#bloodhound character study

[nebuliias]

Your probably busy with your own life but is it alright if I could request reader being the younger sibling of Sunday and Robin

Do you know the scene where Robin gets 'killed'? what if instead of Robin it was the reader? how would Sunday and Robin react to the news of their younger sibling getting 'killed'?

Thank you for your time and have a great day/noon/night!!

SYNOPSIS. . . With the Charmony Festival nearing by the day, the revered Halovian siblings start getting anxious when their kin hasn’t been heard of for days.

CHARACTERS FEATURED. . . sunday and robin

CW: hurt/no comfort (I tried), gn and sibling! reader, they’re your biological older siblings, potential spoilers, platonic, like one mention of Gopher Wood, reader is aged 16 and a Nameless

— A/N’s note: HIIII EVERYONE. wow i actually posted something since who knows how long LMAO. so sorry for lack of updates, motivation has been very low and dry lately. anyways NEW FORMAT everyone

The air in Dewlight Pavilion was thick with worry and tension as the Charmony Festival’s date approached. The legendary siblings, Sunday and Robin, were together in the study room, their faces betraying their concern.

Their precious youngest sibling—basically, you—had promised yesterday to pay a visit in Moment of Morning Dew since you haven’t seen them for so long, considering your occupation as a Nameless.

Normally, Sunday, your protective older brother, would let your delays slide—if only it wasn’t for the fact that you were three hours late.

As for Robin, she nervously combed her fingers through her hair while adjusting her dainty neck pieces. “Brother, perhaps you should sit down for awhile? You’ve been pacing back and forth for awhile. Maybe they’re just visiting some shop or strolling—”

“Robin, it’s been three long hours,” he abruptly stated. “I’m pretty sure they’re not strolling around at some random park in the Dreamscape. They’re always punctual, you know that!” The man sighed, eventually sitting down beside his younger sister.

Poor Sunday, he was visibly anxious and worried. He plucked at several loose hair strands and feathers from the wings by his ears. Ever the neat perfectionist, it was ironic to see him in such a distressed state. But Robin couldn’t blame him.

It had been a pretty long time after all…

Just when she was about to excuse herself to use to the restroom, a Bloodhound guard came bursting through the grand wooden doors, a manilla folder in his sweaty hand.

“Ah, Mr. Sunday..! Oh, and hello, Miss Robin,” he panted. “My deepest apologies for interrupting whatever was happening, but I have urgent news to report.”

Sunday rapidly approached the man. “What happened? Hold on, is this about..?”

“Yes,” the Bloodhound confirmed. “Another person has fallen victim to ‘Death.’ We’ve gathered enough information, but I’m afraid you’ll be displeased who said person was.”

There was a moment of silence as Sunday split the folder open, revealing three sheets of paper. His hand trembled ever so slightly as he picked up a sheet, already thinking the worst.

Please, don’t let it be who I think it is.

Robin, who was peering over his shoulder, audibly gasped, stumbling back with a gloved hand at her mouth, muffling the incoming sobs. “No.. No, it can’t be!”

The Bloodhound bowed deeply, his face contorted in distress. “My condolences, Mr. Sunday and Miss Robin, but Y/N.. was killed by the Memory Zone Meme.”

The siblings stared blankly at the papers spread out on the desk.

•••

Name: Y/N L/N

Family: Gopher Wood, Dreammaster and adoptive father | Sunday, Oak Family Head and older brother | Robin, cosmic superstar and older sister.

Age: 16

Affliation: Nameless

Cause of death: Memory Zone Meme, “Death”—stab wound through the heart.

•••

There were several photographs taken of the scene, and Robin felt overwhelming nausea at the mere sight of it. Her body went rigidly stiff, her chest rose and fell slowly, and the world around her blurred. One hand shielded her lips and the other was put over her heart.

Meanwhile, Sunday’s strong-willed heart shattered. He felt so many things at once: shock, fury, sadness, despair—basically every negative emotion wrote in the dictionary. Yet at the same time, he didn’t know what to feel.

After awhile, the Halovian idol stood up, her legs now jittery from the sudden revelation. She took in a shaky deep breath before exhaling, not daring to break down in front of her brother. “…I’m going to use the restroom.” With that, she slowly walked out of the study, leaving the revered leader alone with his turmoil.

None of them couldn’t think straight, but who could blame them? Their sibling was dead. Their youngest sibling was dead. Their kin was dead. Their determined Nameless. Their sibling was dead.

Sunday, now isolated, suddenly felt hot beneath his clothing. His mind was disturbed, and his blue-gray wings twitched madly. He didn’t know how to act, but in the end, he let out a cry and ripped the papers apart along with the photographs before throwing the folder in a nearby trash can.

Oh, how he felt like diving into it himself. He felt like trash itself now—unwanted, crumbled, and torn apart.

Back with Robin, she ran past several Oak Family servants and dashed into the restroom, madly locking the door to ensure no one would run into her. She fell against the toilet and heaved into it, her nausea reaching its brink.

After the ordeal, she wiped her mouth before staring at herself in the mirror, unable to hold back her sadness anymore. Transparent tears poured down her flawless face, carving dry rivers in their run. Sorrowful sobs sounded from her throat, her once melodious voice now gone harsh.

Poor you. Poor, poor, poor, you. You didn’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve any of this. You didn’t deserve to have your life crushed like a ladybug.

Just.. why..?

all rights reserved © nebuliias. do not copy, re-upload, or plagiarize my fics. if you see anyone doing this to my work, LET ME KNOW.

[thepersonperson]

Sukuna's Loneliness Part 1

(Thoughts on Sukuna's Dehumanization as of JJK 261.)

Part 2

Some things to keep in mind...

1) This analysis deals with topics of ableism, racism, and discrimination. (Very brief suicidal ideation mention.)

2) I will be mainly using the TCB scans because of their accessibility. 

3) There are a lot of links so you know I'm not making stuff up. The sources are both formal and informal. Please do research on some of the discussed topics to gain a better understanding of them.

(Click pictures for captions/citations.)

The Name Ryomen Sukuna

Before we start this needs to be made clear. Ryomen Sukuna is not a first and last name. Ryomen is a title. Sukuna is a name.

Ryomen uses the kanji 両面 which can be translated as "two-faced".

Sukuna uses the kanji 宿儺 which can be translated as "specter". Individually the kanji can be read as "lodging, inn" (宿, suku) and "exorcism" (儺, na).

Two-faced specter is not a nice name to put it lightly. It's such a mean spirited name that the JP fanbase suspects he was called something else before becoming The Disgraced One.

Normally I would assume his parents did not name him this, however, Sukuna himself had this to say about his birth.

In the original Japanese, Sukuna calls himself 忌み子 (Imigo) which can be translated as "Abominable Child", "Unwanted Child", or "Shunned Child." None of these translations in my opinion get across how severe Imigo is. It's closer to meaning "child who should've never been born". Like the child's very existence is an affront to god. (If you play Elden Ring the Omen are called Imigo in Japanese for this reason.)

You combine this fact with his name and it starts to paint a nasty picture. Sukuna straight up may not have a last name in part from what is implied to be disownment from birth.

Sukuna's Trauma

(Even if he won't acknowledge it as something that has deeply affected him.)

As a Basketball American (aka one of those people with a unique skeletal structure and muscles as Mr. Gojo Satoru would say), I consider myself a professional experiencer of discrimination. This means when a character has likely experienced something similar to me, I can sniff it out like a bloodhound. Though what Sukuna experiences is much closer to ableism than racism. (Discrimination across the board is pretty similar in a lot of ways you know.)

Sukuna is disabled—not as in he lacks an able body (my goodness he is too ablebodied), but as society is not built with any consideration for him. He’s a massive conjoined twin with 4 eyes and 4 arms and 2 mouths. If you know anything about being tall in Japan, it's that it’s a nightmare. Doorways, showers, bathrooms, and buildings are built for small people which leads to the very infrastructure causing problems for anyone big. But Sukuna’s size is just the start of those kinds of problems. He canonically wears women’s kimonos to accommodate his arms since they have larger sleeves. He often goes shirtless or wears a shawl simply because clothing isn’t made for him.

If you’ve known or read anything by people with mobility issues or missing limbs, a major complaint is clothing. For example someone with a missing leg can either pay for expensive customized pants, or they can purchase regular pants and tie off the extra pant leg. They can have trouble buying one shoe since they almost always come in pairs. (To rectify this sometimes they find a mirror twin called a Sole Mate who they share the extra shoe with.) 

Now if I’ve learned anything from people with mobility issues, it’s that ablebodied people are really fudging annoying and rude. They will grab mobility aids unprompted and even move people around in wheelchairs without permission. In this treatment, the ablebodied dehumanize the disabled and treat them like objects in their way.

Sukuna also experiences objectification in a similar manner. People see him as an obstacle to conquer, a means to test their strength, a helpless thing that needs curing, a test subject to study, and a symbol for their own use. All of these things are extremely dehumanizing and things disabled people may have to deal with.

We’ve got Yuji and co seeing him as a curse to exorcize.

Kashimo and others using Sukuna to test their strength.

Yorozu seeing Sukuna’s lack of interest in romantic/sexual love as a thing to be cured. (Your honor, he is aroace.)

Kenjaku using Sukuna as a test subject and insurance for The Plan.

Heian era society revering him as a god to use him in rituals for their benefit.

The last example is a very interesting form of discrimination. If you aren’t familiar with the term, there is one called benevolent prejudice. This is when discriminatory beliefs are flattering instead of malicious. (Examples: Black people are athletic, Asian people are smart, etc.)

Benevolent prejudice still results in negative outcomes for the group affected, but to me personally, some of them are kind of hilarious in isolation. Here are some of my favorites:

I’m pretty sure this is why Gojo apologizes so readily to Miguel and without resistance. He realizes “oh crap I’m doing to Miguel what everyone does to me”. 

And yes this belief had a negative outcome for Miguel—it’s likely the reason Gojo beat him so hard compared to other characters in the JJK 0 movie. (Remember Gege has direct involvement in the anime.) This is canonically a racially motivated beatdown, trauma response from the black ropes mimicking Toji notwithstanding.

On the ableism side of things this benevolent prejudice can manifest as turning people with deformities or atypical features into objects for worship, fetishization, or sacrifice.

As an aside, I suspect Uraume’s gender is ambiguous because they’re intersex. And boy howdy do intersex people experience dehumanization as objects of worship (fetishization and religious symbols) or as a problem that needs to be corrected (forced surgical procedures/mutilation and erasure). This, in my opinion, might be the reason Sukuna likes them more than anyone else. Uraume may not fully understand the isolation of strength, but they do get the dehumanizing way in which society treats them both.

My point here is that Sukuna experiences regular prejudice and the benevolent type. All of which are dehumanizing from every single angle, leaving him in a state of near constant objectification. (Uraume puts Sukuna on a pedestal as their master which is emotionally isolating but they still see him as an individual on his own merits.)

What constant systemic discrimination does to a motherfudger...

So now that we've established how Sukuna's dehumanization happened, I can rant about how this is probably a major reason behind his disconnect from his humanity and a source of his loneliness.

Gege has stated that Sukuna and other people don’t really know how to categorize his personhood. He's so strong he's more like a natural disaster than anything else.

Sukuna says things like this about himself.

"If I was a cursed spirit…"

"...that's the sort of human I was."

He doesn’t see himself as a human or a curse. At one point he did consider himself human but stopped. He sees himself as this third thing which is highly likely to be a “living creature” as Gojo would put it. 

Gojo also experienced benevolent prejudice that lead to his dehumanization and subsequent objectification (thanks JJK 261 for making me realize it was much worse than I assumed). And from birth too. I think this is why they’re able to connect so well during their fight. Especially since this prejudice leads to them becoming sinks for everyone's burdens while being scorned in the same breath. (It's like how people adore "my kind's" athletic/manual labor abilities but then don't want us in their neighborhoods.) The world isn't made for them but it's going to exploit the very thing it hates them for.

The difference between those two is probably the stares of disgust and day to day inconveniences from the extra parts. Gojo can effectively blend in with other humans if he really tries. Sukuna cannot. (Maybe that’s why he says this too.)

Sukuna to me, feels like a manifestation of this rage against constant systemic discrimination. You look at him funny? He kills you. You treat him like a thing that serves you? He kills you.

I know I'm projecting but hear me out!

I don't think Sukuna was aggressively abused by others for his appearance to get to this point by the way. It's more of a death by 1,000 cuts scenario. Someone crossing the street to avoid you, a flash of revulsion when they look at you, backhanded compliments, name-calling in whispers, gentle reminders you don't belong in infrastructure and accessibility to resources. On their own they feel like paper cuts, but if you experience them constantly without time to recover, one day you look down and realize there's a massive rotting gash.

Thankfully I have friends and spaces where I can exist without being subject to discrimination. I can treat these wounds and keep going relatively ok. When I was a child, I didn't have a proper outlet for that and it ate me alive. I flip flopped between wanting to magically wake up fully white or disappearing entirely and wanting everything to explode. Sometimes I wanted all of these thing at the same time. These old wounds reopen on occasion but I know how to deal with that now.

In Sukuna's behavior and attitude, I see that kind of hurt. And his coping strategy appears to be making everything explode since violence is all he knows. Maybe cannibalism wasn't the healthiest way to deal with this but you know it's Jujutsu Kaisen.

Speaking of cannibalism, the definition of a cannibal is an individual that eats members of their own species. Sukuna is regarded as a non-human by everyone around him in every instance except when he is called a cannibal. He’s not human enough to be a part of society but just human enough to be a cannibal. His status as a human changes in what makes it easiest to disregard him as an individual worthy of respect or consideration. (Think of how conservatives misgender gender non-conforming cis people and then turn around and misgender trans people for hypocritical reasons.) 

Sukuna’s acknowledgement of both Jogo and Gojo is bittersweet with this lens. Jogo is a curse fighting on behalf of curses’ humanity. He wants curses to live as humans after being born lowly and unwanted in a world that wants him erased. Gojo is a human forced into godhood by circumstances he couldn’t control. He’s someone who became isolated and rejected by others until he stopped seeing himself as a human. Sukuna has lived both of these experiences and connects with them in a way no one else can. 

Unfortunately, because Sukuna only knows how to love through violence, he kills them. (Great job, Sukuna, you did this to yourself. You could've had friends.)

I also suspect this is why Sukuna believes this.

This type of society is one in which Sukuna can exist. He can relentlessly pursue the strength through which he builds his self-esteem and be acknowledged as something. However, that is still isolating. And Sukuna is a human, which means he’s a social creature that needs companionship. (Not necessarily romantic or sexual mind you.)

I find Sukuna’s vague suicidal ideation and refusal to die extremely relatable for all these reasons. Much like Gojo, he seems to be convinced the world will never treat him the way he wants to be treated and wants out.

There’s also something to be said about the unique loneliness aromantic and asexual people experience from wanting deep and fulfilling relationships without romance or sex in a world that only values relationships with both of those things.

So why is Sukuna like that?

Despite knowing how much it sucks to be dehumanized, Sukuna still participates in dehumanization himself, referring to humans as insects/animals or things for him to play with. 

And in a Kenjaku parallel, food for him to enjoy as well.

I predict this attitude he has towards humans is the direct result of his dehumanization and objectification for his appearance and strength. It’s all one big unhealthy coping mechanism.

I think this is why Yuji ideologically pisses him off so much. Imagine truly believing all this isolation and suffering for innate characteristics made you stronger, only to find someone who experienced none of that starts rising to your level and shatters your entire world view.

Trauma isn’t something that makes people stronger, but Sukuna likely believes it does as a cope. In my last analysis I called Gojo a sopping-wet pathetic cat who pretends everything is ok. Sukuna is no different if you ask me.

[slightly-warmer-hibiscus-tea]

CW: OC talk + Rambling / Blood / Gore / Censored Nudity (character sheet) / Mentions of Drugging

(idk why these warnings are so intense, but I swear it's all just silly OC talk T^T)

I’m kinda sorta working on more (comprehensible) TS OC stuff in between studying right now… I wanna hurry and talk about them but without info dumping (if given the opportunity I will without hesitation 😔…) because in terms of the best stories I have conjured up for OCs in general Naudedel and Noble are surprisingly good and I’m very excited to share how deranged they are together…

Right now it’s just about making Naudy readable and working on extra fun stuff… like monsters!

I’m trying to work out his “monster” form…. The concept is there, but the execution is just not ticking the right boxes for me right now… also, the line art at the end is old and probably will go unused, but thought it was something to add here because like hehe look at my deranged son :)

When it comes to the writing I'm going to split it into two chapters. The first half will be a summary+ of his upbringing, and the second on how he fucked up his arm and why. Just enough info to get a read on what his deal is pretty much. I just need to edit the first chapter and rewrite some parts then it's ready to annoy the world!

I'm trying to think of a good design for his original mother... I'm thinking dark hair and milf (¬‿¬)･ﾟ✧ ... honestly I need to start drawing out the designs for all the other TS OCs I've accumulated over the year (?) here's a fun list-

Hickery (bloodhound OC... dilf oc...I've already been made fun of for his name, but it stuck to me so I'm keeping it!)

Maya (another bloodhound OC)

Cove (Hound's ex-husband)

Cetcher's gf + informant, who still needs a good name...

and that one guy! (doesn't have a name yet... but is important in Hound's part of the story... she bashed some of his guys in the back of head with a hammer... it was a whole thing... Leander got involved... gang war stuff, don't worry about it...)

There are technically more OCs, like that Hightown lady Noble befriended during their first few weeks in town. However, I'm not sure if I'm including her in the final plot meeting. But yeah, anyway I'm rambling so on to Noble news!

For Noble, everything is plotted out in advance surprisingly…character playlist and all... just need to find the words to explain their story other than “parasite with a weird God complex feels guilty” I do have some old memes and art of them though!

Noble curse stuff...

Childhood cult stuff...

Current reality...

Poor person masquerade dress censored for tumblr...

Noble folks!

I actually wrote out a whole little thing for the black dress in a what-if scenario of...

"Oh! ,,,What if there is a masquerade in Hightown and Noble sneaks in to get some information on a certain individual who might know a thing or two about curses, but turns out the whole event if devious and their all eating babies or some fucked up shit,,,, and what if while sneaking around they see Leander and are like 'what's he doing here?' and they lock eyes but he ignores them as he ducks into a closed off area with some important looking people,,, once he comes out he walks past them and they lock eyes again as he leaves,,, Noble chases after him and once they catch up they get to see his cold and detached side right before he hides them from the other guest,,, after they talk for a bit, or more like Leander talking over them and their worries as he slowly wipes their memories while they protest that it's not fair only to wake up the next day back in their room,,, thankfully their curse is good for more then just silly bouts of insanity so they have a hunch on what happened, everyone around them who knew where they went the night before were obviously worried and the general consensus is that they might have been drugged and should go check in with Kuras just in case (wow this is getting long...) but on their way to the clinic they run into Leander and of course discusses their current problem with him ,,, words are exchanged,,, a kabedon may occur,,, as he whispers in their ear,,, all fun till he erases their memories again, or at least tires before receiving a little gift that makes him look at this whole curse thing from a different angle." DEEP BREATH! ...Anyways... yeah.

But it was taking so long to write out that I ended up losing motivation so yeah... like everything else we will pray the motivation comes back so I can finish that... plus who knows, I might make an x reader version of it if I can. (don't hold your breath... I'm extremely slow)

Anyway, I'm gonna to shut up now because I've yapped enough. I'mma make some hibiscus tea (ironic) and head to bed... Night night, if you made it this far, thank you for listening to my craziness <3

[revelisms]

Back with another Magic Ministry AU story, heavily inspired by a rabbit hole on the Basilica Cistern. I've been working on this one for a while, and it's a bit on the longer side, but I really like where it's ended up.

As a sidenote — I thought this...might be the final push to get Terzo out of my system, because this ended up becoming one big messy character study of him (and how much he needs a hug). But, uh. Time will tell on that, I guess 🥸

light ascending

7k words | Rating: T | Terzo & Sister of Sin OC (Mariella) | OC-centric | CWs: Ritual magic, dark imagery, blood, language, doomed fate, grief, hurt/comfort. Also on AO3

The underground cleansing chamber hangs with a chill putrid as death. The fires do little to aid it, no matter their enchantments. In these halls lay the veins of a howling, primordial creature, devoid of life and devouring—and the cold is only one marker of the souls lost within its jowls. 

In one corner of the chamber, Sister Diana, High Priestess of the new Order, stands by a candlelit table. Her fingers dance delicately over shelves upon shelves of consecrated oils, stored here in preservation from any tarnishing by the sun.

"He's particular about his anointments," she is saying, twisting the seal free from one decanter. "Even more so, of their properties."

Not far behind, Sister Mariella, priestess-in-training, stands with hands clasped, her fair hair loose about her shoulders. Per tradition, she wears the plain black of their ritual robes: no paints, no gloves, no shoes: only a trace of sage-smoke on her silks and rosemary on her fingertips.

"Because of the Sight," she thinks aloud, "right?"

Diana turns over her shoulder. Her cropped fringe frames her face in a dark curtain; beneath it, a glimmer of hazel. "In some ways, yes." A smile plays at her mouth. "Not all."

The Sight is just one vessel of their Highest's magic, if the most sacred—powers granted only to the half-human, half-demon, half-Realm infinite. 

Some claimed that those in the papal line were descendants of Lucifer, himself, marked with the light of the Fallen. Others, that they were just unlucky children, sewn into the tapestry of a puppeteer's scheme.

She'd seen the Cardinal—Papa-elect now, formally, as of last Tuesday—enough times to think he was neither. 

Some unnamed thing between them, maybe.

Diana's hands clink through a set of pipettes. Vials are drawn and deposited: mixtures of amber, mugwort, chrism. Mariella's attention stays fixed over her shoulder, dutifully attentive. 

"It takes years to temper," their High Priestess continues. "For any variant, it could take a lifetime. But, where premonitions are concerned, the upper clergy are...I'm not sure if hesitant is the right word." 

As if any words were right for those black-robed bloodhounds beneath Sister's claws.

Mariella sneers. "Tight-assed?"

A chuckle rings bell-like off the walls. "Close."

"Does the variant matter, really?" Mariella wonders. "Even with Papa Secondo's ascension, they were asking questions."

Diana's fingers clatter through a wooden drawer, pulling out a jar of dried pine leaves. "The past is a clearer path, to most. What we could call the future is...contested, in the Order." She crushes one sprig between her fingers. The scent of a sweet forest snaps over her breath. "I've gathered that Bishop Alessandro thinks of it as inevitability. Cardinal Luca has always held the thought that it should serve as a guide; a mould to confirm to." She pauses, glances wryly back at her. "Monsignor Emeritus would call that dangerous thinking." 

Primo would call most things that, these days.

It's been years now since he retired to Ordained Lead of the Philosophical Doctrine—and, as such, overseer of the ritual proceedings. He'd held the title of Papa Emeritus when Mariella first met him, and he'd had the most foreboding presence she'd ever felt: a wraith louring on the Ministry's front steps, his paints jagged as shattered glass, to greet her in all her rain-drenched, luggage-toting misery.

(Ah—you are a blessing to an old man's eyes, Sister. I am pleased to see you have found your way to us. My priestess has told me much of you. He'd turned on his heel, fanning a gnarled hand. Come, come—we have spezzatino going in the kitchens. A room is already prepared for you.)

He was gentler than she expected, but that gentleness cloaked a cynicism that was unyielding as a steel bar. 

He had plenty to say about the flippancies of the new Order. Plenty more to say about the younger faces in the line of his succession—and the third-youngest, with his grandiose visions of reformation, most of all.

"To walk paths unseen is to walk blind in a tunnel," Diana murmurs, and Mariella can hear Primo's inflection in the words, "latching to any light we may find." Glass tinks beneath her fingers. "But that light is not always the surface."

There's a litany of meanings laced between that: that their Order isn't always as it seems; the handed paths, not as distinct as the texts deem them; their Exalted, themselves, not the broken horses they claim to be.

That unknowingness is perhaps the only Truth they have. Their own lowly Sight into what is inherently unseen.

But curiosity has often gotten the best of her.

"How do you know the difference?" Mariella hushes.

Diana turns. Her strong features are softened by the candlelight, sympathetic. "You don't." She lays a warm touch against her temple. "But that is not your burden to bear." 

Mariella worries over her thumb.

With Secondo's own purification, it couldn't have seemed farther from the truth. He was impatient, eager—her own knowledge and magic, one means to a rapid end. The papal seat had been his birthright; the rites, a rancid detour. But he'd been kind, despite his impatience. Forgiving as he could be, for her nervousness.

Diana's thumb smooths over her cheek. "You'll do fine, dearest," she continues. "Remember—you are a conduit. Nothing more."

Swallowing, brow pinched, Mariella nods.

The final stages of their work move quickly: decanters squeaked, vials sealed, a parting slew of advice before the flurry of their steps fall still. 

"Keep the Veil tight about you—you know what will happen, if you don't."

"Right."

"And hold your ground. These halls can be...restless, at such an hour."

"So long as the All-Father isn't sleep-walking in his slippers."

"Mari, be serious."

Mariella's smile blooms, impish, and softens. "I know," she says. "I'm just..."

Green-gold eyes linger over her, steady in their understanding. She reaches down, folds her cool hand within her own. "Have patience," she whispers. "I know it's hard, being so close to the ceremony. But you have nothing to prove, now, right? It's just for formality's sake."

Mariella can't help the bubble of frustration. Her mind locks back on Secondo's stony frown, soaked in a pool of magic ocean-green and effervescent: on the taste of the Past gnawing at her blood.

"And theirs," she says thinly.

For weeks, she's endured a sea of gossip leading up to this ritual. Her peers were convinced that she'd walk away from this with her heart half-eaten, or her sensibility in shreds, wrapped like a ring around their Exalted's finger.

The third heir, notably, was not his brother—not at all, where his coyness was concerned.

Diana battles with her words. "With the Cardinal...I know the other siblings have their, well." Her brows twitch towards her hairline. "Opinions."

That he was a revolutionary, with sermons sharp as a blade, who carried an unsettling edge of authority even the upper clergy, superstitions be damned, dreaded to go toe-to-toe with.

(And, in the same breath, that he was an egregious flirt, and a fool: one who seemed fond of waving at tradition—and any concept of a schedule—from the farthest reaches of the pews.)

Diana plucks the thought from her, clean as a doctor snapping off a leech.

"But," she continues, a touch exasperatedly, "give him grace." Her words falter, stiffen. "Our Order isn't always a kind one," she reminds her, "but we are tasked to carry it out, all the same. So is the Way."

There's a purpose there, beyond any concept of walled rooms and machined profits. One that, for better or worse, has claimed her.

A Veil of magic and tight-controlled chaos, guiding as moonlight and punishing as a forest fire.

So is their role in this blood-bittered, spell-stained sanctuary.

"So is the Way," Mariella echoes.

Diana smiles. Their eyes cling to each other: a final blessing, silent and still, before the cavern of these halls swallow them whole. Then, she slides her hand back to her side.

"Unblessed be with you, Sister."

And, like a shadow, she's gone.

Their Cardinal's reputation, predictably, precedes him. 

It takes an age for Brother Marco, glasses flashing, the scent of rosewater still etched into his robes, to scurry down the North Stairwell and announce that the second cleansing had been completed.

Patience seems all but a foreign concept to Mariella, now—but, willfully, she finds it.

"Thank you, Brother. Will he be able to find his way down?"

"I believe so."

"Then let him know that I am ready for him."

"Certainly."

Marco's footsteps scuff hurriedly back down the hallway and up the crooked stone stairs, happy to avoid any moment in these chambers more than necessary.

Alone again, Mariella fidgets. 

In her hands sit the triplet of vials, fitted into a wooden case to carry. Only candlelight stands to greet her. The walls are threaded with shadows and staccato-bursts of orange flame, damp-dry air mingling off the stones. 

The Ministry's underbelly is unnerving as a crypt. In every web of its grouting lies an ancientness even the scholars of Olde struggle to define. The fires hiss like living things. The archways breathe like the mouth of a giant. In the maze of its passages, magic pulses like blood in a clotted vein.

It takes her a moment to steady herself, remember the route. Her feet carry her in silent strides: two lefts, two rights, one left ducked through a narrow passage, and another, before the corridor opens into the final vestibule of a man-made cave. 

Here, immense as a hall of kings, sits the cistern: one of several thresholds to the Realm beyond. 

Prisms of stone arches stand like golems in the dark, all bearing the reddish gleam of an enchanted flame. At their feet, a pool of water little deeper than a hand trickles from the roots of the mountain's springs. It covers the entire expanse of the cistern floor like a sheet of black-blooded glass. Farther towards the center of the room sits a basin, deep enough to stand at one's waist, where already Diana has placed the initial items for the purification: the Book of Rites, unlit black candles, shards of selenite and quartz.

Thumbs pinched, Mariella makes a mental tally.

In the cleansing chamber, she'd laid out his vestments with the usual care. Thumbed through the unholy texts and spoken her own tithes for using so sacred a place. Asked Lilith's blessing for this final rite, final step into the Path.

Now, she can only wait.

The flames stutter to stillness, and breathe again. Ghosts seem to fade and appear at every turn. 

After so many minutes, the lights have played enough tricks on her—so she pays no mind to the silhouette that hovers just within the vestibule's archway. One that, for not the first time, has a face. 

This one is more severe at the edges: near-feline in its angularity. A face tousled by dark hair, dead-socketed with a white eye.

Mariella nearly jumps out of her skin. "Cardinal. Saints—you're quiet as a cat."

A crescent of teeth blinks back at her. "Eh—sorry, sorry," burrs a low voice. "Habit of mine, it seems."

"Not the first time you've scared the shit out of someone, then?" 

"You talk about shit, Sister? In here?" His grin slants fully at one side. "Blasphemous."

As if a near half-hour delay wasn't blasphemous enough.

One wrist flicks laxly through the dim. "I am late, yes, I know," he prattles on. "Apologies. All the fastings and feastings and washings and rewashings—it is extensive, no? One big glorified bath, they should call these things."

"At least a bit relaxing, I hope?" 

A huff comes before he dislodges from whatever muck has kept him in place. "A pinch. Pinprick, perhaps." He saunters more than walks: heel-toed lazings that draw him, head tilted, into the light. "Though, I don't suppose I would call it relaxing," he grumbles. "My definition of pampering, Sister, means wine and, ah...quite a few other attentions. Chocolates, also—chocolates are good, no?"

She lifts her brows, bemused. "I suppose," she says. "More a fan of panna cotta, myself."

"Feh. Hardly luxurious enough."

The banter only lasts so long. His eyes have strayed to the waters—and hers have turned to scrutiny. 

He's appeared to follow the required conduct, closely enough: the weathered lines of his face bare of any paint, the dark varnish so often chipped on his nails scrubbed clean. He, similarly to her, wears no shoes, no overcoat, none of his usual layers of black upon black upon black—only the white sheen of the Order's purification vestments, embroidered ornately with purple and gold. 

The colors will soon become his, as other colors had ordained his brothers before him.

Colors for penance, absolution, humility.

For sacrifice.

"Tomorrow is a big day for you," Mariella says, after a pause.

Terzo's eyes stutter back to her. "Ah—you must remind me, mh?" Dimples crease in deep-set hooks around his mouth. "Another day and a half of ceremonialness. Satan, I will be decrepit by the time they are finished."

"It's that bad?"

"Darling." He cocks his head on his neck, sharp-browed in silent emphasis. "Have you any idea long the Ascensions last?" 

Mariella can't help the smile that starts. "I can imagine."

"Heh, you can imagine. Forget decrepit—they'll have me in the crypt."

Another shake of his head has thrown his fringe loose. Idly, he thumbs it back. 

Her eyes follow the motion, the looseness of his hands. They're uncharacteristically ringless, now, gloved only in contrasts: dainty wrists smelted to a laborer's forearms, sewn with hair so black it shadows his skin; delicate fingers stained with nicotine, more fit for toolboxes than piano keys.

In another life, he may have been a tall, striking thing, built with slender bones and dancers' limbs to match the grace he carries himself with. But he isn't. Femininity lays strewn about him like carnage from a battlefield, at war with a ruggedness that is all hard edges and soft-stubborn grit. An orchid in full, spiteful bloom, spearing the cracks of an industrial waste.

From all that she's heard, for all his vanity, he doesn't like the way he looks. Never has.

Mariella, like many, has always found it beautiful. 

"Well," she continues, "it's only another day—and it will be over before you know it." He's linked his hands behind his back. She can smell the remnants of the imbued rosewater on his skin, close as he's come sidling and slow-footed to stand with her. "And this will be over before you know it, too." She swallows. "And then you'll be Papa."

Something unearthly fizzles between them: demon-magick that is his own, demon-magick that isn't; the marker of his father's blood, and of the ghouls even the hours of past rites have not been able to wash free from him. 

In his silence is a heaviness. A muted sort of finality.

After a breath, thumb jittering, Terzo hums. "Yes," he agrees. The word sits on the air like a stone. "Seems I will." His soon-to-be title muddles off his lips, venom-sweet and splintered with shrapnel: "Papa Emeritus the Third, they'll call me. Fitting—Third for the third. Suppose it would be a head-scratcher to have the second title go to the first one, and vicey-versa—the old bastard was a goddamn creative with the names, eh?" 

Mariella watches him sway on his heels. "Very...traditional."

"Traditional," he parrots, curling his lip. "Psh. If the All-Father was a manuscript, you'd need archival shitting gloves to turn the pages." 

"High honors to put him in the archives, all things considered."

He squints at her, teasing the start of a smirk. The slightly crooked points of his canines peek over his lip. "Suppose it is, mh?" 

There must be hidden irony in that, something deeper than the surface-level quips Mariella can dissect from him—but she hardly has the chance to think it through. His eyes have popped back to boyish awkwardness: the smirk licked clean, pulled flat again.

"Sorry. I realize I never..." His fingers flutter at his wrist. "You are, ah, Maria, yes? No. Marcella—"

"Mariella."

"Mariella. Yes, yes—it's a thing with the names, sometimes. They just, eh..." His hand dances to an odd gesture. "Poof. You know?"

A smile twitches at her mouth. "Mari is fine, Cardinal."

"Is it? Well, then—much easier for this old brain." He links his hands behind his back again. "And this...Cardinal this, Cardinal that—these formalities are not needed here. Terzo is fine, Sister." He pauses. "Mari."

"Alright." Mariella pauses too, smiles softer. "Terzo."

"Yes, good. Alright." 

His eyes skirt back to the grand arches domed around them, linger unsteadily on the cistern that ebbs beyond the vestibule's edge.

It sews reason back to her—and pulls at an anxious thread.

There are so many steps needed to be completed. Reports she will need to provide. Countless hours of sleep that will inevitably catch up with her, once she slumps back into the dormitories at such a frightful hour. 

All to fulfill the precedents laid down by their Highest—and by Sister, higher still, above him.

To fulfill the birthright of a man peering at her through a shock of black hair, with eyes unmatching: a green flame turned muddy in the red, a white moon smattered with a blood-kissed edge.

"Saints, I'm rambling," realizes Terzo, dryly. "How long have I been rambling?"

"Oh—no, I—it's alright."

He swats the air again. "No no no—you have a job to do, and I am making it wretchedly difficult for you to do it. I will shut up. I'll try. Promise."

The steamroll of his words washes over her like a torrent.

"It's...alright to be nervous," she reasons.

He forces a laugh, little more than a breath. "My brothers were not nervous about this, I assure you."

"Well—you're not your brothers."

She means it as a reassurance—the straight-lined sort she, once, had needed—but he must take the words like a screw to the gut, quick as his brow twitches, as the music in his hands welds still.

"Oh," Mariella flounders again. Her face burns. "I—no, I meant—it's okay if you are, is all."

"Yes, yes, I..." Terzo puts on a small grin, half-genuine. "Forgive me, if the thought makes me, ah...astute, this evening—the old goat has given me enough lectures on my preparedness for this, is all, and it is—has been a...long day, like I...anyways." He rocks back on his heels again, turned away. "Anyways."

Silence weighs between them, unbearable.

Mariella clears her throat. "It's, um...it's only my second time doing this," she admits. Her heel hushes over the stones: the first step towards the vestibule's edge.

"Is it? That must mean Dino was your first—Saints forbid." Terzo puffs out a low snicker. "You are still alive, it seems." He's moved as though to pat a hand on her shoulder, but thinks better of it. In the ritual acts, only she is allowed to touch him. "That, eh—that is a good sign, no?" 

Mariella gives him a playful grimace. "One can hope."

His lashes crinkle at the edges: a lopsided grin that loosens.

Reason seems to crawl back to him, too. With it, the gauze of regality, distraction that had been hanging off his shoulders slips, seemingly just out of reach from his fidgeting fingers.

No Cardinal, no Emeritus, no Papa-elect.

Just a stray without a leash, eyeing the waters before him like a cruel hand waiting to fall.

Whatever he sees in this Path must call to him. Terrify and compel him, in turns. 

He is not at peace with it, now—but he will be.

He has to be, to enter this place.

Beneath the vestibule, the cistern trickles in a silent stream, mirrored with flamelight and red-soaked stone.

"I...don't think I ever caught it," Terzo murmurs. At her feet, his reflection slides beside her own. "What drew you here."

Not, why you chose to come here. Not, why you wanted to.

Few had crossed the wards of this Ministry's grounds of their own volition. The lure of this place held a strange magic of its own. In the seat of its teeth, one's will became its own will; one's path, its own path.

"Sister Diana has mentioned snippets, of course," he continues, "but..."

His eyes lift towards her. Mariella pits her fingers against the carrier.

"Our family worked in art," she explains, "I was surrounded by it, my whole life. I've always had an interest—the occult, especially."

He furrows his brows, intrigued. "Creating it, you mean?"

"No," she laughs. "I'm not an artist, by any means. Dealing it. Mother started a collective in the sixties."

"Ah."

She continues, "There was always an expectation my brother and I would take over the business, and we...I...wanted to see it through." The memory of that chases through her, sweet and acrid as vinegar. "Chained me to a desk, for years," she mumbles. "Even with that, it was never enough."

"For you?"

A frown steeples between her brows. "For her." She shrugs, her words muted. "Maybe for me."

She can feel his eyes lingering on her cheek like a brand. Stubbornly, she keeps her own at her feet.

"She got sick a few years ago. Federico—my brother—wanted out of the business, and it just...I don't know. It changed so much." She pauses, chewing on her lip. "Not having her there to...prove to myself that I could do it—that it was worth it." She can't tamp down the chuckle, bitter as it comes. "It's so strange. You want someone out of your life, for so long—but once they're gone, you realize how much of a crater they left. What a void you have to fill, yourself."

For a long moment, he says nothing. His fingertips pitter at his palm.

"So the magic filled that void, eh?" he mutters.

Mariella smiles. "In some ways."

"Not all?"

"No, not all."

Another pause simmers through him, pensive and puzzling. "I imagine there was a...special quality to it. Working between the artists and the curators and the collectors, I mean. Navigating it." He quirks a brow. "Not much different from the Order, eh?"

Only now, the product is not the artwork their congregation produces—but the needs of their congregation, itself. 

Blessings and charms, incantations and spells, all weaved across their waiting hands like feed to a starved flock. A beacon for souls yearning for a light to guide them, from mountains high to valleys low.

Or, in his case: a silk-robed pinnacle to a cavernous pit.

"No," Mariella says again, "it's not."

He hums.

He's come to stand a touch off-kilter from her, staring down at his robes. In an odd, soft-graveled way, he tries to give the reassurance he's staved his hands from.

"It's all just words and waltzes, these things." His eyes tip cattishly over his shoulder. "You will do exceptional, Mari. You know it, yes?"

She does. 

She must.

"I know."

His smile hangs a touch more genuine at the corners. "Good." Gradually, his hand unfolds from his back: waves to the flickering arches before them. "Well, then?"

It's all the permission she needs.

The water envelops her steps with pinpricks of sensation, slow-slipped and glittering. It calls to her, sings to her: a vessel of endless possibility.

This is her Path. Her purpose. Her home.

Behind her, soon to be, her liege.  

She can hear his footsteps trailing the shadow of her own, his vestments a silken hiss off the water's edge. As it had for his predecessor before him, the cistern hums in its greeting: a millennia of lifetimes past stirred to welcome the presence of the Unholy, of its Keeper.

Hellfire bathes them with red. It sets an eerie glow to his undead eye, blistered in white and gold. For a breath, it's hard to remember that he is human, at all: that the light hasn't stained his skin in blood, taloned his nails with black, twisted his robes to wings claw-tipped and leather-thin.

At the basin, she pauses. He falls still with her—staring down, down at the ebbing coil of waters they come to stand beside.

His throat ripples. He sets his jaw, the dark lines of his lashes lifting. Mariella holds his stare like a rabbit eyeing a wolf from the weeds; like a cub before a lion.

"You've greeted me, in the Olde Way," she says quietly, "and, by Lilith's blessing, will be Renamed. Do you accept it?"

Terzo takes in a breath, nods. "Yes."

"To be the Gate's ward, now and forevermore, until you are called?"

"Yes," he says again.

"To be bound to your summoned, and your summoned only, until they are reclaimed?"

There's a forced calmness to his face, though she can sense the frustration beneath it: proof of battles she has not been privy to, and may never be. "Yes."

"Then we will begin."

First are the black candles—twin flames lit to represent the handed paths. She sets them on the footholds of the two pillars closest, crafting the symbolic Gate between realms, and speaks a low incantation. Then comes the oils, their vials a cold sting against her hands. Each mixture is strategically placed: drops of mugwort to his slow-lifted palms, a thumb-kiss of amber to each temple, the Chrism dotted at the crown of his head.

She can smell his magic, this close: awakened, shivering, unbound: the ashen smoke of a snuffed flame and the sweet tang of clove, spiked with a metallic edge. It has grown stronger since his Exaltation; ignited. It leaves her head heavy, her hands sluggish. There is Future on his breath, and Death in his eye. Beneath his robes, inked across the branches of his heartlines, a glimmer of snapdragon pink.

She fights to ground herself, for a moment. Her palm lays slow, slow upon his breast: feels the power in him straining at the seams.

"Astraeus—Nyx—Perun. These names have adorned you, before. With your Awakening, they will adorn you, again."

He is so warm, always—they all always are—but with the loss of the Veil, he is burning brighter still. Mariella swallows, fighting to keep her aura about her. Her own blessing seeps like mist beneath her hand. 

"Our Lightbringer," she whispers on, trapped in red-green and blood-smattered white. "Our Morning Star."

Terzo's eyes skim between hers.

He is nothing human, now, not with magic so ancient in his veins—as ancient as this place, and the markings of its wards: as wild and cosmic and suffocating. 

Oh, but he feels young. Heartbreakingly young, for the smallest instant.

A child and a Devil and a man, his heart half-beating in his hands.

"Do you accept it?"

Her Cardinal, her Papa-to-be, her Path does not smile, does not look away—not like he had before, in every babbled distraction leading up to this. And, in it, she knows—regardless of whatever his Sight may show him—that he will succeed: that the cause of this Ministry will reach heights never-before seen beneath his hand, and lay the groundwork for even greater heights in his absence.

Mariella does not shy away from his stare, though the spellwork within it threatens to pierce her through. "...Do you accept it?" she whispers, again.

Terzo blinks: green and white and human. His chest swells a slow breath beneath his vestments, ebbs into a silent sigh. "Yes."

The last confirmation. The final rite.

She smiles. "Then only the Realm waits for you."

He looks at her as though he is both lamb and executioner: waiting to be led to slaughter, and to drop the knife.

Her hand hovers before her, a silent offering. 

Slowly, skin soft-roughened and molten, he takes it.

The basin pools around her steps. Her robes tangle stubbornly at her knees as the chill needles through her, slicking the silks to her waist. He follows her unsteadily, his fingers tight through hers.

She can sense the weight of the anointments on him; the wavering of his presence. Half-here, half-wandering, half-living.

"Are you alright?" she asks.

He clicks his tongue. "Alright as I can be."

"Not too torturous, is it?"

"The cold, or the medical proceedings?" Terzo's mouth slants at one side, a wicked glint striking briefly back into his eyes. "I jest, I jest—an image of composure you are, truly. You'll be leading the ceremonies in no time, yes?"

His humor is a flat shield to the tightness in his lungs. His hand swallows hers, hard enough to sting.

"Yes, you'll be fine," he's mumbling on. His eyes are unseeing. Clove and bloodmetal itches in her throat. "You'll be fine."

"Terzo," Mariella warns.

He snaps his eyes shut. Squeezes them. "Sorry." Slowly, stiff as a marionette, his fingers pry their way free from hers. "Sorry, I'm fine." He sighs, blinking. "It's the, eh...it is always like this. It'll pass. Not your fault, darling."

She shouldn't prod, not now. 

But her heart hammers, blisters, bleeds. 

She can't be sure if it's her own.

"What do you...see?" she whispers.

Terzo's eyes flick to hers. His mouth pinches at the corners. "Nothing. Nothing to worry about."

She hesitates. Diana's cautions float across her conscience: the Veil fraying at the seams, close to his own being as this. But, gingerly, her hand lifts from the water, finds his cheek. 

"Any path is Nothing. And any path is All," she says. "I know you know that. You can see it." His eyes fall unsteadily on hers, and Mariella waits, her fingertips skimmed over his skin—worn beyond his age, but soft, still. "You can see that," she says again, "can't you?"

The dark line of his lashes twitch, a beeswing flutter.

Lilith's own, that look must have been the same as hers, all those years ago. The same hope, same hate, same boneless relief.

"You see me," she continues, softly, "don't you?"

His breath mingles with her own, light as a prayer. "Yes."

There's no desire in the way she leans to meet him; no surface-level adoration or simmering need in the touch of her brow to his. Her other hand raises, cups a wet touch over his cheek.

"You'll do fine," she says firmly. "You will."

His brows wrinkle to a knot against her own. He fights with a smile; lets it sag like a stone. "For as long as they'll have me," he mutters.

The inference tears her heart to her feet.

"Don't say that," hisses Mariella—and he's not supposed to touch her, but, at long last, he does: a sunspot warmth of fingertips at her neck, thumbing shaky and half-minded beneath her ear.

A sigh quivers against her lips. "Sorry." The waters are so frigid, but he's warm as a flame in her arms, burning deep as Hell itself. "Sorry, I—"

She shushes him. Holds him—as tightly as she needed to be held that day the call from the hospital came; as tight as she can, for the smallest moment.

Hell below, he feels so small to her now.

Stifled.

His throat hitches against her cheek—but he holds his ground; holds her, hands rough but gentle as he can manage, lost in the sweet tangle of her hair.

"You'll do fine," Mariella whispers again.

There is Future in his touch, and demon-magick in his blood, and hope as much as fear, as wrath, as love.

"I know," he whispers back.

He will. 

He must.

Slowly, they untangle—and though there is still a hand at his cheek, one of his own turning to keep it there, there is nothing more to be said, now. Nothing more to be done.

His Path blazes before him, inevitable.

In her own power, the mould.

"Ready?" she hushes.

Jaw tight, Terzo closes his eyes, nods again.

Her hands slide to his chest, to the back of his head. A cradle and a coffin in one. 

Mariella clears her throat, continuing: "In this final Act, I release you from the realm of the living; I bind you with the realm beyond. In this, you will emerge the Eternal. In this, the Way is sealed."

His magic is fizzling. The cistern is singing. Beneath her hand, tendrils of lilac-fuchsia glisten and glow.

"Unholy be thy name: Revered be thy power." Her palm splays firmer into his sternum. "May you be blessed in the way of the covenant, now and evermore." Terzo takes in a breath, lurched quickly beneath her fingers. The water laps across his shoulders, spills across her wrists. "By his grace, be it commanded." And, in a drowning hush, consumes him.

Unreality pricks at her skin. 

For a heartbeat—fire beneath her palms, and beauty, and nothingness—there are countless paths gnawing at the edges of her consciousness: but she knows, with certainty, there is one—and it is all and nothing and everything, it is Diana and Mother and Primo and herself, dead and alive and dead again, and this man-demon-spirit all omniscient in the tide, and she can't breathe, the Veil spilling like silk from her being, can't separate herself from it—

But she must. 

She must—

Only stillness surrounds her: lightless as the heavens, silent enough to hear a teardrop fall.

She is emptied in it.

She is him, and he is her.

The edges of her magic are wrangled: wrenched back, back around her, tight as a wire—and the tether snaps. Blisters with the breaking of his own body from the basin. 

Together, they breathe as one, a slow-sucked gasp that heaves out thin and clean. 

The light is blinding. There's blood in his eyes.

Mariella, trembling back into her bones, clasps her hands and bows her head low, muttering a deluge of thanks for all that was given and all that remains; a prayer for his strength and sanctity; a cleansing whisper of her own.

His soul is still peeling free from hers. His magic still scalding her hands. 

She won't dare open her eyes again—not yet. What she may find could hardly be called human, in such a state.

But he is—a human with purified waters slicked off the the dark mop of his hair, off the strong bones of his features, off the glimmering silk of his vestments; a man with one eye gleaming moonbeam-white and Hell fading in his veins and breath beastlike in his chest.

"Unblessed be," Mariella whispers. "It is done. It is done."

A hand has come to lay upon her head, heavy and molten. The nails are pointed. The Olde Tongue fangs coarsely off his teeth, commanding the Realm's hold to free her. 

The essence of his magic flees from her bones like a stripped sheet. Air staggers into her lungs, wet and spluttering.

"Sister," Terzo says sharply—and he is as he was: his brow furrowed in worry, human and whole, his palm braced at her temple. "Sister, are—? Mariella—"

"It's alright," she rasps, lacing her fingers through his sleeve. She has to take another breath to steady herself, blinking slow. "It's okay."

His lungs swell beneath his robes. His eyes cut swiftly between hers, denying it still—but, gradually, his shoulders loosen. "Alright." He traces a lock of her hair behind her ear, half-minded. "You are sure?" he presses, anyway. 

"Yes, it—Diana warned me. It's happened before. I let the Veil fall too loose—"

"No, no—you did wonderful. You were clear. You were right there," he says, thumbing her jaw. The shivers are still coursing through him; settling down, now. After a pause: "It is, eh...it is all finished, then?"

Until the tomorrow's ceremonies: the formal ascension, with its blood-marks and dressings, where his body will be kneeled before a black altar and crowned.

But, for tonight, at least—

"It's done," Mariella says again.

The relief washes through him like rainfall: melts the nervousness off his face like sun-warmed snow.

She can smell the exhaustion that ebbs into him; taste the flurried comedown of his spellwork, ashen and bloodied and bright. But it buzzes, burns still.

"Good," whispers Terzo. Twitch-smiled, weary, he drags a hand through his fringe. "Well, eh," he grouses. "Let's get out of this mess then, mh? Freezing my goddamned balls off, in here."

All Cardinal, all Emeritus again.

Primo's office is lit only by moonlight and the glow of a hearth, crackling and warm before him. He's known for a nocturnal mind, and for working by near-vampiric conditions; at such a late hour, the sight hardly comes as a surprise.

Folded behind his desk, his pale hair drawn back, his eyes linger on her, beady as a hawk's. "Well?"

Her last sight of Terzo had come at the threshold of the Ministry's kitchens. He'd insisted on a post-ritual raid—another supposed habit proven true—and, in mutual silence, she'd warmed her hands on a cup of black tea while he wrangled together an unceremonious take on a negroni, orange slices and all, in an old coffee mug. He'd slipped a package of biscoff in her pocket and a cigarette from his own. Around a snap of violet flame at his palm and a final sip of her tea, they'd given their partings.

"If you...need anything at all," Mariella had hushed, "you can—"

"I know." His mouth had wavered at a smile. "Thank you."

Part of her had wanted to lay a hand on his arm. Say something else, anything, to not just leave it at that. And, were it a different night—or if she was a different sibling—he may have slid the invitation over, for her.

But the warmth of his body had shifted, ever since he dragged himself out of those waters, reclothed himself in a thrush of black. Cold and closed as a cage.

The man she'd held was in the cracks of it; boxed away, now, to make room for another, still sketching the edges of itself in his skin. But, in its chrysalis, she saw bitterness—in his distance, the fanged thing their clergy so seemed to loathe—and, on some hare-boned instinct, found herself leaving first.

"Goodnight, Papa." 

She'd said it reflexively, already knee-deep in the coming customs of propriety. 

Over a pop of blue smoke, hissed lightly through his teeth, he'd looked away. The tobacco was the same that stained the air in Sister Imperator's office: woody, cheap, earthen.

"Not yet," he'd rumbled. His lips twitched around the cigarette. "Tomorrow." His stare had haunted her steps, seeing and unseeing. The smoked husk of his breath had chased her off the walls. "Night, Sister."

Now, as ordered, she's returned the required items to Primo's care. With it, a report.

"The proper precautions were taken," she says. "All in all, it went as predicted."

Primo ticks a thin brow. She can feel the cold claw of his Sight in her, rummaging through her mind like clothes on a shelf. "And how was the offering received?"

Mariella swallows, thinking back to the Realm's magic, the spellwork beneath her hands. "No changes from the previous purification."

Idly, Primo glances at a set of a files on his desk; skims one sheet a touch higher. For a moment, he stews in his thoughts. Then, clean as a dagger: "Is he confident?"

Her eyes snap up. His own, silver-blue and white, meander to meet them.

"Yes," she says steadily.

He squints at her. Winter frost in her lungs, winter eyes piercing her through. But, eventually, she is freed from it.

"Very well," he mulls. He gathers up the sheets, settles them into a clean stack. "Then I will see you bright and early, my dear. Another long day ahead of us." 

Mariella nods, pinches her nails into her hands, and moves to stand from her seat.

Before she reaches the door, he speaks again.

"Mariella." She glances back at him, hunched like a strange, battish thing over his desk, his bony hands folded. He studies her like a portrait littered with fine details: one of many in a precious collection. His mouth makes an odd twist. "You did well," he lands on, eventually.

"Sir...?"

A smile blinks, cool and plain. "It is not an easy Sight to bear. There is a certain strength required to carry it. More, perhaps, to guide it."

The admission weighs strangely on her. Picks at her.

He unfolds his hands, weaves them again, before reorienting on his work. "Sleep well, Sister."

Slowly, Mariella turns back to the door. The handle stings beneath her palm. "Goodnight, Monsignor."

The morning's gossip will claim that Primo stalked the gardens that night, winged as a beast. That an apparition trailed his steps, feline-footed and hazed with blue. That their Papa-to-be was seen crawling out of the ghouls' chambers at dawn, reeking of celestial bodies and muddied magic.

Mariella won't give it any mind. She's learned enough now to take such chatter with a grain of salt.

All that will matter will be her hand on the chapel door, Diana's light a calming grace beside her: bathed in the sun's glow, freshly robed, carved in black and white; the two of them, and a sea of others, there to greet the sanctity of their Beholder.

Her skull-paints will match the adornments of his own. The black leather of her gloves, a mirror to the claw-tipped pair that will gloss across his knuckles. He will wear vestments dark as ink, adorned with Death's imagery, lined with a purple fit for kings—and at her side, he'll pinch a soft touch at her wrist. Flash a smile.

Back in his bones, in full.

Glittering and golden.

"Hello, Papa."

His lashes will crinkle at the edges. "Enchantée, darling," he'll purl. "I mean, eh—Sister. Marcie, right? No. Marnie—"

"Mari."

"Mari, aye. Right, right, right."

Still Cardinal, still Emeritus, always.

[moorishflower]

Bloodhound (Dream/Hob pre-relationship horror, EXPLICIT)

Bloodhound || Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling || Explicit || 15k

Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Transformation, Blood and Gore, Partial Mind Control, Unconditional Love, Hunger, Violence, Hob Gadling Saves Dream of the Endless | Morpheus from Roderick Burgess, POV Hob Gadling, BAMF Hob Gadling, Loyalty, Pre-Relationship, Fantasizing, Oral Sex, Food Binging, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dark, Character Study, Dream's Ruby, Hopeful Ending, Lots of Hurt A Little Comfort, Pining

It's a square gem in an antique gold setting, real antique gold, with the sort of dullness to the metal that tells its age. There's nothing particularly ornate about it. The ruby itself is a simple cut – he’s not a jeweller, doesn’t know what to call it precisely, but it’s square-ish and bevelled at the edges – but it catches the light in such a way that it makes it seem like it has a thousand facets all across the surface of it. The rain creates a stippled effect, and even through two separate panes of glass Hob can see his reflection peering back at himself through the ruby’s deep face. £2500, says a placard set in front of it. Early 1900s RUBY pendant - real!!! In 1989, drunk and heartsore and stumbling home from the soon-to-be-destroyed White Horse, Hob Gadling -- world's most loyal hound -- comes across a familiar-looking ruby in a pawn shop window.

Read it on AO3 here!

[iridiss]

Returning to an old friend, my Cult of the Lamb x Night in the Woods crossover AU to expand on the concept of the relationships between the Bishops and their Witnesses. And also to finally give these characters proper designs! Under the cut is a helluva lot of writing elaborating on these 4’s history with their respective Bishops and their designs.

I’ve played around with the ideas of either having the Witnesses be anthropomorphic in their Eldritch Forms, matching the Follower designs and giving them the same level of autonomy as their minds possess, or to make them more beast-like, closer resembling Leshy/Heket/Shamura’s Eldritch Forms in their wildness, and closer resembling the animals they are. But in the end, I could tell that some characters, like Angus and Beatrice, would be better off beast-like, like a giant hulking bear made of trees and foliage and flowers that tries to crush you, or a crocodilian, Lovecraftian deep-sea “sea monster” that tries to snap you up from the watery depths, additionally as a small nod to the giant animals in Mae’s dreams (the bear and the crocodile.) But characters like Greggory and Lori especially would be more on the slightly anthropomorphic side in their Eldritch forms, with Gregg resembling a large and bloodied hound, and Lori being a mouse with too many eyes and too many slithering tails (as an additional reference to the Rat King or something Eldritch). Lori is still small, even smaller than Mae, but armors herself with a coat of spiders, who are a fundamental part of her attacking style. We’ve got an ancient Forest Lord, a brown bear that’s become one with the trees, a Bloodhound, a Lovecraftian sea monster from the dark Hadal Depths, and a rat that’s become one with the spiders in the attic.

As for their history with their Bishops, let me tell you a story of 4 parts.

——

The Gods were never kind to Angus.

Leshy’s rule was one of chaos, and Angus must’ve been the most orderly and logical person in the entire cult. Leshy believed in raw strength alone, and as a big brown bear, Angus guesses he had potential enough to be “worthy.” What a joke that was. He was the pawn of a child, breaking whatever Leshy threw a fit over. Being an incredibly prideful leader, Leshy made his own rule that none of his Witnesses could see better than him after Narinder’s betrayal robbed him of his eyes. So per Old Faith law, Angus’s sight was removed, completely. He learned to adapt to the viciousness of the wilderness, relying on his other senses to survive and keep himself in Leshy’s good graces. He grew more at home in the woods than he’d ever been before, he memorized how to make flower crowns and weave crafts out of grass. Over the decades, moss grew amongst his fur and dark branches from his head, with Camellia flowers woven into his fur. He may have been afraid of Leshy at first, when he was younger, but now he had grown to be nothing but tired. This was the way things were, this was the irrefutable demand of the universe and the beings that ruled his every breath. He was nothing more than a measly ant. There was no point in fighting it, when Leshy could strike him dead at a moments notice. “This is the way it must be,” he would say to his victims before their inevitable execution, “there is no other option.”

And then another option came in guns blazing, screaming and mowing down the Old Faith like a hurricane on acid. Almost overnight, Leshy was dead, Angus had been beaten, stripped of his power, and thrown into someplace new. Everything had changed.

At first this was every drop worth freaking out over, but…here, the night was serene, the mortals happy and oblivious of any harm, all the screaming had gone away. It was so quiet here.

The truth is, Angus was a gentle giant who’d much rather study the stars than go on bloody crusades. Mae’s new way took some getting used to, but it was worth it. He was cautious at first, not exactly cynical, but he would have been unsurprised the moment “a catch” manifested. He was slow to adjust, having lived his whole life still in one place. But in time, he realized the depths of the scars he bore from Leshy’s destructive rule, everything Leshy had done to him and forced him to do when all he cared for was soft flower petals and damp grass after summer rain. He had his quiet place now. He was finally free.

Helping him get through it, and understanding in his own unique way, was this little obnoxious coyote that Angus…vaguely remembered to be Heket’s Witness? He seemed sweet, sincere, fuzzy, a bit loud, but he understood. Maybe he’d be better off staying here for a while, with Mae, Gregg, all these happy little mortals, and whoever else comes along.

Greggory Lee had a purely militaristic bond with his General, the Goddess Heket. He was her best soldier, her hunting dog. He tracked down the heretics and runaways, and once he found them, he put an end to them, just as Heket commanded. Like a bloodhound to a rabbit, he was loyal. Except, Gregg will always be Gregg, so whenever he was under the impression that Heket was busy or not specifically watching him, he would go to town with whatever chaotic fun he wanted to have that day, consequences be damned. If she was all shout-y serious military business, then he was a wildfire let loose the second her grip loosened. And to a degree he was never fully aware of, his wild antics supported her empire with the sheer fear they instilled on the mortal civilians. At any time, War’s bloodhound could come raging through the village, pillaging whatever he thought was shiny or cool, blowing up whatever was combustible, setting fire to huts and ignorantly letting it spread, and if you opposed the Witness of War himself, you might just get eaten. The chaos was humbling. Gregg was never fully aware of the extent of the damage he caused, it was all good fun for him. That was the job, that was what he was made for, fun. He never quite saw their faces, just ran in, had a good laugh, and left. He was so bored, he might as well do something with his time.

It took a pretty extreme event in order to force him to see the full picture. His first ever doubts started to sink in during the great sheep extinction. The Old Faith had received a prophecy from Shamura: Death was coming. Their only hope to survive would be to kill every last sheep and ram on the continent. Only thing is, there was no way to make this not personal. To track down every last one, to get in their face, make eye contact, see their final moments, hear the screams up-close, feel the bodies go limp in the vulnerable snare of your own bloodied teeth. Becoming the very real version of a child’s worst nightmare, the bogey monster out to get them, was unavoidable. Gregg was…never quite the same, after that.

He was the first to fully and openly accept the death of the Old Faith, immediately embracing the new rule of—well, not exactly The One Who Waits, but Mae was pretty cool. He liked her. As a follower, Gregg is still a bit disaster-prone in the commune, occasionally setting things on fire on accident, but it always sends him into a panic that promptly cleans up whatever mess he makes. He’s a bit of a handful, but he’s incredibly loyal to Mae. He’s doing everything he can to be a good person now.

He had no bond with his Bishop. The only connection he had to the Old Faith was one he’d deeply regret for the rest of his life. Mae on the other hand, all she ever asked of him was to live happily and peacefully in a commune, she never asked him to massacre thousands of innocent souls for something as petty as a rule, or a God’s ego. Death to the Old Faith, he says. Why should he care?

Out of every Witness, Beatrice would have been with her God the longest. Her memories of a mortal childhood had grown fuzzy and distant. Beatrice devoted her whole life and future to Kallamar, giving up everything she had just for him. To her, devotion wasn’t something you did out of joy and love and reverence for your God, devotion was knowing how to survive. This was the way of life, and she would see to it that every last order was followed through with shining marks and perfection. And wherever Kallamar’s cowardice slacked, she would pick up the weight, she would carry his entire Kingdom on her two shoulders alone. This was survival, this was life, this was truth, this was wisdom, this was responsibility, this was reaching the top and staying the best of the best, the Queen of fear and order dictating the helm of an entire Empire crushed under her foot. When this was the brutal truth of reality and life, why would you waste time thinking about a happy merry-go-rainbows imaginary life, when you should be doing your job? She needed this. This was everything.

And then the Gods began to fall. Leshy had died. The ball had dropped. She didn’t know it was possible for a God to die, but sure, Leshy was of the weaker kingdoms. She should have seen it coming a mile away that the youngest runt of the Gods would eventually be snuffed out. But Mae kept going, and then Heket fell. The Goddess of War and Wrath, defeated.

Kallamar’s fears grew worse. The target fell on his back next, and Beatrice knew that sniveling coward couldn’t take the blow. She prepared herself to fight, her time had come, it was her throne to take. She was ready, but for some reason, she was trembling.

And then Kallamar was killed. The other shoe dropped.

Everything that Beatrice had been repressing for decades, maybe even centuries, came back to hit her in the face with a baseball bat. Mae had destroyed everything, and now the responsibility of bringing back the Old Faith and killing an unstoppable force had fallen on her shoulders, with everything else. The Land of the Old Faith was in crumbling disarray, and she desperately tried to fix it and put it back together in the 42 hours (or less) she had left to live. This was nothing more than a deranged little child, a single cat. She could beat her. She could fix it, she could fix everything—

She lost.

Something Beatrice was only able to realize after every last drop of responsibility withered away was just how exhausted she was. She was worn thin, hanging by a string that was tearing. When that string was finally cut, she could freefall, right into the comfort of a safe little idyllic, bright and merry, imaginary commune.

“What the fuck.” Was the first thing she said when she saw it.

You couldn’t just get rid of the Old Faith, you couldn’t just rewrite all of reality itself. Mae was only one woman, how could she possibly have stopped all this? But she did, and she had the insanity to keep going. What the absolute fuck. And worse yet, Mae had spared her life! She had the audacity to kill her captor and “set her free,” she had the audacity to break everything she’d ever known, thinking you could just let go?! This was unheard of!

But then again, Bea hadn’t taken a nap in decades. Actually, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever slept in the past century. She hadn’t ever experienced the peace and fun of dreaming. And now she had a schedule entirely of free time, whether she liked it or not. Beatrice…took a very long time to warm up to Mae. And it took even longer for the shock to fade, to stop feeling weird about this new, free place she was put in. Before Mae, she was overworked, slowly losing herself down the rabbit hole leading to a very dark place. And as time went on, she could finally see herself again, and as she looked at the other Witnesses playing in the grass and making gay little flower crowns, she realized what she could have become if she continued to silently, secretly fall apart. She…could be happy now. Maybe. She’d have to find out if that was even possible…

She also had to admit it was incredibly satisfying to see Narinder, the last God, doing janitorial work while she could sit back and sip on her pina colada made of Darkwood berries. If only she could have seen Kallamar finally do his job while she took a much-needed break.

Lori Meyers was a young, mortal mouse, always the outcast amongst her peers and village-mates. She preferred to keep to herself, hidden far away in the dark that was comfortable, that was predictable, that was beautiful. She found things like bugs, gore, guts, the night, horror—especially spiders, she loved spiders— she found them to be so cool, but for some reason, no one else did. And that made her the weird one. Growing up, all of these things that she was told by her peers deeply got to her, making her quick to become quite anxious before she’d ever share a cool looking bug with someone she liked, because it never turned out well. She wanted to be fine, isolated all by herself in her dimly-lit caves infested with spiders, earwigs and centipedes, she was the only person she ever needed—but even still, she always wanted to have someone to talk to. She would kill to have someone that would hear her talk about how centipedes and millipedes have these super epic pores that shoot out hydrogen cyanide gas that poisons their prey- or- or how cool and exceptional it is that jumping spiders have the brain power to effectively use the scientific method by constantly studying their environment and learning from their mistakes!

And like a miracle of the Gods, she did find someone.

Shamura and Lori likely had the most positive relationship out of all the Bishops and their Witnesses. Lori was scared of them at first—and that never truly goes away, when you’re dealing with a mighty Deity of the Old Faith. But when she spoke, they listened, and in response, they showed her new things to study. When she posed curiosity in unknown species of insect and creature, they would lift her up into the treetops with their colossal, claw-like legs and show her the truth. Shamura cultivated her mind, gave her all the resources and books she needed to learn and grow and become the true scholar her peers could never be. She learned fast, she had a quick wit, and a love for learning all that Shamura’s realm shined best in, and thus she quickly seated herself, obliviously, as the best heir to their throne.

An apprentice to follow in their shadow, a student for only the greatest of minds. The only thing is, she was so young…some way or another, she would have to grow up into a monster. A killer, an executioner, a judge. That would be where the doubt set in for Lori. She only wanted to learn, she never wanted things to come to this, but when not only your God but your closest friend gives you an order…

Lori was devastated with Shamura’s defeat. Her only ally was dead, she was alone again, and to make everything worse, she was the very last line of defense meant to stop Narinder from taking over the world. On one hand, she felt very small, and still very much a child, but on the other hand, she was full of rage and covered in millions of tiny spiders that could feel her grief as much as she. She still ended up losing, reluctantly succumbing to The Witness of Death and becoming a follower. She clung the most to Beatrice in the cult, as the best person who could understand her, but also as someone who tolerated her ramblings. It took her a while to warm up to Mae, and to fully understand the necessity of Shamura’s death. That would come with time and years of gradual reflection as she grew up in Mae’s cult.

The lesson that Lori would teach Mae about the Gods would be two things, one directly from Lori, and one indirectly from her. One would be how much Lori would challenge her faith in TOWW without ever truly dissenting, acting as a mirror for what TOWW’s horrors might look like. The other would be Mae looking at how Shamura kidnapped this child, isolated her from her family and parents, and raised her to be a murderer against her will, and how much indoctrination and manipulation goes into a cult just to make someone still fully believe in their leader even well after they’ve been seriously hurt by them. Lori was a more complicated case than Angus or even Gregg, but she still had her scars. And if Lori had been tricked by the Gods, had Mae been tricked as well? To what degree did TOWW suffer the same flaws as his siblings, to what degree was Mae a gullible child in the hands of a master manipulator, to what degree was this right? Was serving these Gods even worth it? What if she only did what she wanted? What if she just wanted to be happy? What if she was like all four witnesses before her, what if she threw her bat away and rejected this Old God’s offer? Sure, she was small, sure, she was an insect screaming against a mountain, but damn it, they only wanted to be happy. Mae, Angus, Gregg, Beatrice, Lori, all of them.

But this time, she could do something about it. She was the God-Killer. She could make it whatever she wanted, and Narinder would be a fool if He thought she wasn’t going down without a fight.

[sheree-says-stuff]

What are your favorite South Park headcanons? 🖖🏻

It took me ten million years to respond to this because I don't really have SP headcannons (besides my AU fics) so I had to make a list!

ALSO THANK YOU FOR ASKING, I LOVE GETTING ASKS!!!!

Kyle

i'm an average-height kyle truther. he's no shorter than 5'9" but no taller than 5'11".

horror movie fanatic but probably threw up while watching midsommar (and never finished it).

^ also a giant Scream fan. owns so much ghostface merch.

probably chubby.

straight as a board. he is so heteronormative, it's not even funny.

favorite bands are Bloodhound Gang and Insane Clown Posse but his guilty pleasure is Conan Gray (and cartman makes fun of him for it)

insomniac. bro CANNOT sleep ‼️

Kenny

tall kenny is the only valid take for me. he is 6'2" for sure and he uses his height to be intimidating when he wants to be.

when he's older, he moves to Italy with Cartman (don't ask how either of them afford it, just go with it)

he for sure writes fics about himself on a burner account.

is really good at school without having to study. naturally quick to learn.

is straight but will do anything for money (hey, $20 is $20!)

can talk to the dead and/or supernatural. can tell when ghosts are around.

COVERED in scars

Stan

short and skinny. i'm talking 5'6".

idkw but i imagine him being mexican, or at least partially mexican.

chronically depressed (and probably has OCD) but not an alcoholic or substance user.

hates weed because he grew up on a weed farm.

you cannot convince me that he doesn't watch Family Guy.

will sleep anywhere in any position.

closeted bisexual.

Cartman

is really good at playing instruments, becomes a famous lead singer in a pop band

is actually really intelligent but refuses to apply himself in school.

sent to boarding school, came back unrecognizable

football player, probably a quarterback

i really like the intersex cartman theory

doesn't believe in evolution or science

probably has a lot of trauma

Other characters:

Butters is blind in one eye from the Weapons episode

Butters is also extremely Type A as he grows up

Wendy, Heidi, Nicole, and Bebe don't have social media for feminist reasons

Jimmy can rap better than Eminem

Tweek loves true crime but is scared of FNaF

the only person who loves b@relyhuman more than Tweek is Craig

[streetdogsthecomic]

STREET DOGS - Character profiles #2

Buncha male characters I needed to make concept art for! Heres a lil info about each of em 👇

Nick (he/him) - Pyromancer Hunter - Son of a single and mechanic dad - Loves playing the guitar! Dreams of playing in a band someday

Jayce (he/him) - Sage Hunter - Has 2 pet cockatiels and a parrot - Very calm and nice, it's hard to have something against him

Ash (he/him) - Jade's friend, studies in her former school - Member of The Graveyard Kids band - Has an unrequited crush on Jade

Gabriel (he/him) - Cursed human, enslaved by a wizard - Does not remember anything about his past - Allergic to cats

Antônio Miguel AKA Miguel, Tony (he/him) - He's the one who rides the bus that picks up Hunters from Venatio Academy to bring them to the Bloodhound camp! - Has had a few Monster encounters in the past, hence the scars all over his body - Himbo on the low

Some of this info is still up to changes futurely, but thats the main ideas for now!

[puppyexpressions]

30 Fun Dog Facts

1. The Labrador Retriever has been on the AKC’s top 10 most popular breeds list for longer than any other breed.

2. A dog’s nose print is unique, much like a person’s fingerprint.

3. Forty-five percent of U.S. dogs sleep in their owner’s beds.

4. Speaking of sleeping … all dogs dream, but puppies and senior dogs dream more frequently than adult dogs.

5. Seventy percent of people sign their dog’s name on their holiday cards.

6. A dog’s sense of smell is legendary, but did you know that their nose has as many as 300 million receptors? In comparison, a human nose has about 5 million.

7. Rin Tin Tin, the famous German Shepherd Dog, was nominated for an Academy Award.

8. Dogs’ noses can sense heat and thermal radiation, which explains why blind or deaf dogs can still hunt.

9. The French Bulldog was first named the most popular breed in 2022.

10. The name Collie means “black.” (Collies once tended black-faced sheep.)

11. Yawning is contagious — even for dogs. Research shows that the sound of a human yawn can trigger one from your dog. And it’s four times as likely to happen when it’s the yawn of a person your pet knows.

12. The Dandie Dinmont Terrier is the only breed named for a fictional person, a character in the novel “Guy Mannering” by Sir Walter Scott.

13. Dogs curl up in a ball when sleeping to protect their organs — a holdover from their days in the wild, when they were vulnerable to predator attacks.

14. The Basenji is not technically “barkless,” as many people think. They can yodel.

15. The Australian Shepherd is not actually from Australia. In fact, they are an American breed.

16. … And the Labrador Retriever is originally from Newfoundland.

17. Human blood pressure goes down when petting a dog. And so does the dog’s.

18. There are over 75 million pet dogs in the U.S. — more than in any other country.

19. A person who hunts with a Beagle is known as a “Beagler.”

20. Dogs are not color-blind. They can see blue and yellow.

21. All puppies are born deaf.

22. Dalmatians are born completely white. They develop their spots as they get older.

23. Dogs have about 1,700 taste buds. We humans have between 2,000 and 10,000.

24. When dogs kick backward after they go to the bathroom, it’s not to cover it up, but to mark their territory, using the scent glands in their feet.

25. A study shows that dogs are among a small group of animals who show voluntary unselfish kindness towards others without any reward.

26. The Norwegian Lundehund is the only dog breed created for the job of puffin hunting.

27. Greyhounds can beat cheetahs in a race. While cheetahs can run twice as fast as Greyhounds, they can only maintain that 70 mph speed for about thirty seconds. A Greyhound can maintain a 35 mph speed for about seven miles. The cheetah may start out first, but the Greyhound would soon overtake them.

28. The Bloodhound’s sense of smell is so accurate that the results of its tracking can be used as evidence in a court of law.

29. According to Guinness World Records, a Great Dane named Zeus is the world’s tallest male dog. Zeus is 3 feet, 5.18 inches tall.

30. What about the shortest dog? According to Guinness World Records, the shortest dog ever recorded was Pearl the Chihuahua. She measures 3.59 inches tall.

[thelastbarricade]

Bloodhound Part 2:

Vacant

pt. 2 of ?

[ read on ao3 ]

summary:

"You think that if you burn down you'll be fine

and I'll forget all the times you lied." - 'VACANT' by Echoes

--

Your words echo in Cooper Howard’s thoughts.

‘Shoulda’ killed me when I was under, Coop’.’

Doesn’t he know it.

word count : 3.3k

tags: the ghoul x you, the ghoul x oc

warnings: violence, swearing, drug usage, emotional abuse, mutual pining, character study, multiple pov's (will add more as the story progresses)

notes:

Cooper's POV, more or less!

Say hello to my first fic attempt in...two years? Oh boy. All comments and feedback very much appreciated and feel free to hit me up in my messages and start a convo!

Narration and form may not be entirely polished so please pardon my dust.

xx korine <3

The stint he’s fashioned against his leg is a temporary fix at best. The tattered garb shoved deep into the gash is already swollen with fluids. If he keeps it in any longer it’ll just impart the healing further. Cooper relents.

Mirages danced across the dimming light above the sprawling sands just beyond Cooper Howard’s reach.

Fuck.

Daylight’s been on his side since you’d gone down sometime before dawn.

He couldn’t blame you. You didn’t know what whiskey, hell—a proper drink—was. Hadn’t the luxury of it in your short little life. When he’d come across a sealed shelf label bottle somewhere in the wastes trades, he’d jumped on it. Didn’t matter what it’d most likely (definitely) been cut with. The fire and flame coating his throat comforted all the same.

A perfect opportunity. For him or you, Cooper just couldn’t be sure anymore.

You’d enjoyed what taste you’d had. He was sure of it. The carefree curve your lips had softened into as your body began to give in to the pleasures of your drinks domestic pleasures. Pleasures a man like him was not near deserving enough of to bear witness to. But you’d been dropped into his lap like some twisted form of comfort and consequence.

A better man might not have obliged.

Cooper grinds out his complaints in hushed curses and heavy breaths as he climbs. The withering metal structures surrounding the perimeter of the building moan and groan, steps preceded by the low hum of the growing winds at his back. He shimmies his way across a deteriorating overhang leading into the next factory’s building over. The dunes covered his ascent and the mangled scraps of gutted warehouse roofing created a constant cover.

Cooper had only cleared a couple of hundred feet between the both of you.

Was he a fool to stay in such close proximity?

Of course.

Did he have another option?

The once-man-turned-ghoul eyed the wavering silhouettes of the wilds in the distance. If he was still in this wounded of a state when darkness fell—

He’d be a fuckin’ sittin’ duck.

Cooper sneers.

Nope, not an option. Didn’t matter how many bullets he’d have or how many he’d be able to take then. He knew when to make a move and when to wait out the storm. Literally. And mother Mary and all hells that hailed in-between—there would be a fuckin’ storm to be had.

—

The fiends you’d both encountered two nights ago had damn near carved his entire thigh down to bone with how deep their blade had dug. He’s lucky his flesh was kind enough to cling to him then. Not that he’d managed it alone. Of course you’d been there; calling him ‘grandpa’ and cursing reflexes of his you were convinced were slowing.

‘What would you’ve done without me?’ That sly fuckin’ smirk of yours was always tugging at your lips when you knew you’d had one over on him. It happened more than Cooper was willing to admit, and he’d only be willing to admit it when he was stone cold, turned over in his grave for the final time. At one point he had even toyed with the idea of you being the one to put him there.

But that was nothing more than a farce. A fairytale. Something to keep the loneliness lingering in the hearts of all who inhabited the surface, like Cooper, at bay.

A tale meant for ignorant children and self-righteous Vault dwellers.

Bitter to the bone and stubborn as a mule he was. He knew it, didn’t even try to deny it.

You’d put up with it for this long, hadn’t you?

It was then that he pictured you bound and writhing. Wounded temple still weeping because thick as you were, you’d gone and taken the brunt of a hit or two for him.

He told you to never stick your neck out for him—for anyone—ever.

Ever.

The look of betrayal in your eyes shouldn’t have even been a cause for pause, but he had. He’d fucking hesitated.

Canon fodder, Cooper’d said. As if words of that caliber were ever so simple. Easy.

It was like putting down a sick dog, in a way. At least that’s how he’d convinced himself of it—a mercy.

He hadn’t the heart to put the bullet in your head then, though. Not from the moment he’d laid eyes on you. Sickly little thing that you were. Starved and beaten, barely fit for exchange. Wrong end of a shit bargain he’d reckon. Not a surprise. He’d seen it before. You either found yourself strength in numbers in the Waste of became strong enough to cull the lot and likes around you.

Cooper had become the latter. Never was much of a team player, that one.

You on the other hand…

A knot twisted in his stomach.

Cooper would be lying to himself if he hadn’t asked himself and the higher powers above for that insight once or twice. Insight into how a sweet little thing, equally full of bark and bite, had landed yourself in Sorrel Bookers’ keeping.

Booker kept in line a gang of incompetents with little more prestige and skill than your average raider. The “Govermint” had considered you one of their assets at one point. Even his former associate Booker couldn’t be bid high enough on to elaborate. Cooper hadn’t pried into what had caused the tables to turn with you at the shit end of that stick. Not that you would have given him a real answer. He’d never been the type of man to give you one either.

All he knew was he had gotten his 200 caps worth. A small price to pay in the way of a break when it came to one of his bounties. You were sold to him like a dog—starting bid barely worth the sorry excuse for clothes on your back.

“This one’s worth more than fifty of her size and build. Only thing is she’s got a fuckin mouth on her. I’ll leave any ‘bodily modifications’ up to you though, Coop. Be warned, she bites.”

Booker had you bound and gagged in some shoddy storage room in one of his Govermint outfit stations. Your skin watercolored in bruises and superficial cuts in several stages of healing. Your eyebrow had been split sometime in the past day, knuckles bloodied and raw—no doubt a matching set to wounds some of Sorrels men now carried. Men Cooper had noticed lapping at their wounds and steeling away prides with swigs hooch on the way in.

Christ Almighty.

Cooper had remembered how precariously you’d eyed him as he’d stepped into view through the splintering door frame. He leaned in, unimpressed leer on his lips like always. You’d barely blinked as your gaze steadied on his. He thinks he remembers your eyes above all else from that day. Wide and dark, analyzing every movement of his. At one point it’d felt like a damned staring contest. Left the Ghoul feeling like he was the one being sized up and on trial. Not the other way around. You didn’t look afraid…didn’t show the faintest concept of repulsion towards him. You were fucking curious. Naive. A lost cause fallen into the very hands that would find themselves around your throat.

He should have put you out of your misery right then and there.

“I ain’t lookin’ for no pack mule, Booker.” Cooper had heard many a bargain in the way of women. Sorry souls caught up in even sorrier Wasteland body and labor exchange. He steered clear from these outfits for a reason. He wasn’t a good man by any means, but he also wasn’t without his own code of conduct.

“I’m in the business of one thing and so happens I’m in the middle of a job already.”

Cooper should have known he was signing onto some bad shit from the grimy grin Sorrel had given him then. He should have kept walking.

Sorrel Booker shoved you to your feet without a second though and puffed his chest out, hot-dogging you around like a god damn show pony.

“This one’s about to make yours a hell of a lot easier.”

Booker had even thrown in a free muzzle, for your troubles.

You had been a grim reminder for him of how dog-eat-dog worked in the Wasteland. Ghouls weren’t excluded from the order, either. Even a ghoul the likes of Cooper. Two centuries had come and gone with him and still he stood. Top of the food chain came with a price. You didn’t pay that price by makin’ friends. And you? Well, you’d been in debt it seemed; layin’ down with the dogs and here Cooper was washing you of your fleas.

That was four months ago now, give or take. You’d far repaid your caps in chems and vices alike in the first few weeks and here he’d left you alone: on an infested warehouse floor with fiends on both your heels.

Four months.

A fuckin’ eternity and a half for the smooth skins who survived it.

Cooper would know, but somehow it hadn’t been long enough for him to escape…this. These emotions.

You weren’t long for this world, darlin’, but Cooper Howard was. That’s just how it had to be. How it’d always been. Would be. Cooper Howard could be a sorry excuse for a man. It’s no wonder why the fates had designed it so that he no longer was one.

—

After circling the compound for what felt like decades the Ghoul settled own. Deciding to rest backed against a small alcove, right above a stoop of roof tiles obscured by fallen metal sheaths. A seasons worth of solidified sand stood to insulate either side of him from view.

It would have to do.

The suffocating humidity of falling rad-rain on the heated horizon began to kick up sheets of steam in the distance. Cooper lifted his gaze to view the turmoil brewing in the sky above. Dark matter overflowing with hues of vile greens and putrid yellows lurk uncomfortably close.

A tightness curled in his chest and clawed deep in his wretched depths. The Ghoul rummaged about his pack, makeshift atomizer gracing his fingertips. The little bubbled vial that sat atop was dangerously low on its contents. Empty vials clattered like wind chimes against his hip as he shoved them aside. The tepid yellow liquid sloshed and sputtered as Cooper drew in one deep breath.

It would have to do.

It would never be enough.

His lungs filled, expanded. Mind began to blur with days’ highs and lows…numbing them all. If just for a moment.

A moment.

Visions of soft doe-brown eyes and even softer curls crossed his vision.

‘Daddy, give the thumbs up, please! Just one more time.’ Janey’s toothy grin was faded in his memory, no longer near as sharp as the knife the thought alone wielded was.

Just one more time…

Cooper replayed the ghostly nudge of Roosevelt’s nose against his knee over coffee and a crisp morning paper.

The smell of Barb’s gardenia perfume wafting over a fresh cut cigar. Sunlight warms his skin through an open window. His wife’s freshly manicured nails tenderly teasing at his forearm. Lipstick staining his collar as she drew him nearer, arms wrapped around his waist to pull him closer—deeper.

The Ghoul tried his damnedest to remember the sound of their voices.

He bargains with what god cares to hear him.

Just a moment, please, one moment more.

Another voice barrels through the fog of his thoughts. The sands shift in the dunes overhead, metal creaking under a sudden shift in weight above.

“Times up, Coop.”

The heel of your boot slams against his temple, full weight knocking Cooper entirely sideway into the hardened walls of sand. He watches you shrug off your pack before he’s even able to draw on you. Quick little thing that you were.

A knee drives itself into his dominant shoulder, knocking his gun off trajectory and sending a stray bullet into the ground. Radroaches chitter and shriek somewhere in the dark abandon beneath you.

Your wild eyes meet his.

Gods of course you’d make it a fuckin’ ordeal.

You could never just go quietly, could you?

“You son of a—” He watches you lick your lips from above him. It’s picturesque.

Your bare knuckles connect against the sharp curves of his face: bone to flesh and back again. He feels the warmth seeping from your splitting skin and its apparent you’re not in the right mind too stop. Not that he wants you to.

Chems could only numb so much, and a kiss with a fist was better than none.

Cooper hisses when your knee finds itself bearing down on his injured thigh, other knee strewn diagonal to weigh down his shooting arm. You push away his weapon with little effort, hooking it on one of your belt loops as you straddle him roughly. Fingers find their way to his jaw as you observe him in slow like he had you. You slap at the Ghoul’s sunken cheeks, attempting to wake him from whatever daze had given you the element of surprise.

Cooper laughs and rolls his neck to ease the ache in his skull where you’d bludgeoned him.

“Little mutt,” He spits, smile betraying his venom. “They warned me you’d have some bite left in ya’.”

Your eyes dagger at his insult and Cooper notices the smirk about your lips evaporate. Cooper expects you to strike him. In all his months of knowing your true name he still reverted back to pet ones. Insults of ownership.

Instead he’s met with eyes that search his far longer and far deeper than he’d ever be fuckin’ comfortable with. He’s almost sure you catch his facade falter because you cock your head in thought just like he did when he noted something, and well—Cooper’s had just about enough of that.

He meets your weight with the tank that is his own. It was almost an insulting ease. Cooper towered over you in the sum of inches and pounds; muscles that had solidified over the course of two centuries. Nothing about him was soft any longer. Hadn’t been in a very long time. You knew this.

Your supple skin is heaven and hell beneath his hardened grasp. He flips your straddle with ease, shoving your legs between his, even in a wounded state. A gasp escapes your lungs as you orient yourself. He doesn’t even try to block your wrist when you snake it between the both of you; pitiful little pairing blade at his jugular like it’d do a damn thing.

One hand rests against the exposed length of your throat. His elbow buried deep in the soft connective tissue connecting your shoulder and upper arm as he pins it down. That ushers a whine from your lips.

Oh, What a burden it must be made of delicate living flesh, he muses to himself.

To feel like the consequences of your actions with every fiber of your being.

“Gonna’ come make good on yer’ threat there, darlin’?” He trails his free hand down the flare of your ribs, ghosting over your hip like a starved lover and then it settles: just over the barrel of his weapon you’d so kindly pocketed.

The flicker of a shadow dances in his peripheral, just behind the cover of a mound of sand.

Just a little closer.

Cooper scoffs as his gaze flickers down to yours.

“Or,” He cocks the gun against the warm sand. “you gonna’ make go through with mine?”

Cooper leans into the blade at his throat, drawing your chests closer together as he closes the distance between your beating hearts. He knows he’s won when your eyes linger on his lips for even a fraction of a second. The Ghoul smiles in his triumph, steadying the grip on his gun as the shadow teasing his vision shifts.

You tense.

He draws.

He feels you scream beneath him and it is of the things that shatter dreams.

If I’d been a better man…

The blade at his throat sinks in instinctively and the Ghoul couldn’t have blamed you even if he wanted to.

I’d be afraid of me too.

He grits his teeth and his free hand releases your throat.

Your breath heaves beneath him and you scramble out from under his weight when you realize the bullet not been meant for you.

The body of the fiend not more than five feet from the both of you slumps to the ground into a pile of its own brain matter.

You’re shaking. He sees it. Adrenaline pumping and confusion beginning to settle in—

What Cooper was not expecting, however, was the elbow that connected with his jaw just then.

Your elbow.

He lets out the smallest of surprised scoffs and licks at his lips.

Yeah, he’d deserved that too.

He’s almost proud of you.

“COOPER?!?!” The Ghoul watches as you scream your demand of him. Bewildered and shaken you stand. Doubled over—weighing your hands on your thighs to keep upright as the fight or flight leaves your body through bleary eyes.

Cooper takes its all.

Your hesitance, your rage—your indignance and your pain.

Turns and faces you like its nothing to him at all.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”

There’s a hint of desperation on your tongue.

‘Just tell me, please.’ Cooper can almost hear you begging, but you won’t. Not here. Not like this.

He pulls the small blade from his throat, wincing with a flick of his chin as he throws it to the sands before you both. You pause and Cooper grimaces. He motions to the blade, signaling he wants you to pick it up. To Cooper’s surprise and utter fucking dismay, you do. Almost without a second thought.

He watches you tuck it into your pants pocket, diverting those ever watching eyes back to him. Like you saw something he couldn’t.

Why?

Why are you like this?

“Grab your shit.” He growls out. “We’re moving.”

You don’t move, though. You just stare. Doe-eyed like the fraudulent fawn you were.

“Git’!” He clicks his tongue in annoyance. Not at you, not entirely.

That lone fiend Cooper had shot down had been a scout and it was clear to him now that the others wouldn’t be far behind. Fiends usually never tracked their prey through the dunes for half near this long. Just both of your’s fuckin’ luck.

But you wouldn’t know that would you? How could you? Cooper protected you from far too much. Even things that would kill you.

Cooper could smell trouble brewing on the horizon closer than he’d been prepared for. Something wasn’t right and it was his job to figure out what. Even if it meant you resenting him for the time being. He’d been more comfortable with contempt anyway. It fit him like an old glove and embraced him like a familiar lover, no strings attached.

“I hate you.” There’s a resound defeat in your voice.

Cooper nods in slow, jaw clenched. He knows your tired. Sees it in your face and hears it in your voice. He’d spent all these months dragging you through the dessert with promises that never came and made you compromise on every value you held dear that he could. With no end in sight.

He’d just been selfish to let you go.

And you? You’d been too scared to leave.

Scared of what?, he constantly wondered.

What lay out there between the dunes and ruin that could possibly chase you back into the likes of the man like him…time and time again?

Your words echo in Cooper Howard’s thoughts.

‘Shoulda’ killed me when I was under, Coop’.’

Doesn’t he know it.

[muppetears-stuff]

do you have any headcanons about Warren or other characters you like ?

Yes. Yes, I do. Thank you for asking!! ^^ more under the cut cause this gonna be long- :3

so, headcanons vvv

Bisexual. But that's just fanon-

I have a whole bunch of headcanons for double exposure Warren/design concepts that I have only thought of yet😔😔 but I will tell!!!

I love the idea of him having long hair, longer hair than original game Warren. He has it in a low ponytail, or I might just keep it down.

He's a lot more confident in his style and personality than teenage him, so I like to think he still sports the undershirts but wears jackets a lot more now, too. Lanyard covered in pins, and his student ID/regular ID, taking that from his original concept design for the first game because a lanyard feels SO Warren to me,,,,

Breaking away from double exposure thoughts. It's canon that he's friends with most girls at Blackwell. I like to think he's invited to sleepovers and hangouts sometimes, even if he's awkward around them, but he's one of the nicest guys at Blackwell. The girls are taking advantage of that.

I love the thought of nervous characters biting their nails (like me. And Warren is me /hj), and so he paints them/let's the girls paint them, it's to keep him from biting his nails off. If they're pretty or have something on them, he's not gonna wanna bite :]

Listens to bloodhound gang and Weezer. Specifically, "I wish I was queer so I could get chicks." By bloodhound gang and "I just threw out the love of my dreams." By Weezer. And weird al,,,,

He would've had such a wonderful dynamic between Chloe and Max, and I love to think that some rebel/mischievous part of him admired Chloe. He would drop everything to help Max and one of her friends if they needed help, as shown in the game. So he would've definitely helped with the mystery behind Rachel.

The type of guy to take one compliment from someone and think about it for the rest of his life. keeps him up at night type thing. /pos

Flocked to Max and thought he liked her, but it was just because she was the first person who made him feel seen and appreciated and made him feel like a person. He says it in the game, and it makes me cry, so it's not really a headcanon, but the first part is-

Gifted kid shame and burn out. Cries over getting a low grade or score and can not physically function for a week. I would love the idea of in game, him hanging around Chloe and Max, where some of his dialogue is him talking about how he should be back at Blackwell studying but finding what happened to Rachel is more important than an English paper.

If he does something cool as hell, he's gonna recognize it's cool as hell and gets giddy when someone else recognizes that it was cool. (the craving for validation, I get it.)

Mom friend, I have decided. Warren is not opposed to a little tomfoolery, maybe a bit of property damage, but if anyone got hurt while doing so, he's there with a bandaid and disinfectant immediately.

Presented Max with the idea of matching costumes for Halloween, Paulie Bleeker and Juno Macguff from Juno 2007, but she declined ,:3 (they are literally them!!!)

He's overly dramatic about things and will pull out the puppy dog eyes to get what he wants (which isn't a alot, he's a simple man.)

Bag, lanyard, jacket. COVERED in pins and patches of his interests/bands he likes

Has bumper stickers of movie references

Named his car. Her name is Lauren.

Mom knits things for him like sweaters, beanies, and mittens, and it's always a lovely gift during December<33 complete momma's boy.

Has vocal stims of random references that make him giggle way too much, repeats them for no reason. Picks at his cuticles or underneath his fingernails or messes with his undershirt sleeves. Constantly wiping his hands on his jeans. Big hand talker too :3

Wears a ton of wrist bands/bracelets and definitely ends up wearing concert wrist bands they give to you at the door for longer than needed because he forgets to take them off-

Is creatively stunted and can't visualize things properly. He wishes he had the creative brain that Max does so he can maybe see the world outside of facts and pre-established knowledge. Has a hard time writing because of it.

And that's it :DD I could probably do a part 2 with other characters,,,of course, if that is desired💖💖 thank you for asking!!

[pagesofkenna]

Components (2971 words) by KennaM

Characters: Lucy Frostblade, Kipperlilly Copperkettle

Additional Tags: Introspection, Character Study, The Mountains of Chaos, Goddesses, toxic yuri, Unresolved Tension, Unhealthy Relationships, A lot of character exploration happening in the negative space

Summary: • Locate Creature: the fur of a bloodhound • Sanctuary: a silver mirror • Divination: incense and an offering • Communion: incense and holy water • Ceremony, Atonement: 25gp of silver powder • Resurrection: a diamond worth 1000gp

hello, if you've been following along, this is what i’ve been pouring my soul into for two weeks!

Read on AO3

[asterdisaster06]

i absolutely LOVED the story where reader is called "hound". love the violence lmao. i was wondering if we could get more of that where reader tells them everything she did? sorry if this is weird✊😭

not weird at all, I always love hearing feedback :D

keeps me motivated-

i never really planned to expand on hound's character since I personally don't like reading OC stories and that specific story I invested the least in. ironic it's the most liked one of my stories.

i've started falling in love with that character though after hearing input like this though, so I would expect one of my next stories (whenever my studies let me have the time to write and post) involving bloodhound (:

[peckforlovingheck]

FHCD #200

you’re welcome btw bc this is a long one

She didn’t want to be honest with herself. Natalia and Jian had seen Aadiv talk with one of the victims. Her disbelief of how easily Aadiv could waltz out of their plan like that.

She looked over to Jian. He seemed shaken.

“…what?” She asks, frustration seeping into her tone. Nat thought Jian looked just as scared as the day she met him and Aadiv. They were all in the void, deleted, stripped from their lives.

Then, they found the truth. Why they were left there to rot. Why they were taken from their homes and families and friends. It filled Natalia with immense hatred. She had planned this whole sort of thing, telling Aadiv and Jian her idea.

After a good few months, they agreed and set the plan into motion. After all. They were the least liked. They didn’t get their happy endings. They had a cruel pantheon that controlled their every move in every universe. Their gods were unfair and they would be too.

Now, Natalia rolled her eyes. Aadiv already changed his mind and Jian was starting to as well. How could they give up so easily? Can’t they see that they were easily thrown away by everyone so others could be favored?

———

“Who’re you?” Ally asked. “My.. name is Dvir..” the person said slowly. He rubbed his throat, then letting the two see a reddish scar. “Augh. Stab wound? Come here.” Miguel said. Ally was horrified by how calm Miguel was about this.

“..What?” Miguel asked Ally, acknowledging her horror as he wrapped Dvir’s neck. Ally’s hand shakily pointed. “Oh. I see. The ones that those lunatics ‘killed’ were actually sent here. Much like how the three who keep causing these deaths were when they were first removed.” Miguel said.

“Removed…”

“There’s a council of gods and they are unfortunately the real people. They have their favorites and we are mere characters to them. The three that were killing people were only lashing out because they were removed from the game and left to die here.” Miguel said.

“..hm.” Dvir murmurs, rubbing his neck.

“How do we get back..?” Ally asked.

“well.. a few of the victims have been working on that. It’s quite easy, we are just waiting on everyone. I believe everyone is in now.” Miguel said.

“are you all healed now, Dvir?” Miguel then checked, looking over at him.

“..yes.��

“Alright. Let’s go.” He says, taking them both by the hand. It took a while to get there, but not in a horrible way. It was like a calm walk through a park.

There were some people walking through a large door. Most Ally didn’t recognize. One familiar face she noticed though.

she runs up and hugs Albert. “Augh-“ he says. “I’m glad to see you.”

Ally doesn’t say anything in worry that if she did, she’d start crying.

“Are we ready now?” Miguel asks.

People nod. “We’ve had some people who’ve not been killed that found out what’s going on and they’ve been relaying messages.” Someone says.

They walk through the door, landing softly on the grass. Someone stood by the group of people on the lawn.

“Welcome back, guys.” He murmurs. One of the people that was originally at the door walks up to him and just smiles.

“Alright. So. What now?” Ally asks.

“We’ve got a meeting spot. One of the three changed sides and has been giving us information. He says he thinks the other two will come for him in a few hours. We’ll meet him there.”

———

“They’ll be here. Eventually they will. I swear Natalia is like a bloodhound sometimes I-“

Jean-Claude interrupts Aadiv. “Okay but what happens next if we wait for them?”

“Well. Two things. Either… help comes like I’ve been told and they help apprehend Nat, Jian, and me, or.. they get here first and we die. Well.. not ‘die’ die. I’ve been over this.” Aadiv says.

his eyes widen as though an idea just came to him. “I’ve studied the code earlier. I think..” he looked over something. Jean-Claude looked as well.

“..if you three go back.. Every time we go in there.. our forms reset..?” Jean-Claude says.

“Precisely. I.. I know it’s not going to make up for what happened but it could be a reset for all of us before these whole events. If I do this right, I’ll be the only one to remember it and I’ll help them come back.. but no murder this time.” Aadiv explains.

“…That’s the best outcome I guess. I’m sorry you three were removed from the game.”

“…well. I guess we’ve done worse though. I can only wish you the best.” Aadiv says.

the two sit in silence, then Marley runs in. “I GOT A FLAME THROWER.” she yells. “Also Mason is gonna be over in a few minutes!”

“Wha.. why did you invite him?! There’s people that want you dead! It’s like you want your brother traumatized or something.” Aadiv says.

“If I die, I’d want to see my brother. I’d also want you two to reunite before so as well.” Marley reasoned.

Jean-Claude just shrugs.

———

“…ah yes. Secluded house in the middle of nowhere.” Mason murmurs and walks inside.

He sees three people in the living room.

“Marley??” He says and hugs her, then turning to see the other two. He runs over and hugs Aadiv. “Where have you been?!” He demands. “That’s a long story.” Aadiv said.

Mason turns to the blond guy. “…uh..”

“I’m Jean-Claude. Fellow former captive to your sister.” He says, extending a hand. Mason shakes his hand, letting those words sink in.

“..you what?” Mason turns to Marley. “There’s some people that want us dead but we can’t die because we’re not real. Try to keep up.” Marley explains.

There’s a knock on the door.

———

“..that’s a lot of people.” Marley murmurs. Aadiv opens the door and lets them in. He starts explaining his plan. Mason just looks dizzy with all the words and concepts. Marley’s face froze. “..you’re going to what?!”

“It’ll work.” Mason said.

Marley looked at him with utter confusion and disbelief.

“Aadiv knows what he’s talking about. When he’s sure his plans will work, he looks like that.” Mason said. “..and when this is over.. we’re making up for lost time.”

Aadiv smiled.

———

More discussion about the plan is held. The plan shifts as Aadiv realizes he could probably go alone. He says this. Multiple people all snap no at the same time.

“..He could though. He’s on the same level as them and they probably would be kinder to him than us.” Reza said. The group went silent.

“…We’re still not sending him alone. That’s just asking for them to turn against him. I’ll go too.” Mason said.

“Same here.” Jean-Claude nods.

Marley walked over to them. “It’s a given.”

“What if they get through you guys..? What if they straight up kill you? And then what?” Albert asks.

“We could defend the place. I think I should help for once..” Ally said.

“..for once? Ally, you’ve helped plenty.” Albert says. Ally doesn’t blink.

“Fine by me.” Marley smiled and handed a weapon to Ally then to the others.

———

They head out the front door and stand there. In the distance are two figures.

“…Aadiv, why must you be so foolish? You’ll just get casted out again. Everything would be taken away from you again.” Jian said. Natalia just looked furious.

Aadiv steps forward. “..I wish you guys would see that it’s not their faults. They thought we went missing. If we try to come back. If we try to be part of things again… it’d probably work.” He says.

Jian looked at him, a thankful smile. Natalia’s expression softened.

he pulls them into a hug. Neither seemed surprised when Aadiv sent a knife into either of their backs. There wasn’t even blood. They just disintegrated.

“…” Aadiv fell to the floor. “…I’ll see you guys soon.” He says, holding the knives.

———

with the world back to its state and everyone recovering and resetting, things were.. fine.

Maybe things would have been better if the three were back into the actual game. Maybe things would be better if we all didn’t have biases. Maybe I’m talking like a philosopher bc I’m being pretentious as hell. Who knows.

this has been the end of this story. Next headcanon will be regular ones.

also sorry marsbars I legit didn’t look at the picture since you sent it to me. Maybe I’ll pick up this series again at some point and add on more about the favoritism of characters idk lol.

[superman86to99]

Superman #90 (June 1994)

"THE BATTLE FOR METROPOLIS," Part 3! Things are BOOMING in Metropolis! Last issue ended with Lex Luthor (we can probably drop the "Jr." by now) remotely detonating a bomb right next to Superman and the badly injured Guardian. In this one we quickly find out that there have actually been several Lex-triggered explosions (Lexplosions, if you will) all across the city. Lex watches the mayhem from his yacht, maniacally shouting that if he has to die, he's taking the whole city with him.

Meanwhile, from the safety of his comfy office in Project Cadmus, wily ol' Director Westfield decides to take advantage of the chaos to get rid of those pesky Underworld clones once and for all. He secretly launches a series of missiles that spread deadly gas throughout the city's sewers, killing several peaceful Underworlders who were just chilling there (when he could have waited a few days for the Clone Plague to get them). Renegade geneticist Dabney Donovan, who has hidden cameras all over Cadmus, notices what Westfield is doing and doesn't like it, not because he's the Underworlders' "father" but because he wants to keep experimenting on them.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Superman takes the unconscious Guardian to Cadmus and bumps into Westfield, who rudely invites him to leave. Superman, who has never liked Westfield, lets him know as much and warns him that as soon as the current mess is over, he's letting everyone know exactly how much he sucks.

Westfield brushes him off and is like "No one will ever bring me down! I WILL LIVE FOREVER!" Then, while Superman is distracted dealing with one of those missiles, Dubbilex's telepathic powers suddenly pick up "a presence in Cadmus" he "hasn't felt in a very long time..."

That's right, you guessed it: it's freakin' Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught!

Wait, no, that was Dabney Donovan. And yes, he just murdered Paul "King of the World" Westfield with some poison gas. Official cause of death: irony. CONTINUED NEXT WEEK (or whenever we write that post) IN ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #513!

Character-Watch:

And that's the end of Director Westfield, who has been a pain in the ass since 1991's Superman #58. It says a lot that, unlike everyone else who dies at Cadmus, they've never brought this jerk back via cloning... or have they?! (Geoff Johns: "No, they haven't.") I'm not sorry to see him go, but I do think that his death makes certain future revelations regarding the character kinda anticlimactic.

Don Sparrow says: "Quite a fall for Westfield. In the Bloodhounds storyline he seemed like a tough, if flawed leader. But in this book he’s exactly as bad as Luthor." Yeah, he seemed like a somewhat reasonable authority figure until "Funeral for a Friend," when he started his slow descent into supervillain status. Maybe a more satisfying ending for him would have been turning him into an actual supervillain, perhaps via Dabney's ironic experiments... It's not too late to tell that tale, DC!

Plotline-Watch:

The best part of the issue is Superman saying he "almost hates" throwing one of those poison gas missiles into the stratosphere because "half the time I throw stuff into space it comes back even more dangerous!" We've been documenting that tradition for years, so that was satisfying to read. To my knowledge, that missile never became sentient and came back as "Missile-O" or something, but I could be wrong.

Superman tells Westfield that "cloning ruined my home planet." We saw that story (with sweet, sweet Mike Mignola art) in the World of Krypton miniseries.

Dabney Donovan says he wants to continue studying the Underworlders to "create new life that will survive the coming apocalypse." I'm not sure if by "apocalypse" he means this storyline or a... future one. Also, keyboard, multiple monitors, a big and probably expensive microphone -- is Dabney a Twitch streamer?

Westfield teases Superman because he can't be in multiple places at once, musing that maybe he'll create a being who can do that as his next experiment. So if he hadn't died, the next Cadmus creation would have been Madrox the Multiple Man.

Some impressively dumb Lex-Men chase Lois and shoot at her for "ripping off corporate secrets" (actually that tape of Lex killing his trainer from last issue). When she says they're making a big mistake, they laugh at her and one says "You ain't got a prayer, lady! Not unless you got yourself a guardian angel!" Are they... not from Metropolis? That would explain why one bothers trying to blast Superman "to smithereens" once he inevitably shows up.

After Superman takes care of those goons, Lois notices there's a camera in one of the helmets and uses the opportunity to tell Lex that he's screwed. He shouts: "NO! Who's her informant? Packard? Happersen? Or somebody else?" Lex, you've got exactly three recurring employees in this era. Come on, it's not that hard.

Patreon-Watch:

This post was brought to you by Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca, the Superman '86 to '99 Patreon Gang!

And also by everyone's pal Don Sparrow, who wrote the section after the jump...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We begin with a great cover, of an anguished Superman in the rubble of Metropolis.  I’m gonna assume that this is moments before Superman leapt into action, and helped all those people behind him with the recovery effort, but you gotta take a minute or two to grieve.  Joe Rubinstein is a legendary inker, to be sure, but his inks never fully jibed with Dan Jurgens pencils, it seems to me, and this cover shows a little bit of that.  The rim lighting on the arms going so far from the edge makes Superman look almost excessively lean/defined, but that’s only noticeable when you stare at it as long as I have.

Inside the book we have guest pencils from Brent Anderson, whose art can be hit or miss for me, over the years.  His Astro City stuff, for example, was terrific, like a modern Curt Swan, but at times, but in other instances—like this issue—there can be an unpleasantly rushed feel to his art.  The surface detail is always terrific, and Neal Adams-like, but sometimes his forms can go a bit wonky.  The very opening splash page is a good example of this. 

At first glance, this seems like a terrific page, a great montage of different things happening over Metropolis.  But then when you zoom in on both Guardian and Superman’s faces (particularly Guardian), things seem a little asymmetrical.  This is not to say that there aren’t some excellent moments—there are!  Page 5 has a great tall panel of Superman soaring into action.  Dabney Donovan is looking quite Dr. Robotnik-like as he surveys Westfield’s final solution for the Underworlders.  Page 12 unfortunately boasts another wonky Superman face, almost saved by the surface detailing.  The absolute weirdest Superman face appears a little later, during the guardian angel exchange, where Kal-El is looking like he sproinged off the pages of Mad Magazine.

There’s another good flying shot comes on page 17, where Superman darts out of a sewer pipe.   On the whole, a pretty inconsistent looking book, with backgrounds being a particularly weak point (apart from the extreme perspective shot of Metropolis early on). Story-wise, not a ton happens, apart from Superman zig-zagging to and from disasters, though we do get a little movement on the clone illness (that Guardian is apparently immune) and a recap of last week, revealing that Lois has damning evidence against Luthor.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

Lex’s soldiers are pretty sexist, in addition to being willing murderers.  How does a guy list when hiring for that position?

Funny note as Superman launches the poison gas missile into space, as he muses “half the time I throw stuff into space, it comes back even more dangerous.”  Certainly true of the Eradicator, but I’m trying to think of other examples.  [Max: Off the top of my head, there's the time he threw that living cemetery into space and it turned into a murder cloud, the time he left a lab suspended in orbit and it eventually spawned the Cyborg Superman (who did his own space-tossing with Doomsday), and, hmmm, does the time he threw himself into space and came back with a deadly artifact count?]

Very Obi-Wan-like reaction from Dubbilex, as he senses Dabney Donovan’s presence.  I always thought that Donovan was somewhere nearby as it was, so it’s odd that Dubbilex would only now sense his brainwaves.

How does the gas hurt Westfield to the point that he’s choking blood, but not at all affect the maskless Donovan? [Max: Maybe he was a poison gas-immune Dabney clone who only thought he was the "one and only"?]

[bacon-sandwich-of-dionysus]

Bloodhound. (A Ghost x AFAB!Reader fic)

Act One, Chapter Eight: A Rising Scream.

Apologies for the wait and for the brevity of this chapter!

A lot of stuff has happened lately, in the time between writing the last chapter and this one, I've passed my A-Levels, got into medical school, my nan unfortunately passed away and I've moved into my uni dorm. So yeah, a lot has happened.

Regarding my nan, she had been ill for a while and passed away peacefully in her sleep at home which was exactly what she wanted. Her funeral is happening next week and it'll be a great opportunity to say goodbye and celebrate her. She was a fab woman and I'm going to miss her.

I'll probably get even busier in the coming weeks due to fresher's period and all that so I'm super grateful for your patience and please bear with me! We're nearing the end of Act One- only two more chapters to go! 🥳

Regardless, I hope you all enjoy the continuation of this story. I had a bit of a confidence crisis writing this but I managed to overcome it and get this written how I wanted it to be written!

Warnings: Threats of violence, violence, blood, strong language and horror elements

According to Soap’s watch, it was precisely one-thirty in the morning. As quick as a whip, you turned your head around, a chill draft had crept into the barracks, setting off your senses. You sighed to yourself, gently lowering Soap’s wrist so it could hang off the edge of his bed like it had been doing before you’d arrived.

Your mind was still racing with alerts of someone’s intrusion, the hairs on the back of your neck standing starkly upright, sensitive to the slightest changes in the air behind you. The darkness of the night was slowly beginning to make sense to your eyes: the inky, oppressive mess forming coherent shapes and vague outlines.  Essentially, your world had become an array of shades of grey. Your lip curled as a sharp thought pinched your brain. You spun around, standing up from your crouched position, looking about like a lone little deer. With how scared you were, presuming your quarry was a lamia, which you prayed it was, you wouldn’t be surprised if she could sense your dread. It was practically oozing out of every pore, your heart in the back of your throat, your lungs burning with sharp inhalations as you gulped down the stuffy air around you.

You rubbed your bare arms, keeping them close to your body, in a weak attempt to self-soothe once more. Perhaps you should arm yourself? Yes. Yes, good idea! Feet tiptoed towards your bed, where your belongings were. You knelt down and your eyes caught the shining glimpse of your hepta-plate. Like shimmering drops of moonlight peeking through that unzipped duffel bag of yours, your eyes couldn’t ignore the shimmers. The actual moon hung brightly in the night sky above you, casting beams through any and all windows, which your armour was quick to pick up and respond to, reflecting its rays aimlessly, with no wearer to instruct it how to use the light properly.

The barracks almost look like something out of a gothic novel, the streams of light crisscrossing over each other, pouring in from opposite windows; the slumbering soldiers atop their beds, arranged in rows, like church pews, marking out an aisle between them. You couldn’t help but be fascinated, your surroundings reminding you of those books you had to read for literature studies back in the Red Room. You were fed all kinds, from modern classics like Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’, to something more to your taste such as ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’.

‘Dracula’ was an interesting one. Your overseer reminded you of the character. Regal, elegant, but disturbingly savage. He somehow managed to muddy the waters of affection and violence, between what was appropriate and what was not. He had made you feel so… weak.

You sort of resented how he let you live, abandoning you on the soil that night, letting you bleed out.

His masked face flashed before your eyes as you peered into your duffel bag. You staggered backwards, gasping. Maybe you should just take your rifle and leave the horrors alone to mingle with your luggage. Swiping your rifle from its resting place, leaning against the foot of your bed, you spun on your heel to make your way out.

Eyes fixed on the floor, you watched one foot move to take a step, followed by the other. One. Two. One. Two. One. Two. Occupied by the rhythm, you felt your bubbling mind begin to simmer down and hoped that would allow your presence to shrink away and blend into the collective of sleeping soldiers. Minds together formed a hive of sorts… Well, that’s how you would describe it. You could tell who you knew and who you didn’t, however, there were ways of blending in. The best way was to keep calm. You found yourself doing Gaz’s breathing exercises he had taught you the other day when you tried doing some yoga with him and… Rudy, was it? Yeah. That was his name!

One. Two. One. Two. One. Two.

As you were about to take another step, a third foot planted itself firmly between both of yours. You were taken aback. Startled, you looked up to see who was blocking your path.

It was Sergeant Gaz.

Relief swept over you.

“Good evening…” you greeted, smiling weakly.

More like morning, really. Ugh! Dang it!

Gaz raised an eyebrow, suspicion so obvious on his face that it could be seen a mile away.

“Watcha doing?” Gaz asked, cringing a little as he heard his voice bounce off the walls of the barracks, the silence of the night seemingly magnifying the volume of his speech tenfold.

You reminded him of a fox who had just been spotted skulking around in the early hours of the morning by an unexpected human; all eyes and frozen on the spot, the only indication of the fact you were a living thing and not some statue being the rapid risings and fallings of your chest.

“Uh…” Your eyes briefly wandered around as you searched for a good enough excuse. “Toilet?”

Gaz wasn’t convinced.

“Y/N, you should probably head back to bed and rest up. You know, I overheard Ghost telling Soap that he’d caught you wandering about last night… and the night before.”

You sighed.

“I can’t sleep.”

Gaz’s face softened for a moment. However, soon, he resumed a more authoritative look when he spotted the assault rifle hanging off your body. He tensed a little, adjusting the grip on his own firearm, shining the torch more towards your face.

“Y/N, what are you up to?”

“I’m off to go find whoever slipped into the base earlier today.”

“Y/N-”

He made to grab your arm, but you shrugged him off.

“Don’t try to dissuade me! I can sense them!”

You didn’t even bother looking back, ready to march off, your hunt being both a means of securing your temporary home and an act of protest against those who were sceptical of you.

“Really?”

You halted in your tracks. Slowly, you turned around to face the sergeant.

He sounded strangely… earnest. Did he… Did he believe you?

“Can you actually sense them?”

Shyly, you nodded.

“How?”

A small smile appeared on your face.

“I know what everyone’s minds are like here,” you explained, “Each of you have a particular… well, I don’t want to say ‘scent’ but it’s like that.”

Gaz chuckled, unsure of what to make of that but supposed it sort of made sense. You paused, a glint of worry appearing in your eyes as you watched Gaz’s disposition change.

“Go on, Y/N,” he encouraged with a smile.  

“Okay,” you continued, a little surprised by his want to try to understand, “Um… So, being here, I’ve figured out what the base’s minds are like and how they mix. Someone, this morning, didn’t belong to the collective. They’re setting off alarm bells in my head. They don’t mean well.”

“And you can just know this because…”

“…I’m a lamia. It’s my job. It’s my nature,” you said, finishing his sentence.

“I see. Well, you’ll probably need someone to watch your six.”

Gaz smiled, gesturing to his armed self.

You couldn’t help but grin in reply, gesturing for him to follow you.

The halls were deathly silent, only the sounds of your footsteps and the faint outside world contributed to the melody of the nighttime ambience. You were doing your best to keep your breaths as even and as quiet as possible, despite the fact it was making your chest feel awfully tight. Your body was so tense: every step intentional, every heartbeat made with the hopes of being slower and more controlled than the previous one, and every thought produced was dulled down so as not to alert your quarry.

Gaz couldn’t deny that he was fascinated by the way you moved, it was steady, eerily calm and above all, focused. Unlike him. The sergeant had found himself looking this way and that, a little flustered but keeping to his word: watching your back.

This new base the Vaqueros had made a home in was undoubtedly haunting, Gaz couldn’t deny it. It was an old base, probably patched together in the forties or even earlier, with bits of paint flaking off the walls, creaking doors and windows that looked as though their panes were always on the verge of falling out of their frames. His big brown eyes were instinctually drawn to the windows, where moonlight spilt into the space, trying to brush every crevice with its silver stain. The ceiling was high, and the width of the corridor was narrow, like the gut of some emaciated snake.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

The rhythm of anticipation.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

You gripped your gun fervently, keeping it close to you. An adrenaline-fuelled, almost gleeful, shudder ran through you. It was… well, you hated to admit it, but it was almost relieving in a way. You had spent the past few days worrying and waiting for the inevitable and it had come. You weren’t necessarily ready - I mean, who can be ready for the Foundation - but you weren’t as scared as you thought you’d be. Perhaps it was because this wasn’t shocking. They had come, as expected, to take what was theirs.

“I am neither good nor evil. Simply, I am.”

The heart of the Foundation’s motto sang in the echoey chambers of your skull. It had been recited to you in assemblies, recited to you in training, recited to you during your transfusion and during your beatings. When you found yourself sitting there, looking at the Foundation’s collective hand, awaiting to be shaped like clay into what they wanted, they recited that motto to you. They simply were and they would continue to simply be: saints to those who needed their services and cruel tyrants to those they sold as part of them. The Foundation was so shapeless, so distant, and yet, ever-present. They posed a type of horror you couldn’t quite articulate. They didn’t care for you and yet, they wanted to drag you back to the Red Room, not giving a damn if it had to be done with you kicking and screaming. They treasured you enough to nourish you, educate you, and give you lovely clothes, but they also pushed you to the brink, took away your autonomy, and lashed out at you and your fellow lamias even if you weren’t at fault.

“Neither good nor evil.”

You couldn’t help but feel your throat tighten a little as you and Gaz rounded a corner, making for the canteen. The was something different in the air, something which grew stronger as you headed for the mess hall. She was here. Or at least you hoped she was. Turning around, you waved to get Gaz’s attention. He looked at you, furrowing his brows. However, soon, they would be raised in fearful dread as he watched you point your finger to the open doorway.

“Are they in there?” Gaz mouthed, already knowing the answer but being afraid to have it confirmed.

“I think so,” you mouthed back.

Gaz readied his weapon, taking in a deep breath and ensuring his torchlight wasn’t going to be in the line of view for whoever was lurking in the canteen. He nodded at you, and you gave a thumbs-up. Then, you began to count down on your fingers.

Three… Two… One…

WHOOSH!

You both leapt from around the corner, planting your feet firmly on the ground. Both of you looked this way and that, dousing whatever you looked at in the white lights of your torches. You looked down the barrel of your firearm, finger hovering over the trigger, itching to land a bullet in your prey. She was here. You could sense her now, somewhat even build a picture in your mind. It was a lamia, older than you expected, and a little… well, you didn’t want to use the term ‘weak’ per se, but she had clearly not used her abilities in a while. Especially, if you had caught on to her so quickly.

You would be feeling quite chuffed if you hadn’t realised that she wasn’t actually in the canteen anymore.

The moment you began looking around the servery, the scent had gone cold. You muttered a curse under your breath, trying to find her mind amidst the horde of dreamers.

“Y/N!”

You turned around as Gaz lightly tapped your shoulder.

“What is it?”

“There.”

“What?”

“There!”

He pointed to the doorway from whence you came. Following the line of his outstretched arm, focusing your eyes on exactly where his index finger was pointing, you could make out a figure. She was faint, a ghostly apparition amidst the fuzzy darkness. She looked almost transparent. You held your mouth agape, frozen on the spot.

Just as she was.

Valeria knew you both had seen her. Desperately, she tried to will herself into obscurity once more. It was going to be a struggle. Once seen, Valeria knew she most likely couldn’t be unseen.

“Are you seeing this?” Gaz whimpered, unsure if he should shine his light at the spirit haunting the doorway.

You nodded, staring into Valeria’s soul. She was flitting between being a solid form and something less material, your mind trying to ascertain her reality while hers cried out that she was not there. She clung to the doorframe, unsure if she should move or remain deathly still.

Gaz’s gaze went from you to Valeria and then back to you. The tension in the air was palpable. Your eyes were fixed on her, pupils blown out to their full diameter, threatening to consume your irises whole. That look on your face, she could recognise it through the murk, it was an expression that she once bore: the alert, focused face of a lamia ready to strike. Valeria’s heart skipped a beat or two.

All she needed to do was leave unscathed, without a trace, and she was failing miserably.

No matter, she sighed to herself, it’s already done.

Valeria could still taste Simon’s blood at the back of her throat. His metallic stain lingered on her tongue, mingling with her spit, so that with every nervous gulp, more and more of him would become part of her.

It was disgusting.

Both what she had done and the nature of the action itself. Who would’ve thought that a single bite, a single drop of the Foundation’s ‘delectable’ formula, could bear such a heavy weight on her? Valeria never thought of herself as one with a guilty conscience and yet, here she was, in blood, stepped in so far that she could wade no more.

A shudder ran through you and Valeria’s body stiffened further. You could sense something was wrong. You could sense she had done something wrong.

“What have you done?” you hazarded to ask.

She remained silent, much to your chagrin.

“Answer me! What have you done?! I can see it. You’re flitting between here and the barracks. What have you done?!”

Before Valeria Garza was someone she had not expected to find. When she had first heard the word ‘renegade’, she had initially thought you’d be a sheepish, snivelling mess. A caricature of a victim. Now, however, she saw what you really were: angry… but not to a fault, not yet anyways. Anger could be honed, could be wielded.

Yes, she could feel some of her guilt slipping away a little, you’ll fix this.

As much as Valeria wanted to take a moment for herself to scream away her grotesque feelings of self-loathing and abhorrence regarding the fact she had just added Ghost to the Foundation’s arsenal, the woman knew she’d have no time for that. You were here right now, and she needed to grab hold of you, point you in the right direction and pray you’d stay on your course.

“Look, I need you to-”

SLAM!

By a mere hair, Valeria dodged your attack. At a frighteningly fast speed, you had lunged at her. Having sorely missed, you ended up finding yourself crashing into the wall. Your firearm fell to the floor with a loud clatter, the buckle of its strap having given way as you collided with the mass of plaster, brick and paint.

“Y/N!”

Gaz suddenly sprung to life and ran after you, instinctually, not thinking straight… Only for a strong hand to stop him in his tracks. The intruding lamia had grabbed his wrist and then proceeded to throw him to the floor.

Valeria grinned under her mask, watching Gaz stare at her like she was something beyond his understanding. His eyes were as wide as saucers, his mouth slightly agape. He scrambled back, trying to regain his footing.

This lamia was stronger than she looked, stronger than Gaz for sure. It was unnerving. Sure, the man had seen supernatural strength displayed in films and television but to be at the receiving end, to see what it looked like in real life… It had shaken him in a way he didn’t think it would. Gaz had thought he was acquainted with the idea of this, but reality had shown him otherwise. To be thrown onto the ground, discarded like a minor inconvenience, as an SAS soldier, by something other than a machine or explosive, something supposedly human, it made Gaz feel incredibly… small.

He felt as though he had been stripped of his firearm, his training, and his courage. All things that made Gaz a good soldier had just been trampled and spat on by this lamia.

“This is between me and my sister, soldier. Stay.”

Valeria couldn’t help but find a little joy in watching him be dumbfounded by her. She was in desperate need of that ego boost. 

Turning her attention back to you, Valeria watched as you regained your footing, groaning in pain. That slam was going to leave a foul bruise. If she wanted to keep Gaz on the ground, she needed to give him an excuse not to fire his gun, and that excuse would be keeping you as close to her as possible. The melding of you both into a single target was currently Valeria’s priority and she knew it was going to be a challenge.

You had a fire in your eyes, even in the dark, she could make out your primal anger. You were going to fight like a mad cat.

Valeria scoffed as you snarled.

However, her confidence soon would falter as she narrowly dodged another strike to her face. As Valeria tried to regain her footing, you landed a kick to her stomach.

Oh, it was on now!

She staggered backwards, a wave of wooziness taking hold of her. Uncertain but uncaring as to whether it was the remnants of the Foundation’s formula or the shock from just how strong you were, Valeria growled and quickly rearranged her footing. She grabbed hold of you, by both your arms, and headbutted you. A fountain of blood came spurting from your nose as your head was thrown back. As you raised your head to look up at her with defiance, she quickly punched you down. Spit and blood splattered the floor as you fell to your knees.

“You need to listen!”

Her words fell on deaf ears, and you grabbed her legs, dragging her down to your level.

Meanwhile, Gaz was shakily trying to point his weapon at your assailant. He smiled, managing to get a lock on Valeria, only for you and her to swap places. You writhed against her grip, screaming at her. A chill ran through him as the other lamia briefly looked at him and then, keeping an iron-grip on you, spun you around so your back was lined up with his barrel.

Shit!

You turned, realising what the bitch was doing, and using her own hold on you against her, rocked backwards, using your feet to push her upwards and launch her over you.

She fell face-first into the ground. Valeria gasped for air, getting her bearings.

Then, your shadow appeared, casting her in darkness.

You raised your foot, ready to cave her skull in with a stomp.

Luckily, she rolled out of the way and grabbed your ankle, causing you to become off-balance. You fell to the floor.

You propped yourself up with your hands, pressing down onto the ground with a fervour you were certain wasn’t necessary. Despite this, your body felt unnaturally heavy. You were panting, viscous red hanging in strings, clinging to your lower lip for dear life. A firm hand grabbed some of your hair, forcing you to look up at the concealed face of your current punisher.

“RAAAARGH! LET GO OF ME!”

You writhed and wriggled.

Gaz’s heart was beating at a rate of knots. He couldn’t let this happen. He couldn’t shoot, however.

As he made to strike the lamia on the back of her head, she grabbed him yet again, and this time, by his throat. She had both you and Gaz in each hand, holding you both in place with uncanny ease.

“LET GO!” you screeched, tears streaming down your face.

Valeria could see herself in you. See your fear. She knew that feeling all too well, and she felt a little bad that she’d be subjecting you to further anguish. However, Gaz right now was an inconvenience; what she needed to say had to be uttered in confidence. The sergeant was an obstacle.

You had underestimated her. Severely underestimated her. She was strong and you were panicking.

Gaz struggled for breath, trying to swipe at the lamia’s face as her grip tightened.

“STOP! STOP! PLEASE!” you squealed.

She turned and looked back at you, her head tilting to one side as she saw your glossy, pleading eyes trying to find hers behind the mask.

“STOP!”

You were losing yourself as you saw Gaz’s eyes begin to roll into the back of his head.

“NO! NO! STOP IT, SISTER! DON’T-”

He succumbed to it, his body going limp. The soldier was released from her grip and fell to the ground. His breaths now soft and even.

Valeria sighed, a wave of exhaustion taking her by surprise. She released you too, bringing her hands to her temples. You took the opportunity to rise up from under her and pin the cruel bitch to the floor. She yelped in surprise.

“Wake him up! Wake him up, now!” you demanded.

It was her turn to writhe and wriggle.

“DO IT!”

“You need to listen!” she rasped out, “They’re here. In the woods. There’s a whole pack and they’re coming for you.”

Up until that point, your face had been creased and vicious, your nose scrunched up, drawn towards your eyes. Now, it softened, relaxed. Angry crevices disappeared, giving way to surprise and curiosity. Your lips were gently parted, ragged breaths becoming a little more stable.

“What?”

“They’re already here. They’ve come for you, and they’ll take this whole base with them if you’re not careful.”

You let out a shaky sigh and gently released her.

“Why are you telling me this?”

She took a moment to craft her answer as she rose to an upright seated position, nursing her shoulder.

“Does it matter? You know what you have to do,” she replied matter-of-factly.

You sunk a little, your posture becoming slumped. You rested on your heels, your hands hanging limp in front of you, fingers curling towards your palms. You… you were trying to process this. You didn’t know what to think.

Slowly, you looked over to an unconscious Gaz.

“We’re so strong compared to them. And then Arcadian Sons make us feel so puny,” Valeria lamented.

“I need to wake him up.”

“More like you need to pack your shit and go.”

You shot her a dirty look, however, the malice in your visage soon dissipated. Instead, you opted to just sit in silence. You still couldn’t understand why she was telling you this. She wore the Foundation’s armour. Sure, it looked cobbled together, no doubt they were parts from a spare kit, but you could spot fresh equipment from a mile away. This wasn’t a rogue. This was someone in service.

“Are you going to tell me about why your mind keeps reflecting on the barracks? You were there for a while. I can tell.”

She looked at you sheepishly, quick to avert your gaze. Eventually, though, she mustered the courage and energy to confess.

“I was sent here to-”

She was interrupted by a crescendo of footsteps. You both could see the growing intensity of torchlights emerging as their bearers drew nearer, bouncing down the halls, in time with the drumming of heavy boots. Shadows of men littered the walls.

“GAZ! Y/N!” Price’s signature gruff voice called from the oncoming mob.

“Y/N!” Ghost’s roar could be felt in your chest.

Reflexively, Valeria double-tapped on her chest plate and vanished as soon as they arrived. With you being distracted, slipping out of sight was going to be a piece of cake.

“No! Wait!” You shouted as you turned back and around and reached forth… only to find yourself grasping at air.

Hanging your head low, you drew your hands close to your chest as they cast shadows over you and Gaz.

“What the fuck…” Soap looked around for clues as to what exactly happened here.

Before the men was a scene they couldn’t quite understand. How had this played out? The only indicators available was your bloodied self, Gaz strewn across the floor, cradling his gun, and… that was pretty much it.  

Price immediately rushed to Gaz’s side, listening in for his breathing. Once he heard Gaz’s slow, unusually relaxed inhalations and exhalations, the old man let out a sigh of relief. He removed the firearm from Gaz’s grip. Then, he looked over to you, eyes slightly narrowed.

You swallowed hard.

“What happened here?”

“I…”

Would they even believe you if you told them the truth? Would Gaz even remember this and back you up?