. You’re safe. We’re safe. Just breathe, Fiver. Just breathe.”

At first, he didn’t respond, still caught in the grip of his terror. His breathing was ragged, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. But slowly—agonizingly slowly—he began to calm down. His gasps turned into deep, shuddering breaths, and the tension in his muscles started to ease. He slumped against her, exhausted, his head resting against her shoulder as he finally let go of the panic that had consumed him.

Y/N held him close, her own breath shaky as she ran her fingers through his hair, soothing him like a frightened child. “You’re okay,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”

Fiver’s breathing steadied, his body relaxing into hers as he leaned into the warmth of her embrace. His voice was hoarse and broken when he spoke again, barely a whisper. “Something bad’s coming... I can feel it.”

Y/N didn’t know how to respond to that. The weight of his words lingered in the air, heavy and foreboding, but she didn’t let it show. Instead, she held him tighter, letting her warmth shield him from whatever horrors haunted his mind.

“I’ll keep you safe,” she promised, though she wasn’t sure how much she believed it. But it seemed to be enough for him.

Eventually, his breathing slowed, his trembling stopped, and he drifted into a restless sleep, still clinging to her like a lifeline.

Y/N stayed awake long after that, her mind racing with fear, dread, and the chilling words he had whispered to her.

“Something bad’s coming...”

@ 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒏𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒍 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒. 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒑𝒚, 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒆𝒃𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒔.

[mariacallous]

Salman Rushdie has just published Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. In August 2022, he was giving a talk at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from New Jersey, rushed the stage and stabbed him 15 times. It was astonishing that Salman survived. He lost the sight in one eye and sustained terrible injuries, but he’s still with us and he’s still writing, and unlike Hadi Matar, he’s still worth hearing.

We think of fanatics as stalkers with an obsessive knowledge of their targets.  Like the antisemites who compile lists of Jews in the media or the homophobes who so focus on the details of gay sex they might almost be closet cases

Most terrorists and bigots are not like that. They are like soldiers in an army who kill and hate for no other reason than tradition or men in authority have told them to kill and hate. If we were less fascinated by the pseudo-glamour of violence, we would see them for what they are: dullards and jerks.

In Knife Salman is almost as angered by the sheer lazy stupidity of his wannabee assassin as his violence.

“I do not want to use his name in this account. My Assailant, my would-be Assassin, the Asinine man who made Assumptions about me, and with whom I had a near-lethal Assignation … I have found myself thinking of him, perhaps forgivably, as an Ass.”

The ass “didn’t bother to inform himself about the man he decided to kill. By his own admission he read barely two pages of my writing and watched a couple of YouTube videos”.

That was enough, apparently, along with a little light indoctrination in the Levant.

We know from Matar’s mother that her son changed from a popular young man to a moody religious zealot after visiting her ex-husband in the Hezbollah-controlled town of Yaroun in Lebanon, a mile or so from the Israeli border.

“I was expecting him to come back motivated, to complete school, to get his degree and a job. But instead, he locked himself in the basement. He had changed a lot. He didn't say anything to me or his sisters for months.”

Salman quotes a wonderfully perceptive line from Jodi Picoult

“If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”

Rushdie is openly contemptuous, as he has every right to be.

“I see you now at twenty-four,” he writes, “already disappointed by life, disappointed in your mother, your sisters, your father, your lack of boxing talent, your lack of any talent at all; disappointed in the bleak future you saw stretching ahead of you, for which you refused to blame yourself.”

This has always been the way. Readers old enough to remember 1989 when the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered Salman’s execution for writing a blasphemous satire of Islam’s origin story in the Satanic Verses,will know that Khomeini had not read it. Nor had the furious demonstrators in the streets or the regressive leftists and Tory ministers who upbraided him for the non-crime of causing offence.

Those of us who had read the book pointed out that it was a magical realist fiction which contained sympathetic accounts of the racism Muslim immigrants in the UK suffered. Indeed, the Tories of the day loathed Salman, we continued, because of his confrontations with official racism.

But after a while we fell silent. Pleading with his enemies felt demeaning. It gave them undeserved credit, as if they were reasonable people, who could be swayed by evidence rather than just, well, pillocks.

In Knife Salman attempts an imaginary conversation with his persecutor.

OK, he says, Islam, unlike Judaism and Christianity, holds that man is not made in God’s image. God has no human qualities, it says.

But isn’t language a human quality? To have language, God would have to have a mouth, a tongue, vocal cords and a voice, just like a man. The terrorist’s understanding is that God cannot be like a man, however. So, God could not have spoken to Gabriel in Arabic. Gabriel must have translated his message when he came to the prophet.

The angel made it comprehensible to Muhammed by delivering it in human speech which is not the speech of God.

Thus, the version of Islamic instruction Matar received in his basement when he switched from playing video games to listening to Imams was an interpretation of a translation.

“I’m trying to suggest to you that, even according to your own tradition, there is uncertainty. Some of your own early philosophers have suggested this. They say everything can be interpreted, even the Book. It can be interpreted according to the times in which the interpreter lives. Literalism is a mistake.”

For a while, Rushdie says he wants to meet Matar again at the trial, as if he wants to have the argument in the flesh.

He tells a story about Samuel Beckett, which could only have happened to Samuel Beckett.

Beckett was walking through Paris in 1938 when he was confronted by a pimp named Prudent, who wanted money from him. Beckett pushed Prudent away, whereupon the pimp pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest, narrowly missing the left lung and the heart.

Beckett was taken to the nearest hospital, bleeding heavily. He only just survived.

You will never guess who paid for his treatment. James Joyce, of course, he did.

Anyway, Beckett went to the pimp’s trial. He met Prudent in the courtroom, and asked him why he had done it. This was the pimp’s reply: “Je ne sais pas, monsieur. Je m’excuse.” (I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry.)

But the more he thought about it, the less Rushdie had to say to his enemy. The idea that you can have theological arguments with a man who wants to kill you for writing a book he hasn’t even read felt ridiculous.

Although popular culture is full of stories about murderers, and true crime podcasts top the charts, killers and fanatics are nearly always less interesting than their victims. More often than not they are just thick. Nasty and vicious, but thick first of all.

We are about to see the stupidity of fanatics deployed on a mass scale. Two thirds of Republican voters (and nearly 3 in 10 Americans) continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and that Joe Biden was not lawfully elected. They think it because that is what Trump told them to think.

Islamists told Matar that Salman was an apostate, and that was all he needed to know. Trump told Republicans the election was stolen and ditto.

If Republicans were consistent people, they would not vote for Trump in 2024. What would be the point? They would have every reason to fear that the deep state would rig the 2024 presidential election as it rigged the 2020 presidential election.

But they will vote for him because, once again, that is what he tells them to do.

In the end there is a limit to how much attention you can pay the vicious and the stupid.

They are not interesting enough, as Rushdie concluded with marvellous disdain as he contemplated the life sentence Matar will face.

"Here we stand: the man who failed to kill an unarmed seventy-five-year-old writer, and the now 76-year-old writer. Somewhat to my surprise, I find I have very little to say to you. Our lives touched each other for an instant and then separated. Mine has improved since that day, while yours has deteriorated. You made a bad gamble and lost. I was the one with the luck… Perhaps, in the incarcerated decades that stretch out before you, you will learn introspection, and come to understand that you did something wrong. But you know what? I don’t care. This, I think, is what I have come to this courtroom to say to you. I don’t care about you, or the ideology that you claim to represent, and which you represent so poorly. I have my life, and my work, and there are people who love me. I care about those things.”

[axl-ul]

The Flight of the Western Crane: Chapter Eighteen

(A reupload/repost of my fic/dark retellingof Journey to the West which can be also found on AO3 under the same name)

(General info about this fic/wip/retelling is here)

****

Thankfully to the blessing of the storm, the serpentine streets didn’t reek with mustiness. Various pastries let themselves be known to all attendants equally; it didn’t matter whether they were right in front of them or observing the parade on the opposite side of the Jade Peak of Shufen.

Bajie stood next to Mei in anticipation when she pointed at a large stall hosting a long row of customers. Candied mandarins and cumquats gaped at them as if begged to be tasted. Once Márgerdra picked on their intentions, she firmly stood against another purchase despite her own itching tongue. Sanzang couldn’t be more grateful when Ol’ Sha’s head shone in the crowd like an unusual red beacon of a Persian lighthouse on a monotonous sea. The shy demon was basically running towards them, barely managing to keep his newly bought scripts and scrolls together under his armpits. Given his imposing stature, the comical scenery drew a chuckle out of few passers-by.

“I got a message from Brother Lie. The queen’s showing up later,“ Sha Wujing he wiped his large forehead with a piece of cloth given to him by the witch,“If anyone cares to wander a bit around you can. Just be here in two or so hours-“

“Alright, I have to answer nature's call. Anyone else with the same destination?“

“Kinda. I gotta pass water.“

“Could the two of you say it louder? I don’t think people around heard you well.“

“What is it now, blondie?“ Wukong rolled his eyes and leaned on Bajie’s shoulder,“We avoided the ‘bad’ words. We’re gentlemen.“

“Yes, dear,“ Bajie jumped in to join the defence, though both struggled not to break into laughter,“A real class…“

“Without an ass,“ Wukong finished the sentence, slapped himself on the rear and both demons started braying and guffawing.

“Cut it, both sides,“ Sanzang waved his arms and dragged himself, and thus their entire party, away from the centre of the street right under the patulous banyan. A dozen children, no more than ten, ran around, whooping and jumping. They started kicking a jianzi in a circle. The tiniest and most fragile-looking one bumped into the monk as she was about to retrieve the feathered toy.

“I’m sorry, mister,“ she peeped politely though her enormous eyes lingered on the young man too long to be considered within the limit of good manners. “Mister, would you like to become my husband? Not now but when I get older. I can play jianzi very well. I’ll be a good wife. By that time, you’ll probably be as dry as the apples we forgot and left in the sun last week. But you’re still better than most boys around,“ she rattled off and frowned back at an older boy who accidentally kicked away the toy.

The group laughed with the exception of shocked Sanzang. Even the Great Sage couldn’t help and chuckle. Coming closer, he nudged his master,“The kid’s got a bigger mouth than I did at her age.“

“And you, uncle,“ she averted her attention and pointed at Wukong,“said there would be the shadow puppeteers. Me and my friends can see none. Are you a liar?“

“Me and deception? Young lady, I would never,“ the monkey brought his hand to his chest. “As a matter of fact, my whole family was about to call the puppeteers as promised.“

“Uncle, don’t lie again. Is this handsome master your family?“

“Indeed he is,“ Wukong’s chest rose as he started boasting,“Can’t you see, little girl, the charm’s run in our blood for generations!“

Seeing the little girl with pigtails wasn’t the most trusting, he turned on his heel to face the waving group. “Here are my other two little brothers and my darling sister-in-law. And the lady with locks of pure gold, missy, is my precious wife.“

The girl didn’t hesitate just like before and ran towards Mei first, then she flung into Márgerdra’s arms. The witch’s eyes popped out. She found no other way than to bring the child up to her face. “Aunties are so pretty they could easily be princesses!“ Her tiny palms landed on Márgerdra’s cheeks and drew her nearer. “Though you look just as weird as Uncle Muhou,“ the girl whispered, still rather loudly, then giggled.

Neither Márgerdra nor Mei could help themselves but join. The witch’s hand rose to tickle the owlet,“Aren’t you one adorable mischievous lady!“

“Auntie, stop it!“ the child squealed.

“Are you still going to call me weird?“

“No! Never again!“

“Auntie Yaling will stop only if you invite us to the play,“ Mei joined and dishevelled the girl’s bangs.

“Alright, you win!“ the owlet cried for the last time before her feet touched the ground and she held onto her belly. Grabbing both women, her oval chin pointed at Wukong once again,“Uncle Muhou, lead the way!“

“Sweetie, why can’t you do it? We’re only visitors here,“ Márgerdra chuckled at the thought of a mere child bossing around the Great Sage himself. “Besides, what about your parents? Won’t they worry about you all?“

“Because Uncle said he knows the puppeteers. He’ll surely remember his way around. Mama and papa also don’t worry much. Everybody knows everyone here. The city’s celebrating, too. We’re allowed to hang around as long as we want! Guys,“ she called out,“let’s go!“

****

It was a peculiar sight to behold. Ol’ Sha sat down in the second row among the children. He darted whenever any character made even the slightest of movements and made notes into a journal. The smaller ones who didn’t find a seat in the first row used his gigantic stature as a way to gain a place with a better view on the colourful box with a translucent screen.

The shadows danced and fought and somersaulted from one point to another while the narrator’s winsome voice engaged the audience into the play of heroes. Once the monsters showed up, Sanzang and Mei quickly hugged each other, trapping two equally petrified children in between. On that occasion, the monk’s hat would fall deep to his face and tickle the princess. Immediately, their dismay would be washed away. Instead, felicity flew over to them. On the other hand, Bajie who sat only a few seats to the left salivated in his deep dream-like state whenever the hero’s sister or his lover showed up.

Out of nowhere, somebody slapped Pigsy on his nape, knocking down his cap. Quickly turning around, the gale of wrath remelted. It was Wukong’s tail that had hit him. The Big Brother Monkey roasted Bajie’s indelicate thoughts as easily as always. “I may be sitting up here in the tree,“ the imp uttered from above,“however, don’t think I’m clueless about your manners.“

“Big Bro, I didn’t do anything!“

“Shut up. There are kids around you. Behave.“ He planned to rebuke him further. But the weight of a small boy falling asleep on his shoulders suddenly shifted. Wukong rapidly grabbed the child and straightened up his spine. He let out some air through his nostrils. The boy didn’t wake up nor got hurt in the process.

Casting a side eye, there she was. Márgerdra’s lap was occupied by the owlet and her younger sister, both blinking scarcely. Wukong couldn’t decide whether it was because of the children’s background or whether they were just as exhausted as the boy on his shoulders. The excitement about the queen’s parade probably didn't allow them to doze off.

Inspecting further, he noticed that both girls had their hair remade by Márgerdra. She nimbly finished the owlet’s braided pigtail and tucked the small fringe behind her ear. By the start of the final act, the Wolf Witch brought her small coat over, a cushy and comfortable, though improvised, cover.

There. A single heavy beat against his ribs. Then another one. And another.

The boy started slipping, not a single reaction to the noise around. Soon, Wukong found himself holding him in his arms, snuggling to his auburn shirt.

The Wolf Witch reacted to his subtle shifting. Fearing he must have been cold, they started chatting what soon became friendly banter only they could understand fully. The delight in Wukong’s undertone neither Márgerdra’s subtle interest whenever her companion explained a character’s motivation or a tie to another legend slipped Pigsy’s perked up ears.

The weather affected most of them and so, Wukong had to jump down to carry a blanket over to his master and the princess. Before he sneaked away, the monkey demon asked,“By the way, you’re pretty good with kids.“

“You’re rather solid as well. I can see the monkeys calling you their Grandpa and these little rascals their Uncle.“

“I told you I love fun,“ the monkey grinned broadly. “To be frank, I’m glad to have a fellow Auntie. That little parley was really something. Did you pick up the skill around Mei?“

She briefly smirked but something inside remained freezing cold. Wukong didn’t know how exactly, but he felt it. He wished he could find the source of that ice. To seek out the truth and to melt it away.

“It doesn’t concern you,“ Márgerdra answered. The monkey demon stiffened upon hearing her terseness. Both had to come back to their senses, though, as the owlet complained about them interrupting the play.

The Great Sage hunched over and sneaked up on Sanzang. Now, he looked more like a tiger than a macaque. However, the monk was neither a prey or a naive owner.

“Everything alright?“

“Yeah, the play’s very entertaining.“

“That’s not what I had in mind,“ looking right and left, then up and down, not a single corner escaped his golden pupils. “How do you feel about meeting Her Majesty Spreads-Her-Legs, Shifu?“

“Wukong, be nice with this kind lady! I see your stances differ but keep yourself down.“

“That’s not a la-! Shifu, do you truly believe the queen’s nonsense? Do you even remember what’s said in our teachings? Can you read between the lines that the greatest evil hides under the clothes of kindness?“

“I know. My point is they don’t seem to be hostile.“

“‘Seem’ doesn’t equal ‘aren’t’.“

“Please, try to be nice with our hostesses.“

“Fine,“ the Monkey King put his hands up, seemingly backing down from his claims,“I’ll do my best. But this doesn’t change the fact that more men passed between those women’s legs than water under the bridges of Hangzhou, boy. Ow!“

Sanzang slapped the macaque’s back of the head and for a moment they focused on the play.

“I’m sorry, Wukong. I get what you mean. Would you like some, dad?“ Sanzang pointed towards a small basket with dried apricots. His master’s little joke stunned the disciple. Before Wukong had any chance to refuse, the narrator’s voice and the sharp howl of the erhu picked up on the strength. The shadows danced, the music died out and the crowd cheered. The story finally came to an end and even though it was fairly predictable with its happy ending, nobody complained.

All twelve children, no matter how sleepy, cheered upon the villain’s defeat. “One more tale!“ they all pleaded.

The puppeteers sized them up. They had to move their stall now as the parade kept approaching. Although the younglings and their persistence broke their hearts.

“Good friend, it’ll take only a minute or so,“ Bajie tried his honeyed words,“these youngsters wait all year round ‘til your show.“

“Indeed,“ even Sanzang jumped to the rescue. “Even though the innocence shouldn’t be spoiled and one shouldn’t keep hunting rewards for they’re earthly matters,“ his tongue almost slipped if it weren’t for a tiny squeeze on his forearm from Mei,“this is after all an enrichment of their cheerful lives.“

“Yes, mister puppeteer! Pretty please! Could you tell us about Yue Lao and the fox spirit lady?“ the owlet stood up in Márgerdra’s lap, rubbing her face.

“Not this again, Jingyi! Nobody wants to hear about all this lovey-dovey dumb stuff. What about all the monsters the Dragon Kings have to put up with?“

“It’s not dumb. You just can’t appreciate pretty things! Isn’t that right, Auntie?“

“What about Dasheng?“ another boy suggested. Some children fell silent, some gasped, some wondered and the others argued. The puppeteers started packing up more rapidly.

One of the older boys came closer and reprimanded his friend,“Don’t you know the adults don’t want us to talk about him?“

“I do. But I think he’s not that big of a boogeyman. He seems cool. And brave and strong! Don’t you know that he faced the Jade Emperor’s whole army by himself? That he refused to be treated the way he was just because he was a demon like us? He’s a-“

“He’s a monster killing us. He makes no difference between you and the fly you slapped a second ago.“

“But why? He’s a demon too,“ the boy argued back.

“Because a monk who thinks we’re evil tells him to slam our heads with the magical cudgel.“

“Is he really like that?“ Perhaps for the first time since they met her, Jingyi squirmed and briskly pressed her small frame against the witch. The Pilgrims as well as the princess remained silent, only daring to watch the ground beneath. Márgerdra gathered up her courage. Her eyes darted towards Wukong. He was standing in between her and the monk, surrounded by people, yet forlorn, unmoving in the frail light of the lantern hanging above. Only his chest heaved once in a while. He didn’t blink nor his lips quivered. The only thing that seemed to be alive within his presence were tiny flies flitting around. He was looking down to his feet. Despite the lack of shown emotions, Márgerdra sensed the tension within. The stone unravelled, revealing his shame.

“Precisely, my dear boy.“ As if it weren’t enough, the handmaiden with a beauty mark made her presence immediately. “The Kinbutcher is no better than the monk or the humans or the Celestials or Buddha. He is mighty, yes, indeed. Powerful and skillful and bold,“ she sighed and caressed her nape. The eyes under her heavily painted eyelids shone with unnerving lust. Márgerdra hoped to be wrong. But she knew better. “All he sees and thinks about are our sliced necks. Be like your friend here and remember those stories in the future.“ She patted the boy’s head and was prepared to make another announcement.

The Wolf Witch interrupted,“What if the stories lie? It’s happened many times that they like to exaggerate.“

“What would you know about it, Miss Yaling? Fairly enough, I doubt you’re familiar enough with the local legends.“ The emphasis on the last words was a clear message in between the lines for the Wolf Witch.

“I don’t dare to argue, Miss Yawen. Yet I’m certain that people anywhere and everywhere like to provide a show for the sake of it. It’s a simple principle of entertainment. Why would the Great Sage or the Tripitaka be different? You may believe in their goal or not. But condemn them just like that?“

“You speak as if you know them personally, darling.“

“I do not,“ Márgerdra put the two girls away from her lap and made her way to Yawen who cowered right away,“but I’ve lived through enough not to repeat such foolish judgement without proof.“

The she-wolf stared down the handmaiden. Yet, the two had to put aside their strife because the captain made himself known by his quick steps. The young man exchanged his armour for a more comfortable but still equally formal attire. However, the blade still shone at his side, prepared to be unsheathed in a moment of need. His hand in an elegant sleeve waved around as if he were lecturing the youngsters and not fellow adults. Explaining the plan of the parade, he began walking away and the rest followed.

“Uncle, are you okay?“

Wukong blinked several times. “Yeah, kid. Never felt better in my entire life.“ He forced a smirk and went after his group.

****

Locals and merchants from afar gathered up on the paved street, thus providing an obstacle and dividing the crew, although there was still some time left before the start of the parade. The chattering travelled fast, it infected everyone present in the wide street lined with brooklets, the artificial deviations of the river, from each side. Minnows swam with the current around lotuses and barclaya, the fan-shaped gingko leaves waved at them even at the slightest gust of the breeze. Their red fins easily created the illusion of long bright under the crystal clear surface lines thanks to their perkiness. The thick swarm of these tiny creatures scattered whenever playful children shoved their hands under the water. Rocks forming the old pavement became dangerously slippery because of the splashing. Wukong, who still retained the limping gait, nearly became one of the victims if Jun didn’t catch him.

“Master Huang! I thought you got lost. Don’t get me wrong but it was challenging to spot you,“ the captain looked down on the macaque,“I see you’re doing better now. I feared we may not actually duel.“

“Don’t worry. I’d never miss the chance for another match. When it comes to my leg, my beloved wife took care of me with the help of my little brothers.“

“Honestly, I’m glad you received a high-quality,“ Jun fixed his eyes on Márgerdra right when she bent over a bench of a stall in front of them,“help.“

The blood in the monkey boiled. No matter how much he tried, his left ear started twitching. To make things worse, Miss Yawen emerged from behind and made her way in between the two demons. As it became a custom, she hooked her arms around them, making the Captain of the Royal Guard and the Great Sage unwillingly press against her.

“What is it, Miss Yawen?“

“I’m simply curious how you two feel. The parade’s here and your face off is around the corner. Aren’t you excited, dear Master Huang?“

“I’d rather pass this question to the captain.“

“Thanks but there’s nothing special.“

“Guess we can agree on that one,“ Wukong uttered.

“Stop it you two. Always so humble and shy,“ Yawen cackled; such a sound made Wukong imagine an old donkey choking on an apple. Seeing the conversation wasn’t leading anywhere, she changed her tactics to make a further impression. The circular fan with a handle swished, a light breeze caressed the three people. “Oh my, is it just me or is it getting hotter?“

When Yawen let her cheek brush against Wukong’s biceps, he rapidly placed his hand above his brows,“Is that a cricket fight? I haven’t seen that in years. Little brother, look! It’s our childhood’s favourite hobby!“

“I think Miss Yaling and Miss Ah Xiuying are in need of help. Master Shui, shall you join?“

Jun used the moment of surprise and vanished from the scene as well, leaving infuriated Yawen behind.

****

The Eight Rules tripped over. Thankfully to Wukong, he regained his balance and he found himself beside a small shed. A circle of spectators, mostly men in their thirties, cheered as they rooted for one or another of the two crickets. Unlike the majority of the men, the referee, a rough-looking man with a dirty apron, sat silent on a stool, watching over the fight warily. “You wanna bet on one of those? Because we’re prohibited to gamble, Big Bro,“ Bajie pointed out.

“I know. I just needed to get rid of that viper. Man, I swear I’ve got goosebumps all over myself.“ The Monkey King shook when he looked back to see Yawen marching away off of the street, but attached his attention back to the black insects on the ground. “The one on the left with brownish legs’ gonna win.“

“That underdog?“

“He’s fierce.“

“Throw him at her when she comes. Maybe he’ll bite her ass off.“ Pigsy peeked behind,“That vixen looks like she’s up to something. I’ve got a bad feeling about this..“

“You bet. Like brother, like sister.“

A spectator on his right whistled with such great force that Bajie’s ears started ringing. The Eight Rules rubbed his neck and gathered up the courage to ask what had been gnawing at his mind. “Lady Márgerdra’s been swooning over you. I guess she sees something in you. “

“Nonsense. Stop it now, Daizi.“ Wukong felt his knees become wobbly and the heat creeped up to his cheeks and ears. “She’s a close friend.“

“Just that? From what I’ve witnessed she seems to be your type, as well.“ Wukong had already begun elevating his arm but Bajie stopped him in time. His expression changed. “Brother, I recognise what you hide even from yourself. We must obey the precepts. That means no relationships. But we also mustn’t lie.“

Despite the initial desire to walk away or yell and fight dissolved. Zhu Bajie’s voice was unusual. It was heartwarming, sincere and brotherly. Supportive but also reprimanding. Wukong suddenly felt as if it were him who was young and inexperienced with life.

“Do I look like I’m seeking counsel, Bajie?“

“You never do. Nevertheless, you don’t deny my claims.“

Wukong, who’d been observing and cheering on the cricket, halted. Clenching his fists and immediately relaxing them, he licked his dry lips over and over. It didn’t help much as the drought had already invaded the inside of his mouth and throat.

“Does she know she became dear to you? Don’t try to dodge the question.“

The Monkey King’s breath quickened. The world around was slowing down till it froze.

Wukong parted his quivering lips as he looked behind to find Márgerdra in the opposite direction. She was with the princess, his master and the captain, all admired the pottery. The captain sneaked his hand on the small of her back. Immediately, the monkey averted his gaze. Instead Bajie turned around right when the Wolf Witch temporarily leaned into the touch. It baffled the pig demon. But he recognised her disgust camouflaged as the cold when she pretended to borrow the Princess’ orange waistcoat, leaving the soldier with no choice but to retract his arm. Pigsy proudly tittered.

“No.“

“Then tell her the truth. For her sake. For yours.“

“How could I, Bajie?“ Wukong hadn’t intended to show any of his true emotions. But the despair crawled out on its own. Bajie was his brother, not only in teachings and arms. He was hearing his misery out, although the senior almost broke the supporting pillar when the side of his fist collided with it. What saved his steel face and iron reputation was the unexpected victory of the brown cricket and the fans cheering on their bets, thus muffling his cry.

“I asked this myself when I saw Chang’e and then Cuilan. Albeit I wasn’t lucky, at least I can help ya. Y’know, Big Bro, back then, I didn’t understand that love and care come from respect. And that, dearest brother, is rooted in honesty. Do you comprehend?“ Pigsy put a hand on Wukong’s shoulder while they walked around the small shed. There, out of the reach of the undesired attention of the possible onlookers, the Great Sage slid to the wet ground. He ignored the splinters sinking into his tunic and sleeves.

“I suppose. Shifu talks about compassion all the time. You know damn well I struggle with it. Yet with her, it doesn’t feel forced. But sometimes she’s one stubborn mule. And uptight! It drives me crazy. On the other hand, she’s witty. Sometimes, she chuckles at my jokes. The other time she scoffs. She’s so…“

“...complicated that you can’t wrap your head about it.“

“Exactly! She isn’t a Celestial fairy. Neither an evil temptress. She’s just… a woman…a broken one. And I guess I don’t want her to get broken even more…“

Bajie nudged him further to make Wukong come to terms with himself,“Do you know why?“

“She completes me. And I wish to complete her.“ He clenched onto the fine fabric covering his chest. “Around her, I feel as if I had really had a…“

His head lowered in between his shoulders. His arms wrapped around it, covering every inch like an ancient helmet of bizarre shapes. Wukong blinked a few times. In the darkness, a light shone on his sins. The mockery, insolence, murders and devouring. That monster, that strange, disfigured creature with its blank stare which had appeared in the Sage’s nightmare. Is he turning into it? Is it the inevitable end? There’s a saying that what goes around, comes around. Shall no Buddha or a Celestial or a saint or his dearest Shifu help? Will he help himself? Or will he hold her body as life escapes with her last breath? After all, this is what he wished for in the beginning.

“Wukong,“ Bajie’s comforting voice tore him away from the gloom,“today might be your last chance. Unless something screws up, I doubt you’ll share many private moments.“

“What about Shifu? Buddha? I swore to be a monk…“

“What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.“

“Meaning I better lie to him instead? Besides, what if I scare her off? You know well I’m new to this.“

“No, don’t simply mention it. It’ll be fine. About the witch, she pretends to be vain. But she refuses even the captain’s attempts. That ‘hunk’ doesn’t seem to reflect her vocal message at all,“ Bajie laughed. His grin froze once he realised he might have said too much. Wukong’s entire face puckered as he tried to decipher his junior’s message.

The awkward silence didn’t last long. It all started breaking up as good Ol’ Sha squeezed his way to them through the crowd, the new scrolls stored in a satchel another bookseller donated to him after an absorbing discourse. “Hey, guys. I wondered where you went off to. Anyway, would you mind helping me translate these with Shifu? I don’t understand some words there… Big Brother Monkey? What’s got into him?“

“Someone's head over heels and it’s not me this time.“

“Oh, is it about the Lady Wolf Witch?“ Wujing carefully slid the scrolls into the sack hanging from his belt.

The monkey demon threw his hands,“How does he know?! Bajie?“

“Brother Wuneng sometimes can’t keep his tongue behind his teeth. I noticed some of your interactions, too,“ Wujing squatted beside the senior disciple to ruffle his already messy hair,“You’re one meek lamb around our dear Miss.“

Thinking the two finally calmed down, one last visitor peeped around the corner. In comparison to Ol’ Sha, Yawen wasn’t welcome and it showed on each of the disciples. While the handmaiden remained silent, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing shuffled back into the street. Both had troubles to keep their grunts to themselves.

The Sage stood up with the same intention. Yawen’s palm on his ribcage changed that. He took a closer look at the demoness. She seemed different. More relaxed than by the start of the evening. There was a strange stench lingering around her as well. Wukong carefully stirred up the inner fire and let the sparks burn her image through his vision. Indeed, there were fresh traces of her twin.

“Dear, I’d like to invite you over.“

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.“

“I don’t take no for an answer, you know it, darling. I have a bargain for you.“

“You don’t say,“ Wukong barely contained his bitter laughter.

Yawen stood on her tiptoes. She practically spat out into his ear. “I know who you are. And I’m aware that you know who I am, too. We should stop beating around the bush, Qitian Dasheng.“

Sun Wukong’s skin turned ice cold.

“Don’t worry. I don’t wish to pose a threat to you. I’m not like my gege despite coming from the same blood. However, don’t try telling anyone. I have a few helpers around and I don’t wish for us to be disturbed. Is it clear? A business is a business, let’s keep it like that.“

“Private and straightforward.“

“Smart boy,“ she dragged her fan under his chin; his fur rustled under the tough material.

Wukong thought hard. On no account he wanted to put anyone under a risk. At the same time, he didn’t trust Yawen at all. In that moment he felt she managed to corner him. Or…?

“Deal. If you accept my condition.“

“Anything, mighty Dasheng.“ Her hands slid down his chest. Wukong felt the cutting pain of his clenching throat. His nails cut into his skin from the tight grip.

“The upper gardens. How secure are they?“

“Do you dream of seeing the wonder again? Did my initiation intrigue you?“

“Maybe.“

“If you insist,“ Yawen cocked her eyebrow and pursed her lips,“I bet you can get through the guards. Most of them will be present here at the parade anyway. It’s your advantage if nothing else. Once you’re in front of the gate, use this.“ Yawen took off one of her earrings and transformed it into a circular amulet. After casting a spell, a bird-shaped sigil appeared on the hoop and its gold gained a purple hew. “It should be enough to let you through the barrier.“

“What is it? A key?“

“An extension of Her Majesty’s permission. Just press it against the gate and let the energy flow through. Keep in mind, it’s not as powerful. Whatever you intend to do, make it quick.“

“How quick exactly?“

“Twenty minutes? Approximately?“

Wukong grabbed it and shoved the magical key into his pocket. Straightening up, his spine cracked and he got ready to leave. He wished to forget, to pretend it was all a bad dream.

Yawen sneered. She had to assure he remembered his promise,“The tea room in the eastern wing by the hour of the Rat, darling. Don’t be late.“

****

At first, the monkey thought a new day had already started. After his eyes got accustomed to the brightness he saw hundreds of onlookers crammed together like fresh fish in a harbour. The blinding light came from their lanterns - some hung on simple bamboo sticks, some were meant to be put on a water surface to float, others were waiting to be released into the wind. Many children, who had to sit on their father’s shoulders in order to see the upcoming parade, held onto them more tightly than to their wooden toys. Observing them while forcing his way through, Wukong noticed a few kites. Their wings and long tails carried patterns of azure feathers and scales. Around them fluttered glowing illusions of firefly swarms. “Must be a local thing,“ he thought.

It took him some time to find the rest. At last, he guessed the right direction when he recognised a head with short hair only his Master could possess. They were standing in front of a thick red rope which miraculously didn’t rupture under the pressure of hundreds of hands tugging back and forth. Undoubtedly, they chose the spot because of Mei who no longer needed to stand on her toes. The rising toe caps of her slippers with a silver fringe looked comical to Wukong, especially right next to Sanzang’s old straw sandals. 

The cheerful tone of strings and flutes resonated for the first time just as the macaque stood by Sandy and Pigsy.

“Here they go! Quickly!“ Sha Wujing waved at his senior,“Look closely for the most skilled erhu player, Big Bro.“

“Isn’t that a bit vague description, Little Bro? There’s plenty of erhu players and all of them are equally exceptional,“ Bajie whispered back.

“His solo should start once the queen brings her elephant out to bless the locals. Apparently, the instrument’s sound soothes the elephant.“

“So that’s how we found the big girl in the first place. Somebody probably played the wrong tune during rehearsals“, Wukong crossed his arms. “Anyway, where’s our ‘noble’ cavalier?“

“Most probably where that viper. A part of the parade.“

“They’re coming!“ eager Tang Sanzang turned around. He only wanted to gently cover his disciple’s mouth since he deemed the discourse to be too loud. Yet, the hand shot out so abruptly it slapped against the pig’s snout. The shame made the monk’s lips form a thin line. Bajie squeezed his eyes upon the large sting spread around the jaw. He nodded to let the master know he accepted the silent sorry.

Musicians and dancers in unusual and colourful dresses approached. “The northern gate’s the starting point. They’ll visit each corner of the city and finish by the foot of the palace’s stairs where the queen would thank all her citizens and visitors,“ Sandy went on much quieter.

The elephant showed itself at last. A large red blanket with golden threads was thrown across the large back. On it, a wooden saddle with gemstones of green and azure blue carried the Mother of the Jade Valley. By her side knelt her brave nephew. Both were covered by dark blue capes with shiny silver threads and jade beads were bumping on their prideful crowns. They waved at the enormous crowd with winsome smiles. Wukong betted his neck that Jun winked at Márgerdra once he spotted her. On the hand, his grin soured when looking at the monkey.

“We got the chicken duo and the big girl. Lie should be somewhere around, am I right?“ the Monkey King did his best to find a distraction.

“Yeah. I think I got him,“ Wujing banged on his chest,“See that guy on the first carriage behind the elephant with chrysanthemums? The one with a few streaks of white in his hair?“

“Are you sure?“

“Brother, I’ve known him the longest from our group,“ the Friar Sand widened his eyes in disbelief upon hearing Wukong’s doubtful question,“Of course I’m sure! I’d recognise him even if going blind. We should start following them. We’ll snatch him at the end of the parade. If they start asking questions, I suggest Bajie handle the situation with his honeyed tongue. Maybe with a little help from Her Highness’ diplomacy.“

“You got the brains tonight, Little Brother,“ the monkey chuckled, not knowing what his junior disciples had prepared during his absence.

“Well, it means you’ll get some time to take care of personal business.“

Wukong’s gaze darted between his juniors. Then, he shook his head.

Left with no other choice, Pigsy nudged into him before tapping on Márgerdra standing in front of them. “Remember, at least once in your life, don’t be a liar, dear brother.“

The woman turned around. Wukong was prepared to point at his brothers, yet those were no longer in reach. Instead, they were asking Sanzang about his opinion on the show. Mei, an equally curious being, leaned towards them and attentively listened.

Wukong took a deep breath before he spoke up,“Would you mind a small walk?“

When Márgerdra raised her eyebrow, he added,“Boys found Lie. I thought that we may take a small break until the end.“

“As in only the two of us?“

“Yeah, I,“ the drought affected his throat once again, his heart raced faster than the Heavenly horses of the Jade Emperor,“wanted to talk to you. Privately.“

“We get privacy every night.“ Márgerdra tossed her head to get out the few streaks of her forehead. Though no sun was in sight, the humidity glued either hair of clothes on the itchy skin. She gazed back to the performers dancing as well as to the elephant vanishing in the distance. Perhaps she yearned to witness more of the unusual occasion. “Can’t it wait?“

“I’m afraid no.“ The Monkey King bit onto his cheek and tongue. “It won’t be long, I promise. Besides, I know a good spot. We can watch from there,“ he offered his hand,“So, are you coming with me?“

The witch examined the offered palm too long to his liking. The heat creeped up to Wukong’s head, he felt unstable in his own skin for the first time in his immortal life. At last, she accepted. Not wasting more time, the monkey demon led her away from the main road until he gained certainty about the place’s safety. “Are you still scared of the heights?“

“Kinda.“

“Do you trust me?“

“Something tells me not to answer that,“ Márgerdra replied, the suspicion sneaking into her voice.

Yet Wukong only laughed and swept her off of her feet, which caused Márgerdra to yell and claw onto him immediately. Both her hands transformed, the she-wolf didn’t care whether the fabric began to tear under her grip or not. “Sorry, blondie, but this is the quickest transport there.“

“You didn’t need to throw me like a ragdoll.“

“Sorry,“ he sat down on his cloud. “Given your last experience, I get you’re not a fan of this type of sightseeing. But you can peep out now. In case you want.“

The woman moaned and tried to adjust herself,“Only if you let me go. I’m no damn damsel.“

“Can’t do that. You’d fall through.“

“I don’t recall anyone falling to their death.“

“That was temporary and only to break the fall. Jindou Yu responds solely to me when travelling in a horizontal manner, not vertical,“ he explained, then nudged the witch’s head with his chin,“Gonna take a peek or not?“

The blonde exhaled and finally took a quick look. “They all look like ants. Strange glowing ants. It’s,“ lingering longer over the edge of the fluffy cloud, Márgerdra came to sincerely appreciate what the monkey was showing her - thousands of visitors tinier than the stars in the sky, even the elephant making its way through the main roads was barely a greyish dot,“nice.“ She drew closer to the monkey, her head found a nest in the curve of his neck.

****

The paths underneath curved like earthworms after the rain, the palace with the mountain looked like toys for children. The Wolf Witch noticed how the air changed as well. No longer heavy but feather thin, unbreathable for a human. Yet to the demoness it was a pleasant change when the breeze brushed through strands of her hair. She looked down again. The reds, blues and greys of the houses were soon replaced by the golden roofs and then rich green vegetation. Crickets chirped, water from pools splashed whenever a fin came up in a gracious dance of fish.

Finally, they landed on the shore of one of the five larger pools. “We’ll walk from here. Keep close to me. Most of the guards should be dismissed or slacking off. But y’know…“

“Just in case.“

“Yeah,“ Wukong chuckled and offered his shoulder,“you can lean on me if you’d like to.“

“Are you afraid of losing me?“

Upon hearing her playful tone, he could only respond by yanking her closer to him until they bumped into one another,“More than ever, Miss.“

Turning her head right and left several times, Márgerdra inhaled the moisture of the gardens. At first, she disapproved of the idea. Now familiarising with the grounds, it simply wasn’t possible to refuse. “Lead the way.“

He chose the side paths that led through bamboo groves or thick peony bushes. Churring nightjars took turns while playing hide and seek in the pines the same way the two demons hid behind a big rock overgrown with moss from a patrolling soldier. Wukong came to find out that the viper handmaiden didn’t deceive him - the guard was one of three who stayed on duty at the gardens. Watching him a bit longer, Wukong wiggled his fingers and blew in between the gaps of the hand seal. The guard’s feet slipped on the footbridge. He landed in the watergrass, yelling curses until his whole face turned red. Quickly, he rushed out and his soaking figure disappeared in the distance while his colleagues laughed at him.

The stunt amused Márgerdra, who put her arms on her hips,“I bet you it’s the only option to clear our way.“

“It is, blondie,“ Wukong stood up and faced the path on the left of the footbridge, which led to a stone zig-zag bridge with white rails,“Ladies first.“

“How charming of you,“ she tapped him in between shoulder blades and stepped on the bridge,“Until you make me fall, too.“

“Such a wonderful creature? I’d rather get struck by lightning nine times. This outrageous thought’s prohibited to true gentlemen’s nature. I’d never commit these heinous crimes!“

“I was of the idea you despise poetry,“ the witch chuckled. She patiently waited until the macaque ran up to her. Each new conversation flew more fluently and naturally than the previous one, this time was no exception. They laughed, sparkled with wit. The demon suggested to the witch to shut her eyes, claiming a surprise was ahead of her. Initially, the witch’s concern made her protest. But she found herself changing her stance again and let the demon blindfold her with her silky veil.

The murk embraced her. Yet no emptiness approached. With plenty of sounds and smells around, she was thankful to find Wukong’s palm to rely on.

Márgerdra felt unnerved, worried, though the inner turmoil had no relation to the thrill from the surprise. The place where their skins touched should’ve itched. Guilt bit her with each step taken although The last time she held onto somebody like this was none other than Ereanth. And yet, unlike him, Wukong wasn’t only walking beside. The demon stepped forward when she did, he waited when she stopped. For the entire walk, he stayed by her side and held her hand. The longer they walked, the more she thought and remembered.

No word could have described how Márgerdra felt when she for the first time in her long life met understanding and honesty. Something she only knew when she was at home. But that burnt down long ago. Finally somebody saw her as she was and would be. Wukong wasn’t her mirror even though she smiled when he did and he cried when she did. Neither was he Ereanth despite the shattered pieces of her husband the witch envisioned within the disciple. Wukong was more, his own person with flaws. Flaws that made him perfect. The Great Sage Equal to Heaven wore no shining armour nor rode a graceful horse across the sky. And that was fine with her. Because he achieved much more. He came to terms with himself.

They stopped. The room for Márgerdra to question her feelings ceased to be.

A jingle in the front. A hissing but not that of a snake. It sounded as if water boiled and tens of those droplets immediately fell down onto the live coals. Wukong shifted, carefully led behind what she suspected was a gate since the low thump was too powerful to belong to a simple wooden fence.

The Monkey King undid the knot, his breath tickling the Wolf Witch on the nape while his tail swished right and left like an odd fan. “You can open them now.“

Her cherry red lips parted slightly as a gentle smile drew itself under the warmed up cheeks, her lashes fluttered like butterflies.

In the silver moonlight, an enormous tree with snow white flowers stood, proud but gentle, powerful and welcoming. A familiar fragrance encircled the pair. Then she noticed more - a neighbouring fig tree, a smaller red construction and a rivulet occupied by fish, frogs and herons. Yet the cup-shaped flowers remained the centre of her attention. 

As if he read her thoughts, Wukong said,“It’s a magnolia tree. I figured you’ve probably never seen one. A sparrow on the roof told me there might be one to visit.“ Seven heartbeats and still no answer. The Sage couldn’t blame her. He wanted the Wolf Witch to take her time, even if he were running out of his.

Her hand caressed the bark after taking several steps forward. Delight washed over the witch when she smelt one of the low hanging flowers. The fragile petals tickled her. At last, she answered,“The sparrow was right. Byzantine goblets, some divination and night embraces for instructions to these parts. The demon king gifted me several tokens of affection like that perfume as well.“

“I gotta give the guy credit. Giving you a horse would mean loads of dung to take care of,“ the monkey jested,“May I invite you to that lovely pavilion?“

As soon as she took a seat, he ran for the set and began the preparation. When Márgerdra acknowledged his stiff hands and a brief pause, he hesitantly agreed to her assistance.

While the pot boiled above the flame blazing from the monkey’s palm, he murmured,“Mar-ka. Már-ger-dra. Maaarrr-ka. Maaaaarrrrrr-ka.“ Before the witch managed to question, he quickly explained,“You said I can’t pronounce it. In my opinion, I did well.“

“If that makes you happy,“ she leaned back to watch the snowy flowers,“You don’t roll the ‘r’ properly.“

During their minor disagreement, Wukong unsuccessfully tried to convince giggling Márgerdra. The monkey even pretended to be offended when the witch labelled his attempt as adorable. “What about a deal? I’ll call you by a nickname of my own.“

“Another one? Fine, I’m listening,“ she perked up her ears.

Wukong shifted to pour her cup. He took his time to rethink the name. At last, he locked eyes with her. Softly, he said,“Mar.“

“Just Mar?“

“It’s catchy, classy, unique. Weird but worth remembering.“

“It has a nice ring,“ the Wolf Witch agreed and sipped her drink.

“Anyway, is it any good?“ He became even more pleased when the she-wolf praised the peach tea which, oddly enough, possessed refreshing lychee undertones. A pleasant silence fell over until Márgerdra asked about the fate of the family from the inn.

It took a while for Wukong to assemble a reply. No matter how much he tried, he saw how Márgerdra’s heart broke with each word. Although she didn’t break into a cry, her eyes still watered. He had to change the topic somehow. “That eyeliner survived my water attack but can’t handle a single tear? I told you to use mine,“ he rapidly blinked several times and waited. Indeed, she cracked a smile, even motioned for him to move closer and hand her a piece of spare cloth.

“Sorry,“ she sniffled,“I tend to be too sensitive at times but you’ve noticed that.“

“Nah, that’s fine. I’m quite the opposite. Cried only a handful of times and always for myself. Never shed a tear for another person, specially for a demon…“

At first, she kept quiet. Then she added,“I never saved anyone else’s hide.“

“What about Mei?“

“It often wasn’t just for her sake. Either my position or reputation would’ve been endangered. She’s a princess after all. Then you have basic reflexes. I don’t remember saving somebody purely out of selflessness. It’s always the dirty guilt that makes me come back. But only when the damage is already done,“ Márgerdra uttered. She drank her last cup and paused to gaze back at the tree. “Do you sometimes think of what it would be like to die?“

The monkey raised his brows not exactly sure what to say.

“I don’t plan to kill myself. I’m only curious since you’re immortal and I myself am rather old. So, what would you choose, Great Sage? How would you die?“

Wukong scratched his chin. “Preferably, I wouldn’t. That’s why I went through the ordeal of Yama’s bureaucracy.“ They laughed before he continued,“Something quick like getting my head cut off. Just imagine if my head grew back. The executioner would need to change at least fifteen blades.“

“That wouldn’t be exactly quick.“

“I know. But imagine the shock when witnessing my trick. Priceless. You?“

“Whatever it’ll be, I don't want to be alone. Not that there must be masses or weepers. Just…I wish someone’s gonna be there to let me know they cared. One person would be enough.“

The Monkey King let the topic silently go away prior to pointing at the graceful tree giant. “Mar, you see, up in the tree top. There’s a spot.“ She barely blinked, yet nobody was in his seat next to her. Led by intuition, the witch stood up and while calling his name, she circled the tree. A head with a pair of eyes equally sharp as the rocks sticking out of the city’s river hung upside down from a branch,“Wanna join?“

Márgerdra watched as he stretched out his hand. At last, she accepted. The macaque made sure her dress didn’t snag as she ascended. They settled down on racing to the top. Wukong thought the victory was his, however a slim hand offered itself upon his arrival. Breathless and shaking his head in disbelief, he accepted Márgerdra’s hand.

“You can’t take all the medals for yourself. If the motivation’s right, I always win,“ she notified him with a wink.

“Let’s go. We mustn’t miss the blast.“ He set out first but Márgerdra overtook him. That sight of her mesmerised Wukong. The demoness was in her best mood, she hopped to the edge of the massive bough like a little girl. Every step was solid, precise and confident, backed by years of experience and trainings. She even danced to the music below for a while during her wait for the monkey. Her body waved so elegantly it made Wukong think of the sea waves he crossed when seeking the Way. Wukong didn’t fight the chuckle when he saw her spin around for the last time. Even more, he applauded her craft.

When he caught up, the witch already sat and swung her legs. Her eyes were gazing below where the colours and sounds mixed profoundly. The water and air lanterns had been gradually released. The kites finally flew high up in the sky, their fireflies became the new stars. Márgerdra was surprised to clearly recognise an upbeat tune as well as to dissociate the elephant as a head of the great snake made of the procession slithering through the city.

She whispered,“It’s wonderful.“ Her head lowered until it found comfort in her left palm.

“Yeah, it is.“ At first, Wukong admired the view with her. But he soon caught himself watching her bathing in the moonlight. The branches created a perfect background for her frame which caused his heart to drum rapidly against his ribs. Upon inhaling the fragrance of the flowers and her body, Wukong imagined lying down and falling asleep next to Márgerdra.

“What did you want to talk about?“ the advisor locked eyes with him and the disciple thought his heart was about to jump out his throat.

“I guess I forgot, sorry.“

“Sure thing, tough guy.“

“At least we got an extra nice view, right?“

“Those boogeyman tales, I hope you’re not thinking over them. Or that name.“

“What?! No, not at all, blondie…“ the Monkey King halted.

“Monkey, I saw how you froze multiple times.“

Márgerdra fell silent, she didn’t want to push him. The situation was already uncomfortable. Even the wind seemed to have ceased.

“You’ve seen it. You witnessed it,“ he quivered like a leaf in the late autumn, his whole face twisted,“I wished death upon you. Yama knows damn well I’ve wished death upon my Shifu many times too and the boy barely knows the deal ‘round him! Bajie, Ol’ Sha… I even forgot about Lie. I didn’t bother about my family. That we were bound by fate? Destiny doesn’t exist. The boy was thrown into the lion’s pit and that lion’s me because nobody else was left to do the job!“

An even longer and more agonising silence. Wukong’s upcoming statement took Márgerdra’s breath away. “The sins I’ve committed, I’m no better than the vipers. Equal to Heaven? In their eyes, I’m pathetic. Ought I save the people with Shifu? People I used to eat? A demon king? For Heavens’ sake, I murder my own. The skin of a brat I wear is a cover for an old traitor… I’ll always remain a fiend, a criminal. I should’ve burnt in the crucible-“

“Wukong,“ Márgerdra interrupted him. He was so fragile and small as he hunched over, so exhausted and miserable. Her heated palms embraced his left hand that lay beside him. It brought the demon’s attention to the demoness. She continued softly,“You don’t have a reason to trust me. Tell me, though, do you believe me? If so, hear me out. At first, our strife was undeniable. But we moved forward. I know the cruelty you presented wasn’t you. It’s just a mask you created. Those kids loved you, your grandchildren admired you, your Master and brothers and even Mei adore you. All of you have matured, you included. That brat or an old guy, he became a man.“ Carefully, her hands slid up to the sides of his neck and held it for a while to let him adjust to the foreign pressure,“You’re a good man, Sun Wukong.“

“That requires a heart and a soul. I have only rock and dust inside.“

Márgerdra’s fiery willpower took over. No longer asking for permission, the demoness put her ear on the macaque’s chest. His body went numb but he patiently waited. As if his arms gained a will of their own, they moved up until they reached the blonde head and the delicate shoulders to stop there. Wukong tenderly, though still with a tinge of hesitance, embraced Márgerdra just as she sighed the warmest words ever spoken to him,“Your heart…it sings delightfully…“

As she straightened up, Márgerdra discovered how close they were. Her heart started pounding as well. Yet, for a different reason.

“Mar.“ There wasn’t much time left, he heard another scowling guard. He gathered the courage and proceeded to speak,“I do remember what I wanted to tell you. No way I want to force you. I just want you to know that…“

“Yes?“ Márgerdra twitched. She began to get more flustered the more he spoke.

“Under that icy surface, there’s a burning passion. You’re one of the people I respect. I know you carry a great burden. I wish to carry it with you, to help you the same way you help me. Without you, some things wouldn’t be complete. You matter to me.“

“Mar,“ a faint smile brought the few wrinkles,“I fell for-“

Citizens lit up the firecrackers and the thundering boom reached over the whole valley.

“Your clone!“ suddenly Márgerdra yelled out and briskly pulled Wukong’s hands down, “You didn’t use it, did you?“

“You forbade me to do so.“

“We should get back. Somebody may notice we’re not present,“ the witch pointed her finger down,“What are you waiting for? Come on! We must meet your brother.“

Left with no other option, he joined the she-wolf and sneaked past the patrol. During their quiet ride, he couldn’t help but notice the witch didn’t allow him to hold her further than beyond securing her from the fall from the Jindou Yu.

****

The elephant stopped on a podium in front of the palace stairs. The whole place was decorated with yellow chrysanthemums, red ropes, azure, turquoise and emerald flags and complicated knots hung from the old houses like in the rest of the city. The buildings that were closer to ruins the other day, now transformed into vibrant palaces of their own.

Shufen stood up in her seat and started thanking her subjects right after a representative of the folks expressed the general gratitude. Her slim arms spreaded above her great jaded crown. The glory the queen held was immense. Her powerful voice captured everyone’s attention. It seized them and didn’t let them throughout her whole speech. She invited the crowd to pay its respect to the monk’s plans to improve the settlement. A handful of eunuchs dragged him on the stage next to the elephant. After mentioning the past struggles and how easily they overcame them, Shufen made a last note,“Tomorrow, as it became our good custom, the Spring Guardian shall hear out my prayers to grant us a proper reward and secure another successful year. I also wish for you to listen carefully as I, Queen Shufen, have an announcement to make. Until then, however, rejoice! Drink, dance and sing as much as you can!“

Jun finally unsheathed his sword and assumed a ceremonial stance to bless the people along with his aunt,“Mother Queen Shufen, from the Heaven and Earth’s will, blesses the Jade Valley, the Jade Peak and its people with health of steel, plates full of food each day, children most filial to their parents and the bravest flames in their hearts as not even the Celestial army could tear our paradise down for it is under the protection of the Azure Crane Dynasty!“

Firecrackers were set off as the sentence finished. The crowd cheered and the elephant trumpeted. Right away, an enormous firework flew into the sky. Its orange, red, yellow and green darts parted ways to paint an image of a giant one-eyed bird.

Sanzang had to shrug as he gazed into that blank single eye. “Amitabha.“

“Have you just said anything, Master Shui?“

“Your Majesty! I haven’t noticed you came down from your seat,“ the young monk stuttered, wiping the sweat off of his brows. He couldn’t keep his hands from his apron and so he incessantly smoothened out the fabric.

“Master Shui, it is my duty to make myself known when it’s needed and invisible when it’s unexpected. A king must never become an easy target. Anyway, did you enjoy yourself?“

As the two spoke, Ao Lie finally reunited with his long lost brothers behind a big cart with wine pots aloof. “Big Brothers! Your Highness!“ He hugged them tightly before he began in a hushed voice, “Fine, listen. Tomorrow, I’m performing at the main celebration at the main palace. We should have a better chance to join our forces there since I’ve heard something big’s around the corner. That crane guy apparently caught the bandit boss.“

“Brother Wukong’s working on that already,“ Mei told Lie. “By the way, do you happen to know something about the Spring Guardian?“

“I’ve heard a thing or two. And I guess I actually may possess some knowledge of him.“

“Him?“ Bajie, Wujing and Mei asked altogether.

“Yeah,“ Lie heroically put his hands on his hips,“Dad and uncles told me a lot about our family. The guy seems to be a family. A cousin. A distant one, but still a cousin. If I could locate and meet him, maybe he could let us through the mountains or just straight up take us to the Broken Lantern.“

“Brocade Lantern,“ Mei frowned. She scorched Bajie when the pig cackled.

Wujing paused and rethought the proposition,“How do you know he’ll agree? It looks like the demon queen and your cousin go hand in hand.“

“I,“ Lie’s rare optimistic mood dissolved and his gloom returned,“forgot about that. But we share the same blood. He should come to senses once he sees me! By the way, where’s Shifu? I’d like to say hi to him… Your Highness, what is it?“

“Nothing, just that I’m a fan of your mastership in music. Your piece was excellent! And you’re so handsome tonight as well!“ Mei beamed at him and even clasped her tiny hands. The dragon-horse had to turn away to hide his blush. Ao Lie became immersed in his thoughts. He had so much to say.

All of a sudden, Sandy’s index finger darted up,“Brother Lie, I do remember you having a few strands of white hair, but not this much! Something happened?“

The question made Lie recall his most important discovery,“Where’s Brother Wukong? I must talk to him. And to the rest of you, as well. We may be in a much graver danger than what we thought. Somebody’s with the bandits and I’m certain he plays the bigger game. Don’t let him fool you. He looks like-“

Pigsy was prepared to utter a remark when he leaned against the cart. His shirt got stuck in a gap. The rest tried to free him, but they accidentally loosened the red rope securing the pots. An old man with white beard too neat to be an ordinary citizen cried out to alert the passer-bys. Jun rushed into the crowd to save three children. Yet he didn’t manage to grab a fourth owlet, a little girl with red ribbons tying her pigtails. From the depth of the crowd a woman leapt out. Her light garment swayed like a mysterious mist as threw herself and the child aside. Meanwhile a man with a thick bamboo stick masterfully shifted the course of the wine pots which reminded of a flock of furious bulls soothed by their grazier.

“Guess this belongs to you, kiddo,“ Wukong turned to squating Márgerdra and the owlet and handed her a little doll. The child promptly hugged her toy. She thanked them, then ran towards her worried mother to snuggle and to praise Auntie and Uncle.

Wukong turned on his heel and pretended to secure the cart with the main erhu player. In fact, both demons used the chance and secretly greeted each other.

Meanwhile, Márgerdra stood up with the help of the captain. “Thanks for saving those children. I don’t even want to imagine what could’ve happened.“ The she-wolf made a step forward since she intended to properly smooth out her clothes. Yet, she found herself falling into the soldier’s arms. Apart from her, a manly voice behind her yelled out.

“Miss Yaling, are you alright?“ Jun’s brows faintly raised as his inner satisfaction reached him. The situation’s development gratified him until he noticed what made the woman lose her balance.

Márgerdra and Wukong turned and noticed that one of the red ropes tied around their ankles during the chaos and bound them together. Both tried to untangle the knots but were unable to do so. One of the citizens suggested cutting it but nobody seemed to possess a sharp item. The butcher had no reason to be located in this part of the square either.

Wukong, still sitting on the ground and tugging the thread, looked at his juniors, silently pleading them. Yet, Lie stood by his master and asked for permission of Her Majesty to visit the scholars since they piqued his interest. Bajie, Wujing and even Mei intensely stared at the monkey and the witch. The three looked entertained, they snuggled together like toddlers. Inconspicuously, he shook his fist at them. At that moment, Jun cut the rope with his ceremonial sword upon Márgerdra’s request. The thick thread fell apart. The two ends drifted further apart when people began moving around. 

****

Wukong wasn’t able to fall asleep that night. Everything irritated him, whether it was a fly of an owl, the thrum of the river, late chats of the servants in the halls or a simple mosquito on the other side of the bedchamber. He was constantly switching sides. If only Shifu’d managed to persuade the queen. Ultimately, he decided to leave the bed.

The floor was particularly cold and the stars shone bright through the windows. The Monkey King watched the moon. A single narrow cloud flew past it. Besides it, nothing crossed the round face. It was similar to the man with the long white beard. Scratching his right shin, Wukong’s nails grazed a rough object. He forgot to remove the rope earlier and now he couldn’t care less about it. “Damn that viper and whoever snitched on us,“ he murmured while biting on the nail of his thumb, a poor substitute for a straw. He narrowed his eyes and listened to the depth of the space. The numbers’ value was slowly reducing until he came upon number one. With his now slow paced pulse, the demon pulled himself up and set out.

Passing by the bed, his eyes flashed by the witch. She was squinting even in her sleep. A thin trickle of blood came down her nose. Wukong briskly checked her temperature. “Not again. Not now. Please,“ he muttered and switched her porcelain pillow for a colder one. His eyes slid down until they reached her bare feet. There, she too had remains of the same rope on her. Yet hers differed. Tangled around her left ankle, it was significantly thinner, the knot tighter. It’d probably cut into her skin over time. The monkey wondered. “Why didn’t you remove that bothersome stuff? Did you forget about it? Or…?“ he shook his head and gave the moon the last glance,“What am I saying? It’s the hour of the Rat, I better get going.“

In front of the bedchamber, a short eunuch was standing. Once the door shut, he politely greeted the Sage. Wukong easily sensed that under the courtesy, the man with deep-set eyes wasn’t there for a pleasant conversation, nor to show Wukong the way in the palace maze. Ironically, the macaque was glad as without him he’d take a wrong turn at least three times.

The monkey’s bare soles left foot marks on the polished wooden floor. Wukong didn’t care, though, as they vanished as soon as they had come to an existence. Yet, they and the eunuch followed him like the shadow his figure cast on the uneven surface of the walls. The halls of the palace truly differed. Some were an unpolished grey of the mountain, the others were shining carved marvels from malachite and azurite, a colour that also painted the many hanging drapes and even the queen’s garments.

The way came across as unending. While he expected many stairs on his way, the monkey had a tough time believing anybody’d slog to the wing to drink a simple beverage. Wukong had never been one of the anxious kind. Yet the higher they ascended, the tighter the walls and the smaller the ceiling appeared. Not to mention the room was in the most remote area. Because of that, he decided to take two stairs at a time. At last, he spotted a door. The eunuch gave him a farewell and left him to run up the last segment and to nearly bust the door.

Warily, he leaned over the ancient frame to check the inside. Apart from a single window on the opposite wall, two large shelves storing various clay containers by his right and left and two low armchairs with a chaise surrounding a rarely used table, nearly nothing was worth mentioning. Yet, Wukong had to correct himself as he noticed snacks neatly laid out on silver trays alongside a clay teapot. Knowing he had to take a risk, the Monkey King stepped in.

As he did, the door shut itself. Two hands rested on his shoulder. “Here you are,“ Yawen said and tucked on his jacket,“Let’s take this off of you. It’s summer and you dress like in the middle of the winter, you silly hunk.“

The monkey’s head swooned. His nose picked up a smell of resin incense. “What do you want?“ the Sage asked, although he knew the viper wouldn't express herself easily. He turned around and took a closer look at the room. The wall he now faced was covered in paintings of dancing women and men. Following the scenery to the left, he discovered a yellow folding screen where Yawen surely resided until his arrival.

“Firstly, don’t be rude and take a seat.“ The monkey collapsed on the chaise under the sudden pressure from Yawen’s hands. “I’ve started the tea preparation. It’ll take only a while. Until then, try these. I made them myself.“

Wukong grimaced at the tray of unfamiliar clams served with steamed vegetables. Yawen had to use plenty of garlic due to the meal’s strong smell. “What’s that?“

“A geoduck clam. Don’t you like to try?“

“Since you’ve found out who I am, you’d also know that I’m vegetarian.“

“They’re delicious and healthy.“

“Heard about that, never had a piece,“ he pushed the tray back. “Thanks.“

“What about these, darling?“ she tried her luck with another plate. This time the serving contained bananas, figs, nutmeg cakes and pine nuts topped with honey. Just as she placed the serving in Wukong’s lap, she stood up to pour a cup of ginger tea for him. Once she leaned over to handle it to him, Yawen noticed the hostility growing in his eyes. She retracted, but the arrogance still emitted from her. “A business is a business, right, Qitian Dasheng?“

He nodded,“Aye.“

“I help my brother Jin or, as you know him, Golden Wind Viper. He sent me messages warning me about particular Pilgrims crossing our territory. Give us your Shifu and you’ll be free to leave without Shufen hot on your heels.

“My Shifu? What an insolence. Have you lost your mind? No, don’t answer that, I’m pretty sure you did. Rather tell me, Yawen, why are you doing this? Who’s pulling the strings?“

“Somebody who said is close to you and wants to simply help. He went on about getting the world rid of sinful filth. He needs the monk for that. And me? To be honest,“ Yawen sharply inhaled when Wukong cackled and crossed his legs while making himself more comfortable in the chaise,“I despise being a handmaiden. When Shufen doesn’t feel like it, and she doesn’t feel like it quite often, she sends me to do the dirty job. She thinks she can lead. The truth is, she only needs enough people for her revenge against Laozi and the Jade Emperor. Little does she realise that life is simply not fair. Never will be. It belongs to the strongest and the most cunning. She’s lost once, she’ll lose again. You surely understand me.“

“No,“ the monkey spat and massaged his temples,“I really don’t. Neither do I understand your brother and that ‘somebody’. This whole place reeks of backstabbing. If you think I’d enjoy taking part in your games, you’re wrong.“

“Am I, Dasheng?“ Yawen stood up and made her way to the incense burner which stood next to a miniature mountain landscape with peculiar dwarfed trees. She switched the contents of the object and continued,“I hope this one shall be better…“

The viper was taking her time with her speech while she was watching the disciple’s every movement in the thickening haze. “You need somebody to tell you the truth. Those who died at Mount Huaguo deserved it. Everyone who fell under your hand was meant to have their neck snapped. It’s impossible to escape fate.“

Wukong clutched the backrest. Barely keeping his cool, he fairly replied,“Fate doesn’t exist.“

“You’re one of those, are you? How surprising considering you monks always speak of the circle of life and so on. Well, then, let me rephrase. Weaklings are good servants or good food, nothing else. And the elite, us, we must make that decision for them.“

“You’re sick.“

The monkey’s scowl didn’t take away Yawen’s high spirits who continued,“Remember yourself. You fought, you survived and perfected yourself. My gift are schemes, but I lack my brother’s muscles. Though I’m sure I easily surpass that barbarian whore you brought.“

Yawen sneered, knowing she hit the sensitive note that made Wukong snap, cutting the demoness short,“Language, Yawen!“ In no time, the new incense made him relax a bit. He was even dizzier despite her casual reaction fueling his rage. Due to the sleepiness and blinding fury, the monkey was left oblivious to the two shadows slithering behind or the steps by the foot of the long staircase.

“Dear Wukong, by all means, you have to give at least some credit. I’m holding the cards now,“ she switched her seats to close the distance and played with her loosely tied hair while resting her head on the macaque’s spread arm,“I love Jin, he’s my blood. But my poor brother’s dense. I have the brain and all I need’s a little help to reach my perfection. Look at me, am I not beautiful? Mesmerising? Lovely?“

The Sage glowered at her attempt to direct his face to her. Yet Yawen wasn’t discouraged by it. Quite the opposite happened as the viper started tracing the edges of the macaque’s figure. His left cheek and jaw, his shoulder and chest, his abdomen and thigh. She rubbed and tucked the yellow-brown fabric on his tunic, apron and trousers. “Join us, join me. You’ll have more than just the gold. The crown of the emperor awaits you once we’re done with Shufen and the Celestials. That’s what you wanted from the start. Join and you’ll have twenty thousands of Mounts Huaguo! Compare it with what you have now. You’re filthy, you smell, you beg for water and food each day. You’re the boy’s circus monkey jumping and dancing whenever he pleases,“ her nail clanked against Wukong’s headband as she poked another wound,“Yet you could easily pass as his Shifu with your wisdom and knowledge. The boy acts as your father, but shouldn’t the roles be reversed? It must’ve been so painful to admit you lost all your freedom. I’ll give you everything you secretly dream of.“

The Monkey King shut the large eyes and clenched his teeth. He was fed up with the handmaiden’s games. Wukong was close to vomiting caused not solely by the nutty fragrance. Her slimy touch made his stomach and entrails twist and clutch.

When he thought it couldn’t get worse, the snake demoness brushed her lips against his earlobe. Initially, the macaque consoled himself that it was a trick of his mind. However, his body shuddered the moment Yawen clearly licked his cheek with her forked tongue. It flickered in between her whispers,“Give me your might, your energy. Give me your untarnished seed. Plant it in me.“

Wukong’s eyes popped out in sheer disbelief. Wrath flooded him whole and made him jump to his feet with the golden-black cudgel in his hands. The magical pole shone as it swiftly flung with Wukong roaring,“You filth! Give my regards to Yama ‘cause I’m sending you to meet him!“ When the cudgel was about to collide with Yawen’s skull, her elongated hair wrapped around Wukong’s wrists and neck like pythons. The slick shackles tightened and threw him back to his seat. Immobilised Wukong didn’t admit a loss easily. Even in this dire moment, he fought to the very end. “Looks like I was right all along ‘bout you and Shufen. Lustful sluts rotten to the bone. Big words but not a single sign of fairness in the fight.“

“I don’t think so,“ Yawen loosened her evening garb and let it slide down. She approached him with only a nearly transparent camisole covering her. The demoness firmly clasped the disciple’s hips with her knees and settled in his lap. Her tongue slid up and down his cheek again, then she did so on his chest after ripping his shirt into pieces. Despite the intimacy, she didn’t notice his skin was slowly turning to a dark shade of grey. It hardened, protecting the macaque from grazes, while the veins beneath started glowing with a weak orange light. 

****

Márgerdra kicked in her sleep. The dream was gone but her hand sought the comfort anyway. It wandered until it bumped into a scattered bedspread. She brought the fabric, which carried a smell of herbs and salt, under her nose. Though there was no sign of her companion, it seemed odd enough to comfort her. The dread didn’t hide its claws yet.

A tiger in a golden cage slowly morphed to a young bride. The very same bride she saw in the waves of the river and whose groom had but a white brocade for a face. The crowd sneered at her, pointing at her left sleeve. Its red fabric lolled at first. A trace of a slithery object followed, which looped under. A snake hissed and striked against the witch, aiming at her neck. Márgerdra retracted only to shoot out to stab the snake with her bestial claws. When she was about to hit it, the animal dispersed into millions of glass shards. Such a distraction let it reassemble a large distance away. The she-wolf sneaked through the fog closer to discover an unmoving body of a man. His contours were unclear but she had a feeling of knowing him very well. It was someone formidable. Someone whose presence was her sun and spirit her pillar. Márgerdra’s heart ached upon seeing how the scales rattled against his slim neck. Yet, he was still breathing. The witch once again dashed and kicked the snake away for good. Kneeling down, she held the man only to realise a pair of large eyes gazed back at her from under the heavy lids. Those wild and dark sparks made the witch shudder, she soon found a tear rolling down his bruised cheek. Whether it belonged to her or to him, Márgerdra didn’t care as she tried to keep him awake. He whispered but she couldn’t understand him, though it wasn’t because of her despair. Márgerdra refused to understand him. Then he collapsed. He let out his last breath in her arms and Márgerdra felt a half of her soul was gone with him. Yet the true terror was about to be released. A monstrous hand perforated his chest and the dead man’s blood splashed at the witch. His black shadow slowly stood up from underneath with a hardly beating heart in its grasp. The flesh turned to a grey stone and crumbled to pieces. Cider-like eyes fixated on her. She spat at the figure that crowned itself with the deceased one’s scalp. Tolerating no disrespect, the shadow dashed at her to deliver a fatal blow. Before it did, everything went black, then white. Then a scenery opened in front of Márgerdra. Her eyes slid slowly to the left until she turned around. There, the little girl faced a gaunt creature firmly standing in the snowfall. The deep look penetrated her like a needle does to a skin. The legs and arms were long and only a bit thicker than a twig. Instead of running away, the child ran towards it, seeking comfort in the disfigured girl. Her ashen skin was ice cold, yet the embrace warmed up Márgerdra. It heated even more when yells and cries reached their ears. Those two were torn apart. Márgerdra found herself half-naked and lying on stomach on the hard ground, screaming, crying, begging. That black-eyed creature banged on the door. But she didn’t hear anything anymore. All that she held in her vision by the end of the dream was the vast red sky of the sunset and branches with white flowers and a single unfamiliar ripe fruit. Márgerdra clutched the gaping wound in her belly. She inhaled the delightful scent. It was the last breath she’ll ever take. 

One of the shutters closed itself with an unpleasant din. The sound disrupted the witch’s slumber. An equally restless boobook crashed inside the room. Brown and white feathers splattered around as the bird cried. Márgerdra had to catch her breath before she approached it. “How dumb you have to be not to hit a window. Doesn’t seem that bad, though. Hold still, sweetie, it’ll be over soon.“ Only when she immobilised the creature did green sparks glow in her palm to heal the bruised wing. “If it were more severe you could easily shake hands with one local rascal,“ she shook her head. Petting the boobook for the last time she sat him on the windowsill, however it refused to return to the sky. Instead, it warily watched the witch, keeping her a strange company.

“Wait,“ Márgerdra halted. Showing the bird her back covered in sweat, she searched the room. She called his name but Wukong appeared not to be with her. Yet there remained a single trace of him - his body odour. “You can’t shut up unless there’s trouble ahead.“

Exasperated, the witch hurtled down the halls like a billow of a petrifying smoke. She sniffed the air, listened to the tiniest of sounds. The trace led her to the eastern wing where she encountered a dumpy man. Due to his clothing, Márgerdra concluded he had to be an eunuch. Not wasting more time, the Wolf Witch used the best of her charms. “My apologies, may I ask whether you’ve seen my husband? He suffers from insomnia and sometimes I have to come and search for him.“

“Most likely not, Miss Yaling. I’ve been here but a while therefore I saw not a single man crossing these parts.“

“Is that so? I gave you my reason for why I’m awake this late at night. What about you, though? The patrol isn’t your duty.“

The eunuch was an innocence itself. He grinned like a child caught stealing sweets. Márgerdra’s adamant manners weren’t unexpected to him. When the witch no longer cared, she quickly dropped her polite act and let the frustration take over. It amused the eunuch, his grin widened even more, showing plenty of pearly white teeth.

A stifled shriek coming from upstairs was the last nail in the coffin.

The eunuch didn’t draw his hidden dagger in time. Márgerdra kicked the weapon out of his hand and punched him. Her brute force and dull pain threw him out of balance, giving the Wolf Witch a chance to deliver a knee blow into the man’s navel.

She no longer ran. Márgerdra jumped over several stairs at a time to get upstairs as soon as possible. A heavy fragrance fell onto her after she bursted inside the chamber. The smoke was heady, narcotic even. She froze when she spotted the scenery ahead.

****

“Don’t worry, my love. You’re going to love every second of this. Even beg for more. My Wukong-“ Yawen let out a muffled scream when the monkey’s fist finally escaped the clasp and hit her. Although unable to shatter her jaw into pieces, it still made her eyes water and even nearly fell off of him. Her teeth suddenly felt out of place as the right side started swelling. No matter the amount of wrath held within her slit pupils, the Sage expression changed to a pure jeer.

Retraining his wrist with a strand twice as thick, she stuffed his mouth with the nutmeg pie and figs with a piece of banana and then let her hair wrap around to silence the protest. However Yawen still struggled to untie his trousers. The handmaiden realised the drug caught up to her and she felt dizzy. Compared to Wukong, her endurance, thinking and coordination remained in better shape due to regular usage.

The knot gave up only partially so the demoness was able to slide just her fingers to his crotch. She sighed in between the tensed smooches,“Why are you still so soft? I gave you everything…“ She gazed into his eyes. Giving her idea a second thought, she let a few strands slide away to uncover the macaque’s lower lip. “Nevermind…“ Yawen caressed it with her thumb and leaned to nibble on it.

The sound of cracking wood and tearing paper drew both the snake and the monkey’s attention. Yawen’s hair flew around her head like horrific tentacles.

Using his chance to spat out the charcoal strands, Wukong cried out,“Blondie! Watch out!“

Márgerdra barely dodged the incoming attack. The witch was glad there was an antique armchair behind which she rolled on the ground until she reached a folding screen. The tentacle tore a hole in it easily and went to wrap around Márgerdra’s throat. Fortunately, the witch was able to find a second incense burner by touch. She threw it with all her might. Although she missed Yawen initially, it landed onto Wukong’s foot who, now almost completely free, easily kicked it into the viper’s face.

The handmaiden shrieked and backed off. Yet, she wasn’t finished. Her neck monstrously elongated and thrusted forward while the viper attempted to spit her venom into Márgerdra’s eyes.

Recognising the trick, the Wolf Witch’s whip swished and knocked Yawen off of her feet. Once she was on the ground, the leather tightened and dragged her to the window. As the witch fought with her, Yawen was still putting up a fight by grabbing on the shell, knocking it down and throwing the items at her enemy.

The last pot with dried leaves hit Márgerdra’s forehead. The world blacked out and then filled up with twinkles. She felt two hands wrapped around her neck. Not only were they clasping it, they pushed the witch towards the open window.

“Better stop stealing my lovers, rabid puppy. They belong to me.“

“So you can suck their life energy?“

“Naturally. Say, after the foreplay, why did you refuse my sweet Jun? Even I’m not that cruel. Do you prefer the Monkey King? Out of pleasure? To keep yourself young? Or were you foolish enough to do it out of pity? Or is it something else?“

When Yawen received no response she angrily hissed and coiled her neck before another venomous strike. “Can you fly? I bet it’s gonna be a spectacle.“

Even though the witch found no problem with quickly unwrapping the fingers from around her throat, the Wolf Witch couldn’t deny the monkey’s help. He grabbed Yawen by her hair and threw a hook punch under her right costal arch to toss her aside as if she were nothing.

Yawen remained lying on the ground. The couple approached warily only to make her last desperate attempt. The handmaiden’s sharp elongated face covered in green and grey scales twisted and she launched forward. Wukong’s fingers located her pressure points on the neck and Márgerdra kicked into the paralyzed demoness from the side. Yawen’s body flew out of the window.

The pair rushed to quickly recover her as they didn’t intend for the situation to end fatally. Yet the queen’s right hand was nowhere to be found.

“Monkey, do you think that she…?“

“No. She must’ve used one of the windows beneath. Or one of her accomplices caught her. She wouldn’t try something without a back-up. Besides, snakes heal quickly. Her showing up again than not should worry us more.“

Márgerdra looked at Wukong. His orange tunic had so many holes it barely hung on his torso. His ear, his cheek, jaw and neck were covered in red as if he suffered from smallpox. The same could’ve been said about his chest. The skin there resembled a stone but when she blinked, it was but bare flesh. Shivering and naked just like Mei in that cell. Just like that child lying on her stomach in the middle of winter. Not the pain buried in the soil of the past. Suddenly, there was an unbearable drought in her throat and she had to bury the pain in the soil of the past. And so should he. But first, he has to admit the truth. “I know it’s a dumb question-“

“Then don’t ask it,“ Wukong faced her, wrath marking every detail of his expression, and she saw the red sparks dying in nearly amber eyes and turning dark brown. She finished anyway.

“-are you alright?“

“You’re the one whose forehead’s bleeding, blondie.“

“Wukong, tell the truth. Please. How do you feel?“

At first he turned away. Wukong caressed the shreds hanging past his waist. His grip tightened it nearly tore away the tatters. The demon looked back. The air he was inhaling jabbed his mouth, throat and then lungs as if he were breathing in an entire nest of wasps. A voice more fragile than the glass and porcelain lying around, broken into numerous pieces, asked into the dead of the night,“Is this how the boy feels all the time?“

His mind told him not to expect Márgerdra to answer. But that annoying beating which made itself known each time in her presence said otherwise.

“A piece of meat thrown to wild beasts? I’m afraid so… But he has you. You saved him each time-“

“I’m sorry. I really am. For Sanzang. For little Mei. That they had to go through this. And so did you, Mar.“ Wukong let go of the shredded fabric and directed his hand to hold onto Márgerdra’s.

“Don’t be. You’re here now. And we fought her off. Together. That’s what matters. Let’s go to bed. You need to rest.“

In their bedroom, Márgerdra took Wukong behind the screen and to change. She brought him new clothes but briskly retracted to give him privacy. She didn’t forget to leave him a bowl of water and a cloth to clean the marks off of his body. The monkey demon came back to a neatly made bed. Yet he couldn’t go to sleep right away. Only when he wiped away the blood from Márgerdra’s forehead and treated her wound with simmering sparkles from his warmed up palm Wukong lay on his stomach beside Márgerdra. Exhausted but still gazing at each other, they kept silent.

“Mar, it was just a bad dream. It wasn’t real.“

The witch’s expression, though wreathed by loose hair, indicated stun. “No. It was more…I saw…horrible things. Terrible, gut-wrenching things. Things that are destined to be. An eye of the storm, unmovable, one we can’t bypass. Wukong, I’m scared.“

“Give me your hand.“

“Why?“

“Do it and I’ll tell you.“ Once he proceeded to give her hand a reassuring squeeze, the Sage continued,“Life is what you make of it. I don’t believe you can’t change things. As I said, life's a stone and you’re supposed to carve it. I agree that sometimes you just gotta dive into whatever you encounter. But why not just dive together?“

A silent question glimmered in Márgerdra’s look - an unspoken confusion mixed with disbelief and curiosity.

“Like now,“ Wukong raised his second hand and waited until Márgerdra herself bumped into his palm to signal approval of the comfort he brought by caressing her cheek,“We don’t want to be left alone. And neither could we survive this night without knowing somebody won’t leave us.“

“Everyone leaves by the end of it.“

“I won’t. I promise. Even when your time comes, I’ll be there to hold you. But promise me, you’ll continue to be this fierce, you stubborn witch.“

“Always, Kong-Kong.“

The monkey lifted his head. His tail, which till now peacefully had laid alongside his stretched body, did as well. “What did you call me like? Asking for trouble?“ he joked.

Márgerdra excused herself in haste. “You better get some sleep. You’re too tired to hear me properly. Good night.“ She intertwined her fingers with his and shut her blue eyes.

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Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added): @vanessaroades-author @morganmaietto @aohendo @rbbess110 @jgmartin @outpost51

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List of chapters:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Epilogue

[charkepin]

VIDEO GAME: YAKUZA 0

Charles Gabrielle L. Pineda BSIT - 1A

OVERVIEW

Ref: PressStartOnce - Yakuza 0 Title Screen (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One)

Well to explain this game in easier terms… it is very random and very funny. This game is actually a prequel to the original game Yakuza, or mostly known as "Yakuza Kiwami" because it got remastered. Yakuza 0 is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The game takes place from December 1988 to January 1989, in Kamurochō and Sotenbori, fictionalized recreations of Tokyo's Kabukichō and Osaka's Dōtonbori areas respectively. The game received a lot of praise for it's engaging story, character development, and a rich blend of serious and humorous vibes. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza_0

THE PROTAGONISTS

Everyone knows that a story will never be interesting without interesting main characters... At least that's what they say, right? Well, that's what you get in this game. Your first protagonist: Kazuma Kiryu, a junior Tojo Clan yakuza in Kamurochō who is forced out of the clan due to a murder accusation(This particular arc is very long to explain). While the other protagonist: Goro Majima, a disgraced former Tojo Clan yakuza who works as a cabaret manager in Sotenbori to earn his way back into the clan. Both these men are excellent in humorous scenes in the game. A lot of their movements are very similar from each other. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza_0

 Kamurochō

This is Kamurochō, a fictional district of Tokyo from Sega's Yakuza media franchise. It is modelled after Kabukichō, Tokyo's renowned red-light district and entertainment precinct situated in Shinjuku ward. This location is still used to this day. Last seen in Yakuza: Like a Dragon released in 2020, that it has been updating since time passes by. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamuroch%C5%8D

"KIRYU"SION

https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/comments/ooxf2c/i_cant_stop_fucking_laughing_at_this_picture/

Well overall, this game is a lot of fun like a LOT of fun. If you're into games that balances seriousness and humor. I had no idea about this game before because I wasn't really into japanese games that much. When I first entered the atmosphere of this game, it blew me away. It was like I was missing out a lot. This game really serves the best quality story wise, gameplay wise, and comedy wise. I can confidently say that this game is really a masterpiece.

[chaptersleftunwritten]

Cue the beat drop

Blurb: After Eddie goes missing, assumed dead, you replace him as lead guitarist and singer of Corroded Coffin.

Pairing: Vampire!Eddie Munson x Stranger!Fem!Reader

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of grief and death, mentions of trauma, mean-ish!Eddie, blood(?), possibly an inaccurate attempt at description of Kas from D&D. Fictional Corroded Coffin songs.

-

Trauma permanently alters the brain, and whether or not we are willing to admit it, it changes our lives and who we are. We never really get over it, at best we can make peace with it- grieve with it and try to put it to rest. But a large life disruption leaves a new normal behind and there is no returning to who we were before. Before this.

It had taken Gareth and Jeff two and a half years to muster up enough courage to paper up flyers all over town- every window, sign post and street lamp had one stuck and stapled to it. They were looking for their new lead guitarist and vocalist for Corroded Coffin- a legacy that Eddie Munson had left behind.

Being new to Hawkin’s came with a profound sense of oblivion. You were unaware of the history and all you knew were the rumours of what had happened a few years prior to your arrival in the cursed town. Words twisted and whispered from ear to ear. Elderly ladies clutching their Holy jewellery as they walk through the streets, mumbling prayers beneath their breaths. It was unsettling, to say the least. Oddly, though, there was something about Hawkin’s that called to you. A dark beckoning leading you from one place to here. Where you’ll remain.

-

‘Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.’ Friedrich W. Nietzsche

When you first read that quote, you never understood it. Not then. Not until you actually saw him. The abyss… staring back at you.

Corroded Coffin had soared in popularity. One of their singles, It Only Takes Six Feet, ended up on the Hot Top 100 billboard in the whole of America, sitting at #86 on the list. It was a song dedicated to Eddie, written by all of the members of the band. Of course you did most of the edits and redrafts but it was made by you all. For him. For the man who started it all.

After the stats came in, and the fans followed like metal headed soldiers, the rest was history. Corroded Coffin had its own army of ‘devil worshippers’ and their songs were playing across America on radios, stereos and TV’s alike.

It led you to here. Centre stage with blinding lights blurring your vision. Your lilac guitar slung over your shoulders securely, your hands supporting the weight. The audience is a single organism of moving, reeling silhouettes, who are screaming lyrics wildly back at you. The feeling is intoxicating. The way your voice echoes on the speakers, or how your body glistens and glitters with sweat and even the confidence radiating from your choice in outfit. Tonight felt electric. Everyone was paying attention to you…

You narrowed it down to it just being a really great gig, but things hadn’t been this good since you left Hawkin’s for a small out of state tour. Being back in the bands origin town created an atmosphere that was.. unearthly. Something darker and deeper than you could never comprehend.

Eddie really just couldn’t believe it. Hearing his own lyrics leave your precious little mouth. It seemed wrong- it was wrong.

He watched you with intent from the back of the concert hall, blending in with the shadows cast upon him as he hugged the walls.

No one paid him any mind, he was purposely invisible- seeking out your attention and yours alone. His eyes glow, flickering like a faulty light bulb between a thrilling onyx and a fierce maroon. He wanted you to clock him. To seek him out in the crowd. You and Eddie had never had the pleasure of meeting and Eddie planned to change that. After all, you deserved to know who you were singing about, right?

The fans adored you, and because of your reputation, your angelic voice and your looks- you invited in a wider spread of demographic. You expanded the band without changing a thing and it made you feel accomplished. You were proud of what you contributed and so was Gareth and Jeff.

It made Eddie giggle demonically to himself so see a photograph of him taped to Gareth's drum set. It was a decent picture to say the least, however he couldn't help but wonder why they were paying him so much tribute. Was it some sick and twisted way to promote the band and get more media coverage? Or were they really just as pathetic as he thought and still missed him.

Eddie preferred the 'sick and twisted.'

The hall falls eerily dormant to you as there is a brief pause between songs. The audience remain enthralled but their screams are drowned out but a high pitched ring in your ear. At first, you thought it was mic interference. You never understood it. Not until you actually saw him. The abyss... staring back at you.

Staring into you.

Despite being beneath the sweltering stage lights, your skin coats in an unavoidable freezing spread of goosebumps. Your breathing staggers outwith your control and your head blazes with fog. You can hear Gareth trying to speak to you from behind but you're bolted to the spot, your eyelids fluttering in sync with your heart which you are now suddenly over aware of thundering inside of your chest.

You move a hand to where it beats beneath the skin, clutching at the fabric of your sheer pink blouse as you fight the urge to collapse- but unfortunately for you, your efforts go to waste. Eddie made sure of that.

-

You come to a small flashlight being shone in your eyes and a worried paramedic frowning at you.

“She’s awake!” Gareth yells over to Jeff and both of them appear in your line of vision, they are a bit distorted figure wise but you recognise them nonetheless.

“You’re backstage. You’re in your dressing room, can you tell me which town you are in?” The paramedics voice feels like it is a thumping base inside of your head and you wince inwardly to yourself. Gulping thickly before you reply.

“Hawkins.” You bark rather harshly, your throat dry, “Water? Please?” Gareth nods and both him and Jeff leave the room to go grab you a refreshment. Trust those two to make a one person job into a two person job.

“You’ll be alright, it was probably dehydration.” With a click of a button the flashlight turns off and it is placed back in the medics equipment bag, “I’d recommend taking it easy for the rest of the night- but I know you young ones don’t really listen to anyone these days… so take some pain medication and drink some bloody water, please.” With a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders he exits the room, heaving a sigh and leaving you to recollect your fractured thoughts.

What the Hell happened?

“You collapsed. Is what happened, love.” His voice comes from behind you, a hissing in your ear like a serpents tongue. Which seems impossible because you are situated on a sofa which is pressed against a wall. Logically, no one should be able to get behind you.

Whipping your head over your shoulders frantically, your eyes shot wide with terror as you search the room, only for your gaze to land on him cackling in front of you evilly. The tiredness has been shaken from your bones and the adrenaline flooding your bloodstream is enough for you to jump and go straight through the ceiling.

You know him. You know this man.

“Boo?” He remarks with a sinister grin.

You always thought, when put in these situations, that your trigger response would be fight or flight.. but you are frozen as cold as ice, to the spot.

“This is the part where you try to run away but I ultimately catch you.” His voice is strained, like he is longing for a drink of water, “Cat and mouse, my favourite game.” His large hand finds his chest in a sentimental gesture, “Usually it would warm my heart- but I don’t have one anymore.”

Not anymore? Confusion wraps a noose around your mind. What is he talking about? And why does he look so familiar and yet so alien?

Noticing your rigid unmoving frame Eddie frowns mockingly, “Awh,” He starts with a coo, “You’re no fun.” His bottom lip pokes out before he is biting back a smile. Flashing what you can almost pinpoint as fangs…

“I recognise you…” Your weak voice sounds pathetic as it leaves your throat in the form of a gulp- starting strong and then fizzling out into a whisper. Eddie cocks a brow, his hawk like eyes narrowing in on you.

“I’d like to hope so, sweetheart, considering you were just singing my lyrics.” He leans against your vanity mirror, crossing his strong arms against his chest, not having a single care for any of the products he has just swiped off of the desk.

“Eddie?” Your eyebrows knit together tightly on your face, eyes pinching as you shake your head, “I must be hallucinating. This isn’t real.” You let out a breathy laugh, bringing your palm to your face where you run it down your skin semi-aggressively.

“I must’ve hit my head hard!” You continue to laugh, your mind reeling. Eddie stares at you- a mix of amusement and impatience dominating his features.

“That’s adorable.” He pushes himself from the vanity mirror and within seconds he is in front of you, pinning you down onto the worn leather of the decades old sofa, “I don’t know if I should find you cute or annoying.” His fingers grip your face with a punishingly tight force and you squirm beneath him, fear replacing every one of your comedic thoughts.

“Please,” you squeak out, hoping there is some humanity left inside of him. But you would be wrong to assume, “Eddie, please…”

Your feeble attempts make him snicker beneath his breath, his grip only worsening on your cheeks, “This isn’t a dream, baby. I’m real, I’m here- I may not be alive… but I bet this pain feels pretty human to you, doesn’t it?” He quirks his head slightly, like a psychotic interested dog and you wince, your fingers clawing desperately at his wrist to try and get him to ease up, “It’s a shame that you might have bruises left on this pretty face of yours. I can see why Gareth chose you.” His chest rises and falls with more distorted laughter, “Poor lad, he so clearly wants to fuck you… but you don’t want him, do you?”

The dark sounds of his strangled cackle fills the room, you can hardly breathe with his weight on top of you. He is too strong, so unwavering. It makes you question..

What is he?

“You’ve replaced me.” He clicks his tongue, evidentially displeased, “You replaced me- and you hadn’t even met me.” He brings his face dangerously close to yours, your breathing is erratic and uncontrollable and only now are you able to really hone in on his appearance.

His eyes are blown to an impure murky shade of black and his lips are crusted ever so slightly with a tinged shade of red. Spider web like veins have crept themselves up his neck and arms- the hue of them being a deep purple… almost like the veins are dead- void of any blood at all.

“That’s it, baby, take it all in.” His pointed tongue sticks out, the muscle meets your face as he licks a long strip from your cheek to the corner of your eyes. You hadn’t noticed the tears streaming down your face, but Eddie was relishing in the saltiness of the liquid, “Tastes good, but not really what I’m gunning for.”

His obsidian eyes settle on your neck and you can feel your pulse quickening. Your legs have entered the equation as you start to thrash more violently against him, coming up short.

“Eddie stop! Please! Please!” You’re wailing now, screaming for your life and it irks Eddie beyond description. Violently he lets go of your face, only to clamp his hand steadily across your mouth.

“Those aren’t the type of begs I want to hear, gorgeous.” Your fists pound against his hollow chest and he brushes your attempts at self defence off like it is nothing. He even fake yawns at your bratty behaviour.

“You sounded so pretty up there on stage, I just had to meet you. That’s why you had that little dizzy spell.. that was me, you following along?” He sniffs at your hair, his nose tickling down to the shell of your ear, “Call me obsessed- but I might be your biggest fan.”

Heaven opens the floodgates to your eyes and you are a quivering, sobbing mess beneath Eddie. Your limbs are much too tired to fight against him and you can see your demise approaching.

“I’m not going to kill you,” He answers your thoughts, almost like he can hear you think, “I’m just so fucking hungry.” Craning your neck off to one side Eddie nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, his nose poking and prodding at your skin- right above your main artery, “I also want my position back as lead guitarist.” His voice is much gentler now, a breathy whisper against your flesh, “I’m sure we can find room for you somewhere though, hmm?” You can tell that his words have a demented double meaning and you muster up enough energy to try and push him off again.

Your limbs feel like jello, weak and boneless. Eddie feels as though he is made of steel. Weighty with effortless leverage against you. Your eyelids feel fluttery as you look at the dressing room door- hoping Gareth and Jeff are just outside.

You can see shadowy figures dancing beneath the crack in the door and you mumble out a cry from beneath Eddie’s palm, “They won’t be able to help you.” His words are punctured by his teeth piercing your skin- harshly but with surgeon like precision.

Fire scorches your blood at the contact and your eyes shoot open with furious panic. You can’t scream against his hand, but you try. Choking out sobs and knocking at Eddie’s body. He doesn’t give, if anything he sucks at your neck harder, growling lowly into your ear. All you know is pain, it’s all you know- no more fear, no more terror. Just pain. Agonising. Paralysing… and then..

Nothing. You go numb. Your body falls limp against the cushions, the hard wooden beam running through the sofa presses against your spine in an almost relieving way and you let out a large sigh through flared nostrils.

Eddie finishes with you, unhooking his talon like teeth from your veins and studying your expression closely, “You might feel a bit lightheaded, but you’ll be okay.” His fingers stroke against your cheek which is aching from his previous grasp, “You look so pretty… so exhausted.” With a clasped hand he strokes your hair back and away from your face, only to grasp it roughly and pull you up from the leather material which now has a very prominent outline of your body wedged into. You yelp out, your hands flying to the back of your head where you grab his wrist.

“Now go and open that door, and tell them we were having a quickie… maybe I’ll reward you later if you’re good.” With a knowing wink he pushes you away from him brutishly, slapping your ass and laughing as he watches you move on wobbly legs toward the dressing room door. You don’t understand why, but you listen to him. His voice is like music to your ears- and you’d do anything to hear him speak to you again.

And being the good, obedient, brainwashed girl that you are- you open the door to Jeff and Gareth, looking like your world just got rocked.

-

taglist: @colorful-white-ideas @littlered0000 @ali-r3n @daisy-munson @serenadingtigers

[dollgxtz]

Why’d you write Sylus so crazy? You’re turning him into one of those booktok men and he’s anything BUT that. I just don’t get it :/

Hi anon! I know my yandere!Sylus story is disturbing. And while yes, I do take great pleasure in writing such topics such as kidnapping n such, I genuinely just wanted to write a dark Sylus fic exploring a different version of him where his desires and upbringing lead him to hurt even the people he loves. I love tragic characters and stories!

Think about if you watch a horror movie. You know murdering and killing is bad and yet you still watch it for entertainment, to see what happens!

By the way, this isn’t to argue or call you out anon, just hoping to shed some light on my perspective as the author. I love when people ask about my work, and I’m happy to answer regardless of the context! My ask box is always open if any of you have questions!

Below is a breakdown of some of the complexities I wanted to portray!

Yandere!Sylus Breakdown

I envisioned him as a deeply complex character—not necessarily in his emotions, because yandere!Sylus always knows exactly what he wants—but in the way he rationalizes his actions and interprets his “wrongdoings.”

On the surface, his actions are undeniably wrong. Kidnapping a girl, forcing her into a life of isolation, and desiring to have children with her while keeping her away from everyone she’s ever loved is, by all moral standards, reprehensible. However, Yandere!Sylus doesn’t see it that way. To him, these actions are justifiable as long as they fulfill a purpose in his grand design.

He operates with a calculated mindset, never doing anything unless he believes it will ultimately benefit him, even if it means causing immense suffering. The fact that the reader might hate him only reinforces his resolve; he views it as a challenge, something to be overcome or “fixed” rather than a deterrent.

This doesn’t mean he doesn’t love reader, he does. But he is inherently selfish at his core since that was what was needed to survive. I intend to break this down further!

In yandere!Sylus’s twisted logic, he genuinely believes that if he can get the reader pregnant, she will inevitably develop a bond with the child. He sees this as a means to an end—a way to “tame” her, to anchor her to him emotionally.

He is convinced that motherhood will soften her resistance, leading her to accept the life he has meticulously crafted for them. To him, this is not just a strategy but a deeply held belief that love, however twisted, can be cultivated through shared ties, like the birth of a child.

This version of Sylus is driven by a yearning for the idealized version of happiness that society often romanticizes—the “big happy family” with “children running around” and a “loving wife.” It’s a vision that he clings to desperately, not because he understands it in the way most people do, but because he was denied such love and stability as a child.

Sylus grew up in a world where love was scarce and survival was paramount, as depicted in the original story. This lack of nurturing has warped his understanding of love and family, leading him to believe that these things can be engineered or forced into existence.

In blending elements of the original story into this version of Sylus and the reader, I wanted to show the core aspects of his character while exploring new dimensions of his psyche. However, I didn’t want it to be an exact replication, as the reader in this version isn’t the canonical main character from the original universe. Instead, she represents an alternative narrative where Sylus’s obsessions and desires manifest differently, yet still retain the disturbing intensity that defines his character! ^o^

All in all, if this story isn’t for you. Don’t read it please. I write for a certain demographic of people who enjoy twisted media. It’s fiction after all! No one is truly getting hurt. I hope this helps with your confusion anon!

[hyunjin-amore]

Unraveling the Mystery of the Dark Trio's Reign

Link

🔪Dark Billy x Top male reader x Stu 🔪

Summary: Dark Billy, M/N, and Dark Stu, the enigmatic members of the Dark Trio, set out to frighten their victims and instill fear in the small village of Woodsboro. They push their victims to the brink while confronting their own problems through cryptic messages and a perverse game of survival. But as reality and fantasy blend together, they unleash a dark force that devours them and permanently damages the town. This terrifying story should serve as a reminder of what happens when one goes too far into the dark.

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A mysterious group known as the Dark Trio once resided in the sleepy little village of Woodsboro. They were Dark Stu Macher, a tall, lean young man whose sly smile belied his sinister nature; M/n, a fearless and fiercely intelligent man renowned for his extraordinary deductive abilities; and Dark Billy, a mysterious and brooding figure with penetrating blue eyes.

Billy had a notorious reputation for coercing others into doing his evil actions. Anyone may be drawn into the depths of his deranged psyche by his eerily alluring aura. His charismatic demeanor and charm drew in a lot of women, especially to him. They had no idea how much evil was hiding behind his alluring eyes.

The Dark Trio decided to carry out a scheme that would chill the whole town of Woodsboro on a chilly and rainy night. Fearsome thunder and lightning erupted as Stu Macher and M/N convened at a remote cottage tucked away in the woods. They were aware that by combining their intelligence and Billy's cunning to produce an event, they would terrify their victims and send the entire town into a state of terror.

Their objective was to send fictitious letters purporting to be amicable communications to the most well-respected residents in Woodsboro. The cryptic messages in these letters would alert M/N to an impending peril that they should take care of. The Dark Trio would prey on their victims and drive them insane by taking advantage of the anxiety and confusion these letters would create.

M/N created a perverse game for their victims with a type of imaginative ingenuity. His goal was to test them to the brink and reveal their darkest vulnerabilities and phobias. The three made the decision to hold a gruesome game of survival and imprisoned their victims in a maze-like home outside of town. They would either have to solve puzzles and face scary obstacles, or suffer horrifying outcomes.

The Dark Trio noticed as the game went on that their original thrill was evolving into something far darker. They started to lose themselves in their own psychological suffering as the distinction between reality and fiction started to blur. They faced their own anxieties head-on and realized they had let their own dreams loose on themselves. It was the memories of the women Billy had exploited in the past that tormented him in particular. As their ghosts wandered the mansion's hallways, they mumbled their complaints and plotted retaliation. He began to doubt his sanity, as his charm was ineffective in the face of their rage. As all of this was going on, M/N's ability to conclude from evidence was critically tested as he attempted to piece together the connections between the victims and Woodsboro's mysterious past. His gaze quickly slid into the shadows as the town's dark past came to light, exposing a string of gruesome killings that alluded to something darker.

It was evident that the Dark Trio had unleashed something far more deadly than they had imagined, as the game came to an end that was horrific. Dreams became vivid as the mansion changed into a macabre playground where the lines between life and death were hazy and shadows came to life.When the trio faced the demons they had awoken, it was a final encounter.

They battled for their lives, frantically attempting to outsmart the evil force that had taken possession as the mansion collapsed around them. They had unintentionally let go of something far bigger than they could have ever anticipated in a bizarre chain of circumstances, and the cost was more than they could have ever imagined.

The town of Woodsboro will eternally endure the consequences of their dark trio's heinous crimes. The once-thriving town was broken and forever altered, a daily warning of the dangers of diving too far into the darkness that exists within all of us. And the legends of Billy, M/N, and Stu Macher would live on in the town's collective psyche, reminding everyone of the horrors that can be unleashed with a touch of visionary talent and a twisted mind.

[canmom]

when robots got muscles

You can blame @centrally-unplanned for this post. She(?) wrote...

The ‘chrome’ designs pioneered by illustrators like Hajime Sorayama (Sexy Robot from 1984, for example) tended to be more in vogue at this time (or just…a  hot girl, who is apparently a robot, trust me bro), you don’t see designs like this too commonly until later (ask resident robo-fetishist/animator expert @canmom for details on that timeline).

After a challenge like that how can I refuse? Although the question is ‘when did robots get muscles’, this turned into something of a historical survey of robot designs from the 80s on with a throughline of biomimesis.

(Originally this was just going to be an excuse to talk about Ghost in the Shell... but I gotta be thorough.)

This was all brought on from this picture from a 1989 fanart magazine...

by an artist going by ‘Facepunch Tatebi-kun’ (顔面強打たてびー君, Ganmenkyouda Tatebii-kun). I remarked that it was interesting to see these kinds of ‘robot muscles’ in a picture from 1989, since I thought that kind of design became popular in the 2000s.

On some reflection, I think I gotta revise that opinion! I think ‘robot muscles’ became a thing around the mid 90s in anime; in the West I think it took a bit longer. But you can also see precursors already before that.

So. One thing artists are super into is biomimetic robots. That is, robots whose form (and perhaps function) is similar to animals, especially humans. The word ‘android’ referring to a human-like automaton dates all the way back to the late 19th century, but the modern ‘android, robot, cyborg’ taxonomy apparently became established around the 40s.

There’s two types of humanoid robot that get a lot of play, especially in anime. One is the convincingly humanlike cyborg, which is the same size and shape as a normal human; the other is a what we call in English a ‘mech’, i.e. a big robot you can sit inside.

Of course, if your androids just act like humans all the time, then there’s not much point having them be robots. To really create the frisson of contrast between human and mechanical forms you have to show the mechanism somehow. This could be because the machine isn’t perfectly human-like, and has visibly mechanical joints - take a look at the works of @sukabu89​ for very inventive depiction of this theme - or, the android could be damaged or undergo maintenance.

When you attempt to translate biological forms into a more mechanical design language, the traditional way has been to use hard, rigid shapes, since these make the contrast especially clear. In more recent designs, particularly as we started to see real robots with ‘artificial muscles’ such as the ones created by Boston Dynamics, we get another sort of design language to express ‘mechanical parts’, and robots start having more biological forms with exposed plasticy muscles.

So let’s tell the story. We begin at the end of the 70s.

the dawn of mechaguro

For an early example of ‘mechaguro’ (a term I’m applying very anachronistically!), when a robot gets smashed up, we have Alien (1979). This film did a ridiculous amount to define sci-fi design language, and of course the alien itself blends mechanical and biological forms, with its glossy black surface allowing it to seem to melt into the exposed pipes of the spaceship. But let’s focus on the character Ash, a secret android who is broken apart in the second half of the film.

When Ash is torn apart by the alien, his insides consist of weird white plastic beads and a milky fluid that seems analogous to blood. It’s not clear what the function of any of this tech is - it’s intended to be vague and mysterious. The outside is biomimetic but the inside is anything but. He has a kind of artificial skin which resembles a latex mask.

The Terminator films are another major touchpoint for 80s science fiction. Late in the film, Arnie starts taking damage which reveals the Terminator skeleton underneath his fake skin.

The stop-motion Terminator model is basically designed according to the principle of ‘replace human bones and muscles with hard metal bits’. So you have a metal skull, metal clavicles (which are pistons for some reason), metal shoulder blades, hydraulic pistons generally in the places where muscles are. e.g. in the above picture you can see pistons that stand in place of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, and in this picture...

...you can see metal scapulae and piston biceps and triceps and a piston. The shoulder joint by contrast built in a very non-human-like way. Also there’s random tubes everywhere lol.

That’s generally how androids are portrayed in the 80s. The ‘droids’ in Star Wars are similar; C-3PO is an arrangement of metal plates with gaps suggestive of underlying mechanical details and rudimentary joints and pistons.

In Blade Runner, we have the Replicants, humanoid robots - but by the premise of the film, they are essentially indistinguishable from humans. So when the Replicants die, we never really get to see their robo-innards.

and now, anime

OK, that’s the big four Western 80s sci-fi movie series; what of anime? Of course, androids in anime go all the way back to Astro Boy. But most of these early designs don’t really focus on mechanical details all that much. Super robot designs are more like tokusatsu suits than anything. There were certainly instances of impressive mechanical animation in the 70s, with early experts including Kazuhide Tomonaga on Space Battleship Yamato. Then there’s Hayao Miyazaki’s episodes of Lupin III Part 2 which featured proto-Nausicaa flying a prototype of the robots from Castle in the Sky. It would be some years before anyone could come close to matching these!

The original Gundam in ‘79 famously started the ‘real robot’ movement [Animation Night, so let’s take a brief look at how a Gundam fits together.

Generally speaking, the way Gundams are drawn in Gundam ‘79 is kind of rough. The methods to animate these rigid mechanical systems in super accurate perspective were just not yet established at the end of the 70s, certainly not on a TV budget. The actual joints on the Gundam are left very vague, but it broadly speaking seems to move like a human in armour.

But the OVA boom was about to begin, and while it would be a while before we saw the heights of Headgear/Production I.G./Gainax, things were going to change a lot. Mechanical design and animation was about to get much more sophisticated very very quickly.

In 1982, we have Super Dimension Fortress Macross, with robots that transformed into fighter jets. Its robots are designed by Kazutaka Miyatake, who cut his teeth doing mechanical design for Space Battleship Yamato and Daicon. The Macross TV series introduced the world to the animation of Ichirō ‘Missile Circus’ Itano. [AN64] A plane with legs... honestly looks kind of goofy, but Itano’s ambition to have a highly mobile 3D camera that could move in ways that would simply be impossible in live action marked a huge step up in how robots are animated. And this would get refined even further in the film Do You Remember Love.

In terms of design, we’re really moving our inspiration from ‘tokusatsu suit’ to ‘military hardware’ here. A Macross suit has to look like something that could transform into a plane, so its silly little arms and legs have to look kind of plane-like. In any case, we are definitely still in a world of hard and rigid robotics.

Dallos (1983-4) dir. Mamoru Oshii is known as the first OVA, if not the first successful OVA [AN115]. It features a variety of mining robots on the surface of the Moon, which are generally less humanoid, taking their design cues from JCBs...

...as well as humanoid robots with fairly clear joint patterns...

...and more humanoid robots too.

The eponymous Dallos, however, is a huge humanoid robot that looks like this...

Here we have a pile of mechanical shapes that vaguely calls to mind a human face. It’s suggestive of motifs we’d see later in works like Akira.

A year later in 1985, Megazone 23 really kicks off the OVA boom in earnest [AN 103]. It also has a robot, in the form of a transforming bike that can become a humanoid piloted mech...

You can see mechanical designs and shading have become considerably more detailed; its motion is a lot more complex as well with a ton of indulgent background animation shots. The actual details of the bike -> robot transformation are rather brushed over. But to sort of sum up the design language: we have organic but hard-edged shapes contrasted by inorganic but round shapes. (These terms ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’ refer mostly to symmetry and a sense of ‘flow’ in the shape.) There are few right angles as such, but a lot of broadly boxy topology. The shapes are broken up by elaborate specular highlights in complex shapes, a motif of the later Kanada school.

OK, but that’s all variants on ‘rigid robot’ so far - what about the androids? What about the more directly biological designs?

Following the enormous success of Megazone 23 Part I, Toshiki Hirano got the chance to adapt his favourite lesbian cosmic horror hentai manga Fight! Iczer One into a rather more tame OVA which released from 1985-87. In terms of mechanical design, this starts to do some interesting moves towards blending biological and mechanical forms...

Of course it has a robot in addition to the requisite bishōjo and lightsabers. In contrast to the boxy shapes we’ve seen so far, the robots in Iczer-One have a much more curvy organic sort of design language. Still, there is not a lot of emphasis on the precise details of mechanical articulation outside of select shots. (It is however notable for the first ever Obari punch!)

Despite the change in shape language, these are still very clearly animated as metal plates and not yet muscles.

In 1984 we have a very important film (for this narrative, and in general), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the film that created Studio Ghibli. Here we have the ‘God Warriors’, giant humanoid weapons with the ability to shoot a massive laser out of their mouth. Rather than robots, these are very much biological in nature, having to be grown in a kind of cocoon. In the film version of Nausicaa, an incomplete God Warrior is released, leading to an iconic scene animated by Hideaki Anno in which the God Warrior attempts to blow up the oncoming wave of Ohmu.

The God Warrior’s melting flesh is gorgeously animated, bubbling and sloughing off in great big lumps as the skeleton pokes out from underneath. Throughout, Nausicaa is full of beautiful and impressive animation of both machines (mainly planes) and biological (the giant insects), but the God Warriors, as human-made lifeforms, bring the two together. However, this strand wouldn’t be especially followed up on for a long long time.

Right, but what about Bubblebum Crisis (1987-91)? That is, after all, the iconic 80s robot girl OVA. It’s inspired heavily by Western robot-related films like Terminator and Blade Runner; here we have ‘Boomers’ (never stops being funny) as androids that can appear convincingly human. Like the Terminator, the underlying metal parts can burst out. Here we have a metal frame designed to resemble muscles, and also metal tentacles.

The shapes of these robots are a lot more organic. The robot neck has tubes that sort of resemble the neck muscles, metal plates that resemble pectorals and abs and deltoids and biceps and so on. You’ve even got a direct riff on the Terminator ‘fleshy face falling away to reveal metal skull with glowing red eye’! Under the plates there are clusters of tubes which also heavily resemble muscles. Also you’ve got the classic ‘three small circles’ motif there.

Contrasted against them are the Knight Sabers, who aren’t cyborgs as such but fight in powered exoskeletons which fit the design motifs of robot girls.

These suits are quite form-fitting, with a rubber under-layer and metal shells on top. There is definitely some attention paid to how they’ll articulate around the joints. One very recognisable 80s motif is the sort of extending spike thingies you can see on her hat there; there’s also the jets that extend out behind the suit. And, you have that multi-layer shiny highlighting of course!

Still, the way the characters move in Bubblegum Crisis is still very squarely Kanada School poses; big movements, lots of held poses accentuated by flashing and line boil, not a lot of concern for conservation of momentum or anything like that.

For a contrasting strand we can look at the rise of the ‘Otomo school’ (if you will) of realism. Around the end of the 80s, a pool of talented animators were gathering around Katsuhiro Otomo. Their most famous work is Akira, but I’m actually going to begin with Robot Carnival (1987), a wonderful anthology of short films from 1987. This features a huge variety of interpretations of the concept of robots.

For example, for Kōji Morimoto, later co-founder of Studio 4°C, the robot is a kind of cobbled-together steampunk Frankenstein’s monster. It’s a very cool design with all sorts of asymmetries and exposed parts suggesting its cobbled-together nature. And although all the robot does in this short is stand up and then fall over, a great deal of attention is paid to the little details of its articulation and its movement through space.

Presence, directed by Yasuomi Umetsu, is notable for its steps in the direction of realism - Umetsu’s characters are hyperdetailed and in some ways over-drawn. The opening shots establish this is a world where lifelike androids are common, when an android gets his head kicked off and stolen by children. Here the robot-as-doll metaphor comes in, something that will be increasingly central in the next decade. The robot girl is essentially a human-sized doll in a room full of other toys. Her creator smashes her to pieces with a wrench; later her ghost visits him as an old man. We see the girl attached to a bunch of wires, but she bleeds like a human.

Cloud by Manabu Ōhashi features another humanoid robot, an Astro Boy-like child recognisable as a robot based on his segmented torso and legs and robotic ear... cones. Here the robot is a standin for human emotions, the boy’s struggles projected onto the constantly changing sky as he walks against the wind.

Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture: Westerner’s Invasion by Hiroyuki Kitakubo (later to direct Golden Boy, Roujin Z and Blood: The Last Vampire) is a sendup of mecha shows in which two very goofy looking steampunk robots operated respectively by Japanese and Western crews duke it out, laying waste to the city around them. The Japanese robot is basically a big wooden samurai...

and the Western (more specifically American) robot is, uh

sorta big barrel with little eyes on top? I’m not entirely sure what the deal is with this design!

That’s really not relevant to our story tbh I just think it’s a neat short.

Chicken Man and Red Neck, by Takashi Nakamura, features especially distinctive robot designs. The film is kind of a dream sequence in which a terrified drunk man witnesses the revels of the machines of Tokyo, transformed into robots; the robots are extremely shaped, moving through a world that is pretty much just pistons...

These robots call to mind the dancing demons in Fantasia’s Night On Bald Mountain sequence, or even Bosch.

Otomo’s own segments feature the Robot Carnival itself, a vast mechanical structure built as... well some kind of entertaining spectacle, but which now drives around the post-apocalyptic wasteland dropping robots which explode as bombs. It’s cute.

OK, to wrap up the 80s, we gotta cover Akira (1988) [AN34]! Akira has plenty of impressive mechanical animation of helicopters, hovercraft thingies, satellite lasers and of course the famous bike, but it doesn’t really feature robots as such - but what it does have is a blending of mechanical and biological forms in its climactic sequence where Tetsuo’s psychic powers go out of control. First, wires start to spread like the roots of a plant from his robot arm - less an actual machine and more something he assembled with his psychic powers...

He takes a bullet, and the mechanical wires and muscles start to blend together and spread out like a slime mold...

...which he can extend as essentially a giant tentacle.

When his powers fully go off the rails, he bulges out into big blobs of flesh which have both veins and wires running over them. These burst out of the metallic parts as well.

He turns into essentially a giant biomechanical baby.

Did Akira invent these images of blending biology and machinery? Probably not, but I’m not really familiar enough with manga of the time to say. What can at least be said is that Otomo’s absurdly meticulous style could really sell it. Otomo was truly a god of perspective and detail; Akira the film was an enormous, prestigious production that threw ludicrous effort and resources towards realising his vision (which doesn’t mean it paid its inbetweeners much more...). A lot of the animators who worked on Akira would go on to be prominent in...

the 1990s

So, the 1990s. If the 80s was dominated by the later Kanada School, the new movement of the 90s, at least as far as film animation goes, was ‘realism’.

But before we get onto that, let’s take a brief look at Gunnm (1990). Known as Battle Angel Alita in the West, this manga by Yukito Kishiro depicts a world in which most people are cyborgs; it was adapted to an OVA by Madhouse in 1993 and became wildly popular overseas. Its protagonist Gally, aka Alita, starts out the story as a wrecked cyborg body like this...

Looking at this design, you can see similar patterns as we have so far. We have metal clavicles, metal sternocleidomastoid muscle, metal pectorals, metal spine. There aren’t robot muscles, per se, but there’s a lot of attention to detail on mimicking biological shapes.

Before long she is rebuilt (twice in the manga, once in the anime). Her new body is like this...

...which is to say a skintight bodysuit in the middle, and metal arms. These arms, although designed in a way that indicates hard surface and with a hinge joint at the elbow, are designed in a way that mimics the flow of muscles in a human arm. By contrast, her sorta-love interest Yugo has a body like this:

which gets mashed to pieces in the finale of the OVA. There’s a striking mechaguro scene in which Gally catches Yugo, but leaves him hanging by a fraying arm, which snaps, leaving him to fall to his death. Compared to later iterations of the ‘robot arm torn apart’ device, this one’s relatively light on detail...

Cyborg bodies in Gunnm are used as a visual indication of character type. Gally has curves but also sleek robo muscles: she’s a Beautiful Fighting Girl, sweet but also extremely powerful. A huge ‘muscular’ cyborg with wide shoulders is likely to be a brute. Yugo here has much more plain, simple shapes with visible bolts, not precision pieces like Gally.

I don’t know how much of this originates with Gunnm. I’m sure the idea of cyborg girls was in the air long before, but this became an influential example on the tail end of the time of the 80s bishōjo. One device that is notable here is the idea of a ‘full body cyborg’, which is only human down to the brain (or perhaps not even that). Body swapping is a major theme in Gunnm, something that would be expanded on before long...

And if that was going out, what was coming in? Let’s look at Patlabor, which traces the evolution of the Headgear artistic collective and IG Tatsunoko into Production I.G.. This is about as down to earth as giant robot stories can get, with robots as just everyday machines used for work and by the cops. But where things really go nuts in animation terms is the opening to Patlabor 2 (1993).

Here you can see some of the most impressive sequences of mechanical animation ever drawn. We see pilot Noa testing out the robot, and especially notable are the scenes of the hand flexing and of walking. Enormous attention is paid to the articulation of joints. The robot’s hand can swivel 360 degrees, unlike a human; however, like a human, the articulation of the fingers seems to be controlled by hydraulics in the forearm (whereas in humans, the muscles and tendons in the forearm control our fingers). When the robot’s foot steps, it flexes like a real human foot, with believable joints, and a sensible arrangement of pistons to absorb force.

It’s not imitating a human’s muscles, but the attention to the details of the robot’s mechanical design serves precisely to draw our attention to the ways it’s like/unlike a human - the robot’s hand impossible motion immediately contrasted with its pilot shot from the same angle. And the perspective drawing is absolutely impeccable. The robot is made of purely rigid structures, and the way rigid structures articulate is not at all how a human’s joints articulate.

The sequence above was animated by Atsushi Takeuchi. But across the board, the bar was getting pushed for mechanical animation. For example, observe this cut from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1996-1999), in which the robot tears off its own arm and beats up another robot. The precision of the way the joints are animated and the way the robots move in space is just completely on another level compared to what Gundam had been doing a couple of decades prior.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about robot muscles, and we’re just a few years out from that now!

The year that robots got muscles, at least as far as anime is concerned, is 1995.

You can probably guess the next part. In 1995, we get Eva and GitS. Let’s start with GitS, to continue the Production I.G./Mamoru Oshii thread. The opening sequence of GitS, animated by - who else could it be? - Hiroyuki Okiura - has to be one of the most iconic segments of video ever drawn. Here’s a merely 720p youtube upload but go and find the place you have GitS stored on your hard drive and watch it in proper quality eh.

OK, yes, a lot of it is a naked lady floating around, sue me or whatever. But the sense of form. We see early on an appearance of ‘robot muscles’, here closely resembling real muscles...

We can see from the way this is drawn that it’s made of a combination of artificial muscles, solid segments, and flexible, fabric-like panels. One of my favourite shots at the beginning shows the solid segments of the skull clicking into place. Here we have a very clear contrast between the angular, hard edges of the mechanical pieces against the organic forms of a human body.

Elsewhere in the film, we see various incredibly cool bits of ‘wouldn’t be fucked up if a body did this‘, like the fingers...

Here, what we expect to be soft biological fingers is contrasted with unexpected rigidity, mechanical joints under a shell.

Also in this scene we encounter a robot body that has been stripped of her arms, legs and hips but is nevertheless still alive...

most extraordinary hacker in the history of cybercrime and you have your titties out and yet you still can’t get them to stop misgendering you, smh

For the Terminator, having its body smashed up and continuing to walk was a demonstration of its strength. Here, as would become perhaps an increasing motif, having a robot body is a source of vulnerability: people can do things to you that would kill an ordinary human but you keep going through it. Not surprisingly, ‘robot body maintenance’ is a recurring porn device. (One that GitS deploys in SAC s2).

But of course this all builds up to the all time classics of mechaguro scene at the ending where the Major attempts to tear off the hatch of a spider tank. Muscles ripple individually under the surface of her skin, her arms bulge in exaggerated contraction, and then her arms fully tear apart under the force.

Here, we’re showing her as mechanical not by contrasting rigid forms with biological ones, but by exaggerating the biological ones to the point of doing something extremely unnatural. Human muscles do not generally flex in such an individual way, nor are they strong enough to tear the arm apart, but robot muscles? Yeah, they could do that. This sets up the next scene where the Major lies unnaturally still, but can still exert control through hacking through her union with the Puppet Master.

Robots holding onto something so hard their arms explode has become... if not a recurring image, then at least one that was called back decades later in Violet Evergarden.

The final scene of GitS brings back the image of robot-as-doll, with the Major’s consciousness now uploaded into a black-market robot body that resembles a child in a dress.

This is further expounded on in Oshii’s second GitS movie Innocence (2004), with its Ballade of the Puppets in the soundtrack as Batou and Togusa (and eventually, the Major) are attacked by essentially an army of ball-jointed doll gynoids. The puppets’ movements are extremely unnatural and erratic acrobatics, constantly flipping all over the place; when hit by bullets, panels pop open to reveal the underlying brass skeleton. It’s a very cool image. (The thing that lets the sequence down is the extremely dated CGI and aggressive digital compositing.)

It also has Donna Harraway as a literal cyborg!

Now, the GitS movies didn’t drop fully formed out of nowhere, but draw on the work of Masamune Shirow. The manga has a somewhat different design sensibility than the movie, distinctive and shiny as all Shirow’s art. It is more rounded and organic, less cold.

So, the basic design of a cyberbody originates with Shirow. You can see it on this page (unfortunately from a flipped version, translation Dark Horse):

You might be able to determine from how the nurses are dressed that, yeah, the GitS manga is in significant part fetish porn. But really nerdy fetish porn, which is the best kind. This chapter is almost entirely dedicated to explaining how cyborg bodies are constructed in great detail, from the ‘sensory film’ (that’s what’s being applied in the opening to the 1995 film) to the hair implantation.

It’s interesting seeing how some of the more out-there designs of the manga, like Chief Aramaki, are transformed into the realist style of Hiroyuki Okiura. It’s Okiura, so it works great of course.

I don’t know if there are manga examples of such detail about cyborg bodies that predate Shirow.

Anyway, that’s just one of the two punches dropped in 1995. The other is Neon Genesis Evangelion. To the pedants: sure, the Evas are not actually robots, but they’re giant cyborgs that play the role of ‘robot’ in the story and they look like robots so I’m counting them.

Anyway, the thing about the Evas is they are incredibly lithe. They run, rip and tear and swing heavy objects around in a way that’s both weighty and distinctly biological. Their bodies are extremely flexible compared to prior mechs (look at how much the spines bend in that Iso cut from EoE!), but not without hard, rigid components such as the shoulder towers. Their jaws are bestial but feature mechanical-like components like interlocking hexagonal teeth and jet-like vents. They are in short a fantastic design that blends biological and mechanical features.

The impact of Eva on just about everything can’t be overstated, but as far as robot design, well. There certainly were works that leaned on the precedent set by Eva, as for example RahXephon, which also treats robots as something spiritual, prone to popping into a blob of weird little bubbles just like in Eva.

There’s a great deal missing from this account. I am very focused on anime because I’ve watched a lot more anime than I’ve read manga or played games from this period. So I’m sure there’s major foundational works I’m missing here!

the 2000s

When did the West start to catch up? eh that’s subjective - David Cronenberg was way ahead of the game! - but specifically in the sense of robots with mechanical muscles, I think the major points in the timeline go a bit like this.

In 1999, there’s the Matrix, which leans heavily on anime. This features a similar ‘robot takeover’ premise to Terminator, but here it’s biomimetic robots modelled after squids, with clouds of constantly moving tentacles that sweep behind them. After making a cool half a billion dollars, the Wachowskis decided to pay all their favourite anime directors to make short films. I’m not going to comment on every part of the Animatrix, since most of it isn’t really relevant, but I will point to this horrifying cut by Takeshi Honda in The Second Renaissance in which a robot woman has her clothes torn and then skin bashed off by a mob. The framing, motion, her expression of abject terror, and the ‘reveal’ of her ‘true’ nature, all viscerally call to mind a trans bashing.

On the manga side, a big one to mention is Gantz, a gory nihilistic seinen manga which ran from 2000-2013. The characters in Gantz fight in special latex-like suits which take on the appearance of muscles while engaging superstrength, but can also sustain damage that causes them to drip fluids from ports located at the neck and become fatal to their wearer. Gantz was adapted to anime by Ichirō Itano in 2004, but I haven’t seen it so I can’t comment on any notable animation.

Cyborgs are a favourite subject of games, but in the 2000s, games are really pushing art direction and biopunk stuff is in. Half Life 2 (2004) has its spider-crab like Striders and dropships and so on. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (1997) bases its whole concept around the sheer variety of weird creatures that would inhabit its dystopian factory. And I gotta give a shoutout to Septerra Core (1999) - in case one other person has played that lmao

At some point after 2005, Boston Dynamics became a viral sensation thanks to their robot BigDog. BigDog is just welded steel and hydraulics, but its lifelike hopping movement style definitely brought to mind the idea that the future of robots is going to be in biomimesis.

So, 2007, here comes Crysis to melt your PC! This is an FPS with the not-uncommon premise of being a supersoldier fighting (country America hates) and also aliens, but its gimmick was that you have a special exosuit that wraps around your body with artificial muscles, making you much stronger and manlier or whatever.

This is indicated by a visualisation that could be right out of a toothpaste ad, where tiny little balls drop into the character’s pores and somehow go straight into the bloodstream which is of course a void full of flying red blood cells. And so on. It sold the game, though! The ad there focuses almost entirely on the suit and not the character wearing it, who is basically an irrelevant soldier man. What it entailed in gameplay terms is that you have a mode switcher so you can have strength or armour or invisibility or whatever. But it’s cool military superscience, you see!

Anyway. Not like my preferred flavour of cyborg is any less stupid I guess x3

In the same year, Bayformers started. These films’ robots are honestly just visual noise, there’s so many moving metal shards going every which way that it’s next to impossible to discern any sort of underlying mechanical principle. A similar ‘overwhelming business’ visual effect would be applied the next year in Iron Man, kicking off the MCU. So mechanical muscles definitely weren’t the only expression of ‘hyper-advanced robot’ in Western visual media in the late 2000s.

I’m going to end my story with two more games: Horizon Zero Dawn and NieR Automata.

Horizon features a world inhabited by a large variety of robot animals, using the peak of AAA rendering techniques. The robots are designed to be biomimetic after both modern animals and prehistoric ones, and feature a combination of hard surfaces and softer biological muscles. For example, a robot horse:

The discipline of making designs like these now has a name: it’s called ‘hard surface modelling’ and it involves boolean operations and bevels and other techniques designed to create a balance of hard edges on a surface against the smoother parts. The design language of Horizon says that the hard plates are white, the soft parts are very dark and may be patterned like a cloth texture, and there can be small colour accents here and there.

I think you can definitely see the influence of Boston Dynamics’s robots (and recent military tech in general) in these designs, iterated on through a decade and a half of increasingly intra-referential concept art. They are visually very busy designs, but there are a couple of recognisable features that draw attention by being inorganic, such as the cylindrical fuel tank at the back. Vitally, the silhouette is very readable.

This robot T. rex for comparison serves as a world boss monster, and you can see it’s got a bunch of military looking attachments that look like radars and missile launchers and so on. As real tech evolved, so too did our idea of what a scary robot ought to look like.

So, that’s where this kind of design pattern has gone in mainstream games.

Now to finish, a brief comment on NieR Automata. Its designs draw hard on those of Ghost in the Shell. Visually it draws a strong contrast between the Machine Lifeforms, who have inorganic shapes (spheres and cylinders) and very visible and plausible mechanical joints, and the doll-like androids, who might as well be human (although A2 provides some contrast in an android who is damaged enough for the underlying materials to show through). The mechanical nature of the androids is communicated by the acrobatic way they move and the interface elements, and dead androids you find in the field - and later when they start losing arms and stuff, it’s a whole thing. But just like humans in Yoko Taro Games, they’re capable of dying in a puddle of blood.

(I guess if you take one thing from this post it’s that if you’re a robot, don’t expect to keep your arms.)

Robot muscles gives you a chance to give both the ‘anatomy porn’ of drawing something very precisely right, with the added bonus of giving you a reason to draw the muscles écorché, and the chance to make it weird and defamiliarised by splitting it with mechanical elements. In short... they look cool!

In this whole post I’ve basically not touched at all on illustration. I can point to a variety of illustrations of robot girls, but in terms of periodising them, I just don’t think I know enough. Though it’s safe to say that cyborg bodies in various states of construction or disrepair are now a mainstream of concept art - and that Ghost in the Shell is usually cited as an influence. I don’t know if robot muscles ever truly became the mainstream way to depict a robot, but it does feel like they’re increasingly common.

One artist I will briefly mention (besides sukabu), mostly bc I think they’re neat, is Haruyo Megurimu, who draws these very intricate designs of ‘necrotech’ which is sort of very biological robots extending out of human bodies - limbs extended on long spindly insectoid strands, jaws splitting open, that kinda thing. Can’t say who influenced them or anything but it’s a compelling extension of the idea into a particular corner of aesthetic space.

And that’s all I’ve got I think. There’s definitely big gaps like. More recent sci-movies. Western comics. Nevertheless, that’s an arc.

If you’ve read this far: thank you for indulging my autism.

[tossawary]

When writing both original fiction and fanfiction, it's my personal preference and style to remind people who characters are in the narration when I feel it might be needed. It's especially handy when bringing OCs into a fanfiction. Example: "The person calling out to them was [Character's Name Here], the baker they had met earlier that morning." This quirk of narration often reads to me as the POV character internally reminding themselves who someone is.

Sometimes, a character is quite bad with names or wasn't given one, which is where it's handy to refer to this other character by a fixed epithet. Example: "The person calling out to them was the square-faced man from yesterday, who had given them those bad directions." OR: "The person calling out to them was the mayor's daughter." This reads to me as though the POV character is distinguishing people by a particular feature or remembers them by their relationship to someone else, which is a common way to remember people, until their own name becomes more fixed in your mind.

I also think it's important to keep an epithet / title the same across a scene. Epithets are best used, in my opinion, when that particular feature or quality is actually relevant. It's a little weird for a POV character to suddenly think of their own husband as "the tall man" unless his height is suddenly important in some way, and it might confuse the audience into thinking another person is in the room. If a character doesn't have a name, then "the square-faced man" or "the mayor's daughter" effectively becomes their name, and it's confusing to have a character's name change too much with every other paragraph. (It would be fine to also refer to "the mayor's daughter" as "the girl" or "the young woman" as long as there aren't any other nameless girls speaking in the scene.) Keeping the same title allows it to blend in in the same way that the word "said" does, rather than break up the flow of a scene.

Not every person or character is bad with names and remembering people, of course, or is inclined to give them funny little internal titles. There are people who are very good at names. There are tricks to use to get yourself to memorize names as you're introduced to someone. Narrative styles are going to be different by author and by the current POV character. (Sometimes, you might want the audience to be confused and disoriented!)

In fact, thinking about how different characters think about each other is one of my favorite starting places for crafting a perspective voice. A single character might be referred to in the narration as "His Majesty" by one character, "my husband" by another character, "the king" by a third character, "the usurper" by a fourth character, and "Dad" by a fifth. The name that a character calls someone else by will often say a lot about their relationship and their opinion of that other person. If the prince appears to think of his father as "the king" rather than "Father", that implies something about their relationship.

But back to introducing character names, you as an author, in my experience as a writer and reader, generally can't rely on the audience to easily recall very minor character names unless they're very distinct or the character was introduced in a particularly memorable way. Like, if you introduce a character as the protagonist's best friend, Mary, and immediately start refering to her as Mary because it's followed by a conversation between the protagonist and Mary, that's fair! It's reasonable to expect the audience to just learn Mary's name here! But then if Mary disappears after Chapter 1 and doesn't show up again until Chapter 10, I think it's reasonable to subtly reintroduce her to the audience again. Example: "It was Mary smiling at me from the doorway, and I jumped up to hug my best friend immediately."

Like, there's no one way that you have to refer to characters and introduce them and reintroduce them, of course. Characters have different levels of importance and sometimes we don't really need to know who they are. Sometimes, an author wants an audience to feel grounded, to recognize people, and sometimes they want their audience to feel lost and scared. It's all situational. Style is a thing.

But because it's all situational, this is something I like thinking about and I think it's something worth studying when you're reading original fiction. It's interesting to pay attention to how characters enter and exit scenes in different forms of media, and how the narrator introduces them and how other characters greet them aloud. (Shakespeare comes to mind as a neat thing to look at, to see how theatre does it. Comic books and films and visual media will do it differently to a text-only story.) The audience doesn't have the background that you, the author, carry around in your head all of the time, and you often need to give them a helping hand in keeping your cast of characters straight. Even in fanfiction, without including OCs, not everyone in the audience has the whole canonical cast perfectively memorized, and not every character in any given cast actually knows every other character! It's not just OCs who need introductions, whether those introductions happen subtly or a character enters the story with a bang.

Kind of another side note:

One of my favorite character introductions comes from the book "The Princess Bride", in which Princess Buttercup is kidnapped by three men who are referred to only as "the Spaniard", "the Turk", and "the Sicilian". You don't know their names for quite some time. Buttercup doesn't know these people.

You only learn the Spaniard's name when the Sicilian leaves him at the top of a cliff, tasking him the Spaniard fighting and killing "the Man in Black" who is pursuing their kidnapping. When the Spaniard is about to fight someone to the death, the book pauses to tell you that his name is Inigo Montoya, and then there is an ENTIRE CHAPTER dedicated to Inigo Montoya's long and tragic backstory, in which you learn about his decades-long quest to find the six-fingered man who murdered his father. And then the book abruptly dumps you the audience back out onto that cliff, where Inigo (no longer just "the Spaniard" and no longer just some random kidnapping thug) is about to fight for his life.

I think it's a terribly fun piece of whiplash that suits the comedic style of the book really well. (The book is a little different to the movie and there are things about it that I don't like, the movie gets across a level of a sincerity and love through the acting that the book misses in places, but there are lots of really funny elements to the book that the movie sadly couldn't cover.) The transformation from "the Spaniard" into "Inigo Montoya" is really neat to me.

[amerricanartwork]

What's up with 12th Council Pillar, the House of Braids?

Just wanted to share something interesting I noticed in Metropolis while looking at the room names on the interactive map! I doubt I'm not the first person to discover or take interest in this, but nonetheless now that I'm into the worldbuilding for this game, both canon and headcanon, I hope to at least encourage a discussion about what the rooms I found could possibly be for!

*Oh and by the way, spoilers for Artificer campaign, just in case.

Alright, so I was originally looking for how to get to a specific room for an Artificer expedition, but decided to browse around on the map just to refresh my memory on the region overall. Right off the bat I think it's interesting how this region's rooms are denoted mostly with lexical names rather than the more common "Capital letter + 2-digit number" formula. But scrolling to the right is where my interest really got piqued when I saw this name for the room right before that long corridor on the way to the 12th Council Pillar, the House of Braids, labeled "LC_templegate":

And the next room after that, "LC_templeentrance" confirmed my realization that this was a temple of sorts:

Now don't get me wrong, Rain World has always had a fair amount of religious associations, and even just the name "12th Council Pillar, the House of Braids" gave me the impression from the first time traversing it that it was once some high-esteemed, holy location of sorts. But I guess that never really sank in and captured my greater interest until now.

Part of that's because earlier I was focused more on just completing the campaigns from a basic playthrough perspective, not yet as big on uncovering every little lore detail, and another reason I didn't really take it in was that, at the time of my first Artificer playthrough, I wasn't as big on headcanon worldbuilding and trying to uncover/imagine Ancient culture and society outside of very general ideas. But now I think about it, another major part of this lack of realization was because of how the main rooms of this subregion that stuck out in my mind were the low-gravity iterator-esque zones. Many of which are explicitly labeled with "LAB", like this one, and they even have the same neurons, inspectors, and/or those gravity-distorting spheres:

I mean, that cube at the bottom even very strongly resembles an iterator puppet chamber!

But then the questions become: what are these rooms for, why are they so similar to the interior of the iterator they sit atop, and why put them in what seems like it was supposed to be a temple? And by extent, is this something unique to Five Pebbles, or do other iterators have similar temple-labs somewhere in their cities?

I guess the reason these parts stuck out to me more than the actual temple association was because 1.) we don't see this low-gravity mechanic and these features anywhere else in the game besides inside the iterators, so it already gets points for uniqueness, and 2.) they're such a great contrast to everything else within Metropolis; even the "temple" rooms still look very similar to the rest of the region in their general aesthetic.

Seriously, what's up with all this "lab" stuff? It's not that I haven't seen these things before at this point, but why are they here, in a temple, of all places?

However, I do really like this idea so far, as I believe it speaks to a theme of Rain World I really enjoy: the seamless blend of science and spirituality. I enjoy seeing fictional worlds where "magical" things are not only objectively real, but have a scientific in-universe explanation, and/or are employed to create magical technology, yet in a way where these two ideas can exist in harmony rather than seeming like opposites. And the Ancients seem to have been very big on that, not only having a very strong cultural sense of spirituality but also being very technologically advanced, and incorporating those spiritual ideas and even elements of the world into their tech (ex: mass rarefaction tech derived from Void Fluid, an objectively real and "magical" substance with direct connections to their religious beliefs).

I have yet to come up with an explanation for what these iterator-esque lab rooms are (and on that note why they so strongly resemble iterator interiors, to the point they even contain their neurons and inspectors, which are supposed to directly aid in their functions). But as of now, just going mostly of basic gut instincts, my current theories are: A.) they exist in the temple so that whatever scientific endeavors carried out within were blessed with a sense of "holiness" in a similar manner to the holy ash Pebbles talks about, and B.) whatever tasks they were used for was one entrusted to the clergy class of this city, probably because the tasks were seen as something very important and connected to the Ancients' spiritual beliefs.

However, as I said I'm hoping to invite discussion with this post. Figuring out the Ancients' design philosophies and intentions for their creations has been a passion of mine when it comes to my headcanons, so I really do want to see if I can find a more concrete, or at least reasonable answer as to what the overall purpose of the 12th Council Pillar, the House of Braids was. Therefore if anyone has any extra details or theories as to what it was, I'd love to hear them!

And if you made it to the end, thanks for listening to my little spur-of-the-moment ramble!