#but at the same time part of me wonders if she'd completely adapt how she wears her hair

[realmermaid333]

I like to imagine that Katniss started wearing her hair in two braids again after the war. She had more positive memories associated with it, like it being her mother's or father's hands braiding rather than her own. They reminded her of lighter times, and didn't remind her of being the mockingjay symbol. The hunger games Victor. It also made her a bit less recognizable, which was another win.

She also started wearing her hair down more often. Particularly if she was going to be leaving the district for whatever reason (I'm sure she eventually got out of being banned from leaving twelve), like to visit her mom, Annie, or Johanna, because it hid her face a little and didn't have the potential to catch anyone's eye as "the hairstyle of the mockingjay". maybe she learns an appreciation for how the wind feels blowing through her long, black hair and she starts to go for walks with it down.

[embarressment-erradicated]

because I am not enki the 'necromancy is the only spell you need' marriage. + dark priest

also it hasn't come up.

but also I think it's pretty interesting how the rules of consent work in fear and hunger, the skeletons are likely devoted entirely to enki, unable to imagine anything else other than serving him, and yet here we are, their creator asking for their hand in eternity, and of course they say yes, why wouldn't they, the only one who matters is enki after all.

I think the ritual would probably be awkward as hell, with both sides not really knowing exactly what to do, the skeleton likely not having existed for a while and enki probably doesn't get out and about much, what with the being a dark priest thing.

but it'd be complete love on one side and on the other at most, a person wondering what may happen if they do this.

and it's done, they are together, and enki notices the extra strength, and then leaves, never ruminating on the feelings at play there, never caring to.

and it wasn't the first time enki did something like this was it? use and abusing a corpse till it falls or is used up in a spell.

it's a very cold way of thinking about love. but to the resurrected skeletons? there is no other quite like it

and I don't know how intelligent the skeletons are, I don't even think it really matters, wouldn't change the end result, couldn't save them from their demise, or perhaps rebirth as a part of a whole.

kinda reminds me of how being a litch works in vigor mortis, where a lich when switching bodies will consume parts of the soul of someone while fusing imperfectly with the rest, depending on the difference of personalities, and so well, the answer to that is easy right? construct a being completely willing to fizzle out if it means you'll survive, through the editing of the soul. and it works but while we don't get exactly what happens in that case we can't speculate on how it works, but honestly I think since this person is so egotistical one might assume he wasn't always as such, maybe the more times he reincarnated using the system, the more the narcism worsened, after all he sacrificed his mind for him, and he, is him all the same.

meanwhile vita out here just choosing one in desperation each time, and while in the end the least powerful one during the first time fizzles out and becomes mostly a memory, it doesn't effect vita the same way, it's sad, deeply, but what can you do, the part subsumed into the hole.

and the second time? it's chaotic forced, sudden, if she didn't do she'd die, nobody likes the situation at first they have to work around their newfound memories and experiences, aswell as the severe memory loss due to the differences in the souls of different species.

and over time both adapt to each other, more equal then last time, there's problems yes, but why does that matter? their dealing with them.

go read vigor mortis if you haven't yet. it's great. it's on royalroad

8am incest study

12pm cannibalism debate

12:30 tea break

1pm necrophilia discussion

3pm eroticism

6pm dinner + beer

[cruciferousjex]

Negociations (an Entrapdak fluff? ficlet)

Some context: Prime has begun his invasion on Etheria. After being horribly rejected by Prime and left for dead once again, Hordak is saved by Scorpia who - unable to stand his pain - tells Hordak that Entrapta is alive on Beast Island. He ofc goes to find her. At this point the two of them are hiding out on Beast Island together, as it is ironically one of the few safe places left on the planet.

>>>

They sat huddled together near the entrance of the cave, listening to the dull roar of the nighttime wildlife. Night was was by orders of magnitude louder than day on Beast Island. Night was when the shrieking birds came out, when the carnivores screamed for mates, when the great reptile beasts roared and stomped to protect their eggs. It was an insufferably atonal symphony of horrors only broken, for Hordak anyway, by the sound of Entrapra's voice, and only then because he still could not quite believe that he was hearing it, that it really was her, here, next to him, neither having betrayed him nor having been killed.

The first fear was quickly eclipsed by the second when Scorpia told him the truth of what Catra had done. He supposed he should have killed Scorpia for this betrayal, for having kept it from him as long as she did, but in the choas of the invasion she'd slipped away. He did not give chase, Scorpia was not his priority. His sole focus became Beast Island and the recovery of Entrapta, so that they might resume their research and find a way - any way - to escape the planet. Prime could not be stopped. Their only option would be to steal a ship and escape as far from the planet as was possible in this pocket universe, and then genetate a portal - to anywhere.

But tech was not on his mind as he made his way to Beast Island, nor even escape. What was on his mind - quite primarily and to his equal fascination and dismay - was her hair. As he tossed the bodies of a pirate crew off a Horde armored transport - stolen from him and his to reclaim, after all - somewhere in the back his his mind floated her hair, the soft weight of it on his shoulder, how smooth it had felt when it once or twice touched his face. Her hands, her eyes, her ... her *voice.* It was admittedly bizarre, that in the aftermath of his every failed plan, of Prime's invasion of Etheria and complete rejection of him, that the only thing he could think of, that occupied his mind day after day like a vulture pecking and gnawing on a corpse, was the hair and hands and eyes and voice of a woman who was most likely dead.

[[MORE]]

She wasn't. Of course she wasn't. He chastised himself for ever having underestimated her. She had of course survived on Beast Island, as she was brilliant and adaptable enought to survive anything, and had in fact saved him from certain death not long after his arrival there, swiping him from being ground to death in the gullet of some giant scaled and fanged horror. She tossed him out of harm's way with her hair and put the beast down via handmade crossbows she'd built from the island's steel tensile vines, the arrows tipped with poison extracted from that same vine's flowers. She was dirty, her clothes were ripped, but this was all just one more adventure to her, another opportunity to collect data. Hordak was speechless at seeing her again. She just laughed and asked what had taken him so long.

But now here they were, together again, huddled together in the dark. It was getting cold. A fire was not an option, as it would alert every wild animal in the vicinity to their presence.

"I have an idea," she said, grabbing his arm to get at the one of the armor's control panels. She used a sharpened stick to open it. She took a moment to admire the controls "Looks good. You've maintained this very well, Hordak."

"Of course," he huffed, unconsciously touching the purple carved gem at his neck. It was the last part of you I had, he didn't say. It is my treaure, my totem.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Making you into a heater," she replied, and shivered. "Just reroute the temperature controls, and - there! That should work."

He gingerly touched the plate on his chest, which gradually rose in temperature. "To what degree?" he asked. "Am I to warm the whole cave?"

"I suppose I could do that but it would probably overheat and there's not a lot here to repair you with. No, this is enough to warm you, and, um ... me."

She gave him an odd look, expectant but sheepish.

He raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"I, um ...."

"What?"

She bit her lip. Gestured to him. "Can I...?"

He opened his arms to her, and she crawled into his lap.

>>

Everything settled within him at this contact, a calm that was utterly unfamiliar to him, but was so clearly the fulfillment of weeks of despair and fear and longing. Just this, Entrapta's arms around him, her legs around his waist, the happy sigh she gave as her head came to rest against his shoulder, the metal plates of his armor warming them both. Her hair slowly, perhaps unconsciously, wrapped around them, sealing them in an odd but effectively temperate cocoon. Hordak tilted his head, placing his face right at her hairline, and closed his eyes.

Her fingers crept up to the jewel at his neck.

"I missed you," she whispered.

"Likewise," he whispered back.

His hand rose to meet hers. Their fingers intertwined.

"This should not have happened," he said.

"What should not have happened?"

"I never should have allowed Catra to take you from me."

"You can't control everything, Hordak."

He grumbled.

"We're together now, that's all that matters," she said, and wrapped herself even tighter around him. A tendril of her hair snaked forward and tenderly stroked his face. In a swift movement, before he even knew he was doing it, he pressed the tendril to his lips and shut his eyes.

When he opened them again Entrapta looked up at him wide-eyed, fascinated by this new development. A blossom of adoration opened in his chest - god, her eyes, those sweet big eyes looking up at him as though he were the moon, it was unbearable.

He tilted her chin up towards him and kissed her, a brief soft kiss.

Oh," she said, blinking.

"Oh?" he asked, his ears lowering slightly. Had he gone too far?

"I didn't know, " she said too quickly.

"You didn't *know*?" he repeated.

"I mean I didn't think about it," she replied, also too quickly.

"You didn't think about what?"

"If you - um - if you -" she stammered, flushing. " I mean - you're - your species are clones, you reproduce by cloning, doesn't that make, um ... kissing and ...and such ... redundant?"

Hordak smirked.

"Not that I thought about kissing you," she said, quickly, definitively.

"You clearly did," he said with a soft chuckle. "You clearly put quite a bit of thought into it it."

Her eyes went wide. "I meant - you know what I meant. "

He nodded and gently stroked her face. Tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. She shut her eyes.

No one's ever kissed me before," she whispered.

"Then shall I kiss you again?"

She nodded. This kiss lasted longer, and this time she returned it. Her hands rested at his shoulders. He moved to kiss the side of her mouth, her cheek, her temple, her neck. She sighed, relaxing into him.

"My species," he said between kisses, "are not all clones. The clones are Prime's invention, and he left us...intact, in that way."

"Oh," she breathed, tilting her neck so he could kiss the crook of her shoulder. "Why?"

"For the purposes of conquest," he said. "Sometimes such things are needed in certain kinds of ... negotiations. And for the establishment of dynasties. It serves Prime's purposes that his genetics are ... available. So to speak."

He kissed her ear and nuzzled up into her hair. Ah, her wonderful, prehensile, talented *hair.* He breathed deeply.

"So we're...negotiating," she said.

"I suppose."

"Establishing dynasties?"

He chuckled softly. "Eventually. Maybe. If that's what you want. We could establish a fine one," he said, not allowing thoughts of *if we survive, if we get off this planet, if we can construct another portal* to invade this moment.

"We don't need to get too far ahead of ourselves," she replied. "Let's just stick to, um...negotiations, for now."

He smirked. "As you wish, Princess. As you wish." He touched her face, stroked her hair. "Anything you wish, for as long as I'm alive."

She smiled, wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him. "Hordak," she whispered. He pressed his face to her hair, then looked out over the horizon, past the ocean, where there lay the dull glow of interplanetary war, going unnoticed by the noisy creatures of Beast Island. The amount of time he was alive might not be much longer, he realized - but it would have to be.

Entrapta touched the crystal at his neck, then his face, then rose slightly and kissed him - this time fully, with a softness and trust that dissolved him, that, if he could, he would write into the very sky.

It would have to be.