#but it is SO incredibly safe

[weepylucifer]

Oh yeah btw i am mad that they’re cancelling Discovery just as it was really getting good. Was it perfect? No. But at least it was trying to do something new during the last 2 seasons and actually moving the Star Trek universe forward in time instead of endlessly dwelling in the nostalgia zone. I like Lower Decks and SNW but you have to admit that all ongoing Trek shows now are endless nostalgia bait and “omg are they going to have a cameo by a legacy character”. It’s just yet another huge symptom of an entertainment industry no longer having the courage to try something even the littlest bit new and weird

[ionomycin]

mermay

[whomstdvelynt]

she’s dead, scar. you won.

[coloredcompulsion]

Mithrun being a mostly autonomous disabled person with caretakers is incredibly important to me, building up routine habits in order to "fully function" while also still requiring help is so real tbh

[proselfshipsafespace]

Paranoid selfshippers, your f/o(s) wanted me to tell you that it'll all be okay, that you're perfectly safe and they'll protect you from whatever you think might get you or whatever is troubling your mind.

I promise you, you're f/o(s) want to keep you safe and protected and want to make sure you feel comfortable and calm.

[bogos-bint3d]

Ok I had like a LOT of fun doing this holy shit

[spkyart]

MUKURO

((Aka the love of my life ))

[whumpitisthen]

Masterlist

Grab your character and shove their head underwater. Keep them pinned until they breathe in the water. Pull them up and let them splutter and cough. Push them under again. Pull them up. Let them use their precious seconds of air to beg. "Ple-Please, please stop — " Push them under again. Feel them squirm. Pull them up sooner; they couldn't hold their breath long enough. Once more for good measure. Don't let them up until they nearly suffocate. Pull them up and throw them to the ground, let them cough up all the water they swallowed. Pull them into your lap. They are shivering, the cold water having seeped deep into their bones. They are crying. They are going to try to pull away. Don't let them. Hush them gently. Card through their hair. Let them relax under your hands. Then drag them back over to the water. Put their nose right above the surface and keep their head right there. Let them imagine how it will feel to be pushed under again, held there, pulled up just so they can drown again. They will fight, they will sob, they will plead and barter and yell. They will be scared. Answer them with an order. "Take a deep breath for me." Watch them struggle to decide if they should. They probably won't be able to take one deep enough if they tried. Push them under. Watch them squirm. Repeat.

[mariatesstruther]

okay but sarah celebrating tommy every year for mother’s day

[juney-blues]

june egbert is proof that half of you people can't even comprehend the idea of a pre-transition trans woman.

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[wejustvibing]

do i got to start supporting the bianconeri now

[laurenkmyers]

kiseki + the moment that tear hits his face chen yi knows

[butwhatifidothis]

it annoys me so much when people say "edel had no other choice" as a thought terminating cliche. like even IF that were true, how one goes about that is still a characterful thing that gets minimized to "so it's not her fault stop being mean to her she just did what she had to". like. does she feel regret? does she apologize ot the people she's hurting? does she view it as righteous? who knows, becuase the argument is only ever used as a "stop being mean to my wife" line and not a character thing.

Yeah cuz like. Okay so let's say that starting the war was absolutely not her fault because xyz circumstance robs her of any substantial say in the matter.

What about using Demonic Beasts? What about her siccing her army and different set of Demonic Beasts on her own "friends" so that she could make more Demonic Beasts? Stealing from a gravesite to do so? What about starving her citizens, and being the only lord TO starve her citizens in their route? What about killing Judith as she ran away from her? Hell, invading the neutral Alliance in the first place? What about helping the Death Knight get away with stealing Flayn if 25 turns pass? What about saying nothing about Kronya even after Solon reveals himself at Remire? What about giving Jeritza a hunting ground to enable his bloodlust and not, like. Professional help?

She couldn't even mention a means she's working on to do anything about her starving citizens? Did she have to blame Claude (and everyone really) not immediately bowing down to her as to why the Alliance was violently invaded, and not her violent invasion being the reason it was violently invaded? What about persecuting Church followers who didn't do shit to anybody, did she have to do that shit too? Never freeing Brigid and instead stationing her men there on her route and sending Hubert there off of it; that was forced on her too? Taking Byleth's credit during the siege instead of letting them get the recognition they deserve - what, just, fate forcing her hand once again?

Are we really going to sit here and say because the war "needed" to happen, Edelgard was forced to do literally all of that (and more)? That because Edelgard was "forced" into war, she was also forced to do literally anything involving the war?

Like you said, her stans saying that she "had no choice" but to start the war does nothing to say anything about her as a character, because they also reject everything else she did regarding her war as having anything to do with her agency. They treat "she had to do this" as a means to protect the moral purity they want her character to have so they don't feel bad rooting for the villain to win, not as something that goes on to mean anything for her.

And I'm not asking for her to save literally every single person ever from any harm ever to prove her care about not going to war exists, I'm asking for LITERALLY ANYTHING. Because she quite literally does nothing to mitigate harm from anybody in this war, and regardless of whether the war was "forced" on her hands or not she absolutely could have done something to make sure her people suffered as minimally as possible. Which damn sure isn't seen in her hiding behind them as she sits in her throne room (a thing Dimitri and Claude absolutely don't do, with either similar or less time to prepare to protect their people). Or starves them, a thing uniquely said about her route (as literally all the other ones have the army go with lacking food supplies). Or allows Thales to conscript them under threat of death. Or openly saying that she thinks weak people would only stay weak after her war because they're "too used to relying on others" - because when her war takes everything away from people, it'd be THEIR fault for staying weak, which is *chef's kiss* so kind and caring amiright guys. Definitely shows off that she understands and/or cares about the ramifications of her war onto the people, and not that she has her head shoved squarely and firmly up her ass.

What does it meaningfully mean for the war to not be Edelgard's fault, if she's not going to do anything to indicate that she cares about other people enough to want to not force war on them? Hell, when she very explicitly shows she doesn't particularly care about how it'd affect people, if it affects people in a way that doesn't align with her beliefs? When she very explicitly says she's perfectly willing to sacrifice her people for her higher cause, and then goes on to sacrifice her people for her higher cause? If she doesn't even try to help others because the war was forced on her, that at best makes her one of powerless victim or uncaring defeatist - neither of which fit the resolute caring ambitious revolutionary they paradoxically also want her to be. So, again, what does it actually mean for the war to not be a result of Edelgard's agency, if she regardless of that still shows callous indifference to those harmed by the war?

It's a question no one who posits this about Edelgard is able to answer, because as you said, it's not meant to be anything more than a shallow defense against her own actions. Letting Edelgard have even the slightest smidgen of agency in her own actions means accepting that she is a massive fucking penis. A huge gaping asshole. A plain ol' jerk. Which again! Is INFINITELY more engaging to watch than this marionette strung along by literally everyone around her into "looking" like a villain, only being her "true" self when she's feeding kittens and dwawing her cwush and burping her googoo gaga babyass girlfriend they also tend to make (f!)Byleth over her shoulder

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

TF One D-16

[skyward-floored]

Swapped (Part 3)

Seeing what our last group is up to... (minus Sky who's taking a well-deserved break). Mild blood/injury warning for this part, but it isn't too bad.

Previous | Next

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Malon woke up to somebody calling her name and shaking her arm.

Her immediate thought as she slowly woke up was that it was one of her kids trying to wake her, probably wanting breakfast or the like, and she held back a sigh. She had an awful headache, and was weirdly sore... maybe she should sleep a bit longer and ask Wild to make something.

Then she realized what she was lying on wasn’t her bed, and that the voice calling her name wasn’t one of her kids’s.

Malon’s eyes shot open, and she saw Artemis leaning over her, looking immediately relieved.

“Thank goodness, I wasn’t sure when you would wake up,” she sighed, and Malon blinked, slowly sitting up. She looked around her, taking in the dim hallway and dust in the air, and frowned.

“Arty? ...What happened?” she asked, gingerly feeling at her head. She couldn’t feel any bumps or blood, which was good, but she certainly felt like she’d hit her head.

“The scientist was expecting us,” Artemis reported grimly. “He set off some kind of energy explosive, and the wall collapsed... I think it was triggered to be unstable.” She sighed, and crossed her arms. “This whole thing was a setup.”

Malon frowned and looked around the hallway where she and Artemis had landed. They’d ended up in one of the side corridors that led off of the main hall from where they had been, not nearly as well-lit, and Malon didn’t see anyone else in the area. Just dust, and rubble.

They had been near the back of the group when it had happened, which would explain why they were alone. She could only hope everyone who’d been ahead of them was all right... a wall collapsing had the potential to be disastrous.

“Did you try and go through the wall and find the others?” Malon asked, lightly rubbing her head.

Artemis’s face creased, and she sighed. “No. I tried, but my powers aren’t working, he must be blocking them. He really prepared for us.”

Malon frowned at that, then tried to speak a casual “hello” in the language of horses. All that came out was an odd little snort, and she huffed in annoyance.

Well. This could get inconvenient.

“Radio?” she asked next, gingerly standing up. Goodness was her head ringing. At least the breeze that was tickling her neck felt nice.

“No good either. Signal’s blocked.”

Malon sighed, tightening her lasso at her hip, and making sure her bow was still secure on her back. No way to contact her family to see if they were okay, no way to join up with them. And on top of that, no powers.

What a mess.

I knew we should have gone with a smaller group, we should have left the boys at home...

Malon exhaled, shaking off the thought. Her boys were capable, they could handle whatever happened to them.

Hopefully...

“I guess we’ll try and loop around, see if we meet up with anyone?” she said, and Artemis nodded, looking a little pale. “...You okay, hon?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Artemis replied, and Malon raised an eyebrow. “Really Malon, I am.”

Malon studied her in silence a moment, then gave a slow nod, trusting she knew what she was talking about.

Artemis had been through a hard pregnancy not too long ago, and though she’d claimed and demonstrated she was perfectly fine to come along, Malon had still been keeping an eye on her this whole time. But if Artemis said she was fine, then Malon would believe her.

...Though she would still keep an eye on her.

“I’m fine Malon, truly, it’s just... odd, not having my powers,” Artemis admitted quietly, absently rubbing her middle. “It’s... wrong. It feels like there’s something strange in my chest.”

Malon hummed worriedly, giving her shoulder a squeeze. The few times she’d come into contact with devices that blocked powers they’d never felt like that, to her at least. Was it because Artemis’s powers were more of a physical thing than Malon’s?

...But then again, now that she was thinking about it, there was an odd feeling in her chest as well.

But before she could try and examine it further, a soft groan went through the room, and both Malon and Artemis froze.

“What was that?” Artemis asked in a whisper, drawing her weapon.

“I don’t know. Maybe... Link?” Malon called softly, just to cover all their bases, but there was no reply.

Malon and Artemis briefly exchanged looks, knowing they couldn’t both have imagined the sound, then went over to where it had come from. Malon pulled out her bow and called again, and though there was still no response, she diligently scanned her gaze over the rubble.

The wall had collapsed surprisingly neatly, but there were still chunks of it all over the place, and a few worrisome cracks in the ceiling. The scientist may have planned to separate or trap them by collapsing the wall, but you could only control explosions so much. He was lucky the building hadn’t fallen in.

Malon pushed aside some rubble, eyes still scanning across it, then froze, zeroing in on a particular spot.

Where she could see a faint dash of blond hair, with a colorful outfit to match.

“Four!” Malon gasped, and ran over to him, her panic growing as she saw that he was half-buried, eyes closed. “Artemis, I found Four! Link, sweetheart, wake up,” she said more gently, brushing his hair from his face.

Four moaned as Artemis ran up, and his eyes slowly dragged open, dazedly focusing in on them.

“Uhh... Mom..?” he asked dizzily, and Malon nodded, Artemis kneeling beside them.

“Where are you hurt?” Malon asked, cautiously touching the spot near his shoulder where she could see some blood. Four hissed, face screwing up in a wince.

“M-my arm, I think? It feels kind of... pinned...” he said, face creased. “What happened..?”

“We were shot at with an energy beam, the wall collapsed, we were all separated, our powers have been blocked, and we have reason to believe this was all a trap,” Artemis summed up. Four blinked at her, looking rather confused.

“Oh...”

“We’re gonna try and get you out of there Four, just hold tight,” Malon reassured, and Four nodded, staying silent as she and Artemis began to work.

The rubble was messy, full of large pieces that couldn’t be moved, and smaller ones that shifted more than Malon was comfortable with. Making headway in freeing Four was nearly impossible, and she frowned as she wiped the sweat from her brow after several minutes in which they were no closer to getting him out.

“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” Artemis sighed, pulling back and wiping her own forehead. “Perhaps we should try something else.”

“I don’t know what else we can do,” Malon frowned, studying the rubble. “I don’t want to risk burying him further, but I don’t know if we can get him out without moving anything.”

“I know. Maybe we could—”

A loud crack cut Artemis off, and both she and Malon froze.

Then a chunk of unstable ceiling dropped, headed right for where Four was lying.

Malon dove forward to cover him, Artemis’s shout ringing in her ears as she bent over his head. Malon fully expected to be hit by the chunk of ceiling, but a familiar metallic chime rang through the air instead, one Malon would know anywhere.

Her head snapped back up, and sure enough, a ruby-red shield shone bright above her and Four’s heads, protecting them from the ceiling pieces. Malon looked back at Artemis, and saw her hands outstretched, her eyes wide with shock.

The rubble slid off to the sides after a few moments, and the shield fell away, Artemis dropping her hands with a gasp.

“What on earth...” she breathed, and Malon sat up, staring at her in shock. “This...”

“That was... Hyrule’s shield,” Four finished for her, voice still dazed, but now more with shock than anything. “How... how do you have it?”

“I don’t know?” Artemis answered, looking completely bewildered.

Four frowned in the way he always did when he was thinking about something, fingers tapping lightly against the floor. Then he screwed his face up like he was trying to use his own powers.

Suddenly his free hand flickered from view, disappearing from sight. It came back seconds later, but Malon and Artemis still stared at it in disbelief.

“I think... our powers got switched,” Four said softly, sounding out of breath. “And I got yours, Aunt Artemis.”

“And I got Hyrule’s somehow, he... oh that scientist, he didn’t block our powers at all, he messed them up!” Artemis growled, and Malon looked at her own hands in surprise. Had they truly been swapped?

She gave a cautious tug on the strange feeling in her chest, extending a hand almost instinctively, and a gust of air blasted through the hallway, nearly bowling herself and Artemis over. Malon hurriedly reined it in, or did her best to, and Artemis and Four stared at her with wide eyes.

“Hm. Well. I seem to have gotten Wind’s,” Malon said in interest, and Four giggled, somewhat hysterically.

“You have Wind’s powers. You have Hyrule’s. And I... have yours,” he said with a hint of panic, his breath speeding up. “And I don’t have mine, and I don’t know if I can get them back, and... and maybe they just won’t come back and I'll be powerless again it’s fine this is fine!”

“Calm down hon, we’ll get this fixed,” Malon soothed, and Four let out another laugh, though he did seem to make an effort to calm himself.

Malon ran her hand over his head in an attempt to help, and Four relaxed a little. Though not completely, seeing as he was still half-buried under a collapsed wall and had just gotten his powers swapped.

—Wait a minute.

“Four... if you have Artemis’s powers, you should be able to get yourself free,” Malon realized, and Four’s eyes widened. His expression turned nervous then, and he looked at the pile of rubble towering over him.

“I don’t know Mom, what... what if something goes wrong and I bury myself?” he said nervously. “I can’t even... handle my own powers sometimes, what if...”

“I’ll help you,” Artemis reassured, and Malon scooted over to let her get closer to Four. “I know a thing or two about my powers after all.”

Four bit his lip as he thought for a moment, and then he breathed out and nodded.

“Okay. How do I do it?”

“Well, you did it once, though only for a moment. That’s a start. For more than that, it’s... a bit like holding your breath,” Artemis explained. “You’re slipping in between things, going through matter.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Four whispered, and Artemis hummed.

“Not really. Warriors says it feels cold when I use it on him, but I don’t feel much of anything myself. I don’t know your powers, so I can’t give you any definitive advice, but I would guess you just need to draw on the spot that you usually do, and remember what I said about slipping through. It’ll be strange the first time, but I think you can do it,” she said encouragingly.

Four breathed out, and nodded. “...Okay.”

Malon and Artemis drew back just a little to give him some room, and Four closed his eyes, brows furrowed.

He stayed like that for a solid minute, his fingers occasionally fading out of view. Nothing further than that disappeared though, and as time continued to drag on, Malon was on the verge of suggesting they try something else.

Then Four’s face screwed up, and the pile of rubble he was under suddenly shifted, like something had been taken out from underneath. Malon quickly grabbed him and began to tug, and a few moments later, Four was free, his left side gone.

It quickly came back though, and Malon pulled him away from the rubble, looking him over as Artemis congratulated him with a smile.

Four was right about his arm being messed up— the sleeve of his suit was torn a bit below his elbow, and blood stained the part of his skin that was visible due to the rip. It looked to Malon like it had been punctured by something. Four seemed paler too, having gotten out of the pile of rocks, and Malon gently pulled him into her lap, Four curling into her hold.

“This doesn’t look good,” Artemis said, inspecting his arm, and Four turned his gaze on her.

“You could fix it,” he said softly. Artemis blinked, then realized what he meant with a swallow.

Shielding wasn’t Hyrule’s only power.

“Smithy, I don’t know,” she said worriedly, pulling her hand away. “I don’t know these powers, I might heal something wrong.”

“Couldn’t you stop the bleeding at least?” Malon asked, and Artemis looked at her. “That can’t be too hard.”

“I...”

Artemis hesitated, and Four took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze.

“You got yours to work for me. I bet you can use Hyrule’s too.”

Artemis looked at him, then sighed, squeezing his hand in return. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

She put her hand near Four’s elbow, and after a moment of squinting and flexing her fingers, a blue light flickered to life in her palm. Four and Malon watched quietly as the light danced across his arm, sputtering a little here and there, but still moving steadily across his skin.

Malon held Four a little tighter, and he gave her hand a squeeze.

The blue light in Artemis’s hands suddenly got brighter, lighting up the hallway with its glow. Light raced across Four’s arm and Artemis’s eyes went wide, shining so brightly Malon almost couldn’t look at them.

Then her hand flashed, and the glow was gone.

Artemis floundered the moment it disappeared, her face white, and Malon caught her before she could fall over, looking at her in concern.

“Artemis?”

“Fine... I’m fine. It was... ah... hard to stop once I got going...” she breathed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Whew... no wonder Hyrule can’t do it too much...”

“But it worked,” Four said as he sat up, twisting and bending his arm around. “You fixed it Aunt Artemis!”

Artemis smiled at him, and Four got to his feet, looking much happier now that he wasn’t in pain and trapped. Malon wasn’t sure if he had accepted having the wrong powers for now, or was just doing his best to ignore the whole thing, but seeing him up and about made her feel better at least.

“You’re feeling all right now hon?” Malon asked as Four hopped around, and he turned and nodded at her.

“I’m all good,” he chirped with a smile, and Malon helped Artemis stand, her sister in-law looking dizzy before giving herself a small shake.

“I am too. We should get going,” she said, and Malon gave her a look before agreeing with a sigh.

They did need to find the others, and fix their powers and stop what they came here to stop. Malon was certain Artemis could use a rest, but time really wasn’t on their side at the moment.

Ha. Time.

...Malon hoped he was doing okay.

They deliberated for a moment on whether to try and dig through the rubble and get through, or just follow where the hallway they were in led. They quickly decided it would be faster to go around rather than through, as well as safer, and set off.

Malon kept a hand around Artemis’s shoulders as they walked, Four staying just a bit ahead. They were quiet for a few minutes, but Malon began to feel like the silence was pressing in on her, her worried thoughts crowing angrily in her head.

“I still can’t believe that scientist switched our powers,” Malon murmured in an effort to ignore them, and Artemis nodded.

“I know. That energy pulse must have been what did it, but I have no idea how.” She glanced ahead at Four, and lowered her voice. “...I only hope we can fix them.”

“Me too,” Malon sighed.

She rubbed absently at her chest, and inadvertently made a gust blow through the hallway again. Malon spared a thought towards Wind and the rest of her family as she attempted to wrestle it back, and hoped yet again they were all okay.

This truly is a disaster.

“I hope whoever got mine is okay,” Four spoke up, chewing worriedly on his lip as they walked. “If it took me eight years to be ready to use them, what’s it going to be like for whoever got them just like that?”

Malon and Artemis paused and exchanged loaded glances, worry clenching tighter around Malon’s chest.

Four had been a bonafide disaster while he’d been getting used to his powers; going between long periods of being unable to use them, to splitting left and right, his emotions off the wall, dealing with completely uncontrollable bursts of power...

“...We’d better hurry,” Malon said, and they got moving down the hallway again, their steps much faster than before.

...

Legend slept on.