#but anyways this is like my white whale it makes me crazy . i just got a few new followers so im recruiting everyone for this quest again

[brofightiscancelled]

hey does anyone know if the karamatsu outfit from this jinriki cover is from anything? is it like a gacha au or something? it looks so particular i feel like it must be from some pre-existing media but i cannot find what it could possibly be

[steddilystranger]

blue butterfly (a life is strange au)

blue butterfly is a story-based fic that features reader choice. the consequences of your collective choices will affect the past, present, and future. the poll, with a duration of one week, is below the cut. choose wisely...

masterlist || part one || cw: character death, drugs

readers chose: help jonathan

Steve steps in. “Hey, leave him alone, jackass!” 

Jonathan exhales shakily behind him, but Callahan puffs up. “Harrington. Why do I always find you in the middle of everything?” 

Steve sneers. “I wouldn’t have to be if you weren’t bullying Jonathan. You’re not even supposed to be in here anyway.” 

Callahan advances, forcing Steve to back up. “Listen here, I can go wherever I damn well please, Steven Harrington. And this isn’t your problem. Piss off.” 

Steve holds an arm in front of Jonathan, planting his feet. “I’m not leaving.” 

Callahan’s walkie buzzes on his hip, and Steve can hear the tinny voice of Principal Higgins saying something he can’t quite make out. He grumbles and backs off. “I’ll remember this, Steve.” He turns on his heel and leaves. 

Jonathan gives him a weak sort-of smile. “Thank you, Steve.” 

“No problem. I gotta run-” Steve’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and that’s definitely Robin getting impatient. “-but call me if that dick bothers you again. I mean it!” He takes off at a jog towards the exit.

Steve leaves the dorm building, and Robin’s sitting with Vickie on a bench outside, chatting. He was right, she is wearing his sweatshirt. 

“Ready to go, Robbie? Hi, Vickie.” 

Robin swings her legs off the bench and pops up. “Yep, let’s go. Bye, Vickie!” 

Vickie waves at them, then pulls out her camera. Right, the assignment from Brenner. 

“She definitely has a thing for you.” Steve tells Robin in a low whisper.

Robin hits him on the arm. “She thinks I’m dating you, dingus!” she says. 

“Ah, you’re right, you’re right.” Steve says. “It’s ‘cause you’re wearing my hoodie. If I just take it back-” 

“Noooo,” Robin whines, a hint of laughter in her voice as she tries to dodge Steve. “It’s the only thing that matches!” 

Steve laughs and lets go of the hood. “Fine, fine. You win.” They step out into the parking lot. “Any plans for us for the night?” 

Robin shrugs. “Anywhere that isn’t Blackwell is fine with me.”

“Amen. Two Whales Diner?” 

“Ooh, I could go for some pancakes right now.” She rubs her hands together greedily, and Steve grins, swinging his keys around in his hand. 

“Two Whales it is.” He catches a glimpse of something blue in the corner of his eye. 

The butterfly. 

“I have something crazy to tell you.” Steve tells Robin. “And you have to believe me.” 

Robin squints at him, walking backward. “Alright, shoot.” 

“Earlier today, I fell asleep in class-” 

“What a model student,” Robin teases, but at the look on Steve’s face, she rearranges her expression into something serious. “Go on, I’m listening, I’m listening.” 

“I can rewind time.” Steve says. Concise and to the point. “Billy was in the bathroom, threatening a guy with a gun, and then he shot him, and I rewound time to save him.” 

“That’s- Steve, holy sh-” 

There’s a horn, and a horrible sound. Steve’s world freezes just as the front of a car slams into Robin. The world goes black and white and near-silent, Robin’s dying scream echoing through his ears.

Steve’s got it, pulling time hand over hand backwards. He lands back at Robin saying, “Alright, shoot.” 

Instead of responding, Steve pushes her bodily out of the parking lot and onto the yellowing grass. A few seconds later, a car roars by. 

“Holy shit.” Robin says. “That was close.” 

Steve can’t breathe. Robin scoots closer and puts her hand on his back. “Steve? It’s alright, we’re both fine. The drivers here are so shit.” 

“I-” Steve coughs. His heart is pounding painfully in his chest. They’re both fine, but for a split second, they weren’t, and Steve feels like there’s a corner of his mind that will be replaying that split second for the rest of his life.

He manages to get to his feet, helping Robin up. They head towards Steve’s car, now sticking close to the line of cars so there aren’t any more nasty surprises. 

It doesn’t work. As they reach Steve’s car, he’s suddenly tackled against the driver door. Billy Hargrove, his breath smelling like alcohol, slams him facefirst into his car. 

“The fuck did you do?” he hisses at Steve. “Security said you told them I had a fuckin’ gun? Fuck’s wrong with you?” He flips Steve around so his back is to the car.

“Robin!” Steve chokes out. “Go get security!” 

Robin stares in horror at Steve’s bleeding nose, then nods and slips out of the parking lot, running like a bat outta hell towards the school. 

Steve tries to knee Billy, but he dodges it and slams Steve back into the car door. “You’re gonna fuckin’ pay for ratting me out!” he growls. 

All that comes out of Steve’s mouth is a weak cough. 

Then someone punches Billy in the face. 

Out of nowhere, someone, dressed in leather and black, their curls falling around their face, tackles Billy off him. 

The boy from the bathroom, is all Steve can think.

Then the boy looks up at him and all his thoughts are replaced by big brown eyes and childhood memories. “Eddie?” he whispers breathlessly.

“Steve?” Eddie says in wonder. 

Billy begins to move and groan on the ground. 

“We gotta move!” Eddie says, and he darts around the front of the car and slides into the passenger seat. “C’mon, let’s go!” 

Steve doesn’t argue. He slides into the front seat and starts the car. 

“Head to my place.” Eddie tells him. Then remarks icily, “Unless you’ve forgotten where it is?”

“No, no, I- I got it.” Steve replies. He looks in his side mirror. Billy’s on his feet, swaying slightly, glaring after them. “God, Billy’s dangerous.” 

“Oh, thanks for the save, Eddie!” Eddie says in a mocking tone. He kicks his feet up on the dash, grumbling. “After seven years you’re still Steve Harrington.” 

“Thanks, Eddie.” Steve says genuinely.

The house looks practically the same as when Steve came here all those years ago, and he puts the car into park. Eddie opens the door. “Shithole sweet shithole,” he says. “Rosie and Phil are still at work.” 

He throws a wad of paper towels at Steve. “For your nose, dude.” he says at Steve’s confused look. 

Steve had forgotten about that. His shirt is definitely ruined, but he presses the paper towels to his nose anyway. Eddie makes a little head motion upstairs, and Steve follows him. 

“So Chicago sucked ass?” Eddie asks, reclining on his mattress. He flicks a lighter open and lights up a joint. 

“It was alright.” Steve takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “Lonely, I guess.” 

“Really?” Eddie blows out a puff of smoke. “Thought you’d fit right in up there.” He waves a hand. “All the…sports fans or whatever.” 

“No, not really. Prefer to play more than watch.” Steve props himself up on his hands, gazing back at the ceiling. If he squints, he can still see the glow-in-the-dark stars he had helped Eddie and Wayne put up for Eddie’s tenth birthday. “Can’t even do that anymore, so I came back here.” 

“Bullshit.” Eddie says. “You came back for Blackwell.” 

Steve looks over at him. Eddie’s resolutely staring at the ceiling like it wronged him in some way. “Don’t you think I missed you?” 

“Nope. You were perfectly fine waiting seven years without even a call.” Eddie retorts. 

Steve swallows. “I wanted to. But leaving Hawkins-” 

“Can it, Harrington. Your laptop and cell phone didn’t get shot back to the 1980s. You didn’t call. End of story.” 

Steve’s phone buzzes. It’s Robin.

platonic soulmate: so you said you had something to tell me?

Steve stares at the text. His mind begins to play Robin’s scream on loop, like it’s rewinding in his brain.

He swallows. 

It’s nothing. Never mind.

Steve shoves his phone deep in his pocket and sits forward. His foot brushes a box. When he leans down to look at it, he realizes he recognizes it. When he was eleven, he gave Eddie this wooden box. Had hand painted it and everything. 

Steve flips open the lid. 

Right on top is a picture of a girl. Chrissy Cunningham, if Steve’s memory serves. He picks the photo out of the box and unfolds it. Eddie, dressed to the nines in his best leather and chains, stands next to Chrissy in her preppy cheer uniform. There couldn’t be a more mismatched duo. 

And yet, they look perfectly at ease next to each other, Eddie pulling a stupid face with devil horns and his tongue out, and Chrissy laughing prettily at his antics. 

“Give me that.” Eddie snatches the photo and the box from Steve’s hands. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” Steve says. “I…didn’t know you two were close. Her missing posters are all over Blackwell.” 

“Yeah, I put them up. She was my angel.” Eddie says, staring down at the photo. “After Wayne died and you left, I felt…abandoned. She saved me.”

“I’m sorry, Eddie. I had no idea.” 

“Yeah, well, you never made much effort to find out.” Eddie snapped. “I was thirteen, Steve. We were best friends.”

“So Chrissy took my place.” Steve said. “I’m glad she found you.” 

“We were gonna kick the world’s ass, Stevie. You would’ve laughed at how different we were.” Steve takes the nickname, turns it over in his mind. It feels like the Eddie of the past is coming back in this conversation.

“She looks like a movie star.” Steve offers. 

“That was her plan.” Eddie replies, putting the photo back in the box like he can’t bear to look at it anymore. “Get the hell out of Hawkins together, sign some deal in L.A., and never look back. Chrissy Cunningham and Eddie Munson, movie star and rock star.” 

“So what happened?” Steve asks. 

“Six months ago, Chrissy just…up and left. Without a word. Without…me. And I thought she would have talked to me, unlike you.” Eddie takes a long, angry drag on the joint. 

“And you haven’t heard anything from her since?” 

“No, Steve, Jesus. She left me. Like you, and Wayne, and everyone else I love in this shitty town.” He crosses his arms, looking away resolutely. 

Steve’s phone buzzes again. He pulls it out. 

[Unknown Number]: hey, it’s jonathan byers. i just wanted to say thanks again for what you did for me today. 

Steve types his response out quickly. No problem, man. Happy to help. Hope you have a good night!

“What’s this?” Eddie asks, and Steve clicks off his phone. Eddie’s looking at a small Polaroid, and Steve pats at his pockets. It must have fallen out when Steve took out his phone. “I’ve seen this before!” Eddie says, and Steve peers over at it. 

It’s the blue butterfly. 

“You were in the bathroom today?” Eddie asks, locking eyes with him, and all Steve can see is Eddie challenging Billy, Eddie with a gun to his head, Eddie slumped against the bathroom wall, blood pooling around him. “That’s why Billy was so mad at you! You ratted him out!” 

Steve shrugged. “I couldn’t let him run around Blackwell with a gun, even if I don’t think Higgins is gonna do anything about it.” 

Eddie laughs, and it feels like the air clears a little. “No way, that prick only cares about money.” 

Steve nods. “I pulled the fire alarm to get him out of there. I was afraid of what he’d do if I let it escalate.” I know what would have happened, he adds to himself. 

“You called the fire alarm…” Eddie sits back, and the Polaroid flutters from his fingers. “You saved my fuckin’ life.” He shakes himself a bit. “Did you recognize me?”

“Not at all.” Steve says. “I really only saw your back, and your hair was so different.” 

“And you definitely heard our conversation.” Eddie says. “No way you didn’t hear every single syllable. 

Steve shrugs. “I only heard something about money…drugs? I didn’t really understand it.” 

Eddie nods. “Yeah, it’s some big shit. I saw Billy-”

The door downstairs slams open with an almighty crash, and Eddie says, “Shit, hide!” 

Steve fumbles around the room, looking for a good hiding place. Eddie’s closet is crammed full of things Steve can’t ever picture him wearing, so that’s out. 

His bed is just a mattress on the ground, so under there is out too. 

Steve moves towards Eddie’s cluttered desk, intending to squeeze under there, but Eddie’s door opens before he can. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” a vaguely familiar voice growls, and Steve leans back as the security guard from Blackwell stalks towards him. 

Eddie steps in front of him. “Cool it, Phil, it’s just Steve.” 

“Oh, I know exactly who this is.” Callahan mutters angrily, and Steve tries and fails for a winning smile. Then Callahan’s face freezes, and he takes an inhale. 

“What the fuck? Is this weed?” Callahan storms over and grabs the badly-hidden joint. “Thought I fuckin’ told you not to smoke here!” He advances on Eddie.

[woah-were-halfway-there]

For a concept, Auston trying to teach Mia how to skate for the first time?!

A/N: ok, so I was actually going to include this scene in an upcoming part of Just What I Needed, wrote some of it, didn’t love it and then scratched the idea entirely lol. But, you made me want to bring it back from the graveyard that is my google docs and so I finished it and don’t hate it hahaha. Hope it does what you were thinking justice!

Word Count: 2.1k

"You must be joking."

"I assure you that I'm not," Auston replied with a massive grin as he took what looked like a standard shoebox, but you knew better than assuming they'd be something as simple as a pair of shoes with the large CCM logo printed across it. "These are for Mia."

"Auston, she's two," you told him, not being able to keep yourself from smiling at how excited your husband seemed.

"I know, but she's a freaking walking machine, babe. I wouldn't be surprised if she picked up on skating pretty quick too."

At that, you had to laugh because he had a point.

It was the middle of March, and your now two-year-old daughter was all over the place. She loved moving and just being active in any possible way she could. With you being 25 weeks pregnant, it was sometimes tough to keep up with her. But luckily, Auston could, and you weren't even surprised that he'd try teaching her how to skate as soon as he felt she was ready.

"Could you bring her to practice tomorrow, please?" Auston asked, breaking your train of thought. "I haven't told the guys yet, but once we're done, I figured I could try skating around with her a bit and see how she likes it."

"Of course," you told him and pushed away from the doorframe you were leaning against. You then walked further into the kitchen, going right up behind him and wrapping your arms around his middle before leaning against him and placing a soft kiss on his shoulder as you watched him unbox the skates. "How do you know these will fit her?"

"When I took her downtown last week, we went and got her sized for them," he explained, still grinning as he looked over his shoulder at you and leaned down so he could peck your lips. "Then, I ordered a custom pair. I also got her a helmet."

"So extra. But at least you're making sure she's protected," you teased and rested your head against his shoulder as you waited to see what the skated looked like.

Needless to say, you were impressed.

They were a classic pair of black skates, but also the tiniest and cutest pair you had ever seen. The ordinarily white patches that were on the skates were red on these and were paired with a set of light blue laces, coinciding with the two colours Mia had been claiming to be her favourites as of late. But that wasn't what really caught your eye. What stood out the most to you was how the tongue's inner part on each skate had a little AM stitched into them.

"AM?" You asked and glanced up at your husband, expectantly.

"Amelia Matthews," Auston said proudly before closing the box and turning around in your hold so that he could wrap his arms around you. "What do you think?"

"I think they're adorable," you told him honestly. "She's going to love them."

"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," he responded and leaned down to catch your lips in a much longer but very sweet kiss. However, the moment was short-lived when a rustling noise sounded through the monitor that was sitting nearby on the counter, followed by Mia's groggy voice calling for you. "Looks like our girl is up from her nap."

"Looks like it," you agreed and stood on your tiptoes to place one more peck on his lips. "She doesn't know you're home yet. Wanna go surprise her?"

"Always."

~*~

The next day around the time you knew practice would be ending, you and Mia headed to the Ford Performance Centre to pick up Auston. Mia was very excited to see her dad, Mitchy and the other guys, but you were looking forward to seeing how this whole skating lesson Auston had planned would play out.

Once the two of you went inside, it was obvious the guys were just finishing up and would soon be getting ready to leave. They were all huddled up, going over some final things, when a distinctive noise sounded over the guys' muffled chatter on the ice.

"Daddy!" Mia exclaimed excitedly as soon as she spotted Auston, loud enough for everyone to hear. And it wasn't long before Auston's previous sombre-looking demeanour melted away at the sight of his daughter.

Everyone laughed before accepting that it was now the end of practice, and there was nothing else to go over for now.

Auston then skated over to the boards as you set down the bag with Mia's skates in them and other belongings on the bench before turning back around to face your husband.

"Hi, Mini," Auston greeted as he took Mia from you and kissed her on the cheek, making her smile widely before wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him.

"Hi, daddy."

Auston then looked back at you and leaned over the boards to peck your lips. "And hello to you too."

You rolled your eyes at his cheesiness but couldn't keep yourself from blushing a little bit. It was ridiculously easy for Auston to get those butterflies that resided in your stomach to flutter like crazy, and he knew it.

Just as you were about to say something back, another voice ruined the moment as they approached.

"Miaaaaaa!" Mitchy exclaimed as he skated up to them, holding his arms out so that Auston could pass his goddaughter to him, not stopping at all, just taking her and skating around a bit as she giggled and clung on to him.

You and Auston watched the two go, grinning widely before he turned back to face you and winked.

"You're looking mighty fine today, Mrs. Matthews," he flirted and leaned against the boards again, smirking at you. "That's a nice hoodie. Where'd you get it?"

"Your side of the closet," you replied and winked suggestively. "Looks better on me, anyways."

"You're not wrong."

A moment later, Mitch returned with your daughter but didn't give her back as more guys came over to say hi to her.

"Whaley, mommy," Mia said as she leaned against Mitch's shoulder and pointed towards her stuffed whale that was resting on the bench beside everything else. "Please."

"Are those skates?" Mo asked as he nodded towards the bag as you moved it to grab the whale and handed it to Mia.

"They are," you confirmed, making all the guys standing nearby light right up.

"No way," Mitchy said as he held onto Mia's whale so she wouldn't drop it. "Are you going to try skating Meems?"

"Uh, huh," she replied before waving to Freddie as he skated over too.

"Well, this should be good," the goalie said as he came to a stop and reached over to ruffle Mia's curls.

"We'll see how it goes," Auston chuckled and took Mia back from Mitch. "C'mon, baby girl, let's get you laced up."

You watched with a smile as he came off the ice and set Mia down on the bench so that he could put her skates and helmet on for her. The guys just about melted over how freaking cute she looked wearing skates for the first time, Mitchy even going to the extent of grabbing your phone from your hand so that he could snap a couple of pictures as Auston finished tying up the first skate.

"You better send those to me," he told you firmly as he handed the device back.

"Yes, Mitch, I will," you responded with a pointed gaze. He then glanced towards the other guys, who were now closer to Auston and Mia, before leaning near you and lowering his voice a bit.

"How're you doing?" He asked and gave you a sympathetic look.

"I'm ok," you told him honestly. "I've been feeling better lately. Just trying to take it easy, so this little one doesn't give me any more troubles."

You then smiled at your cousin and rubbed a hand over your growing belly, making him smile too.

"Good, please keep me posted about everything. I worry about you, and if you ever need Steph or me for anything, we're only a text away."

"I know, Mitchy. Thank you."

Before he could say anything else, Auston was picking Mia up from the bench and taking her onto the ice, which soon captured all of his attention again.

"Steph's going to be so mad you didn't tell her this was happening," he stated before skating off towards your husband and daughter.

A slight feeling of panic washed over you because you knew Steph would most definitely not be impressed by you not telling her that Auston was trying to teach Mia how to skate for the first time but then figured sending her some videos would make up for it.

However, even that plan was soon scrapped when another set of footsteps approached and soon enough, Steph herself was brushing past you.

"Can't believe you were going to let me miss my goddaughter skating for the first time," she grumbled as she set down her bag and grabbed her phone before walking towards you and giving you a sideways hug. "But hi, I missed you. Feeling better?"

"Much," you told her with a chuckle and returned the hug before nodding towards the ice. "Missed you too. Are you ready for this all to go down?"

"Yes!"

The two of you then leaned against the boards, side by side and started recording as Auston set Mia down on the ice.

"Daddy," she gasped nervously as she slipped a little bit once her blades touched the slick surface, but Auston was still holding on to her.

"It's ok, Mini," he told her. "I got you; just keep your feet down. I won't let you fall."

He then started pushing off the ice slowly and continued holding her up as the two glided across the ice together. She wobbled a bit, but the longer they did it for, the steadier she became. And she was having the best time going around like that with all her guys out there with her.

Eventually, Auston let go of her once he was positive she could stand in the skates on her own without falling. He stayed level with her, though, ready to catch her if need be as they moved onto the next part of the so-called lesson.

"Ok, baby," Auston started as Mitchy sat on the ice in front of her, no more than two feet away with his arms extended towards her. "Try to get to Mitchy."

"Ok!" She replied excitedly and went to take a step towards him, but slipped and increased your heart rate. "Woah!"

But Auston caught her, causing you to let out an audible sigh of relief as Steph snickered from beside you.

"Told you I got you," Auston told Mia as he helped her stand upright again, then got down on the ice too just so it'd be easier to catch her again, which everyone knew was inevitable. "Always."

For the next ten minutes or so, she tried to make it across the small space that separated her from her Mitchy. She wasn't too successful, which was to be expected, but she gradually became more confident and was genuinely having fun.

Mitch moved a little bit closer as they were getting ready to wrap it up for the day, and on Mia's very last try, she managed to shuffle across the ice into Mitchy's arms.

The other guys, who were now joined by Will and a few others, had skated away a little bit and were gathering pucks left from practice all stopped to watch her final attempt, then cheered and hollered as they watched her do it.

"Yeah, Mia!" They all yelled before quickly skating over to them again, not leading up on their cheering as they approached your very excited toddler.

"I did it!" She squealed happily and smiled at each of her guys as she held onto Mitch so she wouldn't fall.

"You did!" Mo said while taking her from Mitch and sat her on his shoulder as he began skating around. "We'll make a hockey out of you, now won't we?"

"Only if she wants to," Auston chuckled as he stood back up and skated towards them to take his daughter back. "Good job, Mia!"

The way she was absolutely beaming as Auston held her close again, and she immediately clung onto him as he skated back towards the bench had you feeling so happy, it was unexplainable.

You loved everything about your little family and those who have become the most important to your little girl. It was moments like those that reminded you just how loved she was. And that thought alone made everything seem right.

[this-eel-is-for-real]

New Eel Post (first of many I’m hoping)

So To prefice this, I heard this like old mariner talking in a bar and he was telling this story. And you guys know me and how much I love eels LOL. But yea I just felt like sharing it because its a real spine chiller. So hope you eel enthusiasts enjoy :D 

My name is Saul Spundit, I live off the coast of Romania with my wife of 7 years and our 4 children. We live a happy life... for the most part. One day my eldest daughter asked me, "Papa, can we get an eel?" she said this while holding a 5 dollar gift card to PetSmart. This was crazy to me because there is no PetSmart in Romania there is only Petmart. So I didn't quite know how she got the gift card but I could immediately sense a foul presence. I told her, "Daughter I'm sorry but eels are at least 10-100 lei and we simply can't afford that with your brother's wedding coming up." Upon hearing this my daughter shrieked like she always does when she doesn't get her way, however, there was something different to this shriek. It was almost like there was a chorus of whales harmonizing with her voice. I didn't think anything of it at the time but then I realized my daughter's allergic to whales. How could she be singing with them? This was the first of many strange events. It was the next day that things started getting really fishy ;). My daughter once again approached me asking for an eel but this time she held 2 PetSmart gift cards each. One in each hand, both totaling 10 dollars. And on top of that, she didn't ask for just any regular eel. Oh no, she asked for the Gregorian Eel. Upon her utterance of this, all of the candles in the room got snuffed out and the door slammed shut. "Honey, what are you saying?" I asked. Upon inquiring about this she shrieked once more and her head snapped back 90 degrees. Almost immediately after, a long slithering black thing emerged. It was at this point that I began to become concerned about my once lovely daughter. It took approximately 6 minutes for the eel to fully emerge from my daughter's mouth. Now I was as we say in Romania Spitballing here, but the Eel looked to be 9 feet in length, with 17 rows of teeth, and get this, NO eyes. I could tell he was endemic to the coast of Romania, but how did he get into my home? Better yet, how did he get into my daughter? As soon as the eel fully emerged my daughter fell to the ground. She started slithering like an eel. An uninformed reader might say, "She was doing the worm" but in fact, she was doing... THE EEL. She "slithered" into her bubblegum pink Barbie room. But when I looked back down to where the eel once lay it was gone. I didn't really know what to do, but against all better judgment, I knocked on my daughter's door to check up on her. She let me in and said, "Papa can we get an eel?" holding up 3 PetSmart gift cards all totaling 15 dollars. The 3rd one was in her mouth, so you'd think it would be hard to understand her but in fact, it was clear as Romanian day. It was at this moment that I said yes. All of a sudden my vision went totally and completely blue almost like the ocean. I tried to squirm and writhe out of this situation asking for help from God almighty, but it seemed like God was unimpressed. The Gregorian chants filled my ears somehow... How do I put this? Eel-Like? What was once the holiest of all chants carried the same foul undertones of the eel. The chants had become deafening at this point I covered my ears to no avail. I could make out the faint silhouette of my daughter, but that was not my daughter. That was the Gregorian eel. It was then a voice that somehow overpowered the chanting spoke to me. "ar aris is, rats ar aris gat’atsebuli PetSmart ''. As the chants began to fade into white noise I was struck with inspiration and began to compose in the ancient Romanian art of Haikyu. "Gregorian Eel

9 feet long with lots of teeth

Holy shit an eel" 

And now I am as I am, Precisely as I must be. I am become eel. So anyways here's a selfie... 

Tu fui, ego eris

[theliterateape]

Comedy is Not Harder, It's Just as Hard as It Ever Was

by Don Hall

The best comedians joke about the realities we refuse to see and make us laugh. That's no different than any other time.

In the early nineties I was in a professional comedy ensemble. I had taken the requisite classes, learning to improvise and write sketch comedy, and ComedySportz was one of the few groups that actually paid the performers. My buddy, Kevin Colby, was in it and convinced me to audition. 

I was cast and only then decided to go see the group perform.

I was mortified. It was games improv, like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and I wasn't amused. Puns, racial stereotypes, wigs. WIGS. While I didn't laugh once (except in agony at my predicament) the audience was howling. They loved it.

I shrugged. What the fuck do I know? These idiots are roaring over this.

I was with the ensemble for five years. A few years in, I began teaching classes for them as well as making money on the side writing scripts for corporate events and acting in comedy PSAs. The money wasn't massive but it was money in exchange for performing comedy bits in front of paying audiences.

My difficulty with ComedySportz (and theirs with me) is that my sense of humor veers toward the dark. The shocking. The unconventional.

The safe comedy of goofy mugging, white guys pretending to be Jamaican or Asian, gibberish games, and one-liners, while something I could pull off well enough to stick around for five years, was not my proverbial cup o' tea. I loved the folks I worked with, though, and that made up for my disdain for the comedy.

I learned from them that comedy about nothing is easy. It's actually incredibly easy to get people to laugh. All I had to do was gel up my hair, get introduced as Don "The Taz" Hall, run out, lift my shirt, smack my belly, and the audience would crack up and applaud. 

I preferred (and continue to gravitate toward) Lenny Bruce. Bruce started off in his career as a Borscht Belt goof but the 60's and heroine gave him an angrier, hipper edge.

Give me some pissed off George Carlin, some 'fuck you' of Richard Pryor, some Bill Hicks dissection of humanity any day.

This is the comedy that is hard. Making people laugh while giving them something to think about. A bit edgier than the observational comedy of a Seinfeld or Richard Lewis, this form of comedy relies on challenging whichever cultural orthodoxy exists and our culpability within it. 

George Carlin

“Here’s all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.”

“Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.”

“We're so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody's going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven't learned how to care for one another. We're gonna save the fuckin' planet? . . . And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin' great. It's been here over four billion years . . . The planet isn't goin' anywhere, folks. We are! We're goin' away. Pack your shit, we're goin' away. And we won't leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we'll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.”

Richard Pryor

“All humor is rooted in pain.”

“The black groups that boycott certain films would do better to get the money together to make the films they want to see, or stay in church and leave us to our work.”

"...the less people knew, the louder they got."

"Comedy rules! Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, and there are no rules in stand-up comedy, which I really like. You can do anything you want and you can say anything that comes to mind, just so long as it's funny."

Bill Hicks

"If you want to understand a society, take a good look at the drugs it uses. And what can this tell you about American culture? Well, look at the drugs we use. Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in."

"The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: "Is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we kill those people."

The fun for most of us is that comedy, like any other form of art, is completely and wholly subjective. It is that subjectivity that makes it vibrant and relevant. Subjectively, I find Hannah Gadsby, David Sedaris, Tig Notaro, and McSweeney's to be fucking bores. Subjectively, I find Nicki Glaser, Bill Burr, and Jimmy Carr to be hysterical.

When someone decides that a comedian has 'crossed the line' into offensive territory, they aren't specifically attacking the comedian but the audience who found it funny. The comedian simply becomes the avatar of a section of society that their jokes spoke to in some way.

"If you find yourself laughing at stand-up comedy, it probably isn’t sufficiently progressive."

- Titiana McGrath

One of the great hallmarks of my lifetime is how humorless those on the more conservative side of the political divide tend to be. That is not to say that these folks have no sense of humor but that they have such a long list of things they find offensive to mention in a comic way that it can seem like an absence of humor.

It is that knee jerk offense response—to jokes about religion, sex, race, language, and the totality of the human experience—that makes them so much fun to rankle. In fact, the more outraged they are, the more subversively fun it is to laugh at them and the issues they find so sacrosanct.

Jimmy Carr

“My girlfriend said she wanted me to tease her, so I said, ‘Alright, fatty.'”

“I live near a remedial school. There’s a sign that says, ‘slow – children’. That can’t be good for their self esteem. But look of course on the positive side… they can’t read it.”

“The reason old men use Viagra is not that they are impotent. It’s that old women are so very ugly.”

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but if you took all the money that we in the West spend on food in one week, you could feed the Third World for a year. I’m not sure about you, but I think we’re being overcharged on groceries.”

Is it more difficult for comedians to push those boundaries, to mock the self-seriousness of the modern scolds? I don't believe so. The only true metric is 'Is It Funny?' There are plenty of comics out there experimenting with that very question. If there is a new difficulty it is that the easy targets of established orthodoxy have expanded as the more conservative aspects of culture are being matched by the scolds of the more progressive view of what is and is not offensive.

Could a movie like Blazing Saddles ever be made again? Of course. Would it be widely distributed? Probably not. That doesn't make it harder to create just harder to market. If it's funny to enough people, it will make cash. If not, it won't. As much as the Capitalist market sucks, that's pretty much meritocracy at work. No longer limited to movie theaters and the companies that distribute to them, the avenues to eyeballs is wide open.

2020's Host was shot by three students on handheld video cameras over a long weekend and cost $35,000 (less than Marvel spent on Chris Evans's ass pads). It went on to gross a hefty $248.6m at the box office, smashing the record for an indie film at the time. It was not distributed into movie theaters. Granted, it isn't a comedy but the relationship between horror and comedy, as it relates to filmmaking, is that of incestuous cousins.

The best thing about this state of democratization of art is that, if you are offended by the subject matter or taboos mocked, you have plenty of other options to watch.

That's why I don't watch much Bo Burnham, Hasan Minhaj, or Wanda Sykes. I have my subscription to Louis C.K., the many specials by Ricky Gervais, and can check out anything featuring Jim Norton.

Smart, edgy, aggressive comedy that causes the audience to guffaw and then talk about it after has always been hard. It's supposed to be. If it wasn't, every dipshit with a YouTube channel could do it.

[cutesuki--bakugou]

Don’t Forget Me

Art in banner done by me.

College Life / Mermaid / Kimi no Na wa (Your Name) inspired AU

It’s all nothing but a dream. A series of dreams that are all too real. That’s all it is. Your soul - or whatever it was - couldn’t possibly be swapping places with a Merman. One, mermaids aren’t real. Two, that’s not even possible! Is it? 

Mermaid!Bakugou Katsuki x Fem!Human Reader

Want to start from be beginning? Check the Don’t Forget Me tag. 

Genre: Romance / Angst Story 

Rating: Explicit | Adult Themes, Interspecies Sex (merman / human), Masturbation, Alcohol, Animal death / hunting (whales, fish, sharks, etc), Cursing, Descriptions of Injuries and Blood 

A/N: This is my part for the @bnhabookclub weekly collab event Just Add Water for MerMay! I know there isn’t much going on in this, but it’s just the first chapter to a new multichapter fic. Per the rules of the collab, I used the prompt “That’s just an urban legend”. I’m excited, because I’ve wanted to do a Mer!Bakugou x reader for a LONG time and could never think of anything. But when this theme was announced, I was watching Kimi no Na wa and immediately had this idea. So, full disclosure, the theme of switching bodies in their sleep / forgetting each other is inspired by that movie, but that is all that I take away from it. 

Prologue: Stone

Chapter Rating: Teen | Cursing

Words:  1,855

You were doing it again. 

How many times had you caught yourself staring at the delicate necklace in your hands? More than you could probably count on all your fingers and toes, and you were sure that number had nearly doubled just in the last week. You really weren’t sure why you were drawn to it so intensely, nor why it gave you such a deep sense of loss and loneliness. 

Where had you gotten it from? 

You couldn’t remember. In truth, you couldn’t remember getting it at all. As far as you could recollect, it had been around your neck when you woke up one morning, about two months ago. Since then, you refused to go a day without it, even if it didn’t necessarily match your outfit or any particular occasion. You felt so lost without it around your neck, like a part of you was away, off in some distant land or deep within the sea. 

Why did you think that? 

Of all things, why would you assume that this missing part of you was in the ocean? Was it because of the necklace? Probably. The silver clam shaped pendant that rested in your palm was most likely the culprit to make you think of the sea. But that particular piece of the jewelry wasn’t what kept you so entranced. Set in the middle was a small, perfectly round stone, and its brilliance is what you couldn’t help but stare into. To anyone else, it would just appear to be a small marble, with brilliant deep indigo, swirling turquoise and hints of radiant purples. There were sparkles of twinkling white, like light reflecting off a water's surface, and if you gazed into it long enough, you could have sworn that the colors were mixing and twisting, as if there truly was water inside the stone. 

It was so beautiful. Had someone given it to you? Whoever did must have cared about you so deeply to give you something so special. You had asked all your friends and family if they knew anything about how you got it, but no one knew anything. You received some weird looks and uncomfortable responses when you tried to ask them, but that didn’t bother you much, not when you had been dealing with people finding you strange for almost half a year now, anyway. 

Why did they find you weird again? You couldn’t remember.

All you knew was that it had to do with this necklace. You had tried to find out what it was made of to try and get any hints on where it may have come from, but each jewelry store or stone expert you took it to, they all had the same response. They just didn’t know. Many offered to buy it from you at varying prices, their interest peaked and their hopes of being the first person to discover a new stone pushing them forward. But you resisted, as just even letting it out of your hands so they could look at it enough to make you nearly burst into tears. You couldn’t let it go and you wouldn’t, either. Not ever. Not for anything. 

Because it was precious. It was the only thing that you had that could help to calm this nearly unending sense of longing. 

But what was it you were longing for? 

Or who? 

Why did that always pop up in your mind? There were so many pieces of scattered thoughts that you just couldn’t put together. A person. The sea. Feeling like a piece of you was missing. You wanted these feelings to end, but you knew that they wouldn’t, not until you found what you were searching for. 

With a frustrated sigh, you put the necklace back on around your neck, clasping it in place with skilled fingers. Standing from your bed, you shuffled your way towards your desk, lightly running your fingers down along the slender metal chain. Your mind was still in a hazy grip of sleep, barely registering that the electronic clock mostly hidden by books and other stationary read 5:49 AM, though that didn’t really matter. Your mind was racing with the overbearing thoughts, and as you sat down in your squeaky office chair, you were already near breaking out into tears.

The necklace wasn’t the only clue you had. Scattered among the desk were notebooks and papers, though you had refused to touch them for the last few weeks. At first, you had meticulously looked over every page and every written note, trying to do everything you could to learn about who this person was that you were missing. But now they sat on your desk, abandoned in defeat. There were many things in the notes that didn’t make sense to you now, though according to what you had written, you had understood it all at one point. 

What you had written. 

That was what was the most odd. There were two very distinct handwritings within the notebooks and scribbled on the scrap pieces of paper or sticky notes. Yours was so proper and easy to read, clean and steady. The other was rough with some of the characters almost completely illegible, requiring you to assume what the person writing must have been trying to say. Large and scratchy, it almost resembled the handwriting of a child or what you assume would be someone new to writing on paper. The phrases. The choice of words. All of it was completely different from yours. 

It had been another person. Someone sat in your chair, in your room, and wrote these messages to you. At first, you thought that it just had to be a prank. One of your friends was fucking with you. That was the only realistic solution. But none of them talked this way, and if you were honest, they weren’t exactly clever enough to pull off such a big ordeal over months and months. 

The way they talked… It was so strange. You just couldn’t wrap your head around it, and if you were honest, you thought that they must have been a little crazy. Yet, you weren’t all that rattled in most of your responses, like you knew what they had been saying to be the truth. 

The conversations were so… natural. In fact, most of it was like a diary, with the scratchy handwriting cataloging what had happened that day, how they felt about it, and what they had done. 

This school shit that you humans do is so stupid and pointless. Who the fuck needs to know about… what is it called? Calculus? You’re never going to use that shit, I’m not bothering with keeping up with it, fuck that. You always catch up on your own anyway. That bitch Midoriya or whatever gave you some fucking flowers today. I thought about stomping on them and telling him to fuck off, but I just took them and left. You need to tell that prick you’re not into him or this shit will never stop. Also, the way you humans handle courtship is fucked. I didn’t do shit today otherwise. Just stayed in the room. I did find your sketchbook though. You’re getting better, but you still can’t remember us for shit. 

Pulling your eyes up from the paper, they immediately landed on the mentioned sketchbook, which was tucked up beneath some schoolbooks. Carefully, you pulled it out, setting it down on the pile of papers to thumb through it. 

It had been so long since you had even opened this thing. The feeling of the coarse paper beneath your fingertips brought a small smile to your face, as did seeing all your old sketches and doodles. Though, the smile faded as you reached near the middle of the sketchbook, your eyes tearing up immediately at the contents of the page. The page was completely covered in drawings of what looked to be mermaids, or mermen, to be more accurate. They were mostly faceless and unidentifiable, the sketches geared more towards poses and anatomy. The only thing mostly consistent was the tail. It seemed to be the same over all the drawings, with matching fins and scribbled patterns. 

“Mermaids… I’ve never cared to draw them before, why did I…?” 

After another turn of the page, you were met with similar things, only this time they had heads and hair, jewelry, pieces of clothing, and even weapons. Only one of the sketches resembled the previous drawings, and his particular features called to you. The feeling of recognition and longing grew fiercer with another turn of the page, which was all nothing but sketches of that particular merman’s head with varying expressions and positions. He was particularly attractive, with slanted piercing eyes and a mass of fluffy spiked hair on his head. He had fin-like ears that were mostly drooped, but flared out on the drawings with a more intense expression, where his mouth was open in a yell or intense fanged snarl. 

A small gasp left your lips as a drop of liquid suddenly landed onto the paper, pulling you out of your daze. Crying? Why were you crying? Why did your heart feel like it was about to be ripped from your chest? It wasn’t possible for this to be the man that you had been longing for. You had drawn him as a mermaid! They weren’t real, and there was no way that was possible. He couldn’t even get into your room, let alone sit in your chair and write you letters. 

“I’m so ridiculous…” You whispered quietly to yourself, wiping the tears from your flushed cheeks. Had you been blushing? You didn’t even notice. “Mermaids… That’s just an urban legend. A myth. I must have just been in a phase… Maybe I saw a movie or an anime with them, and I got super invested? But then… they’re so…” 

Page after page, more sketches followed, some making you giggle while others made your chest ache so badly you thought you would pass out. But then, there was something scribbled onto a page that made your entire body grow cold, stomach twisting into such a tight knot you were sure that you’d vomit. 

Save me. 

“Save… Save you?” You choked out into the silent room with a trembling voice, more tears cascading down your cheeks as you reached up to grip the pendant around your neck tightly. It was in the familiar scratchy handwriting, though it was more frantic and messy than you had ever seen. Hiccupping, you brought the pendant up to your lips, pressing the stone against them as you struggled to calm yourself. 

Save you from what? What the hell happened? Did I save you? Why the hell can’t I remember!

It was then that you felt an odd pulsing against your lips, and as you pulled away in shock, your teary gaze was locked onto the pendant in your hands, which was pulsing slowly with a pale green glow. And with it came a thought, like a soft voice whispering in your ear that you couldn’t ignore. 

He’s calling to me… 

[bearsace]

the tale of yukimura, kami-sama, and the impossibly long year

Summary: “It’s the boar woman!” were the four fateful words spoken when Sanada Yukimura found himself offending a literal goddess. A life debt’s some pretty hefty business when someone's patiently awaiting their chance to kill you.

In her defense, patience is a virtue— she totally should have smote him for that.

Author’s Note: So basically this turned out a lot longer than it was supposed to be, but that’s probably no surprise to some of you. This was such a pleasure to write; I really enjoyed world-building and all the character development, as well as the romance, humor, and touch of angst. I hope you enjoy it! Special thanks to my beta for this fic, @juminly. You can also find this on AO3 here.

Pairings: Yukimura/MC

Genre: Romance, adventure, hurt/comfort

Rating: T

Word Count: 15k+

Read Time: 30+ minutes

Like all great legends about all great spirits, it began with a single sentence.

Well, something like that. If you asked Yukimura, it would definitely have begun because she provoked him, dammit! She started this— not him.

At least that’s what he’d say. But the history textbooks beg to differ because, as this humble author opines, any goddess would be offended if some hooligan selling women’s clothing came out of left field and said those Four Fateful Words:

“It’s the boar woman!”

—

Dear reader, perhaps I should take this moment to backtrack.

Meet our hero: Sanada Yukimura, modest merchant and part-time warlord. In this rewind, our beloved Yuki has found himself in quite the predicament. You see, he is atop a woman, atop a cliff, atop a heap of very, very bad luck.

She was quite lovely, he noted, because he was after all a man. Her skin was soft like a leaf, her lips prettily shaped like a flower petal that frowned up at him.

But also her hair looked like dirt and she appeared as if she woke up from a long nap. It was not a fetching look.

“You run like a boar,” he said.

Her nostrils flared like one.

“How insulting,” she proclaimed imperiously. “I should smite you for that, but I follow the old laws. Know that that is your first warning out of three.”

“Smite me? What is this, the 1400s? This is 1582. Stop using outdated language.”

“I swear, you’re really pushing it for warning number two.”

One thing to know about spirits (which Yukimura obviously did not know she was) is that they are particularly testy when it comes to their items of worship. This particular spirit had just had a spat with the actual spirit of boars who was, ahem… 

A bit of a swine, so to speak.

So to be called a boar woman? Yukimura might as well have burned down her shrine.

—

“Oh, now you’ve done it!” Yukimura yelled in front of the burning shrine.

Commander Yudai was objectively one of the worst that the Uesugi-Takeda forces could “boast.” This was made clear as the Uesugi-Takeda lords (and Yukimura and the brave, awesome Sasuke) took in the sight of the blazing shrine, wood screeching and popping like firecrackers.

It had been many months since Yukimura had last seen the strange woman. After a rustle from the leaves in which she simply got up and walked away (and also threw him a select few haughty glances), she sort of just… disappeared.

Like, into a tree.

That was weird.

Honestly? Yukimura tried not to think about it. Very much like you and me, his head hurt if he tried to think too much, but specifically if he thought about tree/boar women it would hurt A Lot. Unlike you and me he had no access to Excedrin Migraine Geltabs.

If he did, he’d be taking them by the spoonful right now because again: Commander Yudai could fall off a bridge and Yuki would not miss him.

Lord Shingen in particular seemed appropriately handsome-slash-irritated. Tall, proud— like an aspen— he stepped onto the charred grass in front of the shrine with his jaw tense.

Yukimura realized that of course Lord Shingen would take particular offense to Commander Yudai burning down this shrine. His best friend got his temple burned down by Oda Nobunaga.

Yukimura turned a scowl onto Commander Yudai and opened his mouth as if to scold him...

And then, a spectre in the distance— covered only in a dress made out of leaves as if she had grown it herself, barefoot, tear-stained—

It was her.

“What the hell?!”

Attention caught, two gazes— one charcoal, one mismatching— turned upon him. It was Lord Kenshin who spoke first.

“Be quiet, Yukimura. You’re spoiling my fun.”

The firelight was a crusade in her eyes. When they met his for a moment, his lips parted in time to call after her before she bounced back into the woods as if she were a doe in human form.

Lords Kenshin and Shingen turned to look, and Sasuke adjusted his glasses, looking pretty cool.

But Yuki was already in a sprint, leaving them behind and chasing after the willowy figure as she retreated deeper into the forest.

—

Never let it be spoken that this author has a particular bias for or against Yukimura, because it can safely be said that he’s totally about to deserve the branch to the face that’s going to happen in three… two…

“Ow! What-”

The branch was leafy and heavy and hurt bad. Like a poor sport at a limbo party, Yuki smacked his forehead right into it and fell to the ground.

“How dare you?!” Her eyes were flaming and she looked just as aggressive as she did the night that he first met her.

“How dare me ?! You’re the one who hit me! Hold on… you’re definitely her! What are you doing all the way out here?”

“My trees were crying because the land was aflame. And I discover when I get here that it was… it was… you! ”

“What was me, Boar Woman?”

Yukimura deserved the kick that came after. But in the spirit of bias neither for nor against Yukimura, one must admit that she could’ve at least waited till he got up.

He brushed himself off, scowling.

“What’s your problem anyway?”

“My problem is men like you who think it’s okay to desecrate my shrines like this. That worm didn’t even offer coins before praying to me! And you know what he said to me?”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“He said, and I quote, ‘oh wow, I sure do hope that Lord Shingen promotes me!’ And right after? He set my shrine on fire.”

Yukimura winced. “Aw, man. I’m actually really sorry about that. I didn’t condone it. If it helps, we don’t like him either. I think that Lord Kenshin’s probably actually going to kill him.”

She crossed her arms and sniffled, and Yukimura actually felt bad. She was obviously distressed over the loss of her shrine. If there was one thing that Yukimura was not good at, it was consoling crying women. Or consoling women. Or women.

Gruffly, in some attempt to make her feel better, he grumbled, “So you… what. You live here or something?”

“You’re getting awfully close to warning number two.”

“I’m just asking! Jeez, don’t mind me trying to make you feel better. I didn’t even realize that boars like you hung around shrines like this.”

“That’s it! This is your second warning!”

—

If I may interject: there is a key feature to note about the spirits to which our beloved non-boar woman belongs. 

You and I would call it the “three-strike system,” but these spirits would call it the mercy-and-honor system. You see, as opposed to “three strikes and you’re out,” these benevolent spirits believed in “three insults and you’re smote.”

That is to say, Yukimura was really, really pushing it if he didn’t want to be turned into a lump of moss.

—

“Second warning,” Yukimura grumbled as he trudged back to camp, brushing dirt off his armor. They had quite a fight, and she had quite a swing. “Second warning my foot. Who does she think she is? Some kind of spirit or something?”

Here, I ask you to share a knowing glance with me.

“Ah, Yuki!” Lord Shingen waved at him from his spot at the campfire. “You’ve finally returned. What caught your eye? A fair maiden in the forest?”

“I’ll kill you,” Lord Kenshin said and sipped his alcohol.

Yukimura bowed his head to Lord Shingen. “Fair maiden… something like that.”

The brilliant and cool Sasuke handed him a portion of dried rice, and Yukimura thought that maybe he should ask his clever friend about the strange woman. People really were crazy these days.

—

“SANADA YUKIMURA… AWAKEN!”

And awaken he did. As most people would when feeling hot breath on their face and looking up to find a giant, grotesque woman with tusks around a leather belt, a white moustache, a gigantic bone-spear, and the head of a pig, Yukimura definitely, definitely awakened.

He also let out a scream that Sasuke would’ve teased him about, if he’d heard it.

“A-are you a ghost?! Are you here to kill me?”

“FOOLISH BOY!” The thing boomed. “I AM THE GODDESS OF THESE ROLLING HILLS, OF THE EARTH BENEATH YOUR TREMBLING FEET. I AM MOUNTAIN WHALE!”

(It’s a literal translation.)

“YOU HAVE PLEASED ME, SANADA YUKIMURA, BY BURNING DOWN THE SHRINE OF THAT wench WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED. SHE WHO BELIEVES THAT THE TREE IS MIGHTIER THAN THE BOAR, WHO THINKS TO STEAL MY POWER FROM ME.”

Silently to himself, Yukimura reasoned that if a boar ran into a tree, it would surely have at least a headache similar to the one he was having right now. Was it necessary to speak so loudly?

“YOU HAVE MY FAVOR AND SHALL BE MY IMMORTAL CHAMPION. NEVER AGAIN SHALL SHE LAY A HAND UPON YOU AS SHE HAS TONIGHT.”

And then— oh, God, and then— Mountain Whale leaned her pig nose down toward Yukimura and Yukimura actually whimpered — and she ordered,

“KISS IT, BOY.”

It should be noted that Yukimura was still trying to wake up. No— he hadn’t even woken up at all. He had been very rudely dragged back to the world of the living and frankly none of this comprehended. From his understanding:

There was… a whale? Of some kind?

The unnamed “wench” angered Mountain Whale… who now wanted Yukimura to kiss her?

Where was Lord Shingen when you needed him?

“S-sorry, but I don’t t-think I really wanna kiss you tonight— I-I’m sure you’re a very nice woman outside of my tent but I’m just not feeling the c-chemistry—”

“YOU THINK I WOULD ALLOW YOU TO LAY YOUR MORTAL LIPS ON MY DIVINE SELF? THE SPEAR, BOY. KISS THE SPEAR.”

His eyes flashed to the bone-spear in her hand. That wasn’t much better.

But Mountain Whale had this look in her eyes like she would absolutely be content to fry Yukimura over drinks and campfire songs, so with another whimper, he pursed his lips.

Chu-!

It wasn’t that bad, actually. The spear, despite being made of bones, didn’t invoke some dormant, loudmouthed half-pig within him. He felt a warmth spread from his lips to his chest and limbs.

Mountain Whale reared her head back and cackled.

“MY CHAMPION, MY IMMORTAL CHAMPION!” She cried. “FOREVER WILL YOUR OFFSPRING WORSHIP ME. COME, BOY, BE THE FIRST TO SING MY PRAISE.”

“??????” Yukimura said.

“IT IS WELL ENOUGH.” It appeared that even Mountain Whale also realized that this was about as good as it got when it came to Yukimura. “WHEN YOU NEED ME, BOY, LOOK TO THE SETTING SUN AND PRAY.”

With a flourish, she nodded at him and bopped him on the head with her bone-spear. She probably should’ve disappeared into thin air in a flurry of boar hair and tusks, but instead she whipped her ragged cloak and lumbered out his tent, across camp, and into the woods rather anticlimactically.

Yukimura sleep-stumbled like a drunken man to the tent flap and watched her wade clumsily across the river. The night guard at the campfire stared at him in horror.

“Don’t say anything,” Yukimura snapped. “I’m just as confused as you are.”

“I wasn’t,” the guard said, shifting uncomfortably. “But if I may, you certainly have an interesting taste in women, Lord Yukimura.”

—

“Oh, you mean Yama Kujira!” Sasuke looked very handsome in the early morning light, and Yukimura wondered if he woke up like this every morning or if he was just blessed.

They were on their way back to Echigo, the battle won and the shrine repaired as best as Lord Shingen could manage. The rest of the troops and their bosses had gone ahead while Sasuke and Yukimura decided to stop by a little teahouse in a town on the way there.

Yukimura didn’t particularly feel immortal, and he wasn’t entirely sure he believed Mountain Whale when she said that he was. If he was, it would kinda be a huge inconvenience, considering he didn’t particularly want to spend the rest of his life with only Mountain Whale for company. He imagined living life so desperately lonely that he relied on her for friendship— shaking the disturbing thought away, he addressed Sasuke.

“Yama Kujira? With the head of a pig?”

“And a bone spear?”

“Yeah, that’s her.” Yukimura affirmed. “Not that there’s any reason for asking, but I thought it was, uh… Mountain Whale?”

“That’d be the literal translation; the Japanese boar, ‘Yama Kujira’ literally means Mountain Whale. One of the famous nature spirits who cannot age, but can die like any of the rest of us. Fun fact, one of our soldiers actually claimed that he hunted down, killed, and ate Yama Kujira for dinner. Why do you ask?”

“Alright, first of all, that soldier was definitely lying. Second of all…”

Honestly, why did Yukimura ask? He was still somewhat in denial and figured that maybe if Sasuke looked at him like he’d grown a second head, it’d reinforce the idea that it was just a dream. Even if it was a legend, that was too close for comfort.

He glanced warily over his shoulder as if expecting to hear “BOY” and the clinking of tusks on a leather belt. 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

—

For the months following, Yukimura was way too scared to look at the sunset just in case he’d accidentally summon Mountain Whale back to him.

So he made it a habit to begin packing up his shop a little earlier, then went back to the inn for some tea and dumplings before heading into the woods to report to Lord Shingen’s scouts. It was during this routine that he, for the third and final time, insulted that one weirdo from the cliff.

By now it had been nearly a year since he saw her last, and this was the first time he had ever seen her in daylight. On the outskirts of Azuchi, she looked just as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

“Aren’t you-”

“It’s the boar woman!”

And these, dear reader, are the Four Fateful Words at which we left off when we first began our story.

The humble author would like to take a moment to emphasize that Yukimura does not particularly know how to speak to women, boar or otherwise. But one thing that he did learn was that boars were particularly scary, and when her eyes flared with anger, he felt his soul regress back into the Paleolithic era.

The phrase slipped out of his lips before he had the chance to remind himself that there were, indeed, boar women out there who were, indeed, waiting to be summoned.

“That’s warning three,” she said softly.

(Somewhere in the distance, Lord Shingen furrowed his brow, his brush pausing above the parchment of a missive.

“What is it, cousin?” Asked Lord Yoshimoto sitting across from him.

“I don’t know. I feel… a disturbance. As if someone, somewhere, is disrespecting a woman.”)

“That’s not fair!” Yukimura could not help but gnash his teeth in frustration.

“How is it not fair?” She snapped. “I warned you twice before this! Did your mother never teach you stories of spirits? The mercy-and-honor system? What did you think I was gonna do, go tattle on you to your lord?”

“Well, I definitely didn’t think you were a spirit! You look like a-” Wisely, he snapped his mouth shut. “Look— people don’t really believe in the old gods anymore. I didn’t even believe in them until a couple of months ago. And I dunno, you do run like a boar. Can’t we just start over?”

“No can do. Unfortunately, I began the process of mercy when I gave you your first warning. If I don’t deliver honor, then I’m a liar, unless you offer me something of equal or greater value. And you can’t. So hold still, please. I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

And then she closed her eyes, and her hands began glowing. She was a sight to behold as the trees seemed to sigh inward toward her, the setting sun silhouetting her against its harsh glare as willow vines lifted her towards him. As he drew his sword to fight back, the vines effortlessly disarmed him and sank his weapon deep into its foliage.

Oh God, he thought, a breath leaving him as she came closer, and he backed away. This is the end, isn’t it? Please, don’t let Lord Shingen suffer too deeply when he sees my corpse…

“SANADA YUKIMURA!”

—

...wait. He knew that voice!

He opened his eyes to find vines wrapped around his wrists, his legs, and the spirit glaring at something over his shoulder.

“Mountain Whale...?!” Yukimura groaned.

She was absolutely as ridiculous-looking as he remembered, but more importantly, the spirit drew Yukimura closer to and behind herself as the glow of her hands focused elsewhere. Her eyes narrowed on him.

“You know each other?”

“Yeah, I met Mountain Whale the day that our ex-Commander Yudai burned down your shrine-”

“RIGHTFULLY SO!”

“-and she showed up in my tent and made me kiss her staff. How do you know Mountain Whale?”

As he spoke, a certain… wrath lashed around the spirit’s splendid features. It was eerily beautiful, the way she seemed to blaze with furious light. It was like watching somebody realize something they desperately, desperately wanted to be untrue. She ignored his question in favor of a voice that boomed,

“Please don’t tell me you actually kissed her staff.”

“Well, what would you have done?”

“Not kissed it!”

“She was going to kill me, dummy!”

“I TIRE OF THIS CHATTER. wench, WHAT BUSINESS DOES YOUR WEAK AND PATHETIC SELF HAVE WITH MY CHAMPION?”

The spirit groaned. It took a second for it to click for Yukimura, but when it did—

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

“You? You’re ‘wench?’”

“Ignoring the sheer offense I take to that, yes. You must be her champion… figures. Mountain Whale, old friend,” she implored, her voice grated sweet. “It seems to me that there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. You see, you’ve claimed this man as your champion, but I’m afraid that I claimed him first.”

“I don’t belong to anyone-”

“Remember a year ago, Whale, when you and I had that little spat about whether Lake Biwa should be used as a breeding ground for your wild boars or turned back into a forest? I met him right after that, long before my shrine on the Usui Pass burned down and you found him. I think we can both agree that his life is in my hands, yes? Perhaps if I could humbly ask you to release your claim?”

“HMM… HMM…” Mountain Whale stroked her moustache. “AN INTERESTING PROPOSAL, wench. I AM AFRAID THAT I CANNOT HONOR IT, HOWEVER, AND MUST KILL YOU.”

“You cannot kill me. It is lawfully impossible.”

“SILENCE!”

“No, Mountain Whale, I mean it. You can say what you wish, but the old laws will not allow you to kill me.”

“NOR WILL THEY ALLOW YOU TO KILL MY CHAMPION.”

“You’re right. They will not— it seems we’ve reached an impasse. Unfortunately, if I kill this man, I will be murdering your champion. However, he’s reached my three warnings. If you keep him, it will be dishonorable. Both of us are a bit stuck.”

Yukimura had not thought it possible for Mountain Whale to actually be quiet, but for now she was, keeping her beady glare trained on the spirit whose jaw seemed to be working on instinct.

“I propose a deal,” she said.

“I object,” Yukimura interrupted. A warning glance from her was barely enough to shut him up as he scowled at her.

“As I was saying,” the spirit snipped, “You enjoy the hunt, yes, Whale? For longer than I can remember, you have enjoyed it. I propose that you hunt your champion for, say, a year, during which time I will protect him as my own and keep him at my side. If I fail to keep him alive, not only will you have a tasty warlord snack, but I will also allow you to kill me-”

“I ACCEPT!”

“-I’m not finished. I will also allow you to kill me, and you will be rid of me forever. However, if you fail to catch him, you will release him into my care where I will kill him as honor dictates. You will also personally build me a thousand new shrines across Japan.”

“...BUT I WILL GET TO KILL YOU?”

“If you succeed.”

“THEN WE HAVE A DEAL, wench. YOU HAVE SEVEN SUNSETS, AND THAT IS WHEN MY HUNT BEGINS.”

As the odd rivals shook hands, Yukimura couldn’t help but be impressed at how good of a deal-maker she was. Either that, or Mountain Whale just really wanted to kill her, in which case Yuki could kinda relate. On the other hand, though, he would likely not be human if fear did not grip him at how casually the two bartered whether or not Yukimura would be Mountain Whale’s dinner in a year’s time.

Yukimura happened to be human, so unfortunately he found himself quite troubled by his predicament and also irritated at how it came to be.

“Are you serious?” he growled as Mountain Whale lumbered back into the forest. “Are. You. Serious!”

“Don’t give me that,” the spirit sniffed. “Trust me, I pretty much just saved your life.”

“... how ?!”

“If Mountain Whale and I continued to fight over you, our Creator would have just smote you to keep the peace, and I’d still be dissatisfied because I was not the one to do it. I’ll be protecting you this next year, so you don’t have to worry about Mountain Whale killing you.”

“Oh, jeez, thanks. That’s one less thing off my plate. Now all I have to worry about is you killing me.”

“I did say I’d make it painless, didn’t I? Now, come on. We only have seven sunsets. I’ll say what I will about her, but she is a brilliant huntress; we need to get going this instant if we want to outsmart her.”

“Like hell I’m going with you!”

The spirit closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose like a high-schooler who had just won the senior superlative for “Least Likely to Strangle Yukimura on Instinct (Don’t Give In Now!!).” When she opened them again, she tossed him her sweetest smile.

“Yukimura,” she explained patiently. “Mountain Whale is not the spirit of boars. She is the spirit of the hunt. You will not survive even a day with her hunting you if you don’t come with me. Think about it this way: you would have died regardless.”

“Not if you just gave up this stupid three warning thing.”

“For the record, it’s not stupid. It’s how the old gods have kept promises for many years. Only a promise can break a promise. And you think that, what— if I’d just went on my merry way you’d have lived the rest of your life in peace as Mountain Whale’s immortal champion?”

His silence was rather telling.

She scoffed, “Right, obviously. Okay, here’s the run-down. Technically, you became immortal when you kissed that staff. The only person who can take it away is her. And the reason for that is because she wants you to essentially become her immortal boar for her to hunt. Unkillable. Always running. Forever. Think very long and hard as much as your sweet little mind allows; is that really what you want?”

Yukimura scowled. No, it was not what he wanted.

But on the other hand, at the end of this year it seemed that he would die no matter what— either by the hand of the spirit, or the hand of Mountain Whale. And perhaps if he had a year’s time, he could try to find a way out of this arrangement before it came time to kill him. Assuming the spirit could actually do as she said and protect him. He gave a frustrated yell and kicked at the ground before turning to face her.

“I have three conditions,” he said finally.

In this author’s opinion, it was a bit greedy of Yuki to demand, because she was the one protecting him and not vice versa. She thought the same thing but was a good soul nonetheless, so she waved her hand in a gesture to continue.

“First,” Yuki huffed, “You have to remain open to finding some way to forgive me for my three offenses. Only a promise can break a promise, right? You have to give me the chance to make a different promise you can accept that’s worth my life. Second, you don’t go making deals like that again! It’s not fair that I didn’t even have a say. Maybe I would’ve been down to being Mountain Whale’s immortal punching bag, you know.”

“I doubt it, but this seems reasonable so far. Your final request?”

“My final request...” Yuki took a deep breath. “My final request is that you find some way to heal Lord Shingen.”

She raised a brow. “Who?”

“I’m his vassal. And he’s… he doesn’t have a lot of time left, okay? He has trouble breathing, and coughs too much, and has some heart problems, and, look, I hardly even know who you are, or what you do, but you seem like you have the resources to find some way to make him better. I just want to see his goal achieved so that he can go home again. You do that, and I won’t argue for the whole year we’re together. And when it’s time to kill me, I won’t even make things hard for you.”

For a moment, the spirit seemed disbelieving before her lips pursed with something akin to a grudging respect. “I see… very well. I agree to this exchange of services, provided you hold up your end.”

And, gracefully, she knelt toward the earth and laid one lithesome hand upon it. Between her splayed fingers, stems sprouted, and they wrapped upward around her palm, her wrist, like a playful serpent. She stood again, the greenery uprooting itself to follow her, and turned her palm to Yukimura— from it, one brilliant silver flower bloomed.

The author has it on good authority that if Sasuke were there, he would have found it quite hilarious how Yuki’s mouth hung open. He looked like one of those wall plug outlets or something.

“Make a milk tea out of this flower, sweetening it only with honey,” the spirit instructed, plucking it from her hand and tucking the stem into Yukimura’s armor. “Make sure he drinks the whole thing then eats the petals. Your lord will find himself healing by the time we are hidden, and should he survive the next year, I will allow you to say goodbye and give him enough flowers to live a long life comfortably before I kill you myself.”

Yukimura gently touched his fingers to the delicate petals of the flower, then raised his eyes back to her— her gaze seemed almost sympathetic, and he scowled under the sincerity of it.

“Thanks. I— I’m gonna go—”

“We don’t have much time. Give it to someone you trust, and we will be on our way shortly after. I will meet you in your room when the moon is above the treeline.”

—

In the end, Yukimura gave the flower to Sasuke. Milk tea, honey, petals— he had been reciting the instructions in his head like a mantra and relayed them to his best friend, whom he knew he would not see for a year.

Of all people, it made sense that Sasuke so easily believed him. He informed Lords Kenshin and Shingen of the predicament as Yuki watched from the shadows while Lord Shingen sipped at the tea. He almost seemed to heal before their very eyes, each breath becoming lighter— heart and mind soothed, Yukimura made his way back to his room, where the spirit was already waiting for him.

“Hello, Yukimura. Are you prepared?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he replied, voice thick with emotion. “Let me just pack.”

“No need. I’ve done so already. I hope you’ll forgive me that.”

She was far pleasanter now than she had been before, nodding at a bag on his bed. If Yuki had been anyone dumber, he might have even forgotten how desperately she wanted to kill him. He gave her a wordless nod and slung the bag around his shoulders. It was an interesting texture— he realized that it was made out of woven branches.

“So, what?” He gruffed as they left the castle and approached the stables. “You going to ride too?”

“No, but your horse knows where to go. I’ll be with you the whole time; keep in mind that we have to reach a safe haven before Mountain Whale sets out for us, but we can afford a few rests if you need them. Just stop the horse and lay your hand on the ground, and I’ll be there.”

All this “look to the sunset” or “moon above the treeline” or “hand on the ground” stuff was really starting to grate on Yukimura’s nerves. Didn’t these people know how to send smoke signals or something?

He mounted his horse and watched, fascinated, as she took a step forward, and as easily as if she were swan-diving into water, leapt into the rocky ground and disappeared.

Moments later, his horse turned his head as if beckoned by an unseen force and began to gallop.

—

During this brief interlude, the author would like to thank you, dear reader, for putting up with the shenanigans of Yukimura and the spirit thus far, because both would be too stubborn to thank you themselves. Rest assured that our hero will spend the next seven Gregorian days kicking at the ground in anger, chowing down on tasteless rice, and overall bemoaning his situation that any theologist would be happy to find themselves in.

Aside from that, he had to warily hand it to the spirit; the horse really did know where to go. Many times was Yukimura nearly thrown off his mighty steed because it would suddenly change directions unbidden.

Every now and then, he would look at the ground and it would seem to ripple, or at the trees that seemed to point their branches and laugh. He figured that that was the spirit travelling beside him with the wind. He’d scowl down at her sometimes and could have sworn the leaves chuckled.

The days and nights that he travelled were both fairly uneventful aside from these, and so, because you are not here to listen to this respectful-yet-much-obliged author wax poetic about Yuki’s grumbling, we shall move on with our tale.

—

“Uh… this is it?” Yukimura asked groggily an hour before the seventh sunrise.

“Excuse you,” the spirit said, materializing for the first time in many days. As Yukimura dismounted his horse, it bowed its head as if in deference to the spirit then cantered away into the trees, disappearing into a thick veil of fog. The spirit walked up out of the ground, the soil parting for her as if she were a tree reaching skyward. He was a bit irritated at how perfect she looked literally rising out of dirt when the only bath he’d gotten was her pushing him into a river.

“Well, didn’t you say safe haven? This looks like a cabin or something.”

“It is. This is my home— one which Mountain Whale does not know the location of, nor will she know it for the next year at least. Until then, my home is yours. It has many wards set on it, so even if she does find it, she’ll never find you. You’ll be safe as long as you don’t cross the boundary of the pond. Come on, now; let’s go.”

The little cottage was situated atop a clear, pebbled pond with many types of fish and lilypads, the shore upon which he stood pleasantly overgrown with cattails. The pond itself was not much larger than what the little plot demanded, and wisterias intimately hid what the cattails did not. A bridge led into what Yukimura assumed was the main part of the home— from it, little floating bridges extended onto different platforms upon the water. One, a garden with all the growable plants and livestock one could need; another, a little space with a ladder dipping into the depths— perhaps for swimming or fishing? Then one more platform, where a small table and futon overlooked the dense forest beyond the water, a sheer canopy shading them from the sun.

The whole unit sloshed a little bit as Yukimura and the spirit padded across the main bridge. She swept aside a heavy cloth and beckoned him inside with a murmured, “Welcome to my home.”

Yukimura wasn’t entirely sure what he’d expected. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t how… normal it appeared. A futon pushed against a wall. A comfortable kitchen near the back, the door open to invite in fresh air. Handmade, clashing quilts littered the bed, the floor, the comfortable seats. Everywhere were trinkets that seemed to mismatch— a little satchel of konpeito by the hearth, a little iron dagger haphazardly tossed onto a desk. There were traces of many hobbies throughout many years, hobbies that a bored deity might pick up: half-finished paintings, flowers that were pressed and forgotten, books lying upside down on their spines.

Overall, it was difficult to make something out of it.

As if self-conscious, she scowled and turned her nose up.

“It’s no castle, but it’s done the trick. The futon inside is yours. Obviously I didn’t prepare for you, so… just sit down or something. Help yourself to some stew while I go wash your blankets.”

True to her word, she gathered up a lump of quilts in her arms and left through a door to the side of the house.

Yukimura meandered awkwardly to one of the large pots in the kitchen where an aromatic hunter’s pot was simmering. He could smell traces of venison, cinnamon, pears— the scent of it was so tempting he couldn’t help himself— he dipped a small ladle into it and took a tentative bite.

Delicious! His eyes watered at how flavorful it was, and he went in for another, before deciding it might be impolite to just eat right out of it and hunted around for a bowl. Her array of dishware was rather similar to the rest of the house.

By the time he chose a copper bowl that literally looked like she’d punched a sheet of metal until it would hold a shape, she had returned with a different set of warm-looking blankets.

“Set out a bowl for me, would you?”

Yukimura did as she asked; he supposed that, despite the situation, it was the least that he could do. They settled into chairs at the table by the window, and in the first moment of tranquility in days, Yukimura asked,

“So, where exactly are we?”

“Technically, we’re at one of my shrines in Northern Japan. In actuality, we’re in a world that floats independently of the world you know, a world created by the network of shrines that I have throughout the region.”

“Right. Obviously. Can’t believe I didn’t realize that before.”

“I don’t like your sarcasm, but I get it. It’s probably too much for your mortal mind to grasp. Just know this— the only ones who can enter this domain without my express permission are other kami, and if you leave, you will not be able to return unless I allow you. And you do not want to leave while Mountain Whale is hunting you.”

“Well then, what am I supposed to do during this year then? Just sit here?”

She actually appeared a bit sheepish for a moment, clearing her throat.

“I live a simple life. I understand that. But please try to find some happiness in it during your time here. In a typical day, I fulfill the prayers I receive at my shrines. Then I spend the rest of my time by visiting Earth taking care of the shrines I have left.”

“Huh? You do it yourself? Don’t you have followers to take care of your shrines for you?”

By now she looked horribly embarrassed, and Yukimura could not help but feel sorry for her as she stood and cleared her throat. “You have better things to do than to listen to me talk about my duties. Just… stay out of my way, and when you can, try helping me by taking care of things around the house. Gardening, cooking, cleaning… you’re not my prisoner, and I won’t harm you until the year is up, so do whatever you please.”

She took his empty dish and busied herself washing it while he looked around his temporary home a little bit longer. There was a small stack of prayers on a desk by the front window— he wondered why she didn’t have more, as he assumed a deity would. 

—

Life was rather uneventful with her. Aside from the bickering that they commonly found themselves embroiled in, she was easy enough to get along with and oftentimes downright friendly.

During the day, she left— apparently to take care of her shrines, and Yukimura would have the house to himself. He’d take a dip in the pond and float around, wondering how Lords Kenshin and Shingen and his best friend Sasuke were doing.

After his daily morning swim, he’d head into the garden and familiarize himself with all the plants she’d grown there, or he’d sit on the back porch and let his feet hang into the water while he watched the forest. Sometimes a deer or two would flit between the trees, and he passed the time by counting them. He’d also think— usually about a promise that might be able to convince her not to kill him when his year was up, or maybe some loophole that one of them had missed.

When she was home, she’d sit at that little desk and write in black ink on parchment that disappeared once she filled the page. Then she’d reach for another in her stack, and later, she told him that that was how she answered prayers.

It never took her too long to get through it.

Besides how terribly he missed his friends at Kasugayama, it wasn’t too bad. Her company was not intolerable; in fact, he found himself actively enjoying the nights when she came home from Earth, or even the days she didn’t have to leave at all. 

Over time, though, he found himself growing curiouser— oftentimes on war campaigns, he ran into zealots who told him that they were on their way to one shrine or another for their preferred deity. They usually carried with them brooms and pails to clean, and then flowers and coins as gifts. Why did she clean her shrines herself?

—

Around this time at Kasugayama Castle, rumor had begun to spread that Sanada Yukimura was spotted smooching a lovely young lady at the stables before his disappearance.

Sasuke wisely informed Lords Shingen and Kenshin of Yukimura’s unfortunate situation, and among them were quick to dispel rumors of Yukimura being some sort of deserter. But Lord Yoshimoto pointed out that if Yukimura actually was currently spending his days relaxing with a pretty woman, odds were that he’d be wooed off his feet in no time.

On an unrelated note regarding Yukimura’s love life: if Lord Kenshin had simply followed  Sasuke’s advice and agreed with Lord Yoshimoto, then maybe he and Sasuke would not have lost so much money to him and Lord Shingen.

—

But this author will admit that it was not yet quite time for that, because frankly, right now bickering was more common between the two of them than the moments of bliss where they could lounge together on the futon outside. Since he was sleeping on her futon indoors, she claimed the outdoor one for herself, which would have bothered him had she not smacked him for inadvertently suggesting she’d fall in the pond.

Birds and seasons flitted in and out of the little bubble in which her pond existed. This, for her, was good news, as she was excited for the company, and he felt a little sympathy for her that she was so lonely that she considered birds or autumn leaves “company.” Nevertheless, she wanted to make their guests feel at home, so on a day where she finished answering prayers early, they went onto the deck behind the house to build some birdhouses and feeders and baths for her to set up in the garden.

He was not a particularly incredible craftsman. Her bird feeder was supremely well-made, and frankly his looked kind of dumb next to hers. It was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that birds flocked to hers over his. He was attempting to set the walls of a birdhouse together when he asked,

“Can you tell me a little bit more about this whole promise thing?”

The sounds of her hammer against wood stopped, and slowly she set down her project, suspicious. “What would you like to know?”

“I wanna know a way out of this deal. Don’t think just ‘cause we’re getting along okay that I’ve forgotten you’re gonna kill me in ten months.”

“Ah, yes. I truly do look forward to it.”

“See?! See, that right there is so confusing. One second you’re totally reasonable, and then the next you’re actively wanting to kill me.”

“Look, Yukimura,” she sighed, leaning back on her palms. “I don’t actively want to kill you. I suppose the way to look at it is that, because I’ll have to anyway, there isn’t much to be done about it.”

“Except there is. You said that a promise can break a promise; you promised to kill me after three offenses, but can’t you just make a different promise?”

“Theoretically speaking, yes. But in order for me to maintain honor and respect befitting my station, it would have to be a promise of equal caliber to taking your life. Tell me, what can you offer me that matches your literally endless value on this Earth?”

She had a point. More importantly, he felt his face growing hot at the odd compliment. On one hand, she thought he had endless value… on the other hand, she had to kill him for it. But maybe she meant that he was valuable to her…? No, no, idiot. Don’t read into it.

Yukimura sighed, defeated for now, and cast his gaze out into the silent indigo forest before turning back to her with a wry, sour smile.

“Tell you what, I can finish making you this birdhouse. Then after that let’s talk.”

She tipped her head to the sky and laughed a brilliant, delighted laugh. Her eyes were sparkling when she looked at him. 

“No, I would say you’re worth a little bit more than that.”

“Just a little?”

“Just a little.”

—

Tonight she was teaching him how to make a boar stew, because the weather outside was freezing and they both agreed on some extra-comfort food. She’d decided that she’d had enough of venison and cleaned out their stew pot. When he said that he already knew how to make boar stew, she’d said “Not yet” and left it at that as if he was supposed to know what that meant.

If he were being totally honest, he’d gotten used to how vague she could be by now, and actually found it— though he’d never admit it, not even to himself— he found it a bit cute. He’d long since realized that it was simply a common habit among deities like her (see: Mountain Whale making him immortal in the middle of the night and literally not elaborating on the fact). It didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. Aside from the topic of her shrines or the small amount of prayers she got, she was openly forthcoming with any information he asked for.

“I’ve been making boar stew since I was a kid,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I know how to make it.”

“Not in the way that I do.” Her response came between the tap of her lips on the spoon, taste-testing their handiwork.

“Oh, yeah? Have you been living off boar meat since you were four?”

“Have you been alive for hundreds of thousands of years?”

“...no.”

“Ah. I see.”

Her smile, puckered and amused, was not condescending— almost teasing, and his heart did a little ba-dum! at the sight of it. 

“Yeah, well,” he couldn’t hide his dopish grin no matter how hard he tried. “Just ‘cause you’ve been alive for so long doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good at everything. For example, deal-making? You’re terrible at that!”

“Ha! If my deal-making skills are terrible, then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I threw you out of our home right now, see you deal with Mountain Whale.”

She dangerously held up the spoon and whacked the back of his hand with it as he barked a laugh, swatting her away.

“Is it too late to ask for mercy?”

“You ask me for mercy everyday— ‘ooh, please, please consider wrecking your honor as a goddess in order to spare my life at the end of the year!!’”

He couldn’t even bring it in him to be all that irritated with her for the horrible impression of him, or to be upset at the reminder that he might not find a way to barter himself out of her deal— he couldn’t be upset, not when she was smiling like that.

“Oh, yeah, whatever, you dummy. Guess I’m pretty lucky to have you then, huh?”

“Very much so.”

Here, Yukimura was incredibly lucky that he was not at Kasugayama Castle, for if he was, both Sasuke and Lord Shingen would have stood up and applauded, probably asked for an encore. Lord Shingen would have mockingly dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. My little boy Yuki has finally flirted! And with an actual goddess, no less! he might’ve said as Sasuke solemnly bit his knuckle whilst on the verge of proud and manly tears.

Unbeknownst to Yukimura, he definitely did flirt just now, and it was even— dare it be said— well-received...?! The spirit threw him a coy smile over her shoulder and ooh, the way that Yukimura’s face turned red would’ve been absolutely HILARIOUS to see in person.

However, the only person around to see it was the spirit, whose attention was returned to the stew while our valiant hero, like, clutched his chest and hyperventilated in the corner or something.

“Here,” she said, politely ignoring the very obvious cupid’s arrow sticking out of his chest and the way that he was desperately trying to somehow both pry it out and ignore it. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) 

She held the spoon to his lips with her other hand below his chin as she fed him a taste, and at this point one must wonder if she knew exactly what she was doing to him.

If the venison stew was good, then this was… heaven. Yukimura made a noise of pleasure that would’ve made an elderly woman sweat in church. “That’s delicious!”

“I told you that you didn’t know how to make boar stew. Let’s have dinner by the fire tonight.”

So they settled in for some pleasant company while snow layered upon the pond, and in Yuki’s defense, he wouldn’t have started choking on the conversation halfway through if he hadn’t belatedly realized that she’d said “our” home instead of hers.

—

Ohohoho.

This is where it gets good.

Because there was only one bed.

To backtrack: it was so cold that night that the spirit’s futon outside (also, why was she the one sleeping outside when she was the one who lived here first?) was literally too cold to sleep in, and also ironically, this was the same night that Yukimura realized she was pretty damn cute when she was teasing him.

The author is well aware of how hilarious this is, and believe me, reader, that we all later had a good laugh at the way everything in the world seemed to be against our dear hero.

Yukimura barely even recovering from the revelation of him maybepossiblyprobably being more interested in his captorsaviorcrush than he’d first thought, and then that exact same night not even being allowed to have the bed to himself to think about it? Comedy gold. 

“Just— stop padding around like a lost donkey and go to sleep!” he croaked, face heated and hidden by the dim light. Small mercies.

“Fortunately for you, I can’t start your three offenses again. Fortunately for me, it appears I have been upgraded from boar to donkey. Perhaps I should stay up longer to celebrate.”

“You—!” He groaned. “Don’t keep me awake, please.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you you have somewhere to be tomorrow? I didn’t notice.”

With that snarky remark, she smoothly slid between the sheets, and with a wave of her hand extinguished the fireplace and nestled herself into the many pillows and blankets. Buried in the sheets, she sort of looked like some sort of adorable rice bowl, Yukimura realized as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He aggressively turned his back to her with a flustered huff. Before long, her breathing was deep, even, and when Yukimura turned back to peek, she was completely passed out.

What the hell? How did she fall asleep so quickly? It surprised the author, as well, because one would assume there would be some sexual tension there. Maybe some longing eye contact before both parties bashfully looked away. Maybe even… some under-blanket hand-touching?

But nope. She koala’d up to an oversized pillow that she placed between herself and Yukimura and was out like a light, leaving the boy to his many, many thoughts.

—

They slept beside each other the next night, and the night after that. By the time a week had gone by since they started sharing the indoor bed, Yukimura was five months into his sentence and up to his skull in frazzled thoughts.

Because God, was she pretty.

At around this point, for the sake of his own health, Yukimura grudgingly accepted that he really liked it when she smiled and especially liked it when he was the one who made her do so. He also liked the way her wrists looked so graceful and hold-able, and also how she looked like a cute little pastry when she bundled all the way up whenever she went back to Earth to take care of her shrines.

But it wasn’t a crush. Nope. Just a friend admiring a friend, is all.

He didn’t even realize when he’d begun calling her a friend— somehow, she stopped being the woman who held his life in her hands like a fragile bird. Somewhere down the line she became the woman who— for some reason— he got the feeling she’d find a way to spare him.

There was no basis to this hypothesis, is what Sasuke would have told him if he were there. One-sided puppy love was not a good enough reason for her to break the old laws, thereby losing the respect of an entire religion and also probably with many more consequences than the ones she told him.

And also, at the end of the day Yukimura was just a blip in her life. Even if Mountain Whale did actually make him immortal, he was probably just a pet to the spirit in the grand scheme of things… it was a real bummer to think about.

Tonight he had decided to maybe try making the stew himself, and oh, how pleased she had looked when he said that. He had begun simmering it in the morning, and now it was evening, so he was in the middle of adding last minute touches to it. At least, he would be, if he wasn’t so easily distracted by the sight of her on the floor, leaning against the loveseat by the fire, the tip of her tongue sticking out as she painted, hair in relaxed disarray and looking like it could be combed out with his fingers…

Oh, hell!

With a fierce clatter, he accidentally knocked the bowls out of the cupboard. All of them. Like, fifty. A home video of the moment would’ve been so good.

She looked up—had she always looked this good in the firelight?— and they made eye contact for a moment before he dipped beneath the table to pick up the dishes. When he reemerged, he chanced a glance at her. She was respectfully stifling a flattered, knowing smile, a pretty blush on her face, before she turned back to her art.

Ahh, that smile alone probably could’ve fed Yukimura for the next year… ahem. ABSOLUTELY not a crush. Once again, just a friend admiring a friend…

...and a friend’s lips that looked like they’d be so sweet...

...and the long, long legs of a friend sticking out through the slit of her sleeping kimono as she reclined in sensuous relaxation…

Dammit!

We want her reeeeeaaaal bad, don't we? sang his heart cheerfully.

Shut the hell up, he thought grouchily. It disobediently, delightedly thump!-ed before settling cozily into some lovestruck little corner of his chest. 

If she noticed anything of it, she did not say anything. Instead she remained as respectful with him as ever and went to sleep just as quickly as she always did and went about her day.

The snow had thawed out many weeks ago, but it seemed that neither of them were particularly in the mood to set out the outdoor futon again. So a shared bed it was, and eventually the deep and even sound of her breathing was like a lullaby.

For the past month or so, she had been home more and more often; Yukimura, bless his heart, was simply so secretly elated that he got to spend more time around her that he did not realize that this was very, very bad.

—

These past few months she had been much happier, and perhaps that was one of the reasons that it was difficult at first to spot her declining health.

It was something small at first; hardly a soul would be able to notice it, much less Yukimura, who didn’t necessarily know the signs to look for. But they were gardening together one day, their conversation as easy as it had so recently often been. She loved to hear about his mortal life, so he was regaling her with stories of Sasuke— when she froze.

“Is something wrong?” He asked.

When he finally looked away from the tomatoes he was planting, her left hand was limp in front of her, her face crumpled in anguish as she stared at the back of her hand. He hated to see her like this. Gently laying a hand on her shoulder caused her to jump and look at him.

“O-oh. What?”

“Are you okay?”

He was far too familiar with all the heartbreakingly lovely ways those lips of hers knew how to upturn. When she smiled at him, he knew it was not genuine.

“I’m fine. I think you need to mind your own business.”

She nudged him with her shoulder in an attempt to emulate their usual banter, and he mercifully let it go and played along. She kept glancing at her hand in dismay, however, and later that night he could have sworn that it took her longer than usual to fall asleep.

—

It became obvious by the time the seven-month mark rolled around:

Something was wrong with her.

It began with her hand, a small gray vein like the ripples in a marble statue. At first he thought nothing of it, but when it became painfully obvious that she was trying to hide it from him— that was when he became suspicious.

That vein made its way up her arm, and before long, another had appeared at the base of her throat, and another right behind her knee. The way those veins curled and wilted along her soft skin— they looked like desiccated roots.

Still she would not tell him the matter, even when, at the eight-month mark, the veins started appearing exponentially. Whenever a new vein appeared, so did a new problem. She began to lose control of her hands, her legs, and eventually, she could not even get out of bed.

She assured him that it was fine— it was nothing more than a god’s equivalent of the common cold. But the way her voice rasped around the lie— it was like watching Lord Shingen falter all over again.

On and on it went, Yukimura insisting that she tell him and her flat out refusing to. At one point he had even yelled at her, frustrated that he could not help… she had simply smiled a sad, sad smile, which Yuki decided was the one smile of hers that he never wanted to see again.

It was nearly summer when he began to hold her hand as he slipped beside her in bed, afraid that he would lose her.

One week after that, he woke up, and she was not breathing.

—

“No, no, no, no, no!” He stormed through the kitchen, leaving a hurricane of bowls and silverware and fruits and vegetables in his wake. “She has to have one…”

The flower. The flower that she had given to Lord Shingen— no way was she dumb enough not to keep one here! He already had milk and honey heating up on the stove, and if he had to force it down her throat then he would, dammit!

Not having any luck in the kitchen, Yukimura ran outside to the garden. It was so overgrown that in his time here he hadn’t managed to explore the sheer variety of it. He lifted up roots and vines and—

—oh, God, there it was—

—and, like a savior clad in silver, a full grove of that brilliant flower was hidden there within the tulips beneath the peach tree.

Yukimura snatched one up out of the ground, already tearing the petals off it in preparation.

Milk tea, honey, petals— the mantra that he had so religiously repeated to himself for Lord Shingen’s sake felt so long ago. But now it was for her, and the sight of her as the milk tea came off the stove at last was almost too much for him to bear. He strained the petals out and crawled into bed, taking her between his legs and propping her back against his chest.

“You’re going to have to drink now, okay? Oh, God, please drink…”

For one moment, he felt a piece of his heart die as he thought that she would not.

And then she stirred against him, and her throat bobbed weakly. Encouraged, he tipped the cup farther back, and when she was finished he placed the petals between her teeth and had her swallow them.

The effect was not instantaneous like it had been with Lord Shingen. Her head lolled backwards onto his shoulder as he hugged her around her waist from behind her, burying his face into her shoulder and trying not to let the tears fall. She was breathing again— that was all in his life that mattered right now.

“I hate you,” he muttered into the fabric of her kimono, holding her tighter. “I hate you so much.”

“How rude,” she breathed. “Saying such a thing to me warrants a smiting.”

“I don’t get how you can be joking at a time like this.” He extracted himself from behind her to cradle her in his arms at her side, pushing the hair out of her face. To his dismay, the flower did not seem to do much aside from immediate aid. “I’m going to get you another flower—”

“Stop.” Her hand darted out to grasp his kimono, the most movement she’d been able to manage in weeks. “Don’t. Stay with me— another flower won’t do anything. We don’t have much time left.”

Gingerly, he returned to her side. “You… what do you mean by that?”

Deep down, he knew what she was trying to say. Those gray, dead roots that had buried themselves in her skin— they had not released their hold.

But memories of her laughing, swimming in the pond, lazily twirling a vine in her fingers, settling in with a good book… the way she swung her legs when she was impatient, how she pointed out different types of plants… those memories hadn’t released their hold on Yukimura. Not yet. Not ever.

Those lips of hers— he’d once thought they might taste like honeysuckle. Now they parted weakly, and she said,

“I’m dying, Yukimura.”

Tears welled in his eyes as he gripped her hand tighter, pulled her closer. “Stop.”

“No. It’s true, and I’m sorry— I didn’t want you to worry. Lie down. Hold my hand. I’ll tell you everything.”

—

She spent the afternoon telling him of her many years. She told him of her many sisters, her many friends, her many once-great allies whose shrines had fallen into disuse, and eventually were reclaimed by the Earth.

She was one of the last few old gods left— her and Mountain Whale, and only a few others. The once-proud goddess of the land, her small pond was once a lake, her cottage once a castle. She once had followers across the Earth.

For the old gods, it was their followers and their shrines that were their lifeblood. And as their followers died and their shrines fell into disuse, so too would they. She told him of how she watched, helpless, as her friends faded away into the dead shells of what they once ruled, and once even those shells were obsolete, faded into nothingness.

And she— one of the last few— had no one but herself to care for her few standing shrines, no one to pray to her. Now an obsolete deity, she was forgotten like so many before her, and now it was her turn to die and let the energy she once embodied return to the universe and be reborn elsewhere.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said peacefully, although her labored breathing suggested otherwise. “I should have told you sooner. But there was nothing to be done.”

“You said that about you killing me too. Don’t you even try fighting?”

“Oh, Yuki. I would never have lived long enough to kill you—” she broke off into a coughing fit while he quickly moved to action, tilting her head to pour some tea into her mouth. “I- I’m only sorry that I wasn’t able to live long enough to protect you.”

He couldn’t help himself— he pressed his lips to the top of her head and squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t understand,” he murmured into her hair.

“This place— I told you it existed as an embodiment of the power of all my shrines combined. That was true. But when I die, my shrines will be nothing more than interesting pieces of architecture on the side of the road. Mountain Whale is probably bored by now and not trying so hard to find you. She will continue to look for me first— my scent is more potent. Take a bath when you get home, and do not leave the castle for the next four months, and I doubt she will find you. This place will not be safe for you anymore— you must run.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not leaving you.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because you have to. I’ll live until the end of the summer at most— the wards around the pond will fade before then. if you’re still here when Mountain Whale comes, she will kill you.”

In a watery voice, Yukimura whispered, “And you… you were never gonna kill me, huh?”

“Not after the deal was made. I would have died before I could, and I was already dying anyway, Yuki. Protecting you from an immortal life of being hunted by Mountain Whale seemed like a worthwhile use of my time. What’s one last good deed?”

“It’s not your last good deed. I won’t allow it. I’ll never, ever leave your side.” And he kissed her jaw, her brow, watched how she closed her eyes and sighed happily before he kissed her knuckles, letting his lips linger there.

“You say that,” she said gently, “But I’ve seen this happen before with so many late friends of mine. I rolled my eyes at them and said I’d never follow their path, but I already know I will— at sundown, I’ll wave my hand and you’ll be home. I’ll go to sleep and won’t wake up, and before autumn, my heart will stop. You’ll meet someone, fall in love, and forget about me; I’ll be nothing more than the spirit who was a dream.”

“You’ll never be that.”

“But I will. Please allow me the courtesy of falling asleep peacefully in your arms. Just until sundown.”

He released a shaky breath and looked into those eyes that once held so much joy and curiosity. How could he deny her— deny the woman who so secretly helped him, who refused to worry him so that she might spend those last few months of her lonely life with somebody, anybody else? He tucked her into his chest, closing his eyes and drowning in the sound of her ephemeral heartbeat. 

“Just until sundown.”

—

When he opened his eyes right before sunset, he was alone in his bed at Kasugayama, taut fingers clutching the stem of a silver flower.

—

Dear reader, it is with the sincerest apologies that I continue to put you through this experience, for this author personally believes in relaying the story with utmost accuracy. I will spare you the particular details of how the castle was alerted to Yukimura’s return by the heart-wrenching sobs that came from his room, or how even Lord Kenshin was especially gentle for quite some time whenever he was faced with Yukimura’s tear-swollen eyes.

From what she had told him, she would be alive till the summer ended. So that meant another four months of her suffering before she died alone.

That thought hurt even worse, and following Yukimura’s return, it was tragic to sleep in a room near him and listen as his heart broke repeatedly.

Out of respect for Yukimura, I will not delve further into how he mourned, for that is for him and him alone. There are so few moments in life that one can keep to oneself; two of these are when one is in love, and when one mourns a loss. Yukimura experienced both of these so closely that the depth of his grief should be better left unsaid.

—

It had been a month without her, three months until the end of his sentence, when Yuki went to his first war council since return. The dark circles beneath his eyes were politely left uncommented upon.

It seemed wrong to return to life as he’d known it. She’d asserted that he’d move on… what a load of garbage. How could he ever move on from someone as amazing as her?

He hated the way that everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells around him— as if saying the wrong word would set him off. It was half-true, considering he knew that somewhere out there she was dying alone, and there wasn’t even anything he could do about it.

He had not left the castle in a month. With Mountain Whale still out hunting for him and the fact that he could hardly even drag himself out of bed, there was not much reason to. He hoped that wherever she was, she was asleep and not suffering— it wasn’t fair that someone like her had to live so long alone, and then die alone too...

“Yuki?”

Yukimura jolted, realizing too late how miserable the look on his face must have been. It had been Lord Shingen who’d called out to him, dark eyes clever and searching as he nursed a teacup.

“Are you alright?”

He almost wanted to tell Shingen everything right then and there. But, almost greedily, he wanted to hold her close to his heart, afraid that she might fly away if he spoke of her too often. So instead, he said,

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Well, I am fine.”

The conversation had caught Sasuke and Lord Kenshin’s attention by now, though they carried on with their own in consideration for Yuki’s privacy.

“You’re not. I know that look, Yuki— it’s the look of heartbreak. What happened?”

Yukimura scowled down at the ground. Lord Shingen was far too perceptive for his own good— but he was also not malicious. He cared, he really did, and the look on his face was so concerned that just as Yukimura decided it might be better to tell him—

Lord Shingen finished off his tea—

—and ate the silver flower that had been resting at the bottom.

 Yuki was so floored that he forgot his words for a moment, and when they came, his voice was raw around them.

“W-where did you get that flower?” he rasped.

“The flower? There’s a little pot of them growing in the kitchen, you didn’t know?”

“Yes, but where did you get it?”

“Where…? Well, one of the maids, of course. I suppose you wouldn’t know her— she started here a little bit after you left and planted those, then started making milk tea out of them. It’s done wonders for my health. Speaking of, has anyone seen her lately?”

It was difficult to listen as blood rushed to his ears, the grief as fresh as the day he’d left her. It had been Lord Yoshimoto to answer Lord Shingen’s question, but Yuki didn’t stick around to hear the answer— he already knew it, and was fleeing from the room.

—

“Hey… hey, Yuki?”

By the time Sasuke arrived to knock gently on Yukimura’s doorframe, the room appeared to have a hurricane torn through it. Clothes strewn across the floor, a chair knocked over, and in the center of it all, Yukimura had already donned his armor, a determined look on his face as he stuffed various items into a bag.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you? You’re going to go help that girl,” Sasuke observed wisely, though by now he and the others already knew that they would not see Yukimura for a while.

“I am. And you can’t stop me.”

“I wasn’t going to try. And neither were Kenshin or Shingen; in fact, I’m here to say goodbye.”

“Sasuke, you dolt. I’m going to come back when I’ve saved her, and you’ll all meet her, and she’ll finally have friends and be happy again. I never should’ve let her send me back in the first place!”

“I see. We all figured that it had something to do with a girl.”

“She’s not just a girl,” Yukimura snapped like the disgruntled lovesick idiot that he was. “She’s just… amazing. And kind, and smart, and she put up with me for so long. And she’s really funny, and apparently she was helping Shingen this entire time and— and she saved my life, too, without wanting anything in return—!” He broke off, his face crumpling in devastation.

“I understand,” Sasuke affirmed, “And we all support you one-hundred percent. I won’t pry, but I have to ask: Yuki, what exactly happened?”

“I’ll let her tell the story once I save her. But what I will say is that I found myself in a really bad situation a long time ago, and she was the one who helped me without me even realizing it. I can’t just let her die alone— or even die at all. I have to do something. I have to at least try.”

“And try you will. In fact, Kenshin and Shingen wanted me to give you this.”

“I— what is it?”

“It’s a missive that declares you’ve cut ties with the Uesugi-Takeda forces— it should allow you safe passage even through Oda territory, though obviously standard disclaimers apply in that you should keep a low profile. Sure, it’s bending the truth a little bit, but this seems more important than that. Think of it like a passport of sorts.”

“A… paaaash-part?”

“Never mind. And because I’ve always wanted to say it,” Sasuke cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses, and like an absolute unit, said, “It’s too dangerous to go alone! Take this.”

With a bow, he offered the missive to Yukimura, who frowned but snatched it up anyway.

“You’re so weird. I’ll miss that while I’m gone.”

“How long will that be?”

“Well, hopefully before the end of the summer. Actually, no— it will be before the end of summer, because I’m going to save her, and that’s that. I don’t care about Whale hunting me, or about any stupid expiration date she set for herself, ‘cause I’m going to fight for her.”

“Once again, I have no idea who you’re talking about, but we’ll all be your cheerleader. Best of luck, Yukimura. Go get her.”

—

Yukimura had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He’d never cleaned a shrine in his life. He’d taken his horse and a cart— she’d seen to it many months ago that the horse had made it back safely— and headed in a general direction where he figured one of her shrines might be.

She’d mentioned that they mostly existed at the side of the road, so he decided to stick to the better-worn pathways, and after a full day, he stumbled upon a shrine with her tenets written down the side of it. Finally! Now what?

He figured that maybe refilling the cleansing basin was as good a start as any. He emptied it of dirty rainwater and replaced it with some freshwater from his own basin, then found an incense burner hanging from the ceiling, which he brushed the old ashes off of and lit a new stick. He polished and lit the hanging lanterns, too.

Next, overgrown vines had wrapped themselves around the walls and railings, and as small as the shrine was, he figured it didn’t have any business looking as run-down as it did. Not if it was hers.

When he was done removing the vines, he realized that the dust buildup wasn’t all that attractive. He’d borrowed a cleaning cart from the Kasugayama maids, so he took a broom and started sweeping away, reaching up to get the corners of the ceiling and swat away the cobwebs. And then, he decided, she might appreciate a clean floor, so he emptied some water and soap into a bucket and began to scrub away, then used the remaining mixture to polish off the archways.

It was pretty good, if he did say so himself. And didn’t she say that she’d become obsolete and die without any followers to care for?

Well, she wasn’t obsolete, and he definitely wouldn’t let her die. He found a patch of wildflowers nearby and placed it by the entryway before gently slipping some coins into the offering box. He knew it wasn’t protocol, but he had always wished he’d picked some flowers for her. Following two bows, two claps, and one final bow, Yukimura prayed silently— or rather, he asked her how she was doing, let her know not to worry about a thing, because he was going to be taking care of her shrines from now on. Maybe he’d even pay someone in the nearby village to keep this one safe and tidy, wouldn’t that be nice?

One shrine down. Who knew how many more to go?

—

It was pretty rough, especially because as time went on, it became painfully obvious that Mountain Whale was still a danger. He almost got gored to death by a boar once, and another time he swore he heard tusks rattling from a bone-spear while he was cleaning his fourth shrine— freezing, he hid behind the entryway, and his prayer went from him telling her about how much he missed her, to him desperately pleading that it wasn’t Mountain Whale.

The third boar he saw on the journey, however, froze and simply stared at him before scampering off into the distance. It was the middle of the night, but Yukimura did not want to risk the boar being a messenger for Mountain Whale— he packed up his things and rode through the night to the next town, where he got only a bit of sleep before hunting down another shrine.

Mountain Whale wasn’t the only danger. Many times he almost had run-ins with one or two Oda scouts, which was when he showed the missive and was fortunately let off the hook— for now. He tried to stay away from the heart of Oda territory when he could help it, but their hold on Japan was simply too massive. When he thought of that, he could almost hear her amused voice wryly whispering, “Well, I suppose there’s nothing to be done about that.”

And obviously, travelling by horseback across all of Japan in the dead of summer was sure to take a toll on a person. His journey was slowed when he had to stop in every town to hydrate and buy some bare necessities. One benefit to this was that innkeepers could often direct him to her next shrine, though many were curious as to why he was worshipping an old god at all. That kami, they all said, abandoned us long ago.

Bitterly, he couldn’t help but think that maybe they were the ones who abandoned her. She was the one who would religiously sit at the table and look so focused and thoughtful as she answered each and every prayer. She was the one who so vigilantly wanted to help others.

Despite the treacherous nature of his journey, Yukimura considered it his mission to help her and resolutely forged onward. It was in direct defiance of her command to stay put in Kasugayama Castle. She’d scold him for it later. He’d welcome it, in fact.

Ten months into his sentence and two months before he could stop worrying about Mountain Whale, bandits snuck into the stables of the inn he stayed at and took all the horses there— including his. Fortunately, his cart of supplies was safely tucked away in the mill, and the coins he was using to offer to her were always kept on his person.

That meant, though, that he had to spend precious change on a mule to haul his cart, and that the rest of the journey would have to be made on foot. He didn’t even think for a moment about stopping— he would go to the ends of the Earth for her, and if that meant blisters and sunburns, then so be it. He’d complain to her about it once he got to see her again. He wondered if she’d roll her eyes at him and tell him that he was lucky she let him step foot on one of her shrines at all.

Three months. Ninety-two shrines. Each one painstakingly restored by Yukimura himself. At one point, he’d written Lord Shingen and finally fully explained the situation, and despite the response politely implying that he was crazy for doing this alone, Lord Shingen assured that he would send a small group of men to go hunt down and restore some as well. That was another sixty-four shrines within only a month.

Often, Yuki would tell her about his day. Sometimes he would also tell her stories of his childhood— he knew how much she loved to hear about that. He assured her that she’d meet Lord Shingen, and that she better stay away from him, because she was so beautiful that he was bound to flirt with her. If Lord Kenshin found out she was a goddess, he’d surely want to test his fighting skills against her, and he figured that she and Sasuke and Lord Yoshimoto would get along famously.

“And also,” he added, voice hoarse from disuse. Prayers were supposed to be made quietly, but this one he felt the need to say aloud. “I’ve got an idea for a promise that can replace that stupid one that you made. You know, the one to kill me? But you’ll have to be alive to hear it, so I better be seeing you soon.”

He bowed once, straightened out the incense burner, and left the now-immaculate shrine.

That made ninety-three.

—

It was the final day of his sentence, and every shrine he’d come across in the past week had already been restored, either by himself or the small task force Lord Shingen had set aside. And then, in a correspondence with Sasuke, the brilliant and awesome ninja reminded him that the shrine that ex-Commander Yudai had burnt could probably use some TLC (Yukimura had to clarify, and Sasuke explained it meant “tender, loving care”).

That had been a week ago. Since then Yukimura had assembled new beams for the roof, polished off burn marks on the metal, reconstructed the floor, and bought some new incense burners and stain for the wood. It was practically brand new again, which he figured he owed her, considering it was his side that had burnt it down in the first place.

An hour till sundown. He was bowing his head to pray, though his heart was particularly heavy today with how achingly he wanted to be at her side again.

There were footsteps. Yukimura heard her before he saw her.

“THIS IS FINE WORK YOU HAVE BEEN DOING, BOY. MY SOUL CRIES FOR YOUR LOSS.”

—

He did not need to look, but he did anyway. He had long ago accepted that to save the woman he loved, he might be hunted down and killed, himself.

“Hello, Mountain Whale.”

“HELLO.”

Despite the ever-present volume of her tone, there was a pity in it that he had never heard before. That face looked sorrowful and sullen— as if she, too, had aged as much as Yukimura had in his grief.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

Mountain Whale did not respond. She lumbered up beside Yukimura and sat down on the stairs with a heavy thud, leaves huffing around her at the impact. She patted the spot beside her with one weathered hand, and Yukimura sat down there.

They watched the sun as it dipped closer to the horizon as she allowed Yukimura to come to terms with his impending death. This particular shrine was built near a cliff— it had quite a pretty view, and it reminded Yukimura of the first time he had ever met the spirit. Boar woman, he’d said, and his lips fondly quirked up at the irony of it. Together, Mountain Whale and Yukimura sat in contemplative silence.

“I HAVE MANY GRIEVANCES WITH YOUR LOVER,” Mountain Whale said at last. “SHE IS IRRITATING. SHE CARES TOO MUCH. SHE IS NOT HALF AS BEAUTIFUL AS I.”

“Oh, no, definitely not.”

“HA! YOU HAVE HER WIT. FOR MANY CENTURIES HAVE SHE AND I BATTLED WITS, AND BATTLED PHYSICALLY OVER LAND UPON WHICH OUR FOLLOWERS MAY BUILD MORE SHRINES. BUT WE MOURNED TOGETHER WHEN OUR FRIENDS FADED FROM HISTORY. AND I WILL MOURN HER WHEN SHE IS GONE.”

“Then why did you want to kill her so badly?”

“FOR… FOR SURVIVAL, BOY.”

He looked at Mountain Whale’s sorrowful face, melancholy understanding dawning on him. If there were more shrines to the spirit he’d fallen for, then there would be less to pray to Mountain Whale. He wondered if her life had been as lonely as the spirit’s.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, gruffly, voice thick, “I think that you deserve some followers of your own, too. I think I’d be okay with restoring some of your shrines if I come across them.”

“BOLD WORDS FROM MY PREY.”

“Mountain Whale, if you’re going to kill me, just do it. Enough with the talk. I’ll even make it a good fight for you, if you want.”

She observed him with a critical eye, then leaned back on her palms. She seemed to have come to a decision.

“I DO NOT HAVE TO KILL YOU QUITE YET. AS PER THE DEAL, I HAVE UNTIL SUNDOWN. I WILL SIT HERE WITH YOU— JUST UNTIL SUNDOWN.”

“Right. Just until sundown.”

So together they waited, and waited, and waited— and by the time the sun had dipped well below the trees and the moon had been hung from a string in the sky, Yukimura almost considered Mountain Whale a friend.

And by the time soft footfalls padded across the repaired wooden floor and a barefooted woman seated herself quietly, gracefully beside him, Mountain Whale had long since gone on her way.

—

The world was quiet as their eyes met, and the spirit laid her hand over his.

She looked reborn, in the same way that he was a weary traveler who could finally rest. She was just as exquisite as, if not more so than, she’d been when he’d last seen her four months ago. But this was the first time he’d seen her outside the pond in a year— her ethereal beauty, despite blending in perfectly with the surroundings of their home, was otherworldly in the halo of the mortal moon. She seemed to glow in the light of it, and he caught a lock of her hair and let the silkiness run over his palm— it felt like holding starlight. Tenderly, Yukimura turned his hand to lace their fingers together.

Words were not necessary. Though they always spoke, they never quite needed to. Every teasing moment, every playful remark, every lighthearted insult was little more than make-believe compared to this one simple truth:

Being alive together was enough.

And how well they knew each other, how well they moved in harmony to meet their lips along the threads that tied their souls together. She tasted like honeysuckle the way he thought she might— and she tasted like laughter, and prayer, and merciful hidden kindness.

“I missed you,” he whispered into the intimate space between them.

“And I you,” she murmured, the words brushing sweetly over his mouth. They kissed once more— twice more, before she pulled back enough to observe him as he settled his arms around her. “You disobeyed me.”

“You would’ve done the same. You did do the same.”

“The difference between you and me is that I did not actively put my life on the line to traipse around Japan, pointlessly restoring shrines while being hunted by a boar spirit. I was meant to die. Why could you not leave well enough alone?”

“It’s not pointless— it healed you, didn’t it? You’re here with me now. Anything’s worth that.”

She gave a frustrated little groan.

“Hey, dummy,” Yukimura teased softly. “You’re ruining the moment.”

“Oh, I am?” She may have tried to frown, but the mirth that danced in her eyes betrayed her. “Who’s calling who a dummy?”

She nuzzled her nose beneath his jaw, and he sighed in contentment, drawing her closer as a cool breeze roused the celestial silence.

“Why couldn’t I see you sooner?”

“Because I was asleep for four months— imagine my surprise, falling asleep nothing more than a tangle of withered roots, then waking up completely refreshed with prayers literally overflowing off my desk. It was our dear friend Mountain Whale who broke into the house to let me know that her champion was restoring my shrines like a madman. Oh, and by the way, we need a new front curtain.”

“Glad you enjoyed your nap,” he quipped with an amused little grin. The sight of Mountain Whale ripping their front curtain off its hooks to yell at her sure would’ve been a good one. “And, hey, I don’t think I’m Mountain Whale’s champion anymore, huh?”

“According to the deal, no, you are not. Which technically means that I am supposed to kill you, but I took a moment to read through some of those prayers, most of which were from you… it seems, Yukimura, that you have thought of a promise that might be worth the value of your life. I am here to listen if you did.”

“I did,” he said, eyes twinkling with mirth. With the back of his hand he caressed the contours of her face. “And wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I’m sure it is the only thing I care about.”

He chuckled and pressed his mouth to each corner of her serenely closed eyes, the tip of her nose, her soft jaw and the hollow beneath her cheekbone. “What if I promise always and forever to devote my life to loving you, teasing you, laughing with you... and when the incense goes out at any of your shrines, I can promise to be there to light it again. I’ll always be at your side to make boar stew and stupid remarks that make you want to hit me with a spoon, and if you ever need me to garden or clean or whatever, I’ll be there in an instant. Anything you want. All you have to do is ask.”

Her eyes finally opened, and he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his days reveling in the adoring warmth that steadfastly lighted them.

“Well, look at you. You escape being the immortal champion of one goddess only to find yourself becoming that of another one.”

“I can’t say I mind.”

“Very well, then. I accept— as your life is the most valuable thing to me, it only makes sense to allow you to remain at my side for however long you please.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. So are deals typically sealed with a kiss, or was that just some rule that Mountain Whale made up?”

Her laughter was a salve that healed the darkest corridors of his heartache. “She is odd, yes, although you are correct in that typically immortality is granted through a kiss. There are many other ways, but that seems to be a reasonable approach.”

“I can’t wait to get started.”

The world has a brilliant way of showing love to both the gods and mortals upon it. Tonight, it was in the way that time had seemed to still around them, the way that the birds were quiet. It was in the rustle of the dancing leaves, or the way that the wind breathed a sigh of happiness. It was the way that the spirit drew him closer with an enticing smile on her lips— the way that he cradled her face in his hands as he leaned in to accept her invitation.

And as Yukimura felt that familiar warmth course through his veins as their lips tenderly found each other once more, it is with a content heart that I leave our two lovers to their quiet, reverent solitude. May you, dear reader, live a long, happy, and prosperous life— one filled with love and joy— as our tale of Yukimura and kami-sama comes to its moonlit and timeless end.

finis.

[huntsman-ash]

LiveThoughts: RWBY V8E6

Second attempt at this since last time Chrome just DIED for no reason...

Im going to put literally the entire thing with Cinder under one note; Called it.

Its a great set of stuff, sure, but it doesnt relaly tell us anything we didnt already know about Cinder, and I personally feel it doesnt really explain why she turned out the way she did. I feel like we’ve had another weird twist of the situation again...M+K? Coronas fault? Who knows. Either way, this section isnt great by my taste and I kinda skipped most of it. 

Few things to note though; Apperently in Mistral scrubbing by hand is still more viable floor cleaning tech than using Dust.

The wind vane on the roof has the Rooster Teeth symbols rooster on it. 

The hotel Cinder is bought by is named the Glass Unicorn, fittingly enough for...several reasons. 

The coffees behind the stepsisters when we first see them are the animated versions of the real life stuff RT put out just before this season went live. 

No one seems to notice the fact cinder has orange eyes. I wonder if weird eye colors are just a THING in Remnant?

The control collar/shock thing is incredibly inefficient in design, since it doesnt actually hold on to her very well. A more effective brace/choker design would have worked better.

The song that goes on during all of this is...kind of obvious and a little bland? Fitting for younger Cinder I guess. 

Mmm. Random greasy huntsman. 

I guess in Atlas its fine to laugh at struggling teenagers?

Im going to assume there’s a 3+ year gap here where she gets older, cause she stops being smol and gets closer to how we see her now.

Also even here, in Atlas...really? The most effective way to clean these carpeted floors is to have a TEENAGER SCRUB THEM BY HAND?

How do you scrub...I assume its carpet anyway?

And how you tell civilians are lame in Atlas; they are impressed...by a sword.  Just a sword. A boring, half-cut sword. Losers.

I assume this would be Cinder’s semblance manifesting. Also note on the desk; “we do not serve faunus”. Well THAT doesnt surprise me.

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHE. Get fucked Cinder. HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

I dont even feel pity for her, this is funny to me.  Also the fact that this kind of shit aCTUALLY EXISTS is...amusing to me. Like, really? So I guess indentured servitude is a thing in Remnant too. 

And this is why Cinder likes to use swords. Really. Wow. LAMEO.

Huh. Dual maces. Interesting. Thats a prety cool weapon.  Looks like they open up too. Bet he could bash some skulls with that.

“Hurting them isnt going to make your life any better”. Um, excuse me? I think hurting them is the very best thing to do in this situation. At least, for the moment anyway. 

Huh. So she’s ten at this point? Even as a child, shes older than she looks. 

And training montage. Huh. Or at least I assume it is. I get the feeling being able to go where you want too and do what you want too is the main reason Hunters exist. There must be crazy tight immigration laws...or, maybe, its just that traveling between kingdoms is stupid dangerous cause of Grimm. I think the latter is most likely considering every form of public transit extra-kingdom we’ve seen (even between cities, see Argus Limited) has some kind of defensive weaponry. Limited and ineffective, for th emost part oddly.

So you can take the exam at 18. Okay cool. Pre-that must be prep school. Wonder what happens if you wash out? Also I like how this dude is just “yeah, 7 years of training, we got this.”

I think this is the first time we’ve seen the other side of the moon. Or at least, the proper other side...bloody hell I STILL dont know how all those piesces are still held in place, the thing looks like it should start yeeting bolides at Remnant. 

Better still we see it MOVE, rotate in time to the passing of years. So it literally does rotate on its own axis, and more importantly, unlike OUR moon, its NOT tidally locked. We only ever see the same side of our moon. REmnants rotates MUCH faster. Also it doesnt seem to have phases like ours does. I’ll check on why that is. 

Well at least we have an explanation for why Cinders so damn good at fighting people. Trained by an Atlas Huntsman.

Also as a note the device is quite literally just an electrical Dust crystal attached to a necklace. Things the most inefficent torture device Ive ever fucking seen. 

Wonder how often they have to change the crystal.

And there goes the moon rotating again.

I like how NO ONE comment on the blade going missing and that guy never came back for it. I guess he must have just bought a new one.

I get the very distinct feeling they wont just let her go honestly, permission or not. 

AWWW WE DONT EVEN GET TO SEE CINDER MURDER THE SISTERS. Also no blood. Odd.  Good kill on the  stepmother though. Oh, that NECK CRACK.  I like how all the bitch can do is try and shock Cinder, like, uh...adrenaline up? SHE HAS A SWORD? MAYBE FIGHT BACK?

Hah. Weak ass fuckin Atlas people.  Also the clock going off in the back ground twelve times. How fitting. Welcome to midnight. 

Also shes kind of glowing here cause the room is dark, and I find it amusing this is probably the last time she wears white.

And THERES the Cinder we know

Sick ass music, cool. Also THAT is an interesting semblance...I guess he turns himself to metal? Also DAMN his aura broke after THAT? Hes a Huntsman...ah who cares. Again probably in Cinders memory more than anything. Which at this point is probably about as reliable as a coked up hookers.

SHANKED. Sucker. You shoulda seen THAT one coming.

And thats all it took to get the shock collar off. Lol. 

So what happened to the hotel? Did they just...write it off? I mean four people got murdered in there...

And now we’re back on the whale. HOW THE SCREAMING FUCK DID CINDER JUST...

Wow. She just got up after eating that blast. Fucking plot armor.

Merc making the hard calls honestly.  Im actually gonna watch all of this now which is nice because I want to know whats happening in the real world. PITY MORE THAN HALF THE EPISODE WAS THIS FUCKING FILLER.

I like how Cinder just...goes quiet the moment she realizes shes lost Mercury. Not that he was USEFUL mind you but if I had to guess she liked being the boss. But now shes...basically back where she started. 

So the whale is basically a ship. It has a bridge. Probably Salems throne room.

Man, Oscars literally just RTs punching bag this season isnt he? Literally in this case. 

His clothes are still scortched too which I find interesting.  The black eyes also staying. Auras not back up then? Aura repair and regen seems...werid half the time. Like RT does what they want with it.

Ah so someone finally says it...but at the same time what exactly does Salem have to fear? If she cant fight the whole world...what could they do? Maybe overwhelming her? It...Im having a hard time putting the “she cant be stopped” with “shes afraid of fighting all of Remnant”. 

Somethings missing here. I know it.

The sound of the “door” opening reminds me of the Flood doors in High Charity in Halo 3s Cortana. Fleshy twisting.

Mention from Hazel, but AGAIN...no details. I guess if you nail down how she can do stuff its harder to write? 

Glad someone made a comment on the futility of the Hunter academies. 

I really hate how Salems giving us creepy mommy shades. 

Hmm. So yeah the bridge IS the throne room/command deck. I like how Neo doesnt give a fuck is just casually kneeling. 

Ah okay THATS why he grabbed the scroll. 

Heh. Interesting. How exactly does this work I wonder. 

...Why does Salem have a ring. Has she always had that ring?

Neo looking at the Hound like “oh, I could ride this thing”. 

Oh cool the Ace Ops. And they’re arguing, shocker. Sounds like Elm doesnt trust tech either. No shock there.  Idiot.

Atlas elite. Yeah, right.

Huh, is this a Manta with landing gear? I guess they do have them...seems kind of silly to have them so high up though. I guess thats what the thing under the door is for, so they can deploy a ramp. Man, I really dont like Atlas’s airship design.

Hare needs some fuckin suppresants. 

Annnnddd...here we go, things go straight to hell. I was warned of this. I am going to try and not be mad...but from what Ive heard the incomptence of the military in this particular section is astronomical.

Huh. So...Grimm can be convirted into a rock-punching liquid? Interesting. Has that always been a thing or... Also why the fuck are you jsut standing there in awe, go kill the fucking thing! Fucking Specialists.

...that is all it took to get through Atlas’s shield? THAT?

I also love how no one does anything. Ironwoods like “wait what the fuck”. Come on bro. 

And...thats the Atlas navy. Everyone. Two lasers. One of which missed. Remind me again what exactly these things are used to shoot?

Wait, no, that took down part of it, and then the rest is, surprise, hitting the soft rock on the outside. 

THERE goes the shield. 

Hang on a second, how long have those giant squid things been there?

And...what. The whale just approaches, nothing happens? You’ve got 12 fucking ships there, shoot the fucking thing.

Again, WHY IS NO ONE DOING ANYTHING?

Oh, it just beach-headed. Okay fine, whatever. 

Im not really worried.

Lets see how RT makes this WORSE though...

And thats this weeks episode.

[narukoibito]

I was definitely not ready for that fic outline because it included pretty much everything I have ever wanted from a HP fic :0 Even if you never get round to writing it, just hearing your concept and knowing you’re thinking about this kind of stuff is so exciting!!

Now you’ve got me thinking about alternate HP dimensions at 1am :0 I think the nature/nurture element you mentioned makes fics of that type so fascinating... though perhaps it’s more that I want characters to acknowledge the amount of trauma our boy hjp has gone through (even before he went to Hogwarts 🥺)

Anyway I am certain there are going to be loads of people who will love anything you write on this, but what matters most is that you enjoy actually writing it :) so take all the time you need to do so < 3 btw you’ve also taught me the phrase ‘white whale’ today - so cheers for that too!

Thanks for your kind words! It’s such a crazy and fun idea, and I get super revved up about it! 

I do need to remind myself at times that it’s about my enjoying the writing, but oftentimes I don’t enjoy writing – I enjoy having written. I do want others to enjoy what I write, but I also aspire to write something I’m really proud of. It would be easy to post what I write right after I finish something (I did that all the time when I wrote before), but these days I do a lot of editing and rewriting so that it’s something I would really enjoy reading and am proud of having written. Some of that is perfectionism, but also some of that is me wanting to grow as a writer. Still, what I consider good enough can be a bit unrealistic, and I have to decide when enough is enough and pull the plug to simply post. 

I struggle with perfectionism in most facets of my life. Unfortunately, I associate my value as a person with being able to perform flawlessly, both in terms of quality of my output, but also personality such as kindness, likability, etc. Of course, there is no such thing as being perfect, so I constantly fall short of my own standards and (like Harry) frequently doubt that I am someone who deserves to be loved. I have to practice treating myself with the same kindness I extend to others. External pressures like people liking and validating my worth as a writer can truly drive me into really dark places (it led to my not writing for 10+ years). I try to balance that out by writing to a point where I’m proud of it to combat the strong desire for validating kudos and comments (of which I am truly grateful for anyone who takes that time to do). 

[bri-rog-deak-fred]

In Good Company (BONUS part 5)

Brian May x Reader: The reader is the 5th member of queen, and she sleeps with Brian when they were both drunk and she finds out she’s pregnant half way through a tour, causing her to try and hide the pregnancy from everyone, especially Brian. Rock stars don’t have babies, right?

Note: hello lovies! here’s a little bonus chapter for you all  for the In Good Company series! Extra fluffy and sweet for you all to hopefully end on a good note! love you all and thank you for reading and requesting! <3

-

After telling Brian about being pregnant and finally revealing your secret to your bandmates, life had a little bit more ease to it. Once you all traveled back home to England, the stress of touring was dissolving rapidly, and you couldn’t be happier. You thought back to how you almost considered leaving Queen, or even giving your child up for adoption had your friends and Brian disown you. It was all silly now, and you would find yourself even laughing at the ideas or crazy notions you came up with.

Brian was there every moment he could when you came back to your shared flat, going from room mates to sharing a room and becoming the couple you both had always secretly wanted. Of course, diving head first into parenthood would be stressful, but you took it slow in your relationship. You didn’t want to pressure him, in anyway, as he was a gentleman as always. Once home, he was ever so excited to begin preparing your flat for the baby. Though you had a few more months left to put all the finishing touches together, he would beam in excitement at any mention of decorating the nursery or discussing baby names, or even just catching a glimpse of you and your rounding middle.

Every weekend, he would take you out. Your dates and company with Brian were so comfortable and natural, it felt like you hadn’t changed a thing between you both, but the title of your relationship.

Luckily, you were all on a year long break, working on the next up and coming album for Queen, so everything was rather nice and easy (mostly). Staying out of the public’s eye was a little difficult for you from how large Queen became over the last year. Never the less, you hid mostly in coats for the weather was chilling down through fall and winter. The press did find out about you and Brian however, and they had a grand time sneaking photos of you two snogging on dates and walking from the recording studio mostly.

One morning, about 8 and a half months into your pregnancy, you felt Brian gently wake you, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek and mumbling something about “We have to go to the studio” and “We’re having a meeting” and “Freddie keeps calling”. You groan softly to yourself and sigh, rolling over to your other side as your back ached. “M’kay.” You say softly, eyes opening to the morning light and a curly haired man opening the windows. You sat up and yawned, watching as Brian swiftly pulled the drapes back  his thin, lanky body clad in a white button up that wasn’t buttoned up fully and a pair of tight black jeans. He heard the sheet rustle and turned to face you. His glimmering smile warmed your heart and you swung your legs over the bed side, toes meeting the chilly hard wood floor of the bedroom.

You shiver from the cold and stand, body aching already. Your stomach had seemed to bloom quite a lot, and you were rather sick of being pregnant. But the way Brian looked at you in such adoration, you didn’t feel quite as bad not seeing your feet or looking like you made a cake and ate the whole thing too. You rub your eyes and suddenly feel arms wrap around your middle and chin rest upon your shoulder. “Good morning Bri.” You hum sweetly, feeling his hands run over the sides of belly.

“Good morning my angel. How are you feeling?” He asked, like he did every other minute.

“A little peckish, but tired. The baby was tossing all night.” You say and let out a sigh. He turned you around and placed a gentle kiss to your nose. “Not long now.” He said and smiled. “I know. Just think, there’ll be a little one of us running around here in less than a month.” You say, stress laying in the back of your mind. The nursey was almost completed, thanks to Freddie’s design. Though, you did have to tell him multiple times that you did NOT want the tiger striped rug, no matter how many times he whined about how well it matched the wall paper. You hum quietly to yourself and rub the sleep from your eyes.

You pull away and start rummaging around in your closet for clothes. “What’s this about going to the recording studio? I thought we were recording next weekend.” You say as you pass through hanger after hanger of shirts and dresses.

Brian began to make the bed, pulling the covers up to the pillows. He hid a smile under his breath. “Band discussion. Deaky had a few ideas he wanted to share, and Freddie and Roger wanted to discuss the next tour and dates for that.” He said, fluffing up the bed pillows as you put on a white baby doll dress, with thick, red wool tights under it. You pulled out a shaggy tan fur coat you had snagged from Roger a year ago and laid it on the bed. “This look okay?” You suddenly ask Brian, feeling rather self-conscious of your body. It had been a month since you last saw everyone and you felt like a whale.

“I think you look lovely. The red tights look nice with that dress. You could wear that red lipstick you have. It would match perfectly, I think.” Brian suggested, lashes batting as he looked in your direction.

You turn and look in the mirror, sucking in your cheeks and sighing before you try to tie the bow on the back of the dress, suddenly you felt gentle, knobby fingers take the ribbons and tie it for you. You almost want to argue that you could do it, but suddenly you meet Brian’s eyes in the mirror, his curly brown hair ghosting upon your cheek as he leaned over your shoulder.

“Let me, so I can untie it later and take this dress off of you.” His voice was low and gravely, sending heat to your middle and your legs wanted to wobble. You swallow and turn to him, getting a sly smile. “Maybe you could help me take off a few other things as well… like that purple teddy I’ve been wanting to show you.” You say, biting your lip, stealing a peck from Brian’s lips. “Minx.” He shook his head and finished making the bed. You yawn once again, satisfied with your taunting, before you waddled slowly to the kitchen to make yourself something quick to eat for breakfast. Brian wasn’t far behind, pouring you a cup of tea as you made toast with jam.

 -

 Every time you would go to the studio with the boys, everyone was much calmer and more delicate around you. There wasn’t nearly as much shouting, and loads of breaks were taken, though you thought it wasn’t that necessary. Today was a little different though. After getting ready and curling your hair and applying a fresh face of makeup, you and Brian headed out to the studio through the cold wintery day. When you arrived to your assigned recording studio, the lights were off and no one seemed to be there yet. You turn to look at Brian, confused as ever.

“Are you sure this is right?” You ask, voice quiet. You held your guitar case a little tighter in your grip.

“Yeah, this is the one.” He said softly, hand gently leading you into the darkened room by the small of your back.

“Bri, I really think they’d be here by now-“ You try before the lights switch on and suddenly there was Freddie, John and Roger. Veronica, Dominique and Mary all stood by their sides as they yelled out “Surprise!” The sitting area was decorated with yellow balloons and streamers, with beverages and snacks of all kinds. Presents of all shapes and sizes were piled high in the corner. Across the window to the recording booth hung a large banner that said ‘WELCOME BABY MAY’. You looked around, actually surprised for once.

You were baffled, looking to everyone before you looked to Brian.

“Surprise love!” He said, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You set your guitar case down, laughing tears away from your eyes. “Is this a surprise baby shower?” You ask as Freddie came to your side, helping you take your jacket off. “Of course! You refused to have one, so we decided, fuck it, we’ll give you one anyways!” He laughed and pulled you into a gracious hug.

“Oh Fred, you didn’t need to!” You try as he shushes you. “Oh look at you! You look fantastic my dear!” He says, looking to your belly. You roll your eyes and put your hands on your hips, back straining. Freddie pressed his hand to your tummy, smiling fondly to you. “The baby must be as tall as Brian.” He said matter of-factly and you couldn’t help but giggle. “I was just telling him the same thing the other night. I can’t wait for the baby to come. I’m tired of looking and feeling like an over grown watermelon” You say, receiving sorrowful smiles from across the room.

Freddie took you by the hand and lead you to the couch, where you began making small talk amoungst your friends, chatting about the baby and all before you had a serious discussion about the next tour and some music related things. Roger insisted that it was put off a few more months but you didn’t think it would be all that terrible, especially since Brian’s mum and dad, though not the most approving of your situation, were more than delighted with helping with the baby once you all got back into the swing of it all. 

After chatting, you opened the presents, all from nappies to blankets and a tiny drum set from “Cool” Uncle Roger. Deaky and Veronica gave you plenty of clothes, all different colors and sizes, which you appreciated immensely. Freddie gifted you and Brian a trip to Costa Rica as a get away when the baby came so you both would have a break at some time. You really couldn’t be more thankful for your little family of friends. After there was cake served, you quietly excused yourself to use the loo, feeling a slight jab of pain on the bottom of your stomach. Must of eaten too much, you thought, though you couldn’t even finish your slice of lemon cake.

Neverminding, you began your way down the hall, feeling the pressure build a little more. Suddenly it was unbearable and you caught yourself on the wall, holding your breath. You hiss and let out a soft groan of pain, holding your stomach before you felt a warm trickle down your leg, soaking your tights and leaving a puddle around your feet. Suddenly the pain increased even more, your back spasming. “Uh oh…” You whisper, the pain never ceasing. Not now. You held the wall, legs shaking.

“Brian… Brian!” You shout, very aware that the baby was in fact coming. “Brian!” You cry out again, voice wavering as tears pricked in the corners of your eyes.

While sitting in the recording booth, Brian quietly listened as Deaky spoke lightheartedly. He looked down to his drink, before he thought he heard your voice calling his name from the hall. He looked up, seeing that everyone had gone silent before the voice came again, this time, louder and more distressed. “Y/N?” He shook himself out of his head and shot up off the couch, clambering through the door way. At the end of the hall, he saw you leaning against the wall, hearing your whimpering. “Y/N!” He yelled, feeling the presence of everyone behind him. He ran, careful to hold you up. His eyes followed your legs down to the floor, seeing the puddle. “Oh my god… your water broke… the baby! The baby is coming!” He breathed out, excitement and worry mixing together. “Roger get the car!” He shouted out, gently petting your side.

You gripped Brian’s hand, feeling the pain subside a little. “M-My water broke… The baby’s coming! Oh my god… I was just.. and then… ahhhhh!” You let out another panicked moan of pain, scared from how quickly it was all happening. Brain held your side, before you felt John sneak around your other side, holding your waist and hand as well. As they helped you along you caught a glimpse of Freddie’s face, seeing how pale he turned. You smiled, laughing a little. “This was a lovely party!” You try, trying to lighten the mood though everyone was fretting nervously about. Many questions were being asked but you couldn’t focus on anything other than the sudden painful waves that began to hit you rapidly. After you got into Roger’s car, you gave a kiss to John’s knuckles as a thank you and goodbye, leaning against Brian’s side before he closed the car door behind you. Brian held your hand the entire way to the hospital, gently mumbling sweet nothings to help calm you, and it really did. He pressed kisses to your hair, just as nervous and excited as you.

 -

 Yours and Brian’s daughter was born not too long after, with hair just as dark as her father’s. Her nose was like a little button. Though small, she would be rather tall, you thought. She also had her father’s long legs. Brian cried for an hour straight after you had given birth to such a magnificent creature, thinking that it wasn’t possible that he could of helped make something so pure. You couldn’t help yourself either. She was pleasantly prefect in every way, and you felt so incredibly happy to have her with Brian.  It wasn’t until a few days later did everyone meet her. Your bandmates gave you privacy as you two made it home and settled in with the little one. You both agreed on Emily as a name for her, heart swooning every time you could look at her tiny face and puffy pink cheeks.

When Roger, John and Freddie finally came to your flat to visit, they all couldn’t help the giddiness they all felt.

You sat in an arm chair, holding the sleeping baby close to your chest, her warmth and milky scent sending your heart wild. Freddie was first to meet her, unable to talk for once. He gently caressed her cheek, eyes wet as he met the babe. “She will be as powerful as her father and strong and beautiful as her mother.” He said, voice so quiet and choked up. “Congratulations my darlings.” He said quietly, hugging Brian tightly.

Roger came over and smiled to her face. “My, she has your nose, Brian.” He scoffed playfully. “Gorgeous little princess she is. Little Emily, Uncle Rog is going to show you the wonderful world of cars and hopefully you’ll appreciate them more than your parents do.” He said, not taking his sunglasses off. He didn’t want everyone to see how teary his baby blue eyes had become, clearing his throat.

John smiled warmly, peaking around Roger, smiling brightly to the sleeping infant in your arms. “Congratulations you two. You have a lovely daughter, and I’m happy she’s a part of this family.”

And you really couldn’t feel any more happier, especially now, realizing how lucky Emily would be to have so many amazing people in her life, guiding her to do her best and really follow her dreams.

 -

 Brian couldn’t wipe the smile off his face, happiness continuously bubbling inside him. He was always there, making sure she was comfortable, and making sure you were doing just fine as well. Every once in a while, you would hear the soft melody of a guitar being played from the nursey, and you’d stand quietly in the door way, watching as Brian sat in front of the crib, lulling his baby to sleep with his heavenly voice and gentle guitar chords. His melody was soft and slow, a song he sang often. A song you sang once to your Emily before you even knew she would be yours and Brian’s.

“Take good care of the ones you love and keep good company…”

After listening for a minute, you heard the guitar slowly hum to a stop, and Brian’s voice was barely a whisper now.

After a moment, you watched him lay the guitar to the side and press a kiss to Emily’s head. He turned and jumped a little, seeing your figure standing quietly, the pale light of the hallway flooding in around you. He met you, before he closed the door behind him.

“Didn’t know you were still up.” He said, wrapping his hands around your waist, nuzzling his nose down to yours. “How could I sleep when there was an angel singing our daughter to sleep in the other room?” You say softly, wrapping your arms around his neck. You stare into his hazel eyes, seeing the stars glimmer from within them.

“Come to the balcony with me for a moment.” He said, cheeks burning bright. You nodded and followed him. Spring was coming soon, but the night air was still cold and crisp. But from the coldness, the stars were reborn in the dark blue ocean of the night sky. You pull your jumper a little more close around you, feeling Brian’s body press your back. He let out a sigh as you shiver. “The stars tonight are brighter than I’ve seen in ages.” You murmur, the street below quiet and the wind rustled only the tree tops. Brian sucked in a breath of cool air, wrapping his arms around you as you shiver. “That’s because I asked them to shine a little more, just for you.” He whispered and you roll your eyes. “Forever my romantic.” You say and shake your head.

After a few more moments of enjoying the vastness of the sky and peaceful night with Brian May wrapped around you, you felt drowsiness take over you. You leaned your head back, resting fully against his chest.

“Y/N, can I just tell you how lucky I am?” Brian says, catching you off guard. You could feel your heart racing, and you were sure his was just as fast.

“Lucky? How so?” You ask.

“I’m lucky… to have such a lovely person like you in my life. Who loves me undoubtably… gorgeous and kind. Clever. I’m lucky I met her and now have the most beautiful daughter. I’m lucky I get to be a father because of you. I’m lucky I met you. I thank my lucky stars every night because I truly am so very, very lucky.” He says and you turn to him. You look to him as if he were the night sky. Ever so radiant and kind, never faltering in his words of admiration or acts of kindness and love.

“I could very much say the same. I’m very lucky to have you Brian. Never once did I think I could find as much love and happiness until I met you.” You say, closing your eyes. “Thank you, for everything Brian. From the bottom of my heart… thank you.” You say and he wrapped his arms around you, holding you so tightly. “Just because life doesn’t go as planned doesn’t mean it isn’t grand.” He mumbles into your hair.

“Y/N, can you look at the stars for the moment?” He asks, quickly taking your hands and spinning you around to see the sky. Bright quick strings of light lit up the sky and your jaw fell. “A meteor shower?” You say, peaking back at Brian. He looks to you and then the sky. “Yes. Tonight is the peak of it actually.” He says and brings you to the very edge of the balcony.

 “Make a wish, darling.” He whispers, lips gracing over your ear, leaving you shudder. You squeeze your eyes shut, making a rather large wish to yourself, feeling silly for wishing for something so lovely and foolish. You suddenly feel Brian step away from you, leaving you at the edge, holding tightly to the railing as you wished upon the shooting stars, feeling like a child.

You open your eyes and look to the heavens before you spun around, hoping to catch Brian’s eyes, but he wasn’t standing anymore. You turn, seeing Brian kneel on the ground in front of you. Your hands cover your mouth, realizing what he was doing. Oh, what a moment it was, watching him pull a little red velvet box from his pocket.

 “Y/N, my darling. I have loved you since the very first moment I met you. I think you’re the most charming women, most incredibly driven lady, and the kindest and most caring of friends I could of asked for. I promise to protect you and our Emily… until the end of time. I love you… as much as the flowers love the rain… the stars love the moon, as much as we love our baby. I don’t want to know a life without you, Y/N L/N.” Brian stutters and laughs, causing you to laugh as well, heart racing and cheeks flushing as your wish seemed to unfold before your eyes. You try you best to blink away the already fallen tears that glistened on your cheeks in the pale moonlight.

 “Will you marry me?”

(let me know if you wanna be) Tagged: @sleep-paralysis-demon @mazzello-lee-jones-malek @t0r @geek-and-proud @im-grac3ful-but-fi3rc3 @kellypenac @awkwardangelshezza @brenna-xoxox @leah-halliwell92 @kiwi-coconut-dreams @sunflower-borhap-boys @fruityfreddie @neymarlionelmessi7 @rogertaylorsfalsettogivesmehives @stephydearestxo 

[tryingtobts]

Diet

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x m!reader ft. Best friend!Yoongi

Warning: Unhealthy eating habits, slight body shaming

A/n: Oof I’m back! Here’s the second request by @astroboy257, hope you Enjoy!

Y/n’s Pov

I quickly got ready for Jin’s and mine’s date. Putting on a simple white dress shirt and black pants, I checked my hair and smiled at myself. I grabbed my phone and waited for my boyfriend to pick me up. Notifications from Twitter popped up and I looked through them. They were pictures of Jin and I. I smiled at the sweet pictures, saving them on my phone. Albeit it is kinda creepy being stalked but we looked cute so I didn’t care. I looked through the comments and my mood dropped a bit. ‘Ugh, idk why Jin likes that pig.’ ‘Did (Y/n) gain weight or was he always that fat?’ ‘Lol look at that whale next to Jin.’ I rolled my eyes a bit. I knew they were just jealous so I tried to not let them get to me. There was a knock on my door and I stood up excitedly to open the door. Jin stood there with a smile and flowers. “I thought I could give you more than one flower so I got you a bouquet. Even if their not as pretty as my face.” He said with a air kiss. I rolled my eyes at the gesture but took the flowers and kissed him before putting the flowers in a vase. I hugged him once more before we went to his car. “Where we going Jinnie?” I asked as we pulled out of the driveway. “A restaurant that I found. Apparently it’s good for lighter meals while being delicious.” He said and gave a pointed stare at me. I rose my eyebrow, “That’s new. Usually you take us out to a nice family restaurant. But if it’s good food, it should be fine.” I hummed. He sighed a bit and I noticed the mood dropped a bit. I was confused but decided to ignore it. Once we got there, the hostess greeted us and showed us to our table. The menu didn’t look like anything we usually eat so I didn’t know what to get. “Hey Jinnie?” I asked. He hummed in acknowledgement as he concentrated on the menu. I looked at him weirdly, usually he would smile at me and give me his full attention. I tried to not let his unusual response bother me and asked, “What are you getting? I don’t know what to get.” He looked up from his menu and suggested, “I’m thinking of pasta but I think you should get a salad.” I narrowed my eyes at him, “What are you implying Seokjin?” He shook his head and turned his head back to the menu. I tightened my grip on the menu and looked down at my body. Were those comments right? No, Jin is just in a bad mood. The waiter came with bread and took our orders, I ordered a chicken salad and Jin ordered pasta. After the waiter left, a silence enveloped us and I fidgeted under Jin’s gaze as I took a piece of bread. Being slightly fed up I asked, “What? What’s wrong?” He sighed, “Well, I’ve been meaning to tell you something but it can wait till later.” I gulped and nodded. There was no fun banter, no conversation, just an awkward silence. The waiter finally came with our food and we ate in silence. I took another piece of bread and ate it with my salad. Jin sighed at my actions and I tried to not let it affect me but couldn’t so I put my fork down. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked quietly. He shook his head and looked off to the side, “I guess I should tell you now since you’re obviously not getting my hints. But don’t you think you should start dieting?” I looked at him in disbelief, “Excuse me?” “I mean it’s just kind of, I said kind of but not really, embarrassing to be seen with you sometimes especially when you eat a lot.” He said cautiously. My hand immediately went to my stomach and I looked down. Suddenly, my appetite went away and I pushed my salad away. “Fine, whatever. I-If you think that’s what’s best. Fine.” I said quietly but turning my head away so he didn’t see my eyes tearing up. He gave a noise of happiness and proceeded to eat while telling me about his day. He didn’t even notice how I kept a grip on my stomach or hear its grumbling. I kept quiet for the rest of the date but Jin didn’t notice. “Bye babe! Love you!” He said and gave me a kiss before leaving my apartment. I sighed and walked to the bathroom. I looked at my reflection in disgust, so I guess this is what the world sees. A pig. Maybe a diet won’t hurt.

3rd person PoV.

It’s been a week since the date and no one had seen (Y/n). Jin, busy with his schedule, didn’t notice since not seeing (Y/n) for this long is part of the idol lifestyle. He didn’t really notice the younger’s absence until (Y/n)’s best friend, Yoongi asked about him.

“Jin-hyung, has (Y/n) contacted you recently? He’s been ignoring my texts and the maknaes have been bothering me about him since they have no one to annoy.” Yoongi asked with concern bleeding through his words even though he tried to sound annoyed.

Jin thought about it and shook his head, “No, now that I think about it. Hold on, let me try texting him real quick.”

Jin looked confused at his phone. (Y/n) always accepts an invitation to dinner. His texts seemed very different than his usual happy and upbeat texts. No heart emojis or even a I love you.

“Well?” Yoongi asked interrupting Jin’s thoughts.

“Uh he responded. But something feels wrong. He rejected my offer for dinner.” Jin answered, sounding unsure.

Yoongi’s eyebrows furrowed and mumbled something about visiting him later before leaving his hyung to contemplate his boyfriend’s unusual behavior. Jin shook his head, maybe he’s over thinking about it.

-Timeskip-

Yoongi knocked on the apartment’s door in quick urgency. Something felt wrong, his friend hasn’t even sent a single text to him this week whether to just talk or fanboy over Jin. The door opened to reveal a pale (Y/n). The weak man leaned on the door and smiled at his best friend.

He greeted Yoongi with a small hug, “Hey Yoongi! Wasn’t expecting a surprise visit-“

“You look like shit.” Yoongi replied bluntly and hugged back noticing a slight difference in his friend’s body.

“Wow, geez you haven’t seen me in a week yet you’re still mean to meeee.” The (H/c)-ette laughed.

Yoongi furrowed his eyebrows, “Did you lose weight or some shit? Are you on a diet?”

(Y/n)’s eyes lit up and nodded eagerly, “Yep! It must be working if you were able to notice.” He smiled to himself.

“Anyway, what can I do for you, my lovely platonic soulmate?” (Y/n) asked letting the other in.

“You’ve been ignoring everyone. The maknaes are annoying me because they miss you. So you can start by explaining why you’ve been distant.” Yoongi said and settled on the couch.

The other chuckled and rubbed the back of his head, “Well, I’ve been busy trying to make this diet work. Also I didn’t want to embarrass you guys anymore than I have until I get skinnier.” He explained.

“What do you mean? You don’t embarrass us (Y/n). What did I say about reading those dumb comments again?” Yoongi said with slight anger that his friend is being bullied again.

(Y/n) shook his head, “I’m not reading them! I swear. Jin-hyung said that I should start dieting! So I’m just doing what he thinks is best.” (Y/n) tried to defend.

Yoongi stood up, “He told you what?” He said dangerously low.

“Look don’t get mad at him! It’s true! Look at me now! I’m getting skinnier!” (Y/n) said with slight hysteria.

“You look like you haven’t eaten in days! When was the last time you ate an actual meal?!” Yoongi yelled.

(Y/n) gulped, “Last week…” He said quietly.

Yoongi looked at his friend like he was crazy so he laughed, “Wow. So you tell me to eat proper meals and yet here you are, not even eating. That’s not dieting, hyung. That’s killing yourself.” He seethed.

(Y/n) flinched at his friend’s attitude and stuttered, “Y-Yoongi-“

Yoongi grabbed his friend’s hand and dragged him to the door.

“H-Hey! Where are we going?” (Y/n) said in a slight panic.

“We’re going to get you a whole meal, dumbass.” Yoongi said simply.

(Y/n) managed to retch his hand back when they reached the entrance.

Yoongi glared at (Y/n), “(Y/n) don’t be difficult!”

(Y/n) growled, “Leave.” He said quietly.

Yoongi’s eyes morphed into confusion, “What-“

“I said leave!” (Y/n) yelled and pushed his friend out the door, “This is why I avoided you all! You wouldn’t be supportive of me trying to actually become skinny!” He screamed

“You were perfect the way you were! You weren’t fat (Y/n)!” Yoongi yelled back, trying to get (Y/n) back.

“No no no! Stop lying! Everyone said otherwise! Jin even said otherwise so leave me alone!” (Y/n) yelled and pushed Yoongi one more time and slamming the door.

(Y/n) leaned his back on the door and slid down. Yoongi pounded on the door, yelling at his friend to open up. He gave up after an hour and yelled, “Fine! Believe whatever! But don’t say I didn’t fucking try!” And he left.

(Y/n) cried but shook his head and thought, ‘A few more pounds and I’ll show Yoongi that I’m perfectly fine.’

-Timeskip-

Jin’s Pov

I knocked on (Y/n)’s door in worry. It’s been two weeks since I saw him and a week since Yoongi came home fuming with tears in his eyes. He wouldn’t talk to me and glared every time I tried to approach him. I tried to get (Y/n) to tell me what happened but he refused to tell me anything. The fact that (Y/n) has been refusing to go out with me or any of the others has also got me worried, he usually likes to go out with me or the maknaes when I’m busy at least 5 times a week.

There was no answer, looking at my phone to check the time it was 7:00 pm. (Y/n) is usually home by now. I bit my lip in worry and reached above the door frame to get the spare (Y/n) keeps. I found it and unlocked the door.

“(Y/n)? Are you home?” I called out while taking off my shoes in a hurry.

I looked around the living room and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I checked the kitchen before moving onto his bedroom and noticed the lack of snacks on his counter that he puts out for the maknaes and himself. I shook my head thinking I was overthinking the whole situation.

Going to his bedroom, I heard shallow breaths coming from the other side. Gulping, I opened the door and saw (Y/n) on the floor passed out. I quickly ran over to him and placed his head on my lap.

I tried to shake him, “(Y/n)?! What happened?!” I fruitlessly asked.

I noticed how sharp his facial features were and how his cheeks were sunken in. He looked like a skeleton.

‘When was the last time this boy ate?!’ I thought in a panic as I scrambled to find my phone.

“Hyung?” (Y/n) groaned and weakly opened his eyes.

I quickly tried to calm down so I can comfort him, “Shh, I’m calling an ambulance so save your strength and you can explain to me why you would do this to yourself.” I soothed him as I dialed 911.

(Y/n) looked confused but also out of it so he smiled at me and asked, “Am I handsome yet hyung?”

It was my turn to look confused and I asked, “What are you talking about? You’ve always been handsome.”

Before he could answer the emergency operator picked up, “This is 911, what’s your emergency?”

“Yes I’m at (address). My boyfriend collapsed and it looks like he hasn’t been eating, p-please send an ambulance.” I said as calmly as I could but I couldn’t stop my voice from cracking.

“Alright sir an ambulance is on its way.” The operator said before I hung up.

“Hyung, why’d you call them? I’m fine and you said I’m handsome now!” (Y/n) said weakly with a small smile.

Tears made its way to my eyes, “You look like you could pass out any minute (Y/n)! What would of happened if I didn’t get here in time?! Why would you do this to yourself?” I yelled at him.

He flinched and looked at me with slight delusion, “B-But Jinnie-hyung said I needed to so I don’t embarrass everyone-.” He said quietly before his eyes drooped down and he went limp.

“H-Hey. (Y/n), sweetie, that isn’t funny. Come on, wake up.” I said and shook him.

I kept desperately shaking him until the paramedics came and got him. I watched in disbelief as they quickly put him the stretcher and carried him away from me. With shaking hands, I called Yoongi.

“What?” A cold response answered.

I whimpered, “Yoongi-ah, can you pick me up from (Y/n)’s. H-He- I- hospital.” I managed to choke out before sobbing as reality hit me.

“Shit- okay Hyung. I’ll be there, just fuck- hold on.” He said before hanging up.

I dropped my phone down and laid next to where (Y/n) was and sobbed. It felt like I cried for hours before a tap on my shoulders brought me out of my crying fit. I looked up to see Namjoon with a worried face and Yoongi looking off to the side with tears on his angry face.

“Hyung, let’s go to the hospital yeah?” Namjoon spoke softly, holding out his hand.

I nodded and let him help me up. Yoongi stared at me and I looked away. He sighed.

“It’s both of our faults so hurry up and get in the car.” He murmured before turning around and walking out.

Namjoon patted my back and walked me to his car where Yoongi sat in the passenger seat. We drove to the hospital in worried silence.

We quickly walked to the front desk and asked for (Y/n)’s room.

The nurse hummed as she looked for his name on the computer, “He was brought in a few minutes ago so only family is allowed to visit and have information.”

I resisted growling at her and with clenched teeth I said, “I’m his fiancé, they’re his brothers.”

She looked surprised, “Oh sorry sir. The doctor said Mr. (L/n) is in stable condition. He’s in room 135.” She said.

I turned towards Yoongi and Namjoon, who looked at me with unsurprised faces.

I walked passed them and whispered, “Well, I’m not going to let him wake up to no one am I? I already fail”

They sighed and followed me. We rushed to the room and as soon as we reached it I froze. I didn’t want to go in as guilt weighed down on my shoulders.

“Hyung. It’s okay.” Namjoon said and I felt two hands on my shoulders.

I looked back and saw Yoongi and Namjoon give me a reassuring nod. I gulped and reached for the door but before I could open it, the door opened and the doctor who opened it looked up from his clipboard with a slightly shocked face.

“Are you here for Mr. (L/n)?” He asked.

I nodded, “Yes. I-I’m his fiancé.” I lied.

He briefly looked at my bare hands and rose an eyebrow before shaking his head. I felt my ears heat up in embarrassment and I quickly hid my hands.

He sighed, “I’m assuming your ‘Jinnie-hyung’? Mr. (L/n) was mumbling about you in his delusional state and kept asking for us to call you as soon as he woke up, don’t worry he’s no longer delirious. Let’s talk out here first.” He said with a slight smile and closed the door behind him.

I heard chuckles behind me and I glared at Namjoon and Yoongi to shut them up. They only looked away with teasing smiles.

The doctor looked at his clipboard and stated, “Mr. (L/n) was very lucky someone called him in. He was very malnourished and is underweight. If he had went another day or so, he wouldn’t have made it.”

I gulped as tears welled up in my eyes again and I nodded my head in understanding. The doctor moved away from the door and we rushed in.

I wanted to throw up at the IV hooked up to him to give him all the nutrients that he needed. (Y/n) was staring outside the window and looked at us as we walked in. He gave a weak smile. I walked up to him, grabbed his bony hand and started to sob.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I started to apologize.

He looked confused and gave a small smile.  “Why are you apologizing? It was all my fault in the first place for being fa-” He explained before Yoongi interrupted him.

“You weren’t fat to begin with, damn it! All those comments about your weight were wrong! Jin-hyung was wrong!” He yelled.

I looked at him shocked before realization hit me. I wanted to punch myself in the face. This was all my fault.

“Yoongi-“ (Y/n) said.

I interrupted him, “He’s right. I’m an asshole. I-I didn’t want this to happen! I wasn’t thinking when I said that. The comments were getting to me too and the stress of that day- God I don’t deserve to even see you right now if I’m making dumb excuses.” I said and scrambled to get away from (Y/n).

But (Y/n)’s grip on my hand tightened and he looked at me with hints of sadness and shock, “Jin-hyung. It’s okay.” He tried to sooth me.

“No! You could’ve died! It’s my fault! I almost killed you.” I cried out.

He let out a broken chuckle, “Jin-hyung. It’s my fault for being me-“ (Y/n) said again but this time his voice cracked a bit.

I cut him off with a hug, minding his IV, “No. You’re perfect the way you are. I love you for you, it’s why I asked you out in the first place so don’t say shit like that anymore. I should have told you this and not that bullshit on that date.” I said calmly.

He gripped my shirt and softly cried before full out sobbing. I cried with him and comforted him. (Y/n) pulled away and looked at Yoongi, who was sniffling quietly with his back turned away from us.

(Y/n) chuckled and called out, “You can come over here too, you big baby.”

Yoongi turned around angrily and I saw the tears in his eyes, “You’re the one crying!” He defended himself as the tears slowly made its way out.

Yet he still walked over, and hit (Y/n) on the head before softly crying in his lap.

“I’m sorry I left you even when I knew you needed help. I could’ve done more.” He whispered.

(Y/n) shook his head and patted Yoongi’s head. “No, it’s alright. I wasn’t in a right state of mind and would’ve just pushed you farther away. I should say sorry for being a bitch to you.” He comforted him.

Yoongi chuckled, “Good.” He looked at me, “If this happens again, I’ll kill you.” Yoongi gave a small smile and left with Namjoon.

I looked back at (Y/n) and smiled, “I’m sorry. When we get you out of here, I’ll treat you to any food you want then make a statement about those hate comments okay?”

(Y/n) smiled brightly and nodded, “Anything? Even dessert?”

I giggled, “Yep. Because I love you.”

He kissed me on the lips softly, “I love you too.”

I held on to his hand a little tighter and kissed him again. It was perfect, just like him.

[xaz-fr]

Starting a new mini vignette series called Us Two. Basically: I'm my own dragon pairings biggest fan (except maybe newt....) and damnit I want to write my pairings doing CUTE SHIT (for the most part)

Up first we got Layali, my Progenitor, and Najaïr, a Shard of the Windsinger. I love them both SO MUCH like wow. I love them ;0;

@deadpool-scar-bro @hikayelastoria @cornsnoot-fr @redlion-fr @mushroomdraggo @murdoch-fr @tales-around-sornieth @frxemriss @rainhearts-hatchery @rexcaliburr-fr @starry-ampelope @reanimatedfr @ally-fr @golden-lionsnake​ @rookfern​ @khadjin-fr (let me know if you’d like to be added to the lore pinglist)

The wind made the bamboo wind chimes clatter softly. Layali had made them. Najaïr had never known anything like wind chimes before. With the Bamboo Snakes it was utilitarian or mechanical because of Kala. He’d never seen something to have because it made you happy unless it had another use. Bonten thought it was stupid to have extra ‘garbage’ to carry around with you. Najaïr didn’t totally disagree because it he did hate hauling stuff around. As the biggest of the Snakes other than Kala he always had had to carry everything and any extra thing was something he had to shoulder. So. Not fun.

But Nadalin just made the wind chime wherever they stayed for more than a few days. She hung it above their sleeping nest and when Bonten complained about she’d just look into his bright green eyes and tell him to do something about it if it made him so upset. Bonten, always more of a whiner than a dooer… never did. Najaïr didn’t mind. He liked them.

He was laid with Layali in their nest. Her slight form was curled against his in the pre dawn light, sleeping soundly as he was watching the wind chime. He liked that she slept so soundly. She said she used to sleep so horribly before, rarely getting a full night’s sleep, rarely sleeping without nightmares. But not with him. He had an arm around her shoulders as she cuddled against him, watching the sway of the bamboo and listening to the chime. He knew Jos was keeping watch a distance off with Green.

He sat up, still looking up when something started to move across the sky behind the leaves of the bamboo. It was a huge thing. Next to him Layali woke with a noise of complaint.

“Najaïr? What it is?” she muttered in Shingari, pulling on his arm. His ears perked when off in the distance he heard the high pitched thunder.

“Get up, c’mon,” he pulled her up.

“Whaaat?” she complained but did disturb their leaf and bamboo nest as she got to her feet, rubbing her eyes.

Using mostly his own magic and wing power he pulled her into the air. “You’ll see. C’mon,” he said urgently. Layali got her wings under her by the time they crested the bamboo tops.

Up this high dawn was more pronounced. The horizon was starting to lighten, the bamboo forest turning almost pink as a soft dawn peeked over the rising and falling mountains of the Ascent. “Look, look,” he pointed up and into the distance.

“Oh!” she cried. Out in the distance was a pod of sky whales. Three mothers with two calves and maybe a male. They played high up in the low hanging clouds, the young skimming against the bamboo to reach an itch they just couldn’t scratch. They were soft gray and green with curled and winding markings across their flanks with three sets of pectoral fins and short flukes meant more for speed that allowed them to swim quickly through the sky and clouds.

“C’mon, let’s go see,” and he grabbed her hand and started pulling her towards the pod. She didn’t fight him and when two Wind dragons wanted to fly somewhere they did so at speed. It took them moments to get closer to the pod.

The calves noticed them first and swam close to their gigantic mothers. But the mothers recognized them as the Windsinger’s children, same as they and were unbothered by the two small dragonoids flying between them. Even the babies were nearly as large as Najaïr had been before he’d taken on this form, their mothers truly massive next to them, larger than Imperials, larger than anything Najaïr had ever seen.

Layali let go of his hand to go closer to one of the calves. He just watched curiously and smiled when she coaxed it from the shadow of their mother. The calves were quicker than their mothers with greater dexterity and could almost keep with Layali’s casual flying but were very excited and keen to do so. Najaïr watched for a moment not really knowing what he was seeing. It took him far too long to realize she was playing with them. He hadn’t grown up playing with anyone else other than Kala and Jeddie and even that was never like this. He didn’t really know what play looked like. And now he saw Layali doing it and it felt like his hearts were much too large for his chest in a good way? He was a confusing feeling. He quickly flew over to her to play a chasing game with the calves.

Layali was more nimble in the air in this form than he was and didn’t just fly circles around the calves but him too. Watching how graceful she was made him smile. She looked so different from the girl he’d found on the Plateau bleeding from the nose. It made him happy seeing her like this, flying freely through the air, catching both his tail and the calves’ tails as she flitted around them. She made him dizzy and he didn’t want it to stop.

But it did have to come to an end. The pod was moving on. The mothers sang to their children as the sun broke above the low clouds, bathing them in glamorous golden sunlight, beckoning them away from the dragons to follow the pod. Layali called after them in Sinhgari and Najaïr smiled. Then she flew back to him and he felt his skin prickle all over like his scales were raising as she brushed against him.

“That was fun,” she said.

Najaïr’s mouth worked a moment, caught off guard with being asked to speak. “Y-yeah,” he blurted out, feeling really stupid.

“Do you want to go after them?” she asked him, stopping to hover next to him, her butterfly patterned wings barely moving.

“I think Bonten would wonder where I went,” he said.

She shrugged, “I guess,” she said.

“But if you wanted to-- I’d go anywhere with you,” he blurted out.

She giggled. “That’s sweet,” she said. “But we shouldn’t make the “Shard Chosen” any more cranky than he already is,” she snickered.

“Right,” he said. “We could stay out here a little longer,” he said.

She flew a bit closer to him, the clouds beneath them turning the color of white gold. “That’d be nice. I like it when it’s just the two of us. No Snakes. No Bonten,” she curled her rosette patterned tail around his and Najaïr felt both his hearts pounding like crazy in his chest.

“Me too,” he said. They were closer now than dragons could usually get. Only because they were both so skilled at Wind magic could they get within touching range without needing to move forward.

“Najaïr,” she said, sort of looking at the clouds, sort of at him. He was only looking at her. “You know,” she tapped her lips thoughtfully, “There’s a thing my old clan would do- well, the couples anyway,” and he sort of stopped hearing for a moment. All he could hear was the pounding of his hearts. He was able to hear properly after a few seconds, “”Have you heard of such things?”

“I’ll be honest,” he said, “I didn’t hear a thing you said.”

“What?” she seemed hurt.

He grabbed her hand, which surprised her, and pulled her as close as their big wings could accommodate and keep up their slow beats. He put her hand against his chest and she could feel the furious beating of his hearts through his thin skin. “I can barely hear you over the sound of my hearts,” he said softly, the second one only started beating like this when I met you.”

Her face softened. She took her hand off his chest and instead put his hand on her chest. “Mine too,” she said and he could feel the pounding of her hearts in her chest, making her soft, brown, skin thrum under his fingers. He smiled slightly.

“They’ve never done that before,” he said, licking his lips.

“No?”

“No.”

She smiled softly, “You know why?”

“You know why?” he asked, green eyes getting big. She sort of giggled.

“So what I was saying before,” she said. “It’s something those in my old clan did when they found someone who made their body do things they weren’t expecting.” He nodded, he wanted to know. “Just, this,” and she carefully pressed her lips against his. It was a funny feeling but he liked it immediately. He didn’t know what it was but it felt great and he was sure he wanted to do that again even as she pulled away.

“Oh,” he said.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

“I think one; we shouldn’t tell Bonten about that at all or he’d get real mad,” he said in a sort of staccato sing song tone that made her laugh. “And two; we should definitely do that again,” he continued in the same verse.

She just laughed again, “You’re lucky I like you or I’d say no after that silly voice you just used,” she said and cupped his jaw with both hands and pressed her lips against his again. It felt so nice he forgot to keep beating his wings and they started to fall towards the earth.

They caught the air in their wings as they broke through the bottom of the clouds. Najaïr wrapped them in a pocket of Wind magic with a hard flap of his wings and kept them levitating so they didn’t even have to fly anymore. He liked that better as she got very close to him, pressing her chest up against his, and kept kissing him.

[ladyseaheart1668]

Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 38)

Description: Estela and Aleister return to Northbridge to identify their father’s body and make an unsettling discovery.

Content Warning: Talk of suicide this chapter.

Tagging: @endlesshero1122 @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @mysteli @whatmcsaid @feartheendlesssummer @tigerbryn11

Chapter 38: Right Hand

Alodia

I can't believe it.

That seems to be the general sentiment on the morning of my twenty-eighth birthday, as the news filters through our ranks. Everett Rourke is dead. They found him hanging in his room. They're calling it an “apparent suicide,” which I suppose makes sense. Now Estela and Aleister have to return to Northbridge to identify the body within 48 hours.

“...I don't believe it,” Estela growls. I look up from the glass of orange juice I'm nursing. Estela is seated across from me at the kitchen table. Her chair is pushed out a good distance from the table, and her lithe back is flat, even as she rests her chin on her fist on top of the smooth mahogany table. She glares down at the table, eyes narrow as if the fate of the world hinges on her memorizing every detail of the grain.

“I don't either,” Lila murmurs, staring out the window. “It doesn't make sense. Not now. Not now that he had hope. Not now that he believed he had the chance to...reclaim what he'd lost.”

“...Do you think he could really do it?” Quinn asks. “Restart Project Janus?”

“Not if he's dead,” Lila replies flatly. “He can't really do anything if he's dead.”

“There are ways of faking one's death,” Estela says.

“But to fake a suicide by hanging?” Grace ventures gently. “How exactly would he pull that off?”

“I don't know,” Estela admits. “But I can't put anything past him. Lila is right. It doesn't make sense that he would decide to kill himself now. Not when his white whale is back where he could potentially reach her.” She looks at me as she says this, and I snort slightly as I lift my juice off the table.

“You know, in my present condition, I could take that as an insult,” I quip without any genuine mirth.

“Suicide doesn't always make sense,” Aleister murmurs. He sighs heavily. “In any case, I requested an autopsy, so if Father is faking his death somehow, I'm sure they will figure it out soon enough. ...Or they'll kill him in an effort to determine what killed him.”

Over his shoulder, I see Jake appear in the kitchen entryway. He steps inside to lean against the wall, hands in his pockets.

“Bags are all loaded in the car, and there's a plane fueled and ready for us on the tarmac at SNA. Should be about a five-hour flight. Maybe less.”

“You're taking my car and Quinn's?” I ask. The morning has been so confused and harried that I'm not sure I have the plans straight in my head.

“Right. Raj and Lila'll drive Quinn's car back to Northbridge, and Mike and I'll drive yours back here when we get back to California tomorrow morning. ...You'll be okay overnight, right?”

“I'll be fine. Not like I'll be alone.”

“Yeah, I know. But you know I worry.”

“Varyyn and I will look after her,” Diego promises. I roll my eyes.

“Jeez, you'd think I was a baby instead of pregnant with one.”

“Z and I can stick around until you guys get back, too,” Craig offers.

“That really isn't necessary,” I assure him.

“Do you want us to stick around?” Zahra asks pointedly, sipping on her coffee.

“Of course I do.”

“Well then, we're staying. You got sweet digs here, Alodia. Of course we're gonna jump at the chance to hang around here awhile longer.”

“Well, I suppose I can't argue with that logic.”

“We ought to get going, then,” Jake sighs. “California traffic. It's gonna be shit even on New Year's Day. Where are Sean and Michelle?”

“Right here,” Sean says, coming up behind him.

“Oh, you guys are going with them?” I try not to sound too disappointed.

“We had to leave today anyway,” Michelle says apologetically. “I have to get back to work.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sean adds. “As long as the opportunity is here, might as well avoid going through security.”

I sigh, standing up slowly. “Okay, but everyone who's leaving needs to hug me right now, or you're not allowed out the door.”

Goodbyes obviously take awhile. It's lucky the plane won't leave without them. But, eventually, Diego manages to pry me off our friends and guide me back to the kitchen table. I sit down reluctantly. The weight of their absence makes the house feel very suddenly larger and emptier, like mild air that suddenly feels uncomfortably cold when you've been covered by a blanket. I sigh.

“I suppose I should start cleaning up,” I murmur.

“You mean Varyyn and I should start cleaning up,” Diego corrects me. I roll my eyes.

“Goddsake, Diego, I'm pregnant. Not an invalid.”

“Do you honestly feel up to bending down and picking up and carrying dishes and trash back and forth?”

“Well...honestly, no.”

“There you go.” Diego wraps his arms around me from the side and kisses my cheek. “Finish your breakfast, Allie. We'll clean up.”

“Let me help,” Craig says, pushing out his chair and standing up. Without waiting for a reply, he follows Diego and Varryn toward the front room, leaving me alone in the kitchen with Zahra. For a long moment, she sits absolutely still, long enough that I start to feel a little weirded out. But before I can ask her whether everything's okay, she brings her coffee mug to her lips and tips her head back to down the rest in two big gulps before bringing her hand down with a satisfied exhale.

“I needed that,” she grunts under her breath. Abruptly, she looks up and meets my eyes. “Alodia, we should move somewhere private. There's something I have to tell you.”

I immediately feel my stomach knotting with dread. “That...sounds serious.”

“It is serious. I don't know if it's bad, but it is serious. I brought you something.” I am not sure what her words up to this point have led me to expect, but I do know that I never could have predicted the next words out of her mouth. “...It's about your mom.”

* * *

I remember going to the pediatrician as a kid and poking through the plastic milkcrate full of toys in an attempt to distract myself from my anxiety. I have a clear memory of a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle that stayed in that milkcrate until my last pediatric visit. I always tried to put it together before the receptionist called my name. Of course, I never succeeded. There was never enough time, someone had always taken it apart and cleaned it up by the time I left, and I'm pretty sure some of the pieces had gone missing over the years anyway.

I can still picture the beautiful image printed on the box: shimmering zodiac signs, accompanied by exquisitely drawn animals, people, and objects to represent them, all splayed out on a starscape backdrop. I can still remember kneeling on the worn carpet in the waiting room, pawing through the pile of cardboard pieces and slowly watching the image form in front of me as I pressed each piece into place. I remember the frustration and sense of loss as I was guided back into the exam room with the puzzle never more than half-completed, with partially assembled chunks missing connecting pieces.

Sitting in my room, looking at the information Zahra has presented me on my mother, I feel like I am looking at that half-completed puzzle. Except this time, there isn't a box cover with a complete image to guide me. I have to admit, I have no idea what to make of all of this. Everything that Zahra knows—and Grace, Aleister, Estela, and Craig, apparently—about the woman who gave birth to me is laid out in front of me, and I don't know what to make of any of it. Perhaps what baffles me the most is that the digital image of me, supposedly painted while I was in utero, doesn't baffle me more. It's actually less of a concern to me than the rest of it.

“So...she was studying something to do with time travel?”

“That's what it looks like. What exactly she was trying to do, I can't tell yet. But I'll keep looking into it if you want me to.”

“Yeah...I mean...if you have the time, it might be important to know some of this stuff...”

Zahra frowns thoughtfully at me. “...Your aunt didn't talk about your mom much, did she?”

“No,” I admit. “Not really. I mean, she came up ocassionally. So did my father. Or...at least...the man Vaanu was pretending to be came up sometimes. But I really only got either of them in bits and pieces ...I don't know if Aunt Molly ever really dealt with her grief. She would start to tell stories, and sometimes she got a decent ways into them, but at some point, she always just stopped herself and shut down.”

“Did you even know your mom's maiden name? I mean, did it ever occur to you that she had the same maiden name as the Vaanti Bride? Even just as a coincidence?”

“Officially, when we met Flora Sullivan, I had never had a human mother, remember? Technically, that was before I was retconned into existence. And once I was retconned into existence, any knowledge of my mom and aunt's maiden name was filed in the same memory bank as the fact that I wasn't born on U.S. soil. …Reading it right now was the first time I realized that I had known it all along.”

“Goddamn, your existence is crazy sometimes.”

“You're preaching to the choir,” I sigh ruefully. “...Thank you for showing this to me. I think I should try to ask Aunt Molly for more details on my mom. ...I won't show her the picture, though. Not unless I mean to tell her everything.”

Zahra frowns. “...Is she someone you could trust not to have you committed if you tell her you can remember an alternate timeline where you didn't exist?”

“To be perfectly honest...I don't know. Which is why I'm not going to tell her yet. Maybe not ever. ...But I do want to hear what else she has to say about my mom. If anything.”

“I gotta say, you're taking all this in stride.”

I shrug. “Well, some of it does concern me a little. But my mother did marry an alien. An alien who knew he was going to father a child who would grow up to be me. I don't know if he actually loved my mother, or if there was another reason he picked her. But it would kinda surprise me if there wasn't something special about her. Like being a descendant of Flora Sullivan. Or at least a descendant of one of her relatives.” I sigh. “...Honestly...if I could only have one question about my parents answered for me, it would be whether my father actually loved my mother. ...But right now, any answer I got would probably be overshadowed by the fact that I just heard Everett Rourke is dead.”

“Right. That bombshell.”

I look up and meet her eyes. “...Do you believe it? Do you believe he's really gone?”

“No way in hell.” The complete lack of hesitation startles me.

“So you don't believe it?”

“Not for a second. Not until I see the body with my own eyes. And possibly not even then.”

“Why not?”

Zahra leans back on the unmade bed, propping herself up on the pillows and draping her arms over the headboard behind her. She locks eyes with me, her gaze penetrating.

“You remember when I faked my death on the island?”

“And scared the crap out of everyone? I remember.”

“You remember why I said I did it?”

“...Because they couldn't kill you if they thought you were already dead.” An icy knot is settling in the pit of my stomach. River must sense my anxiety, because she's doing somersaults in my womb. Zahra nods grimly.

“It's not that complicated a concept. If Rourke means to try some shit, it'll be a lot easier if he's free. Since he was given a life sentence with no possibility of parole, the only way to escape is to be dead. There won't be a manhunt for a man everyone believes is dead.”

“Maybe, but...even if the concept is simple, the execution wouldn't be. He wasn't blown up or anything. They found him hanging. How could he fake that? Especially alone?”

“I don't trust that he was acting alone.”

“Even so, he couldn't just build a dummy corpse, hang it, and expect it to fool anyone. They'd figure it out well before autopsy.”

Zahra's eyes narrow just slightly. “...Who're you trying to convince here, Alodia? Me or yourself? ...'Cause I don't think you believe it, either.”

“Do I believe my very own Captain Ahab has taken himself out of the picture? Of course not. Sure, my head is telling me there's no way he could fake his own death by hanging. There's no way he could set up a body that would pass inspection, not with autopsies and identification and dental records and DNA tests. ...But my gut is screaming at me that he's not gone. He's not gone, but the world is going to believe he is, and he's going to come for me. He's going to come for me and my baby...”

I'm starting to panic. I know I am. But I can't quite fight it off until Zahra springs off the pillows and alights at my side to put a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, hey. It's okay. No one's gonna let him get anywhere near you. You know that, right?”

“Of course I know. I also know that the twelve of us have faced him and Arachnid before, and we did it when the whole world was dead and we didn't have any backup. But it's really hard not to feel a lot more vulnerable now that I don't have my link to the Endless and the Island's Heart and while I do have a helpless little person inside me. Even just physically, I am way more vulnerable than I was on the Island.”

“Are you though?”

“...What do you mean?”

“The Endless said that the powers passed on by the Prism Crystal are your birthright, too. That you might have powers that haven't manifested yet. Unless you destroyed them, you also have the Andromeda idol, the Endless' spacesuit, and the Andromeda armor.” She pauses, frowning. “You do still have them, right?”

“Yeah. They're in a trunk in the poolhouse.”

“Okay. So the odds seem pretty strong to me that you aren't actually powerless.”

Anything I might have responded with is cut off with a gasp as River gives me a particularly sharp kick.

“God Almighty, this child is fiesty!”

“Takes after her parents,” Zahra quips. “Good.”

“I hope that if I do have some untapped superpowers, they're enough to keep this kid from kicking through my uterus.” I lie down on the bed, stroking my belly. “Come on, sweetheart. Calm down for Ma-mama...” My words abruptly dissolve into a yawn. Now that I'm lying down, the exhausted fog that has hovered over my head since I got up is seeping fully into my brain. I feel like my memory-foam mattress is ready to swallow me whole. I hear Zahra snort.

“Falling asleep on me, Chandler? Not cool.”

“Oh, lay off. I'm too pregnant to function on less than five hours of sleep, and coffee isn't an option.”

“Eugh. Okay, fair enough. I'll let your caffeine-deprived ass rest then. I'll just go see if the guys need any help cleaning up.”

I think I respond appropriately, but sleep is already taking hold, turning my thoughts to mush.

… Vanuu's face hovers above me. He is not quite in human form, but he is also not the faceless apparition that I met on the island. He is frowning.

“Child,” he says, “where is your right hand?”

I am lying on my back, I realize. I strain to lift my head, puzzled by his question. I look down at my body, and find it clad in red. Oh...that explains it. He is asking the Endless. I let my head drop back.

“I lost it.” I roll my head to the right to assess the damage. My right arm ends in a ragged stump below my elbow, but there is no blood. No pain. In fact, I can still feel my severed limb. Only it's...cold. Too cold. And it won't move.

“...How?”

I roll my head back to look up at my father. “I...don't remember...”

He sighs. “You will, my child. In time. Just look for now. Look.”

I do as he tells me, turning my head to the right again, but the effort is starting to hurt. I raise my right hand, now a skeletal metal claw. I bring it in front of my face to examine the new appendage. A small flame flickers to life above my palm. I don't question it when it turns back to flesh and blood right before my eyes. I only start to feel alarmed when the heat of the flame starts to turn the flesh of my palm red. Before I can quite register what is happening, it has already begun to burn a hole through the center of my hand. The pain is unbearable, but I have no voice to scream.

I whip my gaze back to my father, to plead for help, but he's gone. Rourke is in his place, leering down at me. He brings his right hand down to press the palm flat against my swollen belly.

“Strong...” he murmurs gleefully. “She is strong.”

A pair of hands close around mine, and the pain seems to ease. Estela is holding my hand, kneeling beside me with Aleister at her shoulder. She seems to be examining my wound. Her expression is stoically grim, but I can see fear in her eyes.

“Aleister. Look.”

Aleister's eyes widen. He can't hide his fear like she can. “...So it's true.”

Estela nods. “Just as the Endless warned us.”

Through Estela's tender grip, I can see that my hand has begun to bleed. It trickles from the front and the back of my hand like stigmata, pooling between Estela's palms, but she doesn't seem to notice.

“...Estela...” I croak weakly. “Aleister...” Aleister puts a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Don't worry, Alodia. We will protect you.”

Rourke has a knife in his left hand now. He holds out his right hand in front of him, raises the blade, and takes aim. As he drives the blade through his hand, he doesn't flinch, but I feel the pain as if his hand were mine, and I hear myself scream.

“Alodia!” Jake is beside me now, clutching my hand and desperately stroking my hair. His eyes are wild with fear, shimmering with tears. “Stay with me, Princess. Please...please don't leave me...”

I want to tell him I'm here. I want to tell him I'm all right. But I can't. The searing pain from my hand is spreading up my arm in waves, to my shoulder, flooding into my chest and my midsection. The smell of blood hits my nose in a sickeningly thick cloud. Rourke smiles viciously, raising his right hand to show me the dark hole that goes straight through.

“Do you remember, Andromeda, the truth of the Hydra?” He approaches me, and the pain intestifies. “...You know that we will meet again.”

I hear myself screaming, but the pain is fading. So is my voice. I can't hear Jake's voice anymore, I can't feel the pressure of his hand on mine. Oppressive heat surrounds me as I realize I am back at Hartfeld as it was the day we stepped through the Lernaean Gate.

“Allie!” Diego's voice cracks like a whip through the lava-scorched landscape.

“...Right hand...?” Vaanu's voice comes through crackling static. “...Right hand...”

“Allie! Allie!” …

… “Allie?”

There's a hand on my shoulder. I feel my heart spasm with alarm. My breath catches in my throat, my eyes flying open in a panic before I realize that it's Diego beside me. He pulls his hand back,d showing his palms with a sheepish smile.

“Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you.” His smile slips a little. “Are you okay? I came in to check on you and you were kind of...talking in your sleep.”

“What was I saying?”

“Um...I don't know. Couldn't really make out individual words.”

“I was dreaming...” I trail off as I ease myself upright, frowning. “...I need to talk to Estela and Aleister.”

Aleister

Naturally, Raj made sure we had a packed lunch for our flight back to Northbridge. Nothing fancy, at least not by his standards, just grilled sandwiches and an assortment of hand-made snacks to nibble on. But the effort is always appreciated. About two hours into the flight, after our collective efforts to calm my fussy son have finally born fruit, we lay the tables in the cabin and fetch ourselves drinks from the refridgerator. No one has said much in all this time, beyond what is polite and prefunctory. I think we are all rather in our own heads at the moment. But I have also been watching my sister, and what I see has me a bit concerned. Estela is not a woman prone to tears, or indeed any outward displays of emotion, but on and off, I have noticed her eyes glimmering. She has spent the better portion of these past two hours lying curled up with her head in Quinn's lap, just letting her girlfriend stroke her hair, looking for all the world like a forlorn puppy. Not something I am used to seeing from the San Trobidian rebel. Now that we are sitting at our tables, she is clearly struggling to eat, ocassionally placing a bite or two on her tongue, but very little has actually left the plate in front of her.

“Are you all right, Estela?” I finally can't help but ask.

Estela sighs, picking at a hangnail on her index finger. “Should I be? Considering my father just died?”

“I don't think there is a 'should' in this situation,” Quinn says gently. “You feel how you feel. It's okay.”

“I never cared about knowing who my father was. By the time I learned who he was, I hated him more than anyone else living. ...A part of me thinks I ought to be celebrating...”

Murphy, who had been dozing on the couch, seems to pick up on the general atmosphere. He rises and stretches before padding over to hop up on Estela's lap. She sighs, stroking his fur gently. Beside me, Grace puts a hand on my shoulder.

“How about you, sweetie? How are you holding up?”

“Right now? I am...fine. I do not know if it has entirely sunk in yet. But perhaps it has. Either way, the man is dead. Just a shell. And the world is better for it.”

“I would have expected your feelings to be more mixed than mine,” Estela remarks. I shrug.

“I was raised by the man...if you can call it that. The time was that I craved his affection. One could even say that I loved him, in that dutiful way a child always loves their parents. ...But any lingering love I had for him died back on the island. I won't say I am glad he is dead, but I am not sorry, either.”

“...I'm not sorry, either. Not really. ...But I guess I am...sad. I feel that this whole situation is just sad. New Year's Day, and my half-brother and I are going to identify the body of our father, who died in prison.”

“Yeah,” Sean sighs. “I think 'sad' describes that pretty accurately.”

On the table beside me, my phone trills with an incoming call. I glance at it, frowning when I see the name on the screen.

“It's Alodia.” I am immediately concerned that she may be trying to reach her husband. I look around at my companions and I know that the same thought has occurred to them. I thumb on the call. “Alodia? Are you all right?”

“Oh, Aleister. I wasn't actually expecting you to answer. I didn't think you'd have landed already.”

“We haven't. The ban on mobile phones during air travel has been rapidly dying out in the last few years. ...Are you trying to reach the pilot?”

“No. You're actually the one I wanted to reach. You and Estela. There's something I need you to do for me when you see the body.”

“...Hold on a moment. Let me put you on the speaker.” I tap the speaker and replace the phone on the table. “All right, say that again?”

“I took a little nap just now, and I had a weird dream that I'm not really inclined to ignore. When you see Rourke's body, I need you to check his right hand.”

“...Check it for what?” Estela asks.

“Honestly, I don't know. I'm hoping you will know when you see it.”

We are all silent for a moment. Michelle is the one who finally breaks the silence.

“It will be up to Aleister and Estela to actually check Rourke's right hand and recognize whatever it is they're supposed to be looking for. But if my opinion means anything, I don't think Alodia's instincts should ever be ignored when it comes to anything involving Rourke, La Huerta, the Vaanti, or Prism energy.”

“I would go so far as to say that is an incomplete list,” I agree. “There is nothing to be lost by looking at Father's right hand, and possibly there is something to be gained.”

I don't tell Alodia that her request has left me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Until now, any doubts I had about my father's demise could have easily been dismissed as the denial stage of grief. Or the mind's unwillingness to let go of wariness after the fight is over. But now my doubts are growing. Now I am starting to wonder if my father is truly dead.

* * *

Grace, Quinn, Estela, and I part ways with Sean, Michelle, Jake, and Mike at the airport. Three Rourke International cars are waiting to take us to our various destinations. Mike and Jake to a hotel to rest up for the flight home in the morning, Sean and Michelle to their apartment, and the rest of us to the morgue. Sean and Michelle agree to watch Reginald for us until we're finished, for which I am grateful. He may be just shy of a year old and unlikely to remember any of this, but it still feels wrong to bring him along to identify the body of his criminal grandfather. Not that I imagine they would allow him in the room with the body anyway, but my point stands.

At the Northbridge city morgue, Grace and Quinn are shown to a plain, but surprisingly pleasant-looking waiting room while the morgue attendant leads me into the back with Estela to the temperature-controlled area where the bodies are kept.

“I am sorry for your loss,” the attendant says solemnly. He is a young man, a little bit awkward-looking, with rather large ears, glasses, a chin shadowed with stubble, and a narrow head capped with sandy-brown fuzz. But his manner is pleasant and professional.

“I imagine you say that a lot,” Estela mutters, echoing my thoughts.

“It comes with the territory,” he concedes ruefully. “But it's always true.”

“We're not exactly...in mourning,” Estela answers flatly.

“We're here out of filial obligation,” I add. “I suspect you know enough of who our father is to guess why we say that.”

“It's not my place to pass judgment on familial relationships. Just to make sure bodies get to the right people. ...Speaking of which, whatever your feelings on your father, it might be shocking to see his body.” His professional composure cracks just a little. “...In fact...we generally only ask family members to look at photographs...I know you have asked to physically see his body, but...” Estela and I exchange a glance, and the attendant trails off.

“It is necessary that we view his remains,” I say simply.

The attendant doesn't question any further. When we reach the coolers, he unlocks the correct cabinet and draws out the shrouded corpse. He warns us about what we will see, what marks his death by strangulation have left on him. When we both nod our understanding, he slowly draws back the sheet.

I must admit, I have to close my eyes, just for a moment. I understand the clinical process by which strangulation kills, and I have some prior understanding of how that process affects the appearance of the victim. But to see my father's face so distorted and discolored... I glance at my sister, who remains as solid and stoic as I have ever seen her.

“I would like to see his hands,” she declares. The attendant raises an eyebrow.

“His hands?”

“Yes. Show me his hands.”

“It is a custom from her homeland,” I explain when the attendant seems to hesitate. “Please be respectful of it.”

Estela shoots me a glare behind the attendant's back. I shrug helplessly and she rolls her eyes, muttering something in Spanish that sounds like an insult. Nevertheless, the attendant allows her to examine our father's hands, on the condition that she wear gloves. Estela doesn't waste time. She pulls on the vinyl exam gloves and removes our father's right hand from under the sheet. I shift awkwardly as she looks it over, wondering if I should help her find whatever it is we're supposed to be looking for. But then her eyes widen, and I realize she's found it. She looks up at the attendant, her dark eyes narrow.

“This is not our father.”

Naturally, the attendant looks shocked by the assertion. I feel rather startled myself. I know it is difficult to believe that our father could actually die, but that Estela should deny what is right in front of  her face...

“...Estela...what...?”

My sister pins me with her penetrating gaze. “The last time we saw our father alive, he had a bandage on his right hand. He told us he had been stabbed in the palm with a pencil. Do you remember?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“He told us that the mark left by the graphite would last years. Decades. The rest of his life.”

The truth is creeping over me as I slowly realize what she is getting at. “...It's true. A graphite mark just under the skin can last decades at least.”

She lifts our father's right hand to show me the smooth, unmarked palm. “...Then where is it?”

[abnormalpsychology]

The Bully (part one)

[HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYONE! Ya boi is excited bc I’m uploading my first-ever fanfic!! @joshua-rush-fanpage I hope you like it! This is part of the Valentines Day Friendom Gift Exchange. I wrote quite a lot more than I expected to, so the tag #myfanfic on here will be where you can find the rest uploaded later today. Sorry about the spacing errors— I originally wrote this in a google doc and Tumblr was being weird when I tried to fix them. I really really hope you like it! The first part is utter shit as a warning but it gets better!!! Hopefully I write more stuff soon, but here’s a little GHC to warm your hearts for now. I can’t believe I’m leaving a long, shitty, Wattpad-ass Author’s Note for the whole world to see but here we fuckin’ are. I also did not think I was the Soulmate AU type, but ALSO here we fuckin’ are. Meme mutuals please don’t think I’m lame I PROMISE IM COOL UwU. Have a lovely day even if you don’t read anything besides my ramblings. Thanks for making a community where I feel brave enough to finally post some writing I’ve worked hard on. I’m very grateful. <3 @swingsetboys Thanks so much for arranging this.]

Kids normally started thinking about their soulmates and deciphering their marks once they got their first crush, but Cyrus Goodman was different. He’d been worried about love all of his life, and the more he thought, the less sense it made. Trusting fate was generally put forward as the best way to deal with soulmate-related issues, at least before you met them, but Cyrus was finding that trusting fate was remarkably more difficult than all of the online articles and books in his parents’ offices made it sound. He wondered sometimes if he maybe was the universe’s first-ever mistake, a legendarily big screw-up, and this was a concern that was difficult to express without simultaneously concerning everyone else around him.

Cyrus’ mark was in what he had decided was the worst possible place it could be— his back. Two solid pitch-black handprints were indented into his skin so he had to twist around in the mirror to even glimpse the peculiar birthmark, like a two-year-old’s art project smushed across his skin or a crude frat party drawing etched on during a hangover was supposed represent his hope for the future and the person he was supposed to love more than anything. He’d always felt weird about it. The question that was tied most to it, the great white whale, the million-dollar-Jeopardy one, was what the situation could possibly be that would cause the mark to light up, to fill with color, when it made contact with his future spouse’s skin.

They’re gonna... push me? It was still, after years of contemplation and stomachaches, the best theory he had. The first way the person he was supposed to find eternal happiness with was by them trying to hurt him. That sure didn’t sound like love to him.

How would he make them angry? What would he do wrong?

The thought was his shadow, and the more he thought about it, the more confused he was. He didn’t want to make them angry, though! He wanted the person he was destined to spend the rest of his days with to like him right off the bat. He wanted the happy ending that everyone got.

“It’s fate,” Buffy had said and shrugged at their final summer sleepover before seventh grade began. “I mean, you can’t do anything to change it, Cy. I’m pretty sure you can’t fool the system by covering it with a tattoo. Since you always try to be as nice as possible anyway, I think you’re doing all you can.”

“Yeah.” He squinted. Maybe I’m just not good enough at being nice.

Buffy rolled her eyes, seeing through his words. “Cyrus. You really need to stop forgetting how cool you are. It’s annoying.”

“Thanks, Buffy, I just hope my soulmate understands my annoying… ness.”

“That was a joke—“

He gasped, shooting up with wide eyes. “What if I annoy them too much and that’s why they push me? What if I’m the one who ruins it?”

“Cyrus, I’m fairly certain that you would never be destined to spend your life with a total jerk. You may be weird, but that’s why soulmates love us, dummy. That’s why we love you.”

The two exchanged a smile, and Buffy reached around to squeeze his hand with her comforting smile.

“You’ll know when you see them anyway, because that’s like the whole thing. So… I don’t know. Maybe the push will be an accident or something. If it helps, I’ll personally remove the toenails if anyone who messes with you.”

“Well, I think,” Andi interjected like the voice of God from above, staring at the pair from her position of power on Cyrus’ couch. “You should stop worrying about something completely inevitable. It’s coming, like it or not.”

The boy let out a yelp and rubbed furiously at the goosebumps blooming on his skinny arms. “You didn’t have to phrase it like that, Andi!”

“Seriously,” Buffy agreed, eyes wide and unfocused. “Yikes.”

“It shouldn’t be scary. You two should really trust yourselves more. Future us will all make good decisions, I’m sure of it. Mostly. Probably.”

She leaned over to look down at her two best friends, reduced to frightened messes at the thought of someone who loved them, and deeply did not understand.

“I trust future Andi, at least. You two are weird.”

She stuck a bookmark made of old newspapers into the John Green book she was skimming, one of Bex’s favorites. She’d explained earlier about how since her older sister would be coming to visit her for the first time in practically forever, she had better know something about what she liked. Although from her various annoyed growls that echoed from above every once in a while, her friends could tell Andi’s tastes maybe differed from the latter’s.

“Real life isn’t that dramatic! Certainly isn’t as dramatic as this Augustus”—she gesticulated to the paperback copy—“thinks it is! What’s even going on in this book?”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust, setting the book down by the lamp.

“Yeah, whatever.” Buffy turned to look doubtfully over her left shoulder at her other best friend, from the spot on the calming maroon carpet where Cyrus was French-braiding her curls. “If you think all this soulmate crap will be totally drama-free, all relaxation and games, Andi, you’re kidding yourself. And it’s middle school.”

“You might want to rethink your position here,” agreed Cyrus, twirling a lock dastardly between his fingers.

A beeping sound came from the kitchen as butter filled the warm air, clashing with the rosy scent of the aromatherapy stuff Celia insisted on spraying everywhere before anyone else entered the house, even though it was just Buffy and Cyrus. They’re very well-behaved, Andi would always say, even though one was now swatting like a kitten at the other. True friendship.

“Stop that! Grow your own facial hair so you can stop using mine!”

“Low blow,” Andi commented.

“Never!” He fell backwards onto the carpet with a grunt as she attacked him with her fringe scarf, smacking her opponent with swift malice. Andi got up to go get their popcorn from the microwave, hopping easily over the destructive swarm of thrashing limbs on her floor.

The two broke apart, close to the door now. Like wrestlers, the kids sprinted to either corner of the room.

“Every time! This is why I don’t let you braid my hair, Cyrus!”

“You underestimate me! Now I have a secret weapon!”

A shadow rushed forward and cackled menacingly, a beautifully stitched pillow in shades of pink and red held aloft to decimate his friend.

“No! Bad Cyrus!” Andi scolded from the kitchen. “I made that for Bex!”

“This isn’t a Western!” Buffy yelled, hands up in surrender. “You aren’t going to tie Andi to the train tracks, no more!”

Cyrus pouted mutely, savoring the power, then conceded mercifully. “Ohhh-kay.”

“Maybe that’s why your soulmate will push you,” Buffy laughed. “You attack them, viciously, in a war of pillows.”

His face fell again, the weight of worry and insecurities returning instantly.

“Dammit.” Buffy sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Maybe I will... I’d demolish them, anyway.”

The three collapsed onto the couch together once Andi returned, mutely chewing their popcorn, their feathery Cold War forgotten. They could still hear cicadas outside. It didn’t quite feel like school yet, and something about that made the night seem more important, more meaningful, and made them all the more grateful for the other people who they felt like they could tell anything.

“Soulmates are weird to think about, though,” Andi added. “I mean, it’s not something you can teach in school or anything. How one person is made for another. I think it’s pretty crazy. Although I bet Augustus and Hazel would disagree.”

“Yeah, love’s simple until you think about— like— what if they die before you meet them?” Cyrus said, the years’ worth of anxiety seeping into his words. “Assuming it isn’t a fate thing. What if you’re the first one to prove it wrong? Or… you don’t know if you like that type of person?”

“Well,” Buffy chimed in, shrugging. “I mean, people always do, so…”

The trio fell quiet.

“Like soulmates or not, we can agree the marks are freaky as hell?”

“Absolutely.”

“At least you don’t have your mark in as weird a place as me.”

“Buffs, yours is on your hand. That’s not that weird.” Cyrus reached over her back to lightly touch the white splash of color across her right palm, and she jerked it away fast as if she was scared of it going off like a bomb. “High-fives happen all the time.”

“I know, but why would future me let anyone touch my hand? That’s not allowed!” She shivered dramatically. “Ugh. Can you imagine me all… stupid and love-struck? That would be remarkably awful.”

“Middle school,” Cyrus said, nodding sagely. “It changes all who experience it.”

“Well,” Andi whispered, suddenly solemn. “I guess we’ll find out if it changes us too.”

“Guess we gotta trust that the Future Good Hair Trio will make good choices. Soulmates or otherwise.”

The three looked around.

“At least we’ll have each other. No matter who comes, we’ll at least have each other.”

[spartanguard]

something in the water, part 1

Summary: Emma is sent to investigate a supposed sea monster appearance in her hometown. Thankfully, her family there knows her secret: that at night, she transforms into a swan. And she knows that whoever the universe thinks her soulmate is, as dictated by the tattoo on her side, won't be there. Though maybe she was wrong to assume that. And when did a merman start hanging out in the ocean near Storybrooke?

rated M (eventually) | 5.5k | AO3

A/N: Here it finally is—my story for @cssns!! I came up with the idea ages ago but never really found time to write until this event came up. It should be about 7 chapters, but of course I was silly and signed up to post on the first day of band camp, so the next chapter won’t go up until next week, and probably once a week from there on. Hope you like it, and thanks to @kmomof4 for organizing this! I’ll be posting accompanying art as well!

When it came to belief systems, Emma Nolan wasn't what most people would call normal. (Actually, in most regards, she wasn't.)

She didn't place much stock in things like having luck or wishing on stars. Neither had ever really been on her side.

She hadn't quite made up her mind on God (or gods, or goddesses, or whatever). She took care of herself just fine.

The supernatural, though—vampires, zombies, magic, et cetera? There wasn’t much choice when it came to her belief in that, given the way her life had gone and the people she tended to hang out with—even if society as a whole still thought it was all fiction.

But the one thing that everyone believed in—and that Emma remained skeptical on, despite all the proof she'd seen—was soulmates. The idea of a predestined love dictated by some higher being before you were born and only verified by a random, tattoo-like birthmark seemed forced at best and unreliable at worst. It's not like the marks spelled it out—there was plenty of room for interpretation of the symbolism of each soulmark, which also meant plenty of room to have a heart broken.

She had trusted in them, once upon a time, when she met a guy named Neal who’d spent a great deal of his childhood on a ship. The mark splashed across her ribcage made sense with that, and his—of what looked like a feather on his bicep—seemed appropriate for someone like her, and with a secret like hers.

But then he found out what she was hiding, and things got awkward. And then he met Tamara and the feather turned out to be a palm leaf (apparently, that’s what that name means or something). And then things were said—tame things like, “it’s not you, it’s me and my destiny and blah-blah,” and hurtful things like “I couldn’t love someone like you anyways. Who could?”

Which meant Emma was the one left with the broken heart.

So what she’d once thought was a curse actually helped keep her heart safe, and since not everyone had a soulmark, it was easy to pretend she didn’t either.

And like he said, who could love someone like her, anyways?

Actually, she lied; there was one more thing she didn’t believe in, as presented to her by her boss one quiet Thursday afternoon.

“A sea monster? You can’t be serious, Regina.”

“Hey, I didn’t come up with it. I’m just the one who took the call.”

“Well, did you do a sanity check on the caller?”

“I didn’t have to; I know she’s insane. It’s Cruella Feinberg.”

“As in Crazy Cruella from back home? The one obsessed with dogs?” Emma and Regina both hailed from the tiny Maine town of Storybrooke—the definition of quaint. It was really no wonder they’d both escaped to Boston as soon as they could.

“The very one. And while she may have lost touch with reality, her money certainly has not.”

Emma sighed and leaned back in her desk chair. “How much?”

From where she was perched on the corner of Emma’s desk in the office of their bail bonds-slash-private investigation firm, Regina slid a folded up sheet of paper to her. Emma quirked an eyebrow with curiosity; Regina wasn’t typically one to keep things on the down-low like this, unless it was an exceptionally large payout. And this did not seem like the kind of case with one of those; usually, the people who hired them for this kind of situation were broke and/or not mentally sound, so they just played Ghostbuster—convinced the banshee or whatever it was to quit being weird, and charged the client only half of the original amount.  

Emma picked up the slip and opened it. Boy, was she wrong this time. “Holy shit!” She exclaimed at the almost-six-figure sum. “This can’t possibly be real.”

“It is; I made her put up half up front to make sure she wasn’t joking. She did it without batting a heavily lined eye.”

Emma checked her desk calendar—was it April Fools or something? “What’s the catch here? This is too good to be true.”

“No catch. Unless me forcing you to take some paid time off counts.”

She scoffed. “This hardly seems like something to use my vacation time on.”

“It’s not. But it’s a two-week assignment in Storybrooke, and I’m not expecting this to take much effort on your end. Actually, I think it will end up being kind of perfect for you. Plus: you deserve it, Emma.”

She crossed her arms and leaned back in her desk chair, huffing; there was a reason she threw herself into work. It left less time for thinking, or being social, or any of those other things that tended to put Emma outside her comfort zone or onto things she’d rather not focus on.

It had been a while since she’d been home, though, and it might be nice to see her brother and sister-in-law...but it also seemed like she was taking advantage of the situation. “Are you sure, Regina? I know you’ve been busy with the Gold case; don’t you want me to stay and help with that?”

For the past several months, Regina had been investigating the disappearances of various supernatural beings—occasionally, they did get hired on legit cases from within their hidden community—with the most recent being an acquaintance of theirs, Tinkerbell, a fairy. A surprising number of her kind had gone missing, along with a werebear named Merida, a couple vampires, and a jeweler with a Midas-like touch. They had yet to find any solid leads, but all of the cases seemed to have a tie to the mysterious Mr. Gold. Emma had never met him herself, but his reputation alone had her worried for Regina’s safety whenever they met; there was no telling when a witch as gifted with magic as Regina was would be next.

(Having a boss that was also a member of the more mythical side of society—and aware of any potential limitations that might put on one’s available working hours—was certainly a perk to this job on its own, odd cases like the one currently in front of her notwithstanding.)

“I’ve got no leads right now, so there’s not much to help with,” Regina answered with a shrug. “Seriously, go spend some time with your family; have a girls night or two with Ruby; air out your feathers a bit.”

Emma gave a hard side-eye at that last comment—Regina could never resist a good bird reference around her—but she was out of arguments against taking the assignment.

She chewed on her bottom lip a bit before saying, “Promise you’ll call me if you need me back here?”

“Promise,” Regina answered, going so far as to draw an x over her heart with her finger. For Regina, that meant business.

“Then I guess I’m off to Storybrooke.”

After a quick call to her sister-in-law Snow, a fleeting trip to her apartment for some clothes and necessities hastily shoved in a threadbare duffel bag, and a stop at the gas station to fill up the tank of her 1972 yellow VW Bug, Emma was off on the 5-ish-hour drive up the coast. It wasn’t quite tourist season yet, but the snow had melted, so she opted for the slower route that kept her closer to the ocean, enjoying the panoramic views of the Atlantic as she drove.

The sign by the side of the road informing drivers that they were “Now Entering Storybrooke” eventually greeted her warmly as it had so many times before, crisp white on kelly green.

Before heading into town, she detoured down a dirt road to Cruella’s place. The Feinberg mansion was certainly more ostentatious than any other house on the road, towering over the smaller coastal cottages, but wasn’t the ridiculous display of wealth Emma had expected—it was more like an oversized bungalow made of light-colored brick.

Dogs started barking as soon as she rang the doorbell, and a shrill voice called at them to “shut it!” before the door swung open. Cruella looked much the same as she did in Emma’s memory, just with a bit more Botox: dramatic two-toned hair, a zealous amount of dark eyeshadow, and clothes just a touch too revealing.

“Oh, Emma darling, thank you so much for coming! I was thrilled when Regina told me you’d taken the case; none of those city types would ever believe me!” Cruella shouted, pulling Emma into a tight hug despite the fact that they’d hardly ever exchanged more than a few words (and that Emma had totally TP’d her house once with Ruby, but they had never been caught).

“Glad to...help…” Emma stammered, stunned at the contact. She had to take a deep breath once Cruella released her, before continuing, “So, can you tell me anything about what you’ve been seeing?”

“Oh, yes, yes—right this way!” The eccentric older woman turned on a dime and led Emma through her house, past the large painting of her now-dead husband (whose death had only been mildly suspicious), through the kitchen, and out to the massive deck that overlooked a semi-secluded cove.

“I see it almost every night when I’m having a nightcap, but only at night, so I think it’s nocturnal,” Cruella started explaining, gesturing dramatically toward the water. “It seems to be dark-colored, but it’s so hard to tell when there’s only a bit of moonlight.”

Emma wondered how strong those nightcaps were mixed, but continued on with a few more questions: how big was it (“Hmm, bigger than a dolphin, but smaller than a whale—but it has a tail like both of them.”), how long had she been seeing it (“A few months, give or take”), and why she’d hired them to investigate (“Well, I need to know what it is so I can be a hospitable host should it ever come ashore! I’m sure my friends would love to meet it!”).

None of it did anything to convince Emma that Cruella wasn’t still a few olives short of a martini, but she assured the widow that she’d get right on it.

“Let me know if I can help at all, and my property is certainly available to your use. I’m always open to some evening company,” Cruella added as Emma headed out.

“I think I’ll be okay, but thanks,” she answered, kind of quickly. “I’ll be in touch.”

She endured one more too-tight hug before hopping back in her car and starting the drive into town. Something told her it was all just the gin-fueled hallucination of a lonely old lady, but Regina was right—this case would probably work out perfectly for her, whether she found anything or not. She already spent most of her nights on the water; might was well get paid for it.

She’d get back to that later, though; now, it was time to see if the town rumor mill still worked like it used to—or at least to see how many people Snow had told of her arrival. Her old bedroom was already waiting for her, based on the last text she received, but it pretty much always was.

First things first, though: food. She easily navigated the all-too-familiar backroads and side streets that led to the center of town, one of the tiniest and most stereotypical little seaside villages known to man. Finding the diner was second nature, and her Bug looked right at home parked in front of it, almost like she’d never left. She actually recognized most of the cars nearby, but especially the two she’d parked in between; she smirked at knowing what—or rather, who—was likely waiting for her inside.

The same old bell rang against the door as she pulled it open, but was quickly drowned out by a high-pitched yelp—the only warning Emma had before being engulfed in another massive hug, but she was expecting this one. Still, she hadn’t quite braced herself enough.

“Ah, Emma! It’s really you; you’re HERE!” her best friend, Ruby Lucas, was shouting in her ear while proceeding to squeeze the life out of her.

“Let her breathe, Ruby!” a gruff voice barked from behind the counter. Despite the asphyxiation, Emma smiled at how little things ever changed.

“Sorry, sorry!” Ruby apologized as she let go; she always forgot her own strength, and now that Emma was free, she could see Granny behind them, hands on her hips and shaking her head at her granddaughter’s energy. “You know how I get around the full moon,” Ruby added quietly.

“It’s fine,” Emma assured her, even though her voice was slightly strained. Despite her friend’s lithe form, few would guess that both she and her grandmother were members of the local pack of apex predators: werewolves.

(To say Emma had grown up around the supernatural was an understatement. Maybe that was why the two of them got on so well, even if they probably shouldn’t have.)

“But once that’s past, we HAVE to have a girls’ night, okay?” she continued, gushing and taking Emma��s hands in hers. “Oh, I’m just so glad you’re here!”

“Ruby, I’m not paying ya to block the door from the paying customers!” Granny shouted before Emma could reply.

“Granny, we both know you won’t let me pay,” Emma threw back, teasing.

“Well, maybe this is the day I do!” The old lady was known for her fierce temper and penchant for orneriness; but just like any she-wolf, she was also fiercely protective of those in her pack, both the ones who actually were and the ones she’d decided were.

Emma and Ruby both just rolled their eyes, still holding hands in the entryway, when she heard the clearing of a familiar voice.

“Ruby, are you trying to hog my sister?” David, ever the big brother, was standing there with his arms crossed, trying to give a stern look that they all knew was forced.

“Yup,” Ruby threw back without missing a beat. “I’m taking her home and locking her in my house, so she’ll be all mine!”

“That’s creepy, Rubes,” Emma protested, but David spoke over her.

“Oh? And what would your new girlfriend say about that?”

Emma’s jaw dropped and Ruby looked ironically sheepish. “Ruby! You didn’t tell me!” Emma scolded, lightly shoving her friend’s shoulder.

“I was getting there…” she answered. “It’s not the sort of thing you say over text!”

Emma was going to challenge that, but Granny cut them all off. “Ruby! Let that poor girl sit down and make her some food!”

“I’ll tell you later,” she said quickly, then dashed to the kitchen in her impractical red high heels.

“Aha, my plan worked; I have you all to myself!” David proclaimed, tugging Emma into a headlock.

“Seriously?” Emma complained, though it was muffled by her brother’s ridiculously muscled arm, covered as always in plaid flannel (today, it was blue; she was pretty sure he owned the full spectrum). “Aren’t we too old for this?”

“Never!” he answered, and started tugging her farther into the diner. “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

“You’re gonna have to let go of me, you know.”

“Nah.”

She could at least tell that they were near the end of the counter, where she and David almost always sat. She still couldn’t see a damn thing and the way David was pulling her was starting to put a strain in her side, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Emma, meet Killian; he’s new in town. Killian, this is my sister, Emma.”

Blindly, Emma held out her hand, hoping the yet-to-be-seen stranger would take it. “Nice to meet you!” she called out from the confines of her brother’s grip.

Moments later, warm, rough fingers lightly gripped hers, followed by the sound of a sinfully accented voice. “The pleasure is all mine, milady.” And then she felt soft lips on the back of her hand.

Holy crap, who was this guy? Did David tear him out of a Jane Austen novel or something? Granted, that wasn’t a power she was aware of anyone wielding, let alone her brother, but damn.

(Another question would be, “why do you even care about a guy you haven’t even seen?”, but Emma was really too stunned by their thus-far incredibly brief interaction to give that much thought.)

Enough was enough; she couldn’t breathe and David’s shirt smelled like the vet office he worked in. And she was also kind of super curious to see what this guy looked like.

Thankfully, David didn’t put up a fight when she pulled his arms off of her, and only whined a little bit when she smacked him in the chest. Then she turned to this Killian guy, and it was like time stood still.

Killian was easily the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. High cheekbones and long, thick lashes framed the bluest eyes she'd encountered, and gingery scruff canvassed a jaw chiseled from stone; a dark thatch of chest hair teased from the unbuttoned vee of a shirt just tight enough that little was hidden of his built upper body; and tousled dark hair hung artfully in his face while his perfect full lips smirked at her, cutting a dimple into his cheek.  

The only thing she could think was that there was no way someone so attractive was human. (But she found herself eagerly hoping he was.)

“Emma; earth to Emma.” Suddenly, a hand was being waved in front of her face, pulling her out of her gaping—oh, crap, she was actually, full-on open-mouthed gaping at Killian. David was chuckling as she slammed her mouth shut, and she could feel heat rising on her cheeks, making them as bright red as the streaks in Ruby’s hair.

“I think she likes you,” David whisper-yelled to Killian as he took a seat next to him on the last stool.

“I tend to have that effect on people,” Killian answered in the same manner, throwing a poor excuse for a wink her way (but it still made her blush even harder).

Wait—what the hell was going on? She never got her feathers ruffled by a pretty face like this, and David never encouraged it. Regardless of her reaction, this was a setup if she ever saw one, and she wasn’t going to take the bait.

Trying to look cool (and probably failing but whatever), she brushed her hair behind her ears, smoothed her red leather jacket, and slid onto the empty stool next to Killian’s. “So, how the hell did you end up in Storybrooke? There really isn’t much here.”

“Well, there was a job,” he started, with a shrug and a chuckle—a deep, light thing that vibrated through her; she shivered involuntarily. “England didn’t have anything for me anymore and...this seemed like the place to start anew.” His smile didn’t fade, but his eyes softened a bit; she could tell that there was more to it than that, but she was the last person (or whatever she was) on earth to pry. So she kept it light.

“Really? You came here to start over? The US has so many problems right now.”

“So does the UK. Brexit and all.”

“Trump, though.”

“True. You might have that one.”

She was about to ask about his job (and was a little surprised at how quickly they fell into banter) when Ruby was in front of her, with her usual order and a wolfish grin.

“Don’t mind me; just dropping this off and I’ll get out of your feathers.” She cast a glance over at Killian, licked her lips at Emma, and then slunk away nearly as quickly as she’d shown up.

Emma just shook her head; seriously? Five minutes in town and everyone was already shipping her and the new guy? It was almost painful, but then again, that was Storybrooke.

Actually, something was kind of painful—her side. After her first (delicious) bite of grilled cheese, she set it down to stretch out, holding her arm over her head as she did.

“Are you taking up ballet now?” David teased. “Trying to learn some grace, finally?” Sometimes, he was such a big brother.

“Ha ha. No. We both know that's not possible,” Emma scoffed back. It really was ironic how clumsy she was, all things considered, but she didn’t think that had anything to do with this. “I think you pulled one of my muscles when you decided to drag me halfway across the diner. Thanks,” she deadpanned, then turned to Killian. “Sorry that you’re caught in the middle of this.”

He waved it off. “I had a brother; I know what it’s like.”

She didn’t linger on the fact that he used past tense, but still asked, “Was he as much of a ridiculous jerk as this guy?”

“Probably worse.”

The three of them fell into a combination of teasing and actual conversation over their meals. They discussed the differences between where he’d lived on the English coast and life here on the other side of the Atlantic. He explained that the proximity to the ocean was part of what drew him to their quiet little seaside town. For a moment, the mention of the sea sent up some Neal-related red flags, but then the conversation drifted into books and she forgot about it. That was his job—he’d taken the assistant librarian position in town, and was training to run things while the head librarian, Belle, went on a sabbatical to travel. And she catalogued the impressed, almost aroused way he arched an eyebrow when he found out she was a bounty hunter.

“You certainly strike me as a tough lass,” he observed, smirking wryly. “Remind me not to cross you.”

“Don’t skip your bail and we’ll be fine,” she teased back. “I’d hate to have to press that pretty face against the wall as I’m cuffing you.” She immediately blushed; she only ever flirted like that when she actually was trying to nab a skip—it had been years since she meant it.

He grinned, a devilish thing. “If you want to get close to me, you only have to ask. No need to use a hypothetical crime as an excuse.”

“Guys, I’m right here,” David protested, but his immediate smirk in Ruby’s direction told her that he really didn’t mind that much. (And honestly, it was kind of payback for all the sickeningly sweet scenes she’d been forced to witness between him and Snow over the years.)

Despite her embarrassment, she couldn’t hold back the smile that took over her features. She attempted to hide it in her last onion ring, but caught Ruby grinning at her from the kitchen. So she hid behind a napkin instead, clearing her face of any potential crumbs and—wait, why did she care? It wasn’t like she was looking to date him or anything….right?

Oh, but it was so fun flirting with him.

He’d returned his focus to the few remaining fries on his plate (“chips,” he called them), and she noticed his brow furrow as he rubbed at his chest.

“Oh, I should have warned you; Granny’s will give you heartburn if you’re not careful.”

“I heard that!” Granny shouted from the far back of the kitchen; of course she did, wolf hearing and all.

He chuckled. “I’ll remember that next time.” The weight of “next time” hung over them as they shared somewhat coy half-smiles; normally, she’d refute anything further, but something told her she couldn’t avoid Killian if she tried.

Just when she’d worked up the nerve to give Killian her number—even though something told her David had already put it in his phone—said older, annoying brother broke the moment. “Killian, don’t you have to get back to work?”

His eyes grew wide and flashed to the clock on the wall. “Oh, bloody hell, yeah,” he cursed, jumping up off the stool. He tugged some cash out of his back pocket (which Emma couldn’t help but watch; it turned out that he had an incredibly attractive back pocket), threw it on the counter, and grabbed a black leather jacket from where it had fallen on the floor.

“It truly was a pleasure, Emma,” he said as he slipped it on, giving her a genuine smile. “Until next time.”

“You too,” she replied, almost breathlessly, and then watched as he said “Later, mate,” to Dave and headed out the door. (She may have once again taken the opportunity to admire his back pockets, and everything they held.)

Once he was gone, she swiveled around on her stool to glare at David. “What the hell was that?” she demanded, but David answered by taking a massive bite of his tuna melt and studying the ceiling tiles.

She knew this game, though, and continued to stare at him while she munched on her onion rings. No way was he getting out of this conversation.

Dramatically, he swallowed and then feigned looking at his watch. “Oh, man, the time. That’s my lunch break; I better—”

“You better explain why you were simultaneously trying to set me up,” she commanded, putting her hand on his shoulder to keep him in place, and then added with a confused tilt of her head, “but also not?”

“You noticed that, huh?” he replied, scratching the back of his neck self-consciously.

“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t?”

“Think, no; hope—maybe?”

She just shook her head. “God, you sound just like—”

“Emma!” Speak of the devil, there she was; the shout of her name pulled her attention to the door, where David’s wife Snow had just arrived. Although, there was absolutely nothing satanic about Snow—in fact, she was quite the opposite: in addition to her pure-sounding name (her parents were definitely hippies), she practically exuded rainbows, unicorns, and all things angelic. (As far as Emma knew, she wasn’t actually an angel, but she wouldn’t be surprised to be proven wrong.)

Even the sun behind her made a halo in Snow’s pixie-cut hair as she practically ran across the diner. “Ah, I’m so glad you made it!” she basically shouted in Emma’s ear as she attacked her with a hug. “You’re supposed to text me these things, you know?”

“Yes, I know, Mom,” she answered, putting emphasis on the title; Snow might be her sister-in-law, but half the time, she acted more like a parent. But a parent you could get drunk with. “I was going to, but I went to Cruella’s first to find out about the job, and then got distracted here by a couple of fledgling matchmakers.”

Snow pulled back wearing a look of recognition, and turned to David. “Oh, was Killian here?”

“Ugh, I should have known you were in on it, too,” Emma grumbled, leaning back against the counter. “I expect this from you; but now you’re dragging David into it?”

“It was his idea!” Snow protested.

“Seriously?” Emma complained, and both ladies turned to him, but he was once again conveniently too interested in his meal to answer.

So Snow launched into an explanation. “A few weeks ago, he said, and I quote, ‘Don’t you think Emma and Killian would make a cute couple?’ I told him that neither of you would really appreciate being set up, but agreed that I could totally see it.  And several times since then, he’s said he can’t wait for your next visit so he can introduce you two and, again, I quote, ‘watch the sparks fly’.”

David choked down his sandwich to throw back at Snow, “Okay, but you’re the one who said they’d have pretty babies.”

Now Snow was the one acting embarrassed. “It was just a hypothetical!”

Ruby was surreptitiously taking away her empty plate, but Emma always had a sixth sense where she was concerned, probably because of Ruby’s predator status. “And what’s your excuse?” she enquired.

“I just think you need to get laid, and Killian is sex on legs, so you better effing tap that.” She didn’t even bat an eye, giving her confident response and then taking the dishes back to the kitchen.

“You guys, seriously,” Emma whined, physically facepalming. She knew they meant well and just wanted to see her happy with someone. But they also all knew why she wasn’t keen on that idea, given what had happened with Neal. At least no one had brought up the “S” word; soulmates were a big deal to Snow, since she and David were, but she’d long since stopped trying to sign Emma up for a soulmate-finder service.

(She’d never admit it, but sometimes, when she watched her brother and sister-in-law’s relationship and thought of their matching marks—his a snowflake, hers a shepherd’s crook—she did truly long for the kind of companionship and support that they gave each other.

But then Neal’s words—Who could love someone like you?—would trickle back in, and she’d quickly give up that line of thinking.)

Her complaints apparently didn’t stop Snow from whispering to Dave, “So, how did it go?”

“Answer that and die,” Emma interrupted, still holding her face in her hand.

She could almost hear Snow’s grin. “That’s all the answer I need, I think.” Emma just groaned and pushed herself off the counter to standing.

“Well, I’m gonna head out before you start wasting your time planning a wedding that will never happen.” Snow looked like she was about to protest, so Emma cut her off. “I’ve gotta do some reconnaissance for my job, but then I’ll be back at your place by dinner, okay?”

“Okay,” Snow conceded, sounding almost defeated. Emma hated doing that to her but her friend had an overactive imagination; it was always best to put a stop to things before her dreams regarding Emma’s love life got out of hand.

“Alright; see you later.”

Later that evening, Emma was curled up on the bed in her childhood room. David had inherited the house and the sheep farm that they grew up on after his mother (and Emma’s adoptive mother) passed away, so she always had a place when she came to Storybrooke. Despite what it may have seemed based on the warm reception earlier, she did actually make it home fairly regularly; this trip was just a bit out of her typical once-every-few-months schedule.

After figuring out where she’d best be able to do surveillance out by Cruella’s—in other words, where she could park near the water and not get noticed or caught in the tide—she’d headed back here for dinner and some Netflixing before they all went to bed. Emma wasn’t all that tired yet, though, so she was reading an old, worn out collection of fairy tales. Even if her life would never be one, she always enjoyed the stories and guessing at which ones were real. Though with this specific book—by Hans Christian Anderson—she’d never been able to decide.

The alarm on her phone went off at 10:50, startling her from her reading (and her musings on just how much of her life resembled The Ugly Duckling). The familiar tune of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake played out of the tiny iPhone speaker, letting her know, like it always did, that she had 10 minutes to figure things out. A quick glance at her weather app told her it was supposed to be a dry, if cool, night; but she’d be fine out there.

Quietly, she headed outside and down the well-worn path to the pond on the farm. Her phone read 10:55, so she walked a bit quicker to get there on time.

An ancient-looking but incredibly solid dock jutted out into the pond, and at the end, a less-old but still worn box was built in. Emma’s footsteps thudded as she hurried to it, and she flipped open the makeshift cabinet. As quickly as she could, she pulled off everything she wore (eternally grateful for the relative privacy of the farm) and threw it in, dropping her phone on top of the pile. 10:59.

She’d just closed the lid and stood up straight when she felt it: the familiar tingle that started in her spine and spread. In the near-full moon, the merman-shaped mark on her right side stood in stark contrast to her pale skin. Her hand pressed down on it; she never really paid it much thought nowadays, but it was odd that the muscle she’d strained earlier was directly beneath it.

The tingling feeling intensified, just like it did every night; by now, she had this whole thing down exactly.

Her lone graceful move was this: she raised her arms overhead as feathers covered her skin and flowed down from her limbs to make wings. Then, she took a running leap off the end of the dock, gliding on those wings for a brief moment as her neck lengthened, her legs shortened, her nose and mouth became a beak, and her whole body rearranged itself.

When it was done and that tingling feeling stopped, she smoothly landed on the surface of the water—as a swan.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more, and let me know what you thought! Tagging some friends who might like it: @kat2609 @thesschesthair @optomisticgirl @fergus80 @xpumpkindumplingx @shipsxahoy @selfie-wench @mryddinwilt @cocohook38 @annytecture @wingedlioness @stubble-sandwich​ @fairytalesandtimetravel @word-bug @pirateherokillian @bleebug @its-imperator-furiosa @queen-mabs-revenge @flipperbrain @laschatzi @ive-always-been-a-pirate @jscoutfinch @nfbagelperson @lenfaz @phiralovesloki @athenascarlet @ilovemesomekillianjones @whimsicallyenchantedrose @snowbellewells @jackieorioncat

[7wanderingpaws]

1. Whales.

Genre: marine biologist AU

Pairing: Bambam x reader

Word count: 3.5K

0. Synopsis // 1. Whales. // 2. Dolphins.

(( Please do let me know what you think! It would mean a lot! <3 Also, the names of the chapters have nothing to do with the actual content of the chapter hihi. ))

- - - WHALES - - -

Busan, 2018

What were the odds. . .

You thought you wouldn’t pass this exam. It was quite hard and you hated oral examinations at its best. You loved to hate them, to think about how much you hate them. Talking in front of a professor who was working hard to not make you pass was certainly you utmost hateful experience and you loathed every minute of it.

As soon as the words slipped out of the teacher’s mouth, you thought you are just dreaming.

“You passed.”

Because, truth to be told, you hated chemistry. Ugh. What a pain in the butt. Biochemistry? Okay, doable, but still a big amount of students hated this subject (plus the professor? Oh my god. Horror.) Oceanology was something that you absolutely adored and decided to once do a PhD in this area. Zoology was certainly nice. And then... Fisheries. What a course. Well, what could you say. Without fish there are no oceans. Without oceans, there is no marine biology or oceanology or oceanography or humanity itself. No big deal.

Overall, you loved your degree. And now... you achieved something in it.

Did you really pass?

Oh my.

Did you officially become a marine biologist?

Could you finally do what you always dreamed of doing? Did you dream came true? Somebody should slap you.

“Mum,” you breathed, adjusting the big glasses on your uneven nose. “I did it. I’m a marine biologist.”

Your mum gave out a sigh of relief as she was happily jumping on her short legs. “I’m so proud of you.”

You nodded, unable to process everything. “Yes. I’m proud of myself, too.”

“So what is the next step? You will stay in Busan, right? The researching possibilities are much bigger over there-“

“No, mum,” you interrupted her, before she could say more reasons why you should stay in your university town. “I’m coming home. I’m going back to Mokpo.”

“Oh, are you sure about that? I mean this is a very little town, only good for fishing.”

“No,” you repeated, this time much more confident. “I grew up in Mokpo so I will make Mokpo famous. I will prove that this part of Korea is also as important as any other seaside in this country. But mostly, I will break all the stereotypes about us that ever existed.”

It was your time to shine.

“So I’ve heard the news,” said Jinyoung as he sat down opposite you in the university cafe, a tea cup in his hand. “Congratulations.”

You smiled, stretching your tired arms above your head. “Thanks!”

“So we’ve made it,” he stated again, this time a big smile spreading across his gentle face. Jinyoung was proud of you. After all, he knew you very well.

You were one of the shiest people he got to know throughout his young life. You were awkward, stuttering, and extremely introverted and yet, he thought you were one of the most beautiful girls he ever laid eyes on.

The gentle freckles on your nose, the warm big eyes, the ever-messy dark hair, the glasses that magnified your eyes and you kind of looked like a squirrel but not entirely. The knitted sweaters you insisted on wearing even when it was warm outside... You’d always say: “So what if it’s hot? That’s why there are ACs. To make the room cold. So I can wear sweaters.”

“Ah, donneven,” you mumbled, supporting your elbows on the table and placing your chin into your hands. “From tomorrow on, I’m going to apply for the researching institute and I will prove how important our seas are!” you exclaimed proudly.

Jinyoung chuckled and took a sip from his tea. “Look at you, all bright and self-confident. I really hope it will stay this way, Y/N.”

“I hope so too,” you replied. “And what about you? How is your job going?”

“Oh well, kids are messy but I still love them,” he answered kindly. “There is maybe one or two students who are interested in my subject.”

“C'mon, Jinyoung, they are ten year olds. Nobody cares about literature at that age.”

“I know, I know, that’s why I can’t wait to get out of this grade and start teaching older ones.”

“I still think you should have become a psychologist. You are mine and you are doing hell of a great job,” you laughed, winking at him through your smudgy glasses. You took them off and cleaned them with your light pinkish t-shirt you were wearing.

Jinyoung thought about your words for a moment. “Maybe if the kids will kick me out of the class, I will re-consider my career options.”

“If that happens,” you said as you put your glasses back on, “I will be there to support you.”

5 years later, Mokpo, 2023

“Jaebeom, could you please come over? I think I found an interesting lab result,” shouted Jackson from the other room. He was sitting behind a big microscope, many papers and books scattered around, unfinished coffee and lots and lots of to-do lists.

Jaebeom was just on the phone with a representative of the Thai marine researching team. He was walking over to Jackson while smiling politely althought the representative couldn’t see him. “So when do you reckon you will arrive? We will need to arrange everything around your arrival as well as book the boats and yachts for the trips.”

He walked to Jackson who was showing him results on the computer screen. “Well, erm, Ms Y/L/N is not here at the moment, she is out on a little trip just out of Mokpo. I can tell her whatever you need me to tell her,” answered Jaebeom and squinted his eyes on the computer screen. He was listening intently to the strong Thai accent this person had. “I see. Alright, I’ll definitely let her know. One more question - is Mr Bambam also coming?”

Jackson was dying for Jaebeom’s attention but he had to stay patient for now. He was turning on his chair, zooming in on his friend then zooming out. Jackson was also bearing big glasses that would magnify his already big eyes. Some said he was cute, others he was crazy.

“That’s great news! We are looking forward to meeting you soon. All the best! Bye bye!” Jaebeom let out a tired sigh as he finished the call and tossed the Samsung smart phone on a pile of books. “God, this is gonna be horrible,” he muttered as he leaned in to see the screen.

“You said the exact opposite to them, though,” commented Jacskon. “But yeah, if that mean ass is coming as well, it’s gonna be hell of a nightmare.”

“I can’t say the truth to our business partner, Jackson,” explained Jaebeom, running his eyes through the information. “Anyway, let’s just let Y/N deal with all of it. Oh god, am I seeing positive results for everything?”

“Yup!” squealed Jackson and jumped once in his chair. “I think we are on a very good way to our goal!”

“Then we better tell it to Y/N before she will go craz-“

“What’s happening?”

Both boys turned around to you walking in with your scuba dive suit in your arms.

“We received the call from the Thais,” informed Jaebeom, “they are arriving tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s good then, isn’t it?” you smiled, going to the little bathroom you had in your tiny headquarters. “It shall be an interesting expedition, don’t you agree?”

“Sure,” muttered Jackson, tunirng on his chair to focus his gaze on the computer again. “We have better news though. All the results from the samples you brought in are positive.”

You dropped your suit in the shower as you turned to run into the lab. “What? Are you being serious now?” You pushed Jackson aside who shot you a glare, to have a look for yourself. “If this is really true, that means-“

“Yes,” nodded Jaebeom, bright smile on his lips, an unfamiliar sight for you. “The expedition will be successful, I’m sure.”

“I think we should re-run the tests,” you said, as you looked at your colleagues. “This way we can be 100% sure.”

“But the results are right here,” replied Jackson, pointing at the computer screen. “We would just waste time with getting the samples and running the tests again.”

“Plus, tomorrow the Thai crew arrives. We need to show them some proper results that are not doubted,” added Jaebeom as he leaned against the table, his arms folded on his chest. “I don’t think we need to re-run the tests, Y/N.”

You didn’t like their arguments. You could see where they were coming from, but this was your lab, your tiny research institute that you worked hard on for 5 years. If you wanted to re-run the tests, you certainly would do that. “I will take care of it. After all, I’m the director here.”

“And we are your senior scientists,” muttered Jackson in monotone voice, still not looking at you. “You should listen to those with more experience since you are still just a laboratory scientist.”

“Arhh, Jackson!” you shouted, making him finally turn around to look at you. “I’m trying really hard! But I’m just this way – I need to be sure in things.”

“Well, next time just hire a team that gives you a reason to doubt all the results!”

“But I’m not doubting your work-“

“Then what are you exactly doing at this very moment?” shouted Jacskon as well.

“I’m trying to do my work well!”

“That’s enough, guys,” interfered Jaebeom. Neither of you listened to him though.

“This is my project!” you exclaimed, throwing your arms in the air. “I’m the one who decides about things!”

Wow. You and Jackson never really got along well. He was the exact opposite of your personality. Talkative, cheerful, loud, sociable. He would always argue. For anything. 

You? You were quiet, neutral and freaking anti-social. What were friends anyway...

“You are right,” nodded Jackson, his eyes blazing. “You are absolutely right. Who am I to tell you shit?” He looked angrily at you a little bit longer and before you could react, he was taking off his white lab coat and throwing it on the chair, leaving you and Jaebeom in a very unpleasant silence.

You sighed.

“Well, that went well,” concluded your colleague before he sat down in front of the computer to continue his work. “He meant only well, you know? Jacks wouldn’t advise you things he wouldn’t consider correct himself.”

Tears were prickling behind your eyes as you were standing still. For some strange reason, you felt horrible for fighting with Jackson like this. There was no doubt you both accepted each other but any type of fight with him drained you on many levels. Probably, it was because he was always the funny, easy-going guy, whilst with you he was on edge.

“I know,” you stammered, taking off your glasses to massage your tired eyes. “I know.” You shuffled around, trying to collect your thoughts. “Did Youngjae come? He promised he is going to stop by with Yugyeom because of the boats.”

Youngjae was your childhood friend. You were going to the same kindergarten together (the kindergarten his mother owned).

“Nope, didn’t see him today,” answered Jae in a sing-song voice as he moved to the microscope. “He shall be here soon. It’s almost evening anyway.”

And so by the time Youngjae and Yugyeom appeared, you and Jaebeom worked in peaceful silence, none of you paying attention to each other, only acknowledging one another's presence. Jaebeom finished his studies three years before you along with Jackson, so they definitely had more experience in the field. Jackson visited many researching institutes in Australia so to be entirely honest with yourself, without him, you couldn’t move an inch. He had all the necessary information you could use for your own advantage. 

“I need him on board,” you said out loud without realising.

Jaebeom snickered, focusing on the samples from the sea you brought in earlier. “Then go talk to him.”

“He totally hates me, how could I.”

“He doesn’t hate you.  He is Jackson after all.”

“I totally agree,” exclaimed another voice that was entering the labs. 

“Youngjae!” you smiled happily, standing up to hug your best friend. “Where have you guys been for so long, it's already past 8pm!”

“Sorry,” rasped Yugyeom. “We had to finish everything on the construction site.”

“I just needed to know if the boats I reserved are still in the game,” you rambled quickly, eager to have it all confirmed.

Youngjae nodded, plopping down on your chair. “Yup, all good. Get your asses to the docks at 7am.”

“7am?!” squealed Jaebeom, horrified.

“We can go earlier if you want,” said Yugyeom in a fake-monotone voice.

You glared at Jaebeom. “No, he is fine with coming at 7. He will have to go to bed early tonight.”

Jaebeom gladly glared back at you, before Yugyeom asked: “Where is Jackson?”

“He...” you trailed off, guilty.

“God, did you fight again?” rolled his eyes Yugyeom.

You lowered your head, ashamed. “I’ll go and make up with him. We need him tomorrow.”

“Oh right, the Thais are coming,” laughed Youngjae. “Definitely bring him. He will be the only peacemaker before we will kill each other on board.”

“Apparently that Bambam guy is coming. He is the leader of the expedition,” informed Jaebeom. 

“Oh my god. That shall be a ride!” laughed Youngjae loudly before he almost fell off the chair.

-.-.-.-

Knocking harshly on the door, you refused to give up. “You are a stubborn child for not opening the goddamn door, Wang!” you shouted but eventually sighed. It was a bit late and you didn't want to wake the neighbours. For sure Jackson would not like that either.

Knock. Knock. 

“Jackson,” you murmured, “please, open. I know you are there.”

Exactly 1 minute later and one glass of patience filled up to its limit, the doors swung open and a sleepy looking Jackson appeared. 

“What is it, Y/N, it's late!” he hissed, looking around to make sure nobody was lurking around.

“I came to apologise,” you started before he could pull out any more of his arguments.

“Fine, it's good, now go,” he said, dismissing you with a wave of his hand, turning to close the door.

“Jackson,” you pleaded, reaching out your hand to stop him.

“Listen, Y/N,” he grumbled, his angry face scaring you a bit, “I know exactly what you came for. Yes, I will be present tomorrow at the meeting. Yes, I will share my knowledge with your research.”

His words...hurt. “What have I done to you? Just because I told you I want to re-run some tests-“

“Oh, right, that one. I already forgot about that,” he fake laughed. “That is not the thing that pisses me off.”

“Then what is it?” you asked in a pleading tone. “I didn’t mean to do harm to you!”

He fell silent, poking his tongue in the inside of his cheek. “Just go, Y/N. It's late, you shouldn’t wander around by yourself.”

“I care about you Jackson.”

He bit back a sarcastic scoff. “Right. Go. See you tomorrow.” And with that he closed the door, its shutting echoing in the empty corridors.

Clenching your jaw, you made your way out of his apartment building before you could cry. There was no reason for him to be this way. What was his issue?

The next day, the sun was shining strong, skies were clear and blue, barely any wind. You met with the boys at 7am just as planned to run your last errands. You collected the needed samples while Youngjae and Yugyeom were navigating the boat in the quiet waters near Mokpo. They were skilled sailors and understood well boats and yachts as they mostly worked on boat constructions.  The duo had great dynamics and both of them were your good friends, what else did you possibly needed?

After you returned from the water back on the board, you looked at Jaebeom and Jackson to make sure they didn’t see anything unusual on the monitors as they were scribbling down notes of the underwater world from the machines.

“I got some good samples I can show to Mr Bambam,” you exclaimed excitedly, showing them the sea flora to prove your point.

Jaebeom smiled at you kindly, taking it from you to put them in the bags while Jackson barely paid any attention to you.

“You will do well, Y/N, I’m sure of it,” said Yugyeom as he came to you to squeeze your shoulder. “You have few hours left till the meeting, you should make sure everything is alright.”

“She already did that like 300 times,” muttered Jackson, not bothering to look up from his notebook.

Yugyeom shot him a disapproving look but you just decided to let it go. 

It hurt. It hurt a lot that he was being this way but at the moment you needed him to focus on his work.

By 7pm, all the five of you were neatly dressed and waiting for the Thai crew to arrive at your labs. You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until Jaebeom motioned for you to keep breathing.

“Okay, should we run over everything again?” you asked, as you were massaging your hands anxiously. “I mean, I’m sure all of you know but...”

Youngjae smiled reassuringly. “Of course we can go through it if it will give you a peace of mind.”

But before you could actually go over it, the doorbell rang loudly. Oh god, they were here! 

Your time to shine.

You quickly opened the door to find the famous Thai biologist standing there tall and... well, proud. He gave you a look and entered, ignoring your greetings.

“Hello, welcome,” you said to his 4 teammates as they were entering. Unlike their leader, they had manners.

“Is this the team?” asked Bambam as he was looking around with a confused face, once again ignoring the greetings from the boys.

“Yes,” you answered, trying to be positive. “We already stumbled upon a great discovery, Mr Bambam-“

“Please,” he interrupted you, finally giving you a generous smile, “just Bambam.” 

You gulped, nodding energetically. “Yes, Mr Bam- I mean, Bambam.” You could literally feel Jackson and Jaebeom rolling their eyes at your horrible stuttering.

“I was expecting a better, perhaps more advanced laboratory than this. This is a laboratory right?” he raised his left eyebrow as he looked at you, not that interested.

His words threw you off guard. “Well, yes, this is the lab we work in. I can assure you we have all the necessary equipment for this expedition.”

“Don’t worry, I brought machines, too. I am more accustomed to them anyway.”

You nodded once again, not sure what to say anymore. He seemed to have the right answer for himself either way, so you looked to the ground when you heard a voice speak up, startling you.

“So how was your way here? Also I absolutely adore your watch, Bambam.” Jackson. He was walking towards the man with a bright smile, grabbing his hand without his permission and looking at the expensive Swiss watch. No more grumpiness or disgust.

Bambam's eyes lit up right away. “Oh, maaan, I bought them last week!” 

And that’s how it started. The long evening full of fake kind conversations.

As you were standing aside, watching others interact, Youngjae came to you, nudging you with his elbow. “Hey, everything is going alright, don’t be so stressed.”

“I’m not stressed.”

“Yes, you are. Just a look and all of us can see it.”

You sighed and pursed your lips. “I just care about this project a lot, that’s all.”

“And you will do just fine. After all, he is one of the best marine biologists out there,” said Youngjae, nodding his head towards the laughing Bambam. He did get on well with Jackson.

“I wish,” you scoffed, “but I will work hard, that’s for sure.”

By the end of the meeting, you all warmed up to each other in a certain way. You managed to laugh with the Thai colleagues, but their leader, that Bambam dude, was a tough one. He was so full of himself, ew. You didn’t know he was such a bastard. There wasn’t a single time he wouldn’t talk only about himself and his research programme he was leading in Thailand. Not even once did he bother to ask more about your research and your colleagues which started to piss you off pretty badly.

Jaebeom was trying to talk about findings that your team made in the surrounding sea but Bambam ignored him smoothly, and changed the subject on the differences in the water temperature in the seas around Phuket.

God. This guy.

It didn’t matter to you that much. You had his famous name, his knowledge and that’s all that mattered to you.

When all of you stood up to part ways and get some rest before the hard work tomorrow, Bambam once again startled you in an unpleasant way. “I would like you, Y/N, to show me around tomorrow afternoon. I prefer to sleep in in the mornings if you don’t mind. Others don’t have to come, you have free day tomorrow.”

Your mouth fell open while your friends gave you a shocked look. “Well, I’m afraid the work in this lab never stops.”

“It will tomorrow,” answered Bambam as if nothing happened. “I would like to get to know you better, Y/N so I know who I have the privilege to work with.”

You gulped, feeling his gaze on you. Jaebeom was about to interfere when you said: “Alright. Jaebeom and Jackson, it’s a free day tomorrow for you. I’ll gladly show you around, Bambam.”

Challenge accepted.

<3