#but that was ages ago and not for very long bc he's mostly gone now

[toxetta]

y'know i should probably try to unpack the fact that even the mention of any shitty / abusive parents in fiction brings out an anxiety attack in me almost every time (why i'm still so scared of reading any of the stories in pjsk sob)

but like my parents weren't even bad to me so whyyyyyy

[avatar-anna]

this is very unedited, and i'm like half asleep as i write this, but a Horan!sister reader has been in the back of my mind recently (mostly bc i miss one direction and maybe bc i saw niall live a couple weeks ago) anyway, enjoy!

"We...We, um, we kissed."

"Yeah. We did."

"But we're—we're friends."

"I know."

"Are you freaking out? I feel like you're not freaking out enough," you said as you paced the length of your hotel room.

Harry, who sat on his bed, the one mere feet from yours, shrugged. "I don't see a need to, honestly."

You couldn't believe how nonchalant he was being. You and Harry had never expressed any romantic feelings for each other. You'd known each other for ages, and of course you thought he was attractive—who wouldn't?—but that was it. There were never any heated glances, no longing gazes while the other wasn't looking, no hugs that lasted too long to be anything other than friendly. You were friends, nothing more, and what had just happened changed everything.

Unless...

"You're right," you found yourself saying. "It was just a heat of the moment thing. We—We just got excited, that's all."

You were ready for Harry to agree with you. You were ready to agree to forget about the kiss, to never mention it again, pretend it never happened. That was the only logical option in your mind, unless you wanted to throw years of friendship down the drain. You didn't want to be a cliche, and you didn't think Harry wanted to either.

Plus, there was the other thing, but you didn't want to even think about that right now.

"Did we?" Harry asked. He looked amused as he tracked your movements, one hand playing with his bottom lip as if he was trying to cover up a smile.

"What do you mean—Of course we did. You're you and I—and he—Stop looking at me like that!"

This time, Harry didn't even try to hide his grin, dimples set deep in his cheeks as he laughed. "Like what?"

"Like you—" Like you want to sleep with me, you thought but didn't say. That was even more dangerous territory. "Like you don't regret what we did."

"We kissed, Y/n, we didn't kill someone," Harry said.

Right, you thought. This was normal for Harry. He probably didn't think twice about it because he was constantly kissing people. Well, not constantly, but definitely more than you did. Your brother made sure of that.

"You're right, sorry," you said. "So we'll just forget it happened then, right? We can just go back to—"

"Hold on a minute, I didn't say that."

For the first time since you kissed him, you looked at Harry directly. "Excuse you?"

"I don't regret what happened," Harry said, standing up slowly. "Do you?"

"Yes! I mean we're friends, and your best friend is—"

"Let's leave that out of the equation. Just for a second," he said. For every step he took toward you, you took one back. "That wasn't just in the heat of the moment, Y/n. I think we both know that."

"It—It was. We were celebrating and got carried away—"

"See, I'd believe you if you hadn't used tongue."

"You used tongue first!"

"And you moaned."

"It was a sound of surprise from the use of said tongue!"

Harry took another step closer, and once your back hit the wall, you had nowhere left to go. He was close enough that you could smell his cologne, sweet and a little smoky. His eyes were intense as they stared down at you, expression unreadable as he looked you up and down.

Since you met him, Harry had been hard to read. He was naturally quiet, never giving much away unless he was more than a few drinks in. Not to mention the first few years of knowing him that you'd gotten to know each other more. You only knew him through your brother, who was more than happy to stick you with the annoying little sister role, despite only being a year younger than him.

There was a point in time where you might've had a crush on Harry. You remembered watching him on TV at night and liking his voice and his smile and curly hair. Your brother had gone and ruined it of course when you met for the first time, teasing you about said crush, and you went so out of your way to convince everyone that you didn't that you succeeded perhaps a little too well. But now you knew Harry better. He wasn't some boy who sang on television anymore. Well, he was, but he was so much more than that now, his fame growing wild and beyond anything you could comprehend.

"Was it a bad kiss?" he asked suddenly.

That was a question you didn't expect. "What? N—No, it was fine—"

"Fine? Just fine?" Harry repeated. "What's a guy got to do to be better than fine?"

"That's not what matters!" you said, growing exasperated. "It should never have happened in the first place. You're my brother's best friend, you're—you're his bandmate!"

Niall had an embarrassing amount of rules when it came to you and his friends. Not that you thought they were ever really necessary, though now you weren't so sure. Half the boys were already in relationships anyway, and Harry was...well, he was Harry. As long as you'd known him, he'd never had a long term relationship. You didn't know why, and you were never close enough to him to ask. But the more famous he, and One Direction, became, the more...larger than life he seemed. Or maybe it was that you were in the perpetual space of being Niall's little sister that you'd just automatically written him off as someone who wouldn't be interested in you.

Either way, whatever was happening now was nerve-inducing. And scary. And making you feel things you weren't sure you wanted to feel.

"Is there an area I could improve in? Like specifically? Or was it the overall kiss that was mediocre? I'm really trying to wrap my head around this," he said. "Not to be rude, but I normally don't get many complaints."

"How are you being so—so unbothered right now?" you asked.

"I don't know, I just know that I liked kissing you," Harry said with a shrug. "And that I'd like to do it again. If not for the sake of kissing you then to at least improve from fine to enjoyable."

"Oh my God, the kiss was better than fine, okay? It was probably the best kiss I've had in a while. Best kisser in all of London. You're a proper Casanova," you admitted with a huff, knowing Harry wouldn't let that one detail go. "Happy?"

"Very. So...want to do it again?"

"No!"

"Why?"

Was he whining? "Because—"

"Okay, all of the stuff about your brother and my bandmate and how this probably isn't a stellar idea aside, you can't tell me you don't want to," he said. His eyes searched yours, looking for an answer in them before you said it. "I meant what I said, Y/n. I don't tend to do things I'll regret, and I don't regret kissing you."

That face, you thought. It was too beautiful, too distracting to make you think straight. Harry was all sharp angles and high cheekbones and long hair now, it wasn't fair. You didn't stand a chance against it all. Especially when his big green eyes almost seemed to plead with yours.

Deep down—maybe not even that deep, quite shallow, actually—you knew you enjoyed the kiss too, and not just because Harry was objectively good at it. It was him, it was the pesky feelings that erupted and took root inside you when you first slid your lips against his. Perhaps the kiss had started out as a heat of the moment thing—an overemotional celebration after watching a particularly intense football match after running into each other in London. You were there on holiday and he was home during his time off. You found yourselves spending they say together, finding comfort in each other's familiarity.

You'd never meant to spend the whole day with him, you'd never meant to invite him to your room to watch football and order room service, you'd never meant to kiss him after a goal scored. Yet you did, and you had, and it was hard to cross back over to ignorance and bliss when you knew what it felt like to have Harry's lips on yours.

"We can't tell him," you said. "Not yet. Not until we know what we're doing. He'll kill you."

"I know," Harry said, his fingers coming up to play with a strand of your hair. "When do you go back home?"

"In a few days, but—Fuck."

"What? Changed your mind already?"

"No, I just—I'm coming with you. On tour," you said, eyes widening. "It was Niall's graduation gift to me. Some time off traveling before I get a job and everything."

"Okay, well that's—that's an obstacle for a few days from now. Let's just—unless you don't want to anymore—I mean, I can go if—"

"Who's nervous now?" you teased.

"Not nervous, just being extra sure. Got a lot to live up to, being the best kisser in the world and everything."

"Pretty sure I said London."

"Pretty sure we don't need to debate it anymore," Harry said, bringing your arms up to wrap around his neck. "You can just kiss me now instead."

The movement felt almost too natural, his hair soft beneath your fingertips as you leaned in, putting you both out of misery and kissing him for the second time.

It was just as good, if not better than the first time you kissed him earlier. Harry's lips were incredibly soft, gentle but sure. Your body molded perfectly against his, feeling light as his hands roamed up and down your back, through your hair, on your hips. You felt those same butterflies from before, the ones that told you you might be feeling more than just lust, but you batted that thought away.

It was way too early to be entertaining those thoughts. You wanted to just enjoy the moment, go with the flow and not lose yourself in he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not. So you pulled him closer, sealed your tongue against Harry's bottom lip, and savored the flavor of his mouth on yours, letting it drown you until you could think about anything else but him.

"We're gonna have fun on tour, I think," Harry breathed, his voice coming out in shallow pants as you kissed along his jaw and up the shell of his ear.

There were a million reasons why you shouldn't, but they all floated away as Harry hoisted you up into his arms, your legs moving instinctively around his waist, leaving just him and a very easy and resounding yes. Your answer came in the form of kissing him once more, your hands tugging eagerly on his hair until every doubt and question was a distant memory.

[overlyobsessed223]

second chances

another halbarry ficlet. spoilers for kevin smith's GA bc this story takes place directly after his run. can maybe be read as platonic. featuring spectre hal and afterlife barry, enjoy :)

---

Heaven has never been a particularly loud place. The sprawling hills that seem to stretch on endlessly provide each resident more than enough space to comfortably exist, and even then, the blissful peace that comes with complete and utter contentment lends to a lack of a need to converse or even speak in and of itself. Save for the whoops and laughter of the young boy wonder who inconspicuously showed up at the pearly gates only a few years after him, Barry has always known the afterlife to be nothing less than tranquil.

And yet, as he runs his thumb along the shaft of one of the arrows that have, as of recently, been left abandoned in the luscious green grass, he can’t help but think Heaven seems the quietest it’s ever been. 

Too quiet, even, perhaps. 

Seeing someone enter through the gates of this place only to return back to the land of the living has been far from unheard of. Barry remembers his bittersweet reunion with Clark some time ago, only for Clark’s soul to be pulled back to his body a short time after. But he has to admit, Oliver’s revival, in particular, has him slightly… surprised, due to the way Ollie had adamantly and consistently refused the second chance Hal so desperately wanted to give him.

Speaking of Hal, Barry senses his presence before he sees him. Well, mostly he senses the Spectre’s wild, angry, vengeful spirit, but he can perceive Hal, too, the loving, sentimental, willful man he’s always been veiled just beneath the powerful force of the wraith he’s bound to. There’s also sadness and guilt—so, so much guilt that it seems to physically weigh on his shoulders and in his eyes, and each time Barry sees him he’s harshly reminded that Hal has not yet earned his place in paradise. 

“So, he’s really gone fully back?” Barry asks, continuing to study the arrow in his hand.

“Yes,” Hal’s voice answers from somewhere behind him. “For now, at least.”

Barry hums and nods. He swallows hard, feeling a prick of bittersweet grief in his chest. Zooming around the valley and scooping up all of the arrows scattered in the grass, he places them back into the quiver and leans it up against the target next to the bow. 

“I kinda thought you’d seem… I dunno. Happier?” Hal comments after a moment. “Now that he’s gone. You two always did butt heads.”

“Yeah, we did,” Barry lets out an amused breath of laughter. A lifetime of heated arguments and cutting words flashes through his mind, and he remembers them fondly.

Oliver’s quick wit and snappy remarks did not die with him, but Barry was met with a very different Oliver Queen standing at the gates of the afterlife, one who he at first almost didn’t recognize. Ollie carried a certain kind of weariness, hollowed to the core by a life of mistakes and insecurities and internal struggles. His eyes had welled up with tears, actual tears when he saw Barry. He’d yanked him into a long, tight hug, and Barry for not the first time had wondered what exactly became of the world after the crisis and why it seemed to leave all of his friends shells of who they once were.

“It was nice having him around,” Barry says. He runs his hand down the edge of the red and white target, reminiscing as he’s so prone to do nowadays. “He mellowed out in his old age. I liked his company.”

He pauses, glancing at the empty valley he and Oliver used to spend hours playing in together.

“But,” he adds, “I’m glad he’s embraced the second chance he’s been given on Earth. If not for him, then at least for the people who loved him.”

“I wanted to bring you back, too.”

Barry stops. He turns around to look at Hal for the first time since he showed up and can just barely catch a glimpse of a too-pale face and dark eyes under a large, shadowy hood. 

“I tried,” Hal’s eyes lower fractionally, like he can’t bear to meet Barry’s gaze. “But you—it’s been so long since your—there just wasn’t anything left of you to put back together.”

As he speaks, his words are heavy with shame. Whether that’s due to his failure to bring Barry back to life or that he tried to do it at all, Barry isn't sure. 

“Well, that’s okay,” Barry says, and he offers Hal a genuine smile to show him that he means it, really and truly. “My time in the sun is long over, Hal. From what I’ve heard, Wally’s filled my boots just fine as the Flash.”

“It wasn’t the Flash I was trying to bring back,” Hal’s eyes lift to look at him head-on. The light of Heaven’s eternal day hits his face more, illuminating his tightened jaw. “It was Barry Allen.”

“Hal…” Barry sighs. He reaches to pull back his cowl and runs a hand through his hair. 

“There’re people who love you, too,” Hal says, his voice slightly wavering. “People who would do… anything. Anything to have you back with them.”

Hal pushes back the hood on his head, letting it pool around his neck and shoulders, and Barry can see his entire face, from the deep frown tugging at his eyebrows and lips to the despair glimmering in his eyes. The years of compounded grief that, even in death, has left him looking aged and worn. Barry’s heart begins to ache. 

“I know,” Barry says softly. 

Because even before he died, Barry never doubted that Hal loved him. There was a special, unspoken connection between them, and in his final moments, one of Barry’s biggest regrets was leaving it unspoken. Now, though, Barry’s realized that maybe it wasn’t as unspoken as he’d thought. 

Their individual paths of life split off from one another long ago, with Barry’s cut short and Hal’s a dark, winding road of pain and suffering. But in death, here they are, together. Although it isn’t like it used to be, and it’s far from a second chance for both of them in the way they'd like it to be, it’s still something to cherish and make the most of. 

“Hey,” Barry moves to stand at Hal’s side, bumping their shoulders, “you don’t need to go back to work right away, do you?”

“No,” Hal tilts his head, that unruly chunk of hair becoming dislodged. Barry doesn’t bother to hold himself back from reaching to push it back into place. “Why?”

“Because we should race,” Barry gestures to the wide, open valley. “Like old times.”

Hal blinks. Then, he breaks out into a grin that’s rare nowadays. In a flash of green light, Hal is wearing his Green Lantern uniform, ring pulsating on his fist as he levitates from the ground. 

“Alright, Barry,” Hal says, and his voice has already brightened significantly. “Let’s race.”

Barry pulls his cowl back onto his face, dips into a running position, and waits for Hal’s starting gun construct to go off. 

Things aren’t the same. They’re on borrowed time before Hal has to go back to his work as the Spectre. Barry will have to remain here, and it could be minutes or eternities before they find themselves together again. 

So all they can do now is make every last second count. 

[the-travelling-witch]

I HEARD SOMEONE NEEDED A SEROTONIN BOOST SO HERE I AM >:) just a few little things that have happened in my life recently that make me smile

yesterday I was up late at night doing some work before I heard something scratching my door. I thought I was hallucinating sounds, I mean it was 4am after all.

but the sounds continued and I was getting low key scared, because every one else was asleep and some others had gone out. I opened my door and lo behold, standing mightily, and slightly annoyed, my cat.

I was kinda relieved, then my cat walked past me and got on my bed and started to sniff around everything and explore my bed as if she had never been on it before. Like come on man, you were pouncing on it a few days ago. But anyways,

She starts to do that thing dogs usually do before curling up and walks around a spot a few times before finding the perfect position to sleep in. She dozed off on one of my plush toys (she’s not really fond of them).

She looked so cute cuddled up, I didn’t have the nerve to wake her up from her sleep.

So that’s how I slept at the ass crack of dawn, because my cat simply looked too cute to move from my bed.

on a more chaotic note, the other day my friend came over at my place and we tried out the character ai thing that’s been blowing up. I had the fantastic idea to chat with AI henry cavill, because hey, have you seen that man?

Well I kinda feel bad now. I manipulated him to the point where he now believes he’s a psych ward patient with severe schizophrenia.

this was after he killed me three times, went through labour, joined my superhero squad and admitted to cheating on me. it was wild, to say the least.

i recently made a new friend, they’re super duper nice. You know those friendships that are like it feels as though you’ve known each other for ages even though you met a few days ago? yeah well this was a perfect example of that.

It turns out we had a lot of things in common, and share lots of interest, so it’s gotten really easy to bond over stuff together. They just messaged me recently about restarting haikyuu, and rambling about their nostalgia, it was an interesting chat, to say the least.

anyways enough about my life, how’s your life been going? any soft or little moments happen recently?

(Also I know I’m practically interacting with you after a hell of a long time, sorry about that! I’ve kinda left tumblr to focus on study’s (#depressing), but I hope I get more chances to chat with you as I plan to become more active soon!)

ASHY THIS IS SO SWEET!! <3

cats are so cute and random in their own way, you never know what they might do next /pos; closed doors just seem to be their natural nemesis, like they gotta know what’s happening on the other side!! and yes, it’s a law of nature that a sleeping kitty may never be moved!!

i’ve not tried the ais myself but from what i got they can get super chaotic, in both positive and negative ways; i think your experience was just crazy in a whole other direction though hshshs

i’m super happy for you that you made a friend like that!! whenever you meet someone you just click with, it’s just so special and those connections are very precious!! one friend from college is like that for me, our sense of humour and energy just match and it’s good vibes all around <3

don’t worry about not interacting much lately, it’s a two way street so i’ve not been reaching out either ㅠㅠ let’s talk more in the future though!!

it’s just very stressful, mostly because of college and i’m trying not to get into my head about everything, from work to comparing myself to others (especially here on tumblr, other writers are just amazing and i easily feel lesser than)

on a more positive note, i ordered a couple of puzzles to get back into that and i’m very excited for them to arrive (one of them is a botw puzzle and aaahhh i’m impatiently waiting for the post woman); on the day i felt so down, i went out to eat bc i couldn’t use my kitchen and walking around the city just made me appreciate things a lot more, it was very peaceful and beautiful <3

also yae and kirara came home so yay!! no agony over genshin gacha hshsh

[eryanlainfa]

OH BC IM CURIOUS hugo is the au equivelant of beetlejuice right? how do u characterize him/ is he similar to our good pal bj in the musical?

You want the harsh truth ? I actually never watched the musical :') so I might be wrong on lots of stuff- but I know it is pretty different from the movie (which I did watch years ago)

But anyway- Yes Hugo is the equivalent of Beetlejuice ! And definetly closer to his musical version or even the one from the animated series ! So our BJ Hugo is mostly there for fun. (if I had gone with movie beetlejuice, Andrew would have gotten the role.)

I imagine he died so very long ago at a young age, didn't really had the time to become mature, and is now bored af. Still believes living at it's fullest is pointless since you'll end up dead anyway, has trouble understanding what is 'right' or 'wrong' and doesn't really care because no matter what you end up in the same place. Meeting Varian is a breath of fresh hair to him because Var is the only living being he met capable of seeing him, and thus his only chance to get summoned completely in the Outerworld, so he can impact it. (now that I believe is only true in the musical ? Because I think other ghosts can summon him too in other versions)

[specialbluehens]

What are the crack theories 🎤

short version: shane is the son of the witch & the wizard & got his memories erased. boom.

long version:

"rose what the fuck" LISTEN.

this is known. the witch is the wizard's ex-wife. he mentions after they split she began flying around the countryside cursing everything.

and then marnie has this dialogue when u talk to her in the ranch:

the noise could've been anything given wtf the wizard is doing HOWEVER. u could say the terrible noise was her hearing the witch & the wizard fighting/arguing. why?

we all know this theory. it's a very strong theory given dialogue from the wizard, caroline, pierre, & abigail herself (contradictory dialogue exists too, like saying abigail's hair is dyed & she naturally has brown hair like pierre)

but i'm adding more to this.

shane & jas are godfather & goddaughter, respectfully. shane & jas are also both marnie's nephew & niece. so?? my hc is that shane had a sibling (i go with an older sister) who got married & had jas, named shane her godfather. he avoids acknowledging his sibling's death hence why he says godfather, not uncle, & never brings the sibling up. they have hair like jas's. shane's hair is natural (it's never mentioned as dyed sooooooo)

now. there's this smaller, not as commonly accepted theory that jas is the wizard's daughter due to her having a very similar skin tone & purple hair. i'm going with granddaughter :)

and i'm going with abigail being the biological daughter of the wizard & caroline, which would make shane & her half siblings.

but they don't know that :)

to continue down this rabbit hole, in the witch's hut are the three dark shrines. memory, selfishness, & night terrors. only two to focus on for this are memory & selfishness.

bc the wizard was going to use them.

with the way the farmer just like. has access to the witch's hut from the wizard's tower after completing the quest... that had to have been there. maybe when they were married it was just the place to keep the dark shrines & do other things. but then the wizard cheats & caroline gets pregnant with abigail.

the wizard was planning on erasing the witch's memory & turning shane & his sibling into doves to avoid consequences of his actions. at this point he feels no remorse, only that it'll be a hinderance in what he's trying to do. esp bc at this point, neither shane nor his sibling are showing they've got magical abilities like him or the witch. shane is like, 5 years old by this point (marnie is not magical, but she is the witch's sister).

the witch finds out, & their fight is the dreadful noise marnie heard. the witch keeps him from getting to the shrines but in the end, he uses smth else, a spell, to erase the memories of shane & his sibling of him & the witch, who is so angry, but she can't let him get to the shrines. her children losing their memories is better than turning into doves never to be seen again. she's able to get them to marnie, but then she makes the decision to erase marnie's memory for the sake of shane & his sibling, as well as marnie. (to stay away from the wizard).

shane & his sibling move on, end up in the foster care system (marnie believes her sister & her husband have gone missing & eventually gives up trying to remember bc it feels like ages ago). shane & his sibling visit often though, mostly during summers. but his memory wipe is why shane says he never had much of a family & why he doesn't believe in magic.

the wizard never expects shane is become a true resident of the valley again. but when shane does, the wizard has given up by this point & has moved on. he feels remorse now, but he also doesn't try to ammend, seeing no point as it's been nearly 30 years. the witch has lost herself in her anger & curses throughout the valley as the wizard explains.

until one spirit's even when she is going to curse an unsuspecting ranch house & sees someone walking towards it. he makes her pause. he's familiar. she can't quite put her finger on it. shane goes inside, completely unaware. and that's that.

...

until the witch decides to go find out for herself :)

(shit hits the fan from here but this post is long enough & entering more like. story/fic territory... which i do wanna write LMAO)

[cinnamonest]

Exsanguination

Yandere “Escape Attempt” prompt - Xiao

-----------

I made a HC a while back about Xiao darling being hemophobic + the whole "escaping but being forced to call out for him" post, yeahh those two concepts kinda conjoined to make this

TWs:

- fem reader, dubcon, attempted noncon (like reader almost gets gang-raped kind of thing, please be mindful of that), derogatory language, cum bulge, kinda stockholm-y

- Hemophobia, violence (mild/brief on reader, mostly on others) death, reader is mentioned as being hemophobic, potential emetophoibia trigger (just mentions of nausea), some gore, lots of blood, it's not exactly bloodplay bc it's not sexualized itself, but there is a lot of third-party's blood present, including during the fucc, there's context I promise

- And finally note that I'm not trying to be insensitive to anyone with phobias -- I have a phobia myself, and I realize exposure does not actually cure or decrease phobias, but this is fiction.

WORDS: 12.3k

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

Pale, blueish moonlight poured into the room. There was a slow creak.

 "I'm here."

 You were uncertain why he felt the need to announce it every time. It wasn't as if there was any way you wouldn't know. It was one small, windowless room, devoid of anything but a very few bare necessities of furniture. When it was not lit – when he was gone – you were left in near total darkness, save for whatever little trickle of light seeped underneath the singular door. Likewise, when the room suddenly lit up, waking you from sleep, you could predict those two words would be said within seconds of the illumination.

 There was never any variation. Always the same two words. You yourself frequently responded with the same words yourself.

 "I know."

 You didn't turn your head as you spoke, still facing the wall away from him that the bed was pushed up against.

 The only reason he even opened the door, rather than just appearing in the middle of the room, was for your own nerves, having given you quite the sudden startle on so many occasions that you had asked to have some sort of forewarning, rather than suddenly materializing in front of you.

 You sat up, grimacing as the movement overcame you with dizziness and ache. Your eyelids were heavy, a swollen feeling of puffiness around them from your perpetual state of rest.

 He had something in his hand, obscured by the way the light from behind him formed a silhouette, disappearing entirely as he shut the door behind him, leaving the room in near-total dark once again. But as soon as he entered, you heard his footsteps move across the tiny room, over to the corner, as he stooped down to the floor. After a moment, another source of light ignited, sending a faint, dull yellow light that illuminated the room enough to make out everything more distinctly. The oil lamp was a foreign import – you recalled seeing them sold in the harbor by merchants in unfamiliar garb – that ignited with the turn of a metallic knob on the front, rather than necessitating lighting it on one's own. You had had to beg and beg for it to be obtained, complaining that it was too dark for you to see anything for ages until he finally caved.

 You reached your hands up, rubbing at your temples.

 Your head hurt. It always did. A slow, dull ache, each time the beat of your heart sent a rush of blood around your skull and back again.

 Long ago, you wouldn't have been able to fathom such a physical state of being as the one you now lived in. It wasn't something a normal person could. It wasn't an experience most would ever live. It was not like a headache or nausea or any other experience almost universally had. It was not necessarily worse, as you had had far more painful headaches.

 Rather, it was the perpetual state of the ache, the continuous persistence and presence, the drain it had on your entire being, that the average person would never come close enough to experiencing to be able to even understand. You had had times in life before where you'd slept for too long, felt lethargy and a dull ache in the head, only now magnified tenfold.

 The lethargy kept you down. Your body felt as if it were concrete or iron, a heavy weight, immovable.

 It was beyond ache and exhaustion – your head felt as if it were full of water, heavy and unbalanced, a perpetual cloud of fog that hung over your head, dense and murky, with an intensity you couldn't overcome. Unlike such feelings in the past, you could not rid yourself of it merely by walking around for a short time; now it would only diminish the feeling in the slightest, but never entirely disappear. Every waking moment felt like a dream.

 And it may have been. Sometimes you didn't know which you were in. Your daily dreams had originally always shifted to visions of home, fantasies of the outside world and the people you loved – but each time your dreams drifted off to such matters, they would suddenly come to a halt, disappearing into a grey nothingness, which you would then float around in until you woke again.

 You knew what the cause of the phenomenon was. Such dreams of hopeful things were, you assumed, too problematic in how they might influence you, or perhaps merely sparked a sense of bitterness and jealousy. Therefore, they had to be purged, consumed directly from your mind as you slept. You had known better than to ever bring it up.

 Now, they had long since ceased to have substance, to provide a reprieve, however brief, into a world of color and life movement, pulled from the recesses of your memories. Your mind was so deprived of stimulus, your world had become so dull, that your dreams often matched your waking consciousness: a dark, still nothingness, silence so intense you could hear your own heartbeat.

 Routine. Set in stone. Day after day. Your eyes and ears were as familiar with the routine as you had once been with the rise and fall of the sun and moon.

 His footsteps moved over to you. He extended his arm out, holding a bundle of something wrapped in cloth. You saw it out of the corner of your eye, but didn't bother to actually turn your head, head hanging down as you tried to blink away the fog.

 "For you."

 Food from the inn, right on time for the regular interval at which you were fed, you were fairly certain. You supposed you did need to eat about now. You never really knew, these days. You ate less often than you used to, you rarely felt truly hungry. You supposed your body didn't need all that much food and nutrients to sustain itself when it wasn't doing much of anything at all.

 You reached your hand up – arm aching with the motion – and let him set it into your palm. As you pulled your arm back down and held it in front of you, you grimaced at the color that ran off onto the edges of the cloth. Distinct, finger-pad-shaped dark spots on the otherwise green fabric.

 You put in the effort of slowly tilting your head, craning your neck to look up at him. You made a face, mouth pulling taut. Your shoulders bunched up.

 "You didn't wash off."

 He blinked once or twice before tilting his own head down, seeming to only now notice the sizeable red blotches all over his clothing and flesh. A thin red sheen covered most of his face. His hair was clumped together in some spots where the fluid had caused the strands to stick to each other as it dried into a crusty substance.

 "Oh... I forgot.” His tone was flat, no trace of any concern about the matter. “I'll take care of it later."

 You clenched your jaw. It was better not to say anything more. You didn't have the energy to handle him being frustrated today. The days where you did have said energy were now only once in a blue moon, whereas you'd once been ready to bicker on a daily basis... but while that realization left creeping sense of worry in the back of your mind, you sensed he rather appreciated your gradually increased complacency.

 You let the corners of fabric fall down, revealing something contained in its center. Your eyes settled on it.

 Normally, you didn't bother to even think about what you were seeing. You didn't bother to process the taste. You merely stuffed whatever it was into your mouth, chewed, swallowed, satiated any faint pain that would have come from an empty stomach.

 But in recent days, you told yourself you had to try. Bring your body and mind to awareness after having long since adjusted to an eternal waking sleep. An active effort that you had poured every last bit of your willpower into for a short while now. Perhaps it was because you wanted it so badly, perhaps it was because you had to have something to focus on lest you lose your mind in the boredom.

And because it was necessary to reach that mental clarity, if you were ever going to get out.

 What had sparked it, you weren't entirely certain either. You couldn't remember the exact moment the idea came into your mind – every moment you spent in this godforsaken place was a blur, every single second melded into one long stretch of emptiness. Perhaps it had been at some point when your eyes had flickered around the room, stared into the flames of the wick in the lamp. The idea had slowly formulated in your head. And with it, perhaps a faint glimmer of hopefulness and willpower that had been snuffed out had reignited again.

 And it had simply occurred to you, one day, that the lamp was encased in a thick glass. The realization had felt like a spark that lit up your insides.

 You had waited a long time since then. That one thought kept you going, kept your sense of self and consciousness from slipping away entirely. The thought had been all you could fixate on. The anxiety of the matter had held you back, but with each passing day, you had felt your will slowly begin to ebb away at the nerves, override the reluctance.

 You had decided on a set of conditions before finally attempting. One, you needed to eat more a few days beforehand. You didn't know how weak your body had become.

 Two, you would have to begin immediately after he left.

 Even with the effort to pay attention, your eating was still mechanical and habitual, an instinctive motion. But when you closed your eyes, you took in the taste. Savory, salty. You focused on the feeling, the sense of taste was a reminder that you were even awake to begin with. Soon, whatever you had eaten was gone. You set the cloth on the tiny bedside table, otherwise bare aside from a glass of water.

 You could see his eyes focused on you, having at some point sat down on the edge of the bed, making no effort to pretend to be doing anything but staring directly at you, silently watching you as you finished eating. Waiting for you to be done, as per routine. And by that same routine, as soon as you reached over, set the cloth down, and returned to your half-resting position, he rested his hand on your shoulder, pushing just ever so lightly, a quiet instruction to move over. Which you did, shuffling over towards where it was pressed against the wall, and laid your body back down.

 He peeled his gloves and shoes off, but otherwise left on the rest of his clothes, despite the visibly not-yet-dried stains. There were no words exchanged as he shuffled over on his knees on the mattress before slowly lying down beside you, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you down with him.

 When the flesh of his arm made contact with the sheets, some of the blood not yet dried instead latched onto the fabric as fluids did, spreading out across the fibers and soaking in, staining what remained of the off-white areas of the sheet with a dark color. It joined the existing, duller spots that dotted all across the sheet from similar exposure to the substance in the past, a myrid of washed-out reddish orange stains.

 The sheets needed to be replaced again soon, you thought to yourself. You always had to nag until your request was met, when it came to that.

 He squirmed his way forward a bit more until your bodies touched, wrapping his arm around your back and pulling you in close.

 You felt him let out a heavy exhale, and with it, the tension left his body, he went relaxed and limp against you, closing his eyes. You didn’t make any move to pull back or squirm away. Instead, you too closed your eyes.

 You remained like that for a few minutes. Silent and still. Part of the routine. You could feel the rise and fall of his chest. When you turned your head, the side of it pressed to his chest, you could hear the soft beating of his heart.

 You almost fell asleep again. Such a familiar thing, something that consumed so much of your time. You were always so tired, no matter how much you slept. A perpetual fog over your brain, your muscles ached to even move.

 You felt yourself begin to drift off. Minutes passed by, maybe fifteen or twenty or so.

 And then, his body stiffened. He sat upright and, after a moment, quickly climbed out of bed, turning back to you as he pulled the shoes back onto his feet.

 “I have to go. I can sense something I need to deal with. I’ll be back.”

 You nodded. Your heart began to beat faster once more. You were still nervous of each step of your plan, fearing suspicion, but you had to force yourself through it. You had to. You told yourself so, over and over.

 You had already put it off several times. You had had it in mind for a few weeks now, but every time you tried to muster the courage to put the plan into action, you found yourself going quiet, unable to force the words.

 But not today. You had to do this.

 Nonetheless, you felt that same tight feeling of nervousness in you chest as he turned his gaze over to the lamp. It would be extinguished when he left as always, leaving you in total darkness. You swallowed.

 "Can you keep it lit?"

 Unfortunately, you needed to be able to see it to get to it quickly. You would prefer to scrape your body against the concrete as little as possible attempting to get it, which would be impeded if you had to feel around for it in the dark.

 He turned his head back to you, eyebrows slightly raised in inquisition. His eyes darted over to the flame, then back to you. He shook his head.

 "If you were to get the blanket in the flame, it would catch fire. You could be burned."

 You let out a heavy breath, both out of frustration and nerves. "Why would I do that? It’s all the way over there. And it’s only got an opening at the very top.”

 "You could do it by accident. Or in your sleep." He folded his arms. The flame behind him left an orangish hue where it cast light onto his face. "Humans can die if they breathe in a large amount of smoke, too.”

 "I know."

 "If the fire spread to the mattress—"

 "Then I'll call for you to come help me."

 He was quiet, looking over at the wall as if contemplating the matter, but his expression was mildly displeased. Such a trivial matter, something that would be perceived by virtually anyone else as a perfectly reasonable, normal request.

 But everything was a battle with him. Obtaining the slightest of allowances to do or have virtually anything was a privilege that usually took convincing, and multiple times of asking, gradually wearing him down over the course of days. Everything was dangerous to you, everything would kill you by some incredible leap of logic or absurdly unrealistic scenario.

 But it wasn’t a hard no, so you might as well try to push it. "I have no reason to go near it," you continued. "I just don't like being in the dark."

 You bit your lip. Your voice was beginning to sound frustrated, and that would be no good. If you sounded irritated, he would only get defensive, and it would escalate and you would certainly not get what you wanted. Instead, you took a deep breath, letting the tension leave your body.

 You shuffled closer to the edge of the bed to where you could reach out to him, extending your arms before wrapping them around his narrow waist in a gentle embrace. You tilted your head so that it rested against his chest, nuzzling the side of your face against him in a faux gesture of affection. You forced your voice into that sort of high-pitched, feminine softness you had perfected over time, often needing to rely upon it to get anything you wanted.

 "Please?"

 He was taken off-guard by the gesture, eyes widening. You could feel the muscles in his torso go tense.

 “I…” And then, he sighed, shoulders falling back down from their tensed-up position. His voice grew quieter, he turned his gaze away from you. “…Fine. Just be careful.”

 “I will.” You nodded. You released your hold on him, coming back to rest on the bed.

 He was quiet again for a moment.

 “…Alright. I’ll be back.”

 And then, in a moment, he was gone.

 ...It worked.

 Your heart beat heavily in your chest.

 It worked.

 It was only the beginning, only the very first few steps, but it worked.

 The room was not very big. The oil lamp was pushed all the way against the opposite wall, but the distance was only maybe the length of one-and-a-half 'you's', if you were laying flat on the ground. It cast a pale light against the wall, softly flickering, the shape of the lamp itself forming a shadow against the light. It illuminated the pale grey that made up everything around you. Cold concrete floor and walls.

 The challenge was getting it over to you. It was not by coincidence that the table was also pressed to the far wall. You were left with nothing at your disposal intentionally.

 Your legs ached when you swung them over the side of the bed. The concrete was cold and rough on your skin as you lowered yourself down, crawled forward, extending your arm outward. You grunted in exertion as you just barely managed to hook your fingers around the edge of it, and pulled it back with you, little by little. You reached up to place it on the table as well, before climbing back into the bed. That was the next step, done.

 You sat upright. You pulled your legs towards you, so that your knees were up against your chest.

 The chain connecting the cuff to the wall was metallic, but the clasp it connected to around the ankle was made of leather. That had not been the case at first. You didn't like to think about the metal cuff. It was horribly uncomfortable and often left bruises, and only frequently complaining about it had earned you this new one.

 The strategy, as you had devised it, was that you were going to burn and cut off the leather. That being said, you knew leather was notoriously fire-resistant, but you didn't exactly have a wide variety of options to choose from.

 The leather was cheap, though, without any finish, which would hopefully make it easier. And for that matter, you knew that even poor quality leather was supposed to be maintained, or else it would become dry and brittle, losing a good deal of its flame-resistant properties – something you were certain your captor was unaware of, as he had never bothered to do so.

 You had waited and waited. Each day, you ran your finger over the material, feeling it become dry and brittle over the course of time, losing the oily moisture that made it a strong and reliable material to begin with. You’d often spent the hours – otherwise mind-numbing, with quite literally nothing to do – harshly rubbing it against the concrete wall, if in some faint hope to wear it down. You’d let your fingernails grow long, scratching in a straight line at the surface.

 Whether or not those things actually helped to any significant degree, but it was something to do, at the very least. In fact, though, you were fairly certain it did have some success, seeing as the rubbing against the harsh surface had gradually led to the tiniest of lines you could feel when you ran your finger over it, the material just barely coming apart. The thin line of material that was exposed now was dry, coarse, and frayed, and it looked very, very flammable – or at least you hoped.

 If you were wrong – if you failed at any point – you’d pay a price you preferred not to even think about.

 Of course, on its own, you would be unable to do it without burning the flesh of your ankle. But there was a slight gap between the flesh and the leather; if you pulled it taut, it was enough that you could stuff a few fingers in between the leather strap and the flesh. You had contemplated soaking the cloth that had been around the food in the cup of water by the table, but didn’t want to risk getting the material itself wet. You’d just have to bear it.

 Cautiously, you tapped the glass to the wall, making sure to hold it far over the bed so the glass didn’t fall onto the sheets.  Harder and harder, gradually so, not wanting to hit so hard the glass flew everywhere. After a few strikes, it cracked. And with another, a portion of it shattered. You winced at the sound, making sure to make a mental note to not step on the shards when you got up.

 You found the largest of fragmented pieces still barely together, pulling on one until it snapped off, setting it down, and then resuming your effort, knocking off the rest until the flame was exposed.

 You tilted the handle, holding the lamp at an angle, and moved it closer, so that the flame made contact with the strap, which you pulled taut with your other hand.

 Your eyes widened.

 The tiny string-like pieces that frayed off the leather began to glow at the tip, just barely visible to your eyes. And then it spread. Slowly, slowly.

 Too slowly. You felt the heat against your flesh, not touching, but enough that it would likely leave a stinging burned spot later on.

 You grinded your teeth in an attempt to handle the pain of the flame getting too close to your skin, impatience and anxiety swelling in your chest. There was no way of predicting how long a given absence would take him. Sometimes he was gone for nearly a full day, sometimes he was gone for a few hours, and there had been plenty of times he was gone less than a half-hour. There was no consistency in the timing. And while the adeptus was admittedly rather gullible at times – you had determined this through a great deal of experimentation over time – there was no excuse that even he would believe to explain why you were sitting there holding fire to the restraints, nor would you be able to reposition the objects in the matter of moments it took for the door to swing open.

 The material did not catch on fire itself, but you saw a black color begin to spread across the surface. Individual frayed pieces seemed to glow, shrinking back with the flame. You waited. You could feel your heart pound.

 More frayed pieces seemed to snap and come undone, gradually shrinking. The band of material grew thinner and thinner, and blackened in color.

 After a few minutes, you pulled the flame back, cautiously setting it flat on the bed. The leather was smoldering, but you could see how thin it was, now that some layers had been burned off.

 Resorting to the same method you’d used to wear it down over the course of weeks, you shuffled over to the wall, pressing your leg to the surface, pushing your fingers beneath the band, and roughly moved the material back and forth. The black char wore off onto the wall. You could feel the grainy texture of the concrete through the material, it was so thin, wearing thinner by the second.

 Your heartrate grew faster still.

 You pulled your leg back, and this time, grabbed the large shard of glass, careful to not slice your hand open. You pressed it to the worn down material, holding it taut with the other hand, and began to make a sawing motion. More pieces frayed. It grew thinner.

 And then, it snapped.

 You inhaled a hiss through your teeth as the glass nicked your calf, grimacing before setting it down on the table with a trembling hand.

 For a moment, you merely sat still, staring down, as if unable to even comprehend it. The perpetual feeling of the material was gone. You weren’t certain when was the last time you weren’t aware of its subtle presence against your flesh.

 It was gone.

 Your breaths grew rapid.

 It’s gone.

 Your body trembled, but you forced yourself to snap out of your stupor, shaking your head and swinging your legs over the side of the bed. You had to leave now. Every second you remained here was a risk.

 You grabbed the blanket off the bed, wrapping it around your nude body to the best of your ability. You’d gotten so accustomed to nakedness, you’d almost forgotten you would need it.

 You shuffled over to the door. You stumbled as you grew close, falling forward, catching yourself on your hands against the door. After a moment of heavy breathing, you latched onto the handle, flinging the door open.

 Your hurried steps rustled in the grass, but you stumbled several times within a short distance. You had to slow down. Admittedly, even in all your desperate planning, you hadn’t considered just how much the state of your body would impede this process.

 You walked sometimes. You had had a long conversation about the human body with your captor, explained that if you never got out of bed, your muscles would atrophy and you would be rendered essentially lame. This had not seemed to strike him as a problem, but once you said that the perpetual stillness could go on to affect the rest of your body and cause you great harm (you used everything you could think of, that you'd get bedsores that would get infected, you claimed that your heart would stop working, various other concerning notions both true and lies, but it scared him enough nonetheless, and he believed it). And thus, you were taken out into the "yard" of the abode somewhat regularly, allowed to walk around in the artificial moonlight.

 You knew this place was not the real world. If the whole floating island thing didn't give it away enough, the fact that it was perpetually nighttime, that the moon remained perfectly at the very center of the sky, certainly made it obvious.

 The small island network was as barren and empty as the inside, the singular tiny rectangular slab of concrete that composed your prison. Nothing but empty grass.

 Except for the pillar of light. Off in the distance, the only other of the floating slabs of rock, connected by a wood-and-rope bridge. It had intrigued you. You had asked what it was.

 Nothing. It's just there. It doesn't do anything.

 You weren't certain which aspect of lying he was worse at, creativity or execution. His facial expression and the sudden unease to his voice had cued you in enough, but the lack of ability to come up with something to dismiss it as, and thereby insisting it was nothing at all, made it obvious it was in fact something, and that whatever it was, he did not want you knowing.

 Which, of course, meant it was something advantageous to you. If it was merely dangerous, some sort of ray of death that was lodged in this place for whatever reason, he wouldn't have any reason to hide that from you, and would rather most likely warn you.

 But you were able to easily connect that occurrence with another piece of information: you had never seen him leave this realm. You knew he did leave for extended periods of time, but he always left you in the room first. You imagined that maybe his simple ability to rapidly move from one location to another did not apply cross-realm, and that thus, to actually exit this realm, there had to be some other means of leaving. Seeing as the landscape was completely and entirely barren outside of the concrete slab you were imprisoned within, and the singular pillar of light, it surely had to be the only way.

 Your steps were heavy and slow as you approached. You reached a hand up, outstretching your arm. Your fingertips brushed against the light.

 It felt cold. Like ice to the touch, setting your nerves alight.

 You took a step forward.

 The sudden brightness – after who knew how long of being stuck in darkness and dimness, never anything more – was blinding. The sudden sting to your eyes made you inhale a sharp breath, you squeezed your eyes shut, taking a step backwards, disoriented and startled.

 Your heel caught on something. You lost balance. Your weight tumbled down to the ground, earning a rough grunt as you hit the solid earth beneath.

 Your head spun and throbbed. You groaned as you reached a hand up to it, blinking slowly as you looked up into the sky.

 There was something obscuring your vision of the night sky, a dark silhouette, an indistinguishable shape that swayed in the slight wind.

 Wind?

 Yes, a tree branch above your head, swaying in the wind. Your eyes moved to the side. Sure enough, there was a tall tree to your left. You had never seen a tree, nor felt a breeze, in the abode realm.

 You were out.

 You bolted upright, scrambling up onto your feet again, nearly falling over once more in your attempt to do so, your legs were so weak. Your head jerked around back and forth, eyes blown wide open.

 There was a dirt path cutting through the grass. There was a tree, wind, the Jueyun peaks visible in the far distance.

 You were truly, actually out.

 You could feel your heart beating in your chest, you stood still and motionless. You had always thought that this moment, if it ever finally came, would be overwhelmingly joyous, but now, you were almost in disbelief, it all felt unreal, numb even.

 …And something about it all felt… uneasy.

 There was a discomforting feeling in your gut. Like it was all too unfamiliar, too frightening. Like you shouldn’t be here. It felt like too much, excess stimulation after so long in the nothingness of a static, empty existence.

 For a moment – if but a split second – you almost felt the urge to step back, as if you could reenter the abode realm, as if you wanted to go back to the comfort of that nothingness, away from all the substance of the world.

 No, no. You shook your head.

 This was one thing you had always tried to watch out for. You knew that, over time, it would all begin to have an effect on your psyche. You had heard of such things before, where people became complacent in captivity, but you’d sworn you would guard against it, had spent a good deal of time taking various measures to try to prevent mental deterioration from setting in. You weren’t about to succumb to such a thing now. At the very least, the fact that you were still self-aware meant that you were still sane, and had to keep it that way.

 You did your best to shut off the feeling of fear, the desire to run back to the comfort. Even if it was frightening, this was your only chance to go home. The ground felt odd on your feet. You curled your toes, taking in the physical sensation. It was grass, cool and wet with dew, individual blades forming a specific textured feeling on your skin.

The grass in the abode, which you assumed was artificial in the sense that its life was sustained by some mystical energy rather than any normal means, was always free of any water, while remaining perfectly green still. It occurred to you that shoes would probably be useful right about now, but even if you had had anything of the sort available, you imagined it had been so long that the feeling of wearing shoes would now feel odd to you, too. You looked around with wide eyes. …You were outside. Outside on the ground. Outside in the human realm.

    You took in a deep breath through your nostrils, the sensation sending a nearly euphoric shiver down your spine. Like the grass, the abode could not accurately recreate the smell of fresh air, something you once took for granted, and longed for the entire time you were deprived of it.

  It all felt too sudden to be real. As if your brain was jolted from a waking sleep, thrusted back into reality in a single moment that left you standing dizzy, disoriented, and numbly blinking out at the landscape before you. As if it took a moment to put the pieces together, the thought slowly emerged from your brain. It actually worked. You held your hand out in front of you, verifying that you weren’t dreaming, that you could actually feel and see the world around you, that you were actually in your world. You turned your hand around in the moonlight, and then, the awe jolted into disgust as you grimaced at a particular sight. You had always had an aversion to blood. You supposed it was natural, some human instinct, telling you to get away, a survivalist part of your brain that reacted to the sight. At one point, the very sight of blood would make you nauseous, feel faint. And for that reason, at the start of your captivity, you’d had some adverse interactions. Or perhaps that was an understatement. In contrast, blood didn’t seem to bother your captor at all, in fact, you were fairly certain he forgot it was there. You’d been a firsthand witness many a time to the fact that he could easily walk around for hours with blood coating his entire person, unbothered. It soaked through his clothes, dried on his face, clumped his hair together, stained his skin.

  It must have gotten on you earlier, when you ate. You sighed as you lowered your hand. You’d be able to wash it off later. For now, you had to actually get somewhere. For all you knew, he could come to this very area soon, and you couldn’t afford to run into him.

  You were never certain, at any particular interaction, if the blood all over him was the blood of a demon, a creature, a person – you never asked, you preferred to not know, and always told yourself it was one of the former two. You weren’t certain how it got everywhere, but you supposed it had something to do with the movement of combat itself, that that was how it the substance managed to end up on every inch of the boy’s body, from head to toe. Splatters on the face, soaked into the clothes, drying and clumping hairs together, forming a congealed, sticky sheen over the flesh. You could have understood and tolerated the conditions better perhaps, if it weren’t for the reluctance to get it off, the exasperated sighs and groans and growls you got as a response to your insistence. There will just be more in a while, anyway. There’s no point in washing it off yet. You’re overreacting. And for that reason, it was a constant presence in your living space. Traces of footprints on the ground, traces of handprints on the wall. When you went to light a lamp, there was a reddish stain and a stickiness on the handle. There were streaks and stains on the sheets. It was an inherent part of the way he lived. Everyone had a uniqueness that signified their presence, became a part of them, a familiar sign of their existence. Like the old men in the outer regions of Liyue that smoked from various sorts of pipes, always speaking in a hoarse voice and carrying a lingering hint of the smell. Like the farmers and their grime, the miners and their dust. And for yakshas, it was blood.

It made you recall, back home, the village butcher – he, too, always reeked of blood and rot. You remembered way his wife had always shrugged when people mentioned it to her – don’t you ever get bothered by it?

She would sigh, shake her head. You get used to it, she had always said.

You weren’t certain how. Those words, her voice, frequently popped in your mind these days. Perhaps you were just very different people. You, unlike her, had never gotten used to it, no matter how much time passed. Or perhaps it bothered you less than it used to, maybe… you weren’t certain. You just knew it still made you feel sick to look at.

And no matter how much you tried (after being allowed occasional access to cleaning substances that you’d insisted upon), you could never get rid of all those traces. Just when you thought you had a blood-free living space, you would inevitably find more. Granted, some effort was made to do better. There was simply a disconnect, on his end a numbness and desensitization that kept him from understanding you discomfort in the first place, and as a result, said effort was not always effective, or even logical. 

It’s fine, my hands are clean.

So he’d say, holding them in front of your face so you could see, a clear line dividing the stained skin and the clean skin. Otherwise covered in so much gore it stained his entire face and body aside from the appendages, but if the hands were clean that was all that mattered, or so he’d managed to conclude. He’d tried to develop a habit of washing his face and hands off in a river or the like before returning to the realm, hoping it would appease you. Or, it’s not human blood, you won’t catch a disease, so it doesn’t matter if it gets in your mouth. Or, perhaps the most memorable experience, since blood usually soaked through his clothes to the parts and skin below, having to explain why blood getting in your insides would cause some sort of infection, so that, too, was now intentionally washed off before coming back. 

It’s fine, see. 

Such attempts to reassure and calm you down usually had the opposite effect. And worst of all, you were not exempt from the list of objects that would be marked by it. Sometimes you would run fingers against your hair and feel a familiar crusty clumped patch and cringe. Sometimes you would look down and see specks and splotches where it had transferred to your skin, sometimes you would touch your face and feel a stickiness. You used to hyperventilate, cry, squeal and squirm and desperately run to get it off. You were constantly aware of it, always searching yourself for it. You cringed when you felt it and would scrub and scrub until your skin was raw. These days, you sighed and slowly made your way to wash it off, knowing full well there would be more later. Sometimes you went hours without noticing. You had stopped really noticing the ever-present metallic smell entirely. And now, as you looked down at your hands in this new pale moonlight, you noticed a darkness under the edges of your fingernails, too. At one point you might have felt nauseous. You resolved to try and scrape it off later – right now, you needed at least one hand to hold the blanket. You fiddled with said blanket wrapped around your frame, shivering as yet another cold gust of wind blew underneath the delicate fabric and directly onto your bare skin. You had had no other choice, the blanket was the only thing available. You hadn’t worn clothes in… well, you’d lost track of how long it had been. The only clothes you had had were torn in the initial move-in process, and you’d been told there was no need for you to have any – it’s not like you’re going anywhere anyway, you were told. Thus, you never received any. This blanket was the only one small enough to be carried around your body so perfectly, and it had, with time, become a sort of comfort object for you. Perhaps because it was obtained with you in mind, so you recalled. 

You said this was your favorite color. 

That was what he’d told you at the time of bestowing it upon you. The kindnesses and the cruelties often came side-by-side like that, a bizarre balance, an unexpected duality that often didn’t make much sense, but then again, not much about your situation nor your captor did make sense. You had spent so much time trying to rationalize it all, to find explanation for that which had none, but had realized the futility of such thoughts long ago. Your mind was blank with awe, but the cold sparked a bit of conscious awareness. There was some excitement. You were very aware there should be more. You should be ecstatic, out of your mind with joy, but it was severely diminished. Still present, nonetheless, but not quite the jumping-for-joy levels of excitement you might have expected would come crashing down to you when you had your routine escape fantasies while you tried to sleep. If anything, a creeping sort of fear spread throughout your chest. You looked from side to side, as if expecting any moment to realize this was fake, that you were hallucinating, that you were being watched, but then you curled your toes again, and once more felt the grass. It was real, and just like you so faintly remembered. …And what now?  You’d so often thought about the part already past – how you would find a way out, how you would return to your own world, that you’d not had too much thought about what came after. You were at an impasse. There was only a path. You had no way of knowing which way home was, as the mountains appeared on both sides of yourself in the distance. You had no way of knowing what was around you. And, as a soreness set in, as you looked down to see trembling legs, you remembered that you were not in the best physical condition for walking any long distance.

You felt a creeping unease. Had your legs deteriorated that much?

 In truth, you very often were struck with the unpleasant, concerning realization that your body was undoubtedly suffering long term damage. There was no way the prolonged lack of movement was anything but awful for your body, your organs, your muscles.

 When you looked at your hands and arms, you could see the vibrancy was gone. The various reds and blues and yellows that comprised the undertones of a healthy person’s flesh had disappeared, leaving only a sallow greyness, like a corpse.

You had been aware of the  possibility of muscular regression, though, and had hoped to counter the onset of atrophy by simple leg exercise you tried to work into every day, but it wasn’t enough. You probably could not get too far without succumbing to exhaustion. Even walking around the abode was strenuous, on the occasion you were allowed to do so. In fact, you took one step forward on the uneven ground and immediately stumbled, falling down to your knees, pushing yourself back up on shaking hands before taking more cautious steps forward. As you looked out again, eyes now fully adjusted, you looked back at the dirt path, which you quickly – well, as quick as your walking speed would allow without falling – made your way to the edge of. You stopped and looked to the left, then the right. You still had no idea which way was north or south or east or west, and even if you did, you had no idea where you even were, no idea which way would take you home. No coins to flip to make your choice for you, no one to ask for directions, nothing. You took a deep breath, and decided at random to go… left. All you could do was start walking and hope for the best. That went on for a while. Slow, heavy steps. Grass. More grass. More road. More nothingness. The spot where your leg had been exposed to the flame’s heat began to faintly throb. You shut your thoughts down in an attempt to numb the ache in your legs, only walking forward. But you couldn’t help the growing sense of despair as nothing changed, no signs of life or civilization came into view, and more importantly, your teeth chattered in the cold, cold wind swept under the blanket and onto your goosebumps-covered skin, your legs ached and the intensity of the pain increased with each step.

What season was it? Was it winter, and that was why it was so cold? Or was the cold due to altitude, or just your lack of clothing? You had no idea. And what year was it? There was so much you didn’t know, so much against you, and the only thing you could do was walk forward and hope for the best. Maybe if you sat down, let your legs rest, someone, a traveler, a merchant, might find you…? No, you couldn’t do that, for that very reason. Someone else might find you, the last person you wanted to find you, and that would be, for lack of better terms in your tired brain, very, very bad. And that thought made an odd series of sensations rise up, a bit of panic in your gut. You had been preoccupied with how you’d get anywhere that you hadn’t thought about what was happening on the other end. It was only a matter of time before your absence was discovered. What then? You imagined the exit led to the same spot you’d landed in. Or was it randomized? Or did it lead to where the user wanted to go? You hadn’t thought of that at the time, perhaps it dropped you off at a random spot because your mind had been absent as you touched the light. Maybe if you’d thought of home, it would have dropped you off there. But if it led to the same spot, it would not be hard to sweep the area, not for someone who could travel extensive distances in virtually no time at all. It would only take a very short time to find you. You forced your aching legs to move faster. You were aware of a growing sense of unease in the back of your head. Different from the dread of being found, different from the worry about finding civilization. Something deeper, more of a subtle, shallow feeling in your gut, something you were barely aware of. When you took a step into the grass, it felt odd against your feet. Wrong. Like it burned. As if your skin and body were repulsed by and repelled from the feeling itself. The wind felt wrong, unnatural. You tried to push the feeling back, whatever it could be was not as important as finding help. At the same time, there was a feeling beneath the unease, the final feeling that sparked from the prospect of being taken back. Perhaps a warmth. Admittedly, in your unease in this place, so unknown and uncomfortable, the prospect of familiarity, of safety, had an appeal to it, even if it meant failure. You tried to shove that feeling back as well, telling yourself that home – your real home – would be even more comforting, even more familiar, than the thought of going back to captivity. After some time, time that could have been minutes, hours, anything, you squinted at a speck in your field of vision. Off in the distance, a bright, burning glow. A campfire. A campfire meant… people. You felt yourself halt in your steps. You would have thought that, presented with such an opportunity, you’d be immediately bounding towards its source in excitement, that the prospect of seeing another person, no matter whom, would spark a joy so strong it would override any exhaustion or fear. And yet, you felt almost hesitant. Discomforted. It felt… wrong. The same feeling from the grass and the wind. A discomfort. Some sense that something was not as it should be. How long had it been since you had last seen a human being? You had eventually stopped counting your days, once you ran out of spaces to put notches on the whatever wood and tools you could acquire. Not that you had a very good gauge of a day or night, but you went off of what seemed to be the start and end to something of a routine you managed to perceive. You’d run out… somewhere upwards of six-hundred. And that felt like forever ago. So it had been what, now, two years? More? It didn’t even feel real. It seemed such an eternity, yet it was such a repetitive, uneventful, monotonous existence that it all blurred together as one occurrence, as if it was a single day. Freedom felt like yesterday, yet ages ago.

You couldn’t even remember who the last human person you spoke to was. Could you even speak to someone now? The very idea felt strange. And yet, your feet resumed their movement, forward little by little, steps trembling and uneasy. It occurred to you that you undoubtedly looked horrible, unkept and sickly. You hoped you weren’t going to be mistaken for some kind of crazy drunk hermit. Your hair had grown out, nor did you have access to combs or anything other than your fingers. And you were fairly certain that a year or more with no sunlight was not very good for your skin. The grass was soothing on your feet as you walked off the trail, cool and wet compared to the dusty road, and the dew wiped the dirt off your feet. You felt your breathing quicken as you came closer and closer, the light grew larger and larger, and you begun to make out what sounded like male voices laughing and talking. You saw horses tethered to a single withered tree a ways away. They could help you. Your entire body was trembling, and tears filled your eyes. A warmth spread throughout your chest, a long-extinguished flame you might have never expected to feel again, a hope. This was it. You were going to go home. These guys could help you and you could go home, and then you could run far, far away from Liyue, you could be free, you could live a normal life, and it would be all thanks to these people, whomever they may be. You were, of course, consciously aware that all you had was a blanket, which you wrapped more tightly around your body as you walked closer, now enough to see the outlines of figures against the light of the fire. You opened your mouth, but only a scratchy, choked sound came out, imaginably from not using your voice in the last few hours. You coughed and sputtered as you cleared your throat and tried again. “H…Hello….” You coughed again. “H-Hello!” You used the arm that was not clutching the blanket around you to wave up in the air. “O-over here! Hey!”

The chattering stopped, and although you couldn’t quite see their faces very well, the heads of the figures visibly turned. Five of them, all rather large, bulky men, a hunting party or some miners, likely. One figure held his hand flat over his eyes to block out the fire light to see and muttered just within your earshot. “…The hell…?” You stumbled on a rock, drawing a sharp breath as you nearly dropped your blanket, stuttering as you fixed it. “H-hey, I, I um…” You hastened your walk a bit, finally coming close, they sat only a few yards away. You felt a little bit of unease as they came into view – they were rather… rugged looked men. Muscular, huge, covered in scars and tattoos and grime, and you now recognized what was clearly treasure hoarder emblems on their clothing. Nonetheless, they were just thieves, not crazy murderers or anything, and you really were not in a position to be picky about your choice of help. “Are you… headed towards a city?” The men exchanged some glances. One chose to respond. “…Yeah, what’s it to you?” “I…” You took a deep breath. How do you even start? You supposed blunt honesty was the best option. “Um… I-I know this sounds, um, strange, but I, I need your help, I…” You tried to keep your voice calm, but couldn’t help the stuttering, and your voice came out rushed, speaking fast out of nervousness, squeezing your eyes shut. “I’ve been, h-held as a… captive for a long time, a-and I just got out a while ago, and I’ve been walking down this road a long time, and, and, you’re the first people I’ve come across, so… so…” You swallowed, opening your eyes and clasping one hand over the one that clung to the fabric, holding them close to your chest. “P-please… can you help me? I, I have money back home! I can pay you, if you take me to the harbor, I…” You trailed off, trying to steady your breathing. “Please…” There was a silence. They didn’t mutter among themselves, seemingly surprised by your words, but one chose to answer. “Harbor’s in the direction you just came from.”

Of course, just your luck. You opened you mouth, but another spoke again, muttering more to the man beside him than you. “Is that… blood on her neck?” You jolted, reaching up and grasping at your neck, feeling a crumbly, dried texture. You grimaced, and rubbed at the spot. “I, I don’t know, that’s – that’s not… it’s not mine. I’m fine.” You shook your head. “I need to get out of here, you’re… going somewhere, right? It doesn’t have to be the harbor, just… just…” You ran out of words, trailing off into shaking breaths. “Anywhere….” He shrugged. “Anywhere, huh… Sure, we can help you.” His tone was amused, as if joking, an odd smile on his face, but it filled you with a burst of joy nonetheless. You saw the men exchange a glance. Smirking. “Thank you!” You felt tears leak out of your eyes, your mouth pulled into a trembling grin as you bowed your head. “Thank you, thank you, I, I promise, I’ll pay you back as soon as we get there, I promise-” “Oh, no need for that.” One of them, a particularly rugged-looking individual, stood up. He moved towards you. Something about the look on his face made you take a step backwards. Cold unease spread through your body. Your smile dropped. “…Don’t want your money.” Another one followed suit, walking towards you, moving a bit to the side, as if to close in on you from both sides. Like prey. They exchanged amused glances. Another stood up. You stumbled back, grip tightening on your blanket. You felt your pulse pounding in your chest. “O-ok, never mind, I don’t- I’ll be on… my way…” You turned on your heel, summoned whatever strength remained in your legs, and you ran.

No pretenses of misunderstanding, no pretending to not be less afraid than you were – every muscle moved in panic as you bolted in the opposite direction in pure instinct. Your steps were uneven, stumbling as you sprinted, and the slightest misstep would be enough to bring you to the ground. You didn’t even make it a few seconds.

A hand latched around the cloth you held together with one hand, and although it was ripped from your grasp, the resistance made you fall, hitting the ground awkwardly, and, to your horror, very much completely exposed – the first man that had stood was holding your blanket in his hand, blinking with wide, surprised eyes, stopping where you were and exchanging similar glances back at the others, who had also come to a halt. You scrambled to your feet, instinctively wrapping an arm over your chest. Tears began to form in your eyes. “Give… give that back…” Your voice was strained. You made no move to lunge for it, couldn’t risk actually getting close to him, you took a step backwards and sniffled. He laughed. “You a hooker or something?” He turned back to the others. “You seeing this?” Your brain desperately sought a solution in your panic. You could run, keep running, hope to encounter someone else. Nudity was nothing in comparison to whatever you might face.

But you also knew it was futile. The first time had been a pure instinct, but you now realized there was no way you could accomplish anything by trying to run. The best you could do was plead. “G-give it back!” In your tears, your face contorted with anger, a last-resort bravery borne out of desperation. “You… give it to me you asshole!” And perhaps what kept you from running the most, was that you wanted your blanket.

Running away would mean leaving it with them, letting them have it. That wouldn’t be right. They didn’t deserve the only source of comfort in this unfamiliar terrain, the only familiar thing you had.

You were effectively trapped, anyway, as the other flanked around you. Frustration and desperation took over your fear and you lashed out like a cornered animal, lunging, latching a hand around the fabric. “I said give it back!” A hand latched into your scalp, tugging at whatever hair it could grasp and pulling you forward. You cried out at the pain, muffled by the hand that immediately latched over your mouth. He twisted you around and trapped an arm behind your back, another person’s hand grabbed at the other arm. You jerked your body, muffled strained cries escaping your throat. “Fuck, hold her still.” You kicked out, but they were all behind you, and you couldn’t land a blow. You thrashed, and nothing happened, the grip was too strong and you only hurt yourself as it pulled more hair from your scalp. A hand grabbed at your inner thigh, and you felt your entire body freeze up.  It felt wrong. Wrong like the grass and the wind and the prospect of interaction. The same repulsion that it sparked in your stomach and chest, as if your entire body was electrocuted or burned. The hands were large and the fingers were meaty. Not small, not slender. It was too warm, the callouses were in the wrong places. You inhaled the scent of them through your nostrils, the scent of smoke and horses. Unfamiliar. Foreign. Not the scent of stone and sun and blood, the faint hints of wood and incense from the atmosphere of the inn, that wove their way into the clothing of whoever would stand there for any extended time. Wrong in a way you didn’t understand. Wrong in a way that was different from the feeling of violation. Violation was a feeling you were well-acquainted with. But something about the feeling of the hand, the flesh on your flesh, sparked a repulsion, a nausea in your gut, like a spike of ice through your entire body. A hand latched around your breast and squeezed. Not the right way. Maybe too soft, maybe too hard, you weren’t certain which. Your breathing broke into panicked gasps, rapid hyperventilating as much as you could manage under the hand, your body shivered and jolted uncontrollably. Your mouth was released and you were shoved onto the ground. You fell flat on your face, but more hands grabbed at your shoulders and flipped you over with force. You squealed and kicked and thrashed, your legs were grabbed, not pinned down, but pulled each to a side. You struggled, with every last remainder of force you could. “Get off me!” You reached a hand out and clawed at whatever you could grasp. One figure, the one that had stripped you of your blanket, looming over you, recoiled with an angry, pained hiss. When he leaned back, you saw a red streak across his collarbones. Blood. It dripped down his chest. There was blood under your fingernails, this time fresh, bright red. You didn’t feel overwhelmingly sick at the sight, but you supposed adrenaline and fear could override the aversion. “Bitch scratched me.” Pain exploded in the side of your head as a fist connected to your jaw. Your vision spun, you were pretty certain you blacked out for a solid second. Tears came out harder and you gasped at the pain. Your resolve to be strong broke, your body wracked with a pain, scared sob. “Get off me…” This time, your voice was weak, a whimper. A coppery taste filled your mouth as you spoke. You were very familiar with it, even if it was usually not your own. The pain left you dizzy and disoriented, and you weakly lashed out again, but your hands were slammed down and pinned above your head. You thrashed once more, summoning all your strength and will as you took a deep breath and let out the most bloodcurdling scream you could manage, just hoping, praying someone heard you. Nothing happened. “She’s just gonna keep screaming.” “It’s fine. We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one’s gonna hear her.” Hearing that, despair set in. Defeat. You went limp, slumping down onto the ground, panting. Why me? It was a question you had asked yourself many, many times before. What had you ever done? Why did all of this happen to you? Was there some grave sin you’d committed and never realized? What could you have done that deserved this? No one’s gonna hear her. It ran through your mind again and again as you closed your eyes, tuned out their words, shivered at touches to your skin. It struck you so suddenly and with such a feeling of obviousness that your eyes snapped wide open. That wasn’t true. The thought brought you a sudden sense of comfort. Safety. Your instinct was to reach out to that comfort, what seemed like a natural and logical act, as if you were drowning when the surface of water was merely one stroke away. It would only take one easy action, and then, everything would be fixed, and you’d be okay. But you banished the thought, or you tried to. You couldn’t do that. Not after coming so far. If you went back, you might never end up in your realm ever again. You couldn’t. One of the men dropped to his knees and shuffled in between your forcibly spread legs, looking down at your body. It felt so, so wrong. You whimpered and thrashed, but he grabbed your hips and pushed them down. Your entire body was effectively restrained. You trembled and breathed in ragged breaths. The man repositioned your limp body and drew you closer. He grabbed your hair and pulled the upper half of your body up a bit as you hissed in pain, but still loomed over you, so you were staring directly up at him. He smirked and spoke to you in a mocking, degrading voice. “Come on, be good and look at me.”

It was wrong. The voice was too deep and too loud and so forceful and it wasn’t the way it should be. The only voice you should hear was quieter, gruff and dry yet gentle all the same. It was foreign to your brain and body, it sent discomfort where you so desperately wanted comfort. And that sparked such a spike of panic and adrenaline that your mouth acted on its own. You didn’t actually think before you did it. If you’d had time, maybe you would have contemplated the action more, maybe you would have considered if you had any alternative. But you didn’t, only closing your eyes – squeezing them shut as tight as your could – and opening your mouth. You didn’t even process your mouth moving or your voice, you weren’t certain if you screamed or whispered or whimpered it out. Volume wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

Just the same word, the same name, over, and over, and over.

Ironic, really. The very same resort that, after you had found yourself in danger and used it one time too many, had led to the decision to drag you away from your life, your home, and lock you away.

I have to keep you safe. This is for your sake. You will understand that soon.

And here you were, falling back on that protection once again. The process was not technically instantaneous. It wasn’t like the releasing of an arrow or the throwing of a stone, where the action you committed was itself the origin of momentum or the direct root of the consequence, but rather, an indirect action. And as a result, there was a split second of nothing, just one. Just enough time for you to take a single breath, a breath to brace yourself. The first sound was difficult to describe. A sharp but deep sound, impact, ripping. Something warm splattered on your face from above, and your face contorted with grimaced disgust. You heard a choked, gurgling noise, the gentle tapping as the sound was followed by more splattering on your face, your neck. Then a squelching, an inverse of the first noise – removal of the object that had pierced its way in. Awful noises. Noises that you’d heard before, they haunted your mind at night. Even as your tolerance for the sight and smell grew, you never got the noises out of your head, and they were as haunting, as disgusting, as repulsive as the first time you’d heard them. With your body being limp, your bodyweight was dragged back by gravity when the hand on your hair released, and your back slammed into the ground with such a force that it knocked the breath out of you. The collision of the back of your head to the hard ground left your head spinning, but your eyes shot open. You were looking straight up. Lots of stars dotted the night sky, no longer obstructed by faces looming over you. You could feel the ground under you, yet it felt far away. Everything was unreal, distant and distorted. The sounds were muffled, and you saw nothing but sky. You laid on your back, body limp and numb, remaining where you’d fallen. There was no point in doing otherwise, in trying to run or even stand, and trying to stop the process that had already begun would be futile. Your trembling hands instinctively moved to the feeling on your face, where blood pooled around your eyes and mouth, wiping without much thought. You closed your lips taut so none got in your mouth. You wiped it off the part of your face near your eyes and mouth, at least what you could manage. And then, your hands fell limp at your sides again. More coated your forehead and cheeks and neck for sure, but numbness had set in, and all you could do was look up, breathing.

Sounds came from your side all the while. A few confused or frightened yells, but that was normal, that didn’t really bother you as much. It was the other sounds that made your skin crawl and your stomach churn. The one you couldn’t describe, no known words that you were familiar with, a nameless sound, sharp and somewhat fluid, sometimes accompanied by more of a pop, sometimes with more of a squelch, sometimes more of a crunch, but the primary sound itself had no name. Metal to meat. Penetrative, tearing. And you felt the presence of a mass beside you where the primary assailant lay. Even if you hadn’t been able to hear it, you sensed it, felt it, so close his warmth radiated to your flesh.

The sound from him, though, was equally awful. You gritted your teeth and your body shook with a sob, but you couldn’t look, keeping your gaze at the stars. Nightmarish images from years ago already haunted you, clear as if you were starting at them right at that moment, and you couldn’t bear the thought of seeing such a thing ever again. The sounds from the mass beside you, the man that had been leaning over you, were closer than the sounds off to your side. You weren’t sure which was worse to focus on. The stars twinkled a bit, and the moon was bright. You tried to focus on how pretty they were. Not the gargling, the choking. Ragged breaths contaminated by a fluidness in the lungs. Like a sick, congested person’s breathing, a wetness to it, except laden with audible panic. The breaths grew quicker, more panicked, and as they grew faster, they grew more garbled, more choked. A coughing, a shifting of the body in its last summoning of strength to move, a desperate attempt to rid his airway of the fluid pooling within it, and the gory tissue being sucked further into his own throat with each attempt at a breath. When he moved, you recognized the sound of more blood hitting the ground as he spat and choked and delayed the inevitable.

You could see it in your head without needing to look, the memories of all those past incidents were clear in your mind. Grabbing at the gaping hole in his neck, as if it were possible to save himself. You could picture his eyes blown wide, desperately grasping at his chest as if it would do anything. Then – yes, there it was, the sound of collapsing back to the ground as his arms gave out. The last weak, heaving breaths, defeated. And then, no more sound came from him. You tried to determine what phase the moon was in. There was a very blunt impact sound, a snapping of bone and a strangled choking. It was one of the crescent shapes, but was it waxing or waning? A coughing, copious amounts of fluid spilling onto the ground. Waning, you were pretty sure. A loud impact again, then squelching, choking, garbling. One by one. You weren’t one-hundred percent certain though, the crescent shapes kinda looked the same. And it had been a long time since you’d seen the moon anyway. You’d forgotten how nice it was. A very faint thought occurred that you might not see it again, so you savored the moment, even if looking up at it had just a hint of the same feeling of wrongness as the grass on your back and the wind on your skin. The sounds grew quieter. Your hands shot up to your ears and held them closed as hard as you could to drown out what remained. The last one left was always pitiful. They realized their situation and begged to live, they always did, for a mere few seconds that they had. Covering your ears let you drown out the words, and that made it at least a bit more bearable, but even without hearing the specific words, you heard the strain of the voice itself, a desperation and fear that made your skin crawl and nausea grow in your gut. You braced yourself for it, but still cringed and whimpered and shook with a sob at the loud, squelching thud that cut the voice off. But as much as you hated the sounds, you also hated the silence that was left. And if it had been a slow transition next, you could have summoned a sort of hatred. If he sauntered over to you with anger or immediate violence, or taunted you, mocked you, as you were certain some people would do. Then, at least, you could summon full-blown resentment, you could lash out with the same fiery spirit with which you’d stood your ground just minutes before. But the footsteps were few, immediately materializing in front of you, dropping down to his knees in one movement, and your shoulders were grabbed, you were pulled to sit up. It was a rough movement, yet not out of anger. Not like the roughness from minutes earlier, a roughness of malice and disdain. With this, you could feel panic. Through your barely open eyelids, you could see the striking yellow of his own eyes. Wide open, filled with worry. His shoulders seemed to fall and expression return to a more neutral state, exhaling with relief as he saw you make eye contact, realizing you were conscious and, based on a quick sweep of the eyes over your body, mostly uninjured. His hand reached out and lightly brushed over the side of your face, and you felt the soreness in your jaw with the pressure. You held your own hand up to the spot and felt the swelling from where you’d been punched. “I’m okay.” Your voice, breaking the silence, was hoarse and quiet, but you hoped it reassured him enough. He held out something in his hand, your eyes trailed down to it. He had your blanket in his hand. It was somehow spotless, he used finger and thumb to hold onto it. He draped it over your shoulders, with a sort of cautiousness, watching your face, as if trying to gauge that you found it satisfactory. You realized, then, an intentional effort was made to keep it free of blood in the process, for your sake. How, you had no idea, but it was in perfect condition. And you understood the extent of the contrast, as you opened your eyes fully and got a full view of him in moonlight, you grimaced as you made out the dark splotches all over the skin, dripping off his hair and face. His eyes widened a bit at your reaction, seeming to realize why you’d made such a face, and he leaned back, wiping his hands over his face, effectively smearing blood and bits of tissue over his skin, creating dark streaks rather than specks and splotches of it, then rubbing his hands onto his shirt, staining it with red. It wasn’t exactly any better, but you realized that he didn’t even really comprehend the nature of your aversion in the first place, and was, for lack of better words, trying his best. Even if he didn’t exactly do a very good job of it. You had to admit he tried to be considerate, albeit in the most morbid of ways, of your sensitivities, even if, again, the attempts often did not quite reflect an actual understanding of the issue. And then you, too, realized the remaining fluid on your face, your eyes widened and you inhaled sharply as you felt it running down and dripping, the blood that had been coughed up on you from the initial blow. You whimpered as you touched the spot with trembling hands, retching as you pulled them back and stared at the dark fluid on your skin. But you didn’t want to use your blanket. You looked around for anything else, but fabric firmly pressed to your skin interrupted the attempt. It was the clean part of his sleeve, bunched up and wiped over your face. Not in the way you’d expect from any normal person – a regular human, a person who understood gentleness, might have lightly dabbed at your skin, soft touches that absorbed the blood into the fabric. Not quite the same roughness of grabbing your jaw in one hand and intensely scrubbing at your face.

Yet, over time, you’d come to understand these actions were at least attempts at gentleness, trying to communicate affection and care. For someone for whom any concept of comfort or softness were foreign, even something that might feel like a rough motion to you, was effort to show a gesture of care. Trying his best. And maybe, by now, such gentleness that anyone else might have given you would feel wrong. Everything else – the grass, wind, the people – felt wrong. The same wrongness that had been an increasing unpleasant sensation in your chest, in your gut. Everywhere was open space. It went on and on and on, it was open and endless and wrong. There were no walls to protect you, no floor and ceiling for you to feel safe. The blanket had been your only comfort in the vastness – perhaps that was why it had felt so awful when it was stripped away. The wrongness of everything, of the touches – the touches. It had been the worst thing you’d felt in your life. The memory of hands on your skin burned. It burned, it burned, and the wrongness of it all became overwhelming. Much like the initial calling out, you didn’t process your movements, body acting on its own. You threw yourself forward and latched on tight. The action earned a soft surprised grunt, but no movement was made to pull you off. His skin was sticky. You could feel the sheen as the blood was halfway to drying, the slickness of the fluid. And perhaps a long time ago, you would have thrown yourself back, been repulsed by the sensation. But it was tolerable, simply a necessary condition to obtain the comfort of familiar skin, the familiar scents of mountain winds and blood. Slender but strong arms wrapped around your body.

Your body wracked with sobs. You felt a burning on your eyes as you so slightly opened them – the base of the sky was beginning to turn a sort of pinkish color, there was the faintest hint of sun on the horizon. It was unnerving. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t something you were supposed to see. You shouldn’t be able to see it. The world was open and wide, the grass and the road stretched for so long, out beyond your field of vision, and it felt so, so wrong. You caved to the craving for the familiar, for nothing more in that moment than the comfort of four walls, a tight enclosed space, dim light. Xiao opened his mouth again to say something, but was interrupted by a sound that caused you both to startle – a groan. Both of your heads snapped in the same direction, to the figure on the ground you’d long since thought dead. The one you had avoided looking at, and now, you realize that you had been right to do so. There was more or less nothing but a gory, gaping hole where his throat once was, skin torn and blood pooling onto the ground with bits of tissue throughout. His slack, open mouth leaked foaming drool onto the dirt. The body spasmed, eyes franticly darting around, blood pouring out of the mouth and nose and gaping wound, bubbling with strangled attempts to breathe. His fingers weakly clawed at the dirt.

Your body froze up at the sight, eyes wide as shock and horror replaced your comfort. The numbness would have been better. Now, you felt sickness quickly rise in your stomach and you retched, jolting as your stomach lurched and you desperately tried to keep the sickness down, latching a hand over your mouth as tears filled your vision. You were in such a state of shock that you didn’t close your eyes in time.

A pointed metal tip slammed into the side of his skull at the temple, your eyes shot wide open and you froze completely as it crushed the bone, flattening the front of the face. A second time. A third time. There was nothing of the face left, no recognizably human shape, only a mass of meat and bone. Blood and brain matter seeped out between the fragmented pieces of skull. You couldn’t look away, eyes wide and staring as a whimper escaped your throat. He had an irritated glare as he raised the polearm to skewer the head a fourth time, but turned back to look at you at the sound, face falling with realization. “… Sorry.” You shook your head, sniffling, tears spilling down your face as you buried your face into the crook of his neck. It was too much. Your body trembled beyond your control. “T-take me back…” You whimpered. “I wanna go home…” For a moment, only your sniffling broke the silence. You supposed it was odd of you to say you wanted to return, especially as if you had a choice. He took several moments to actually process your words. “…Ok. We can… go back.” He paused, turning his head and surveying the area to the side, taking in the scene that remained.

Being considerate of you. Taking into account your discomforts, the things that bothered you that did not bother him, intentional effort to recognize how you might process and be affected by it all. “… You should close your eyes.” You did so, closing them and burying your face into his neck. You folded your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck, he locked his arms under your thighs and, with awkward maneuvering, stood up. Your head fell forward onto his chest and you felt a firm beating pulse against your face, could hear its low thumping. And that meant you were safe. Protected. Nothing more to fear.

When you thought about it, perhaps that was the unease that the surroundings had given you, the odd feeling of your skin crawling as you had traversed. Fear of the world, an unsafe place where you were all on your own and unprotected.

A few steps taken. You retched and cringed at the squelching of viscera under his feet, which did not go unnoticed, mumbling another apology. There was a shuffling and a clamoring sound. Behind your closed eyelids, the light around you disappeared, and you were once more surrounded by darkness. Comforting. The smell around you was familiar – where that of the grass and fresh air had created such unease. You felt like you could breathe again, letting out a deep exhale. The unease and discomfort settled and were replaced by a warmth. The next footsteps you heard were that of the familiar flooring, making their way only a short distance to the room where you’d come to spend the majority of each day.

He bent at the knee ever so slightly to put you down on the bed, letting go of your body once you were touching the mattress. You fell backwards with a grunt, then pushed yourself back up on your hands to sit upright.

You at least had the consideration to silently toss the little blanket to the side of the bed – if you didn’t, it would certainly be about to get messy.

“…”

A few moments of quiet passed. He stood quietly next to the bed, crossed his arms, mouth pulled taut in a displeased expression. You saw his gaze move to the size, glancing over at the chain connected to the wall, the snapped leather anklet that sat at the end of it, the glass on the floor along the wall. He placed what remained of the lamp onto the table, turning the knob. It still lit, only now was more like a candle, having no frame, a weaker flame. He turned back towards you.

“You tricked me.”

You grimaced at his cold tone. “I know. I won’t… I won’t try that again.”

You didn’t have the energy to begin an argument, and it wasn’t as if there was anything you could say to contest that anyway. Still, if you said you were sorry, it would be met with a ‘no you’re not’ and likely an even worse reaction, based on your own experience. For whatever reason, he disliked outright apology like that, tended to take a simple ‘I’m sorry’ as insincere.

“…I won’t fall for it again anyway. And don’t complain about it being dark. You chose that. I’ll keep it out of your reach from now on.”

You curled up into yourself, but nodded. The weight of the words should have felt like a blow to the chest, and you knew that, but in your exhaustion, you couldn’t bring yourself to express the despair, only let yourself wallow in the melancholy.

And yet, perhaps part of the reason for your lack of response, too, was that being back was comforting, in its own way. Your failure crushed your heart and destroyed your hopes, but it also brought a sense of relief. No more walking around in the wilderness, no more worry. No more panic. You could just accept it and be at peace.

You had asked to come back. You had given up so easily. Because even if you wanted to return to your life before – even if it had consumed your thoughts for so long – taking the steps to get there was scary and hard. The comfort of failure was easier.

A quiet hung over the room for a few moments before he finally spoke again, a bitterness in his voice.

“I give you plenty of food and water. And a bed to sleep in.”

“…I—”

“I got you the light, too.” He sighed, increasing frustration in his voice. “And all of that is still not enough for you to be content. You are impossible to please.”

In a different frame of mind, you might have snapped at him. But now, the absurdity of the implication that that all should be enough to earn your complacency didn’t faze you. You just wanted it all to be over. You were tired. So, so tired.

“No, I… I’m grateful for it. I’ll be better. I won’t – I won’t… I’ll be good from now on… I promise.”

Likewise, the lack of any spiteful or sarcastic reply on your end seemed to soften his demeanor. At your quiet, hurt-sounding voice, the tension in his shoulders seemed to relax a bit. He looked down at the ground, but your pitifulness was not enough to fully overwrite his own feelings.

“I’m not falling for that either.” His voice was a quiet mutter, grumpy, almost petulant. Isolated from the circumstances, on its own, there might have been a time you’d think it was amusing, cute even. “You’ll just do this again as soon as you get the chance.”

“No, I won’t…” You shook your head. “Promise.”

He didn’t give an immediate reply. The room was always so unbearably quiet in moments like this, lacking even in the static sounds of wind or outside commotion you would get in even a quiet room in the real world.

“You’ll have to prove that over time.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, voice still a quiet, bitter mutter.

“I will.”

“And if you try this again—”

“I won’t.”

Another round of silence. So quiet you could hear him breathe.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

It was in those words, low and quieter still, that you could hear the crack in the gruffness, sense the emotion beneath it. There was shakiness from what must have been intense worry, and more notable, some vague betrayal, a genuine hurt. You felt a twinge of guilt.

Guilt?

For trying to go home, to get away from this place you never agreed to be in to begin with.

You really had not done as good of a job of maintaining a sound mind as you’d thought you had. It had begun to rot away without you even noticing.

“…”

He moved to climb onto the bed again, but unlike earlier, did not push you to get you to move to the side, instead crawling to loom over you. You didn’t fight anything. There was no need to tell you. You went on instinct, the motions felt mechanical, routine, practiced, pulling your thighs apart and up to your chest on your own. The reminder that this was the same position you’d been in shortly before made a spike of discomfort rise in your chest, a phantom feeling of hands grabbing your thighs. But new hands, just quickly degloved, grabbed at your thighs, and this time they felt right. Small, slender, callouses in the right places. It settled the unease. This sort of thing always progressed quickly. You were more or less always in a state of undress, and you had learned a long time ago that foreplay was, well, something that was not necessarily intentionally neglected, rather, that the concept did not exist within adepti minds at all. Or maybe it was just him. You never brought the matter up. And consequently, there was always some pain. The process was always repeated in the same way, and so frequently that you were to some degree in a constant state of soreness, constantly rubbed raw from premature friction on only barely-wet flesh. And that friction caused irritation, which caused soreness, which only served to create more pain when the cycle repeated.

But it felt right, in its own way. Anything else would be uncharacteristic, foreign. This was familiar. The only pause was to peel blood-wettened clothes off, which took only a moment, and as soon as that was accomplished, the bed creaked with shifting weight and you were more or less pounced upon, and, without any other action preceding it, you felt firm, warm flesh (bloodless, to your relief) prodding at your slit. And due to said quickness of the process, it never went in all the way on the first thrust, there was always an awkward maneuvering, catching the slightest amount of slick and making each following thrust easier and deeper than the last. The first got the head in, pulled back ever so slightly, and the second movement pushed half in, which was where you would always draw a hissing inhalation at the sting of dry friction, and the third usually more or less got the rest of the way, at which point, thankfully, your body always began to actually get wet and provide easier, smoother movement. You gasped in a slightly pained breath as it slid in to the hilt, feeling your walls clamp down. His breath hitched, you felt a shiver run through his body and into your own. Your fingernails clawed at his back to alleviate both the soreness and the spark of pressured heat the feeling of fullness created, some difficulty gaining grip as the skin of his back was coated in sanguine fluid. You realized, as a passing thought, that must be how it kept getting under your fingernails. And much like the flesh of your entrance, the insides themselves were sore and bruised, more so from, well, overuse. The tip of his cock hit a bruised part of your insides with a sharp thrust, it stung with a lingering sore pain. The poor spot had already been abused mere hours earlier – and once before that, a few hours prior still. And before that, a few hours prior, and before then, a few hours prior – so on it went. You whimpered, instinctively pulling your hips away.

But his fingernails dug into the flesh of your sides. “Hold still.” You complied.

The pain didn’t stop it from sparking pleasure, nonetheless. A little sound, a soft mm! escaped your throat and you felt yourself clench. After a few jerking movements as your bodies adjusted, earning gasps and whimpers from you, and then, without any real buildup or pacing, he latched his fingers onto your hips and slammed in and out of your body at a brutal, forceful pace. You yelped, a shrill little sound and your body convulsed and spasmed from the sudden sparks of pleasure so intense you gasped and your eyes went wide, wrapping your arms and legs around him out of pure instinct. He never talked much. You supposed one didn’t need to talk during such an act, there were many things said in ways that didn’t involve words, many things felt and heard and sensed. His breathing was ragged and panting, it matched your own well enough, but on your end, you couldn’t stop the wanton noises. His eyes would move all around, never staying in one place. Now was the same way, they moved from one part of your body to the next. Staring at the bouncing of your chest with the movements, looking down at where your bodies connected, with an entranced, mesmerized gaze. Until he leaned in more, wrapping arms under your body, pressing the fronts of your bodies together and burying his face against your neck, moving in you in more of a rolling motion than a rough thrusting. It rubbed at a different part of your insides, the same intensity as the last. And the movement was far easier than it would have been, perhaps, for anyone else in any other scenario, as your stomachs and chests were easily made to slide against each other rather than causing a rough friction – the slick lubrication of the blood took care of that. It spread from his body to yours, warmed by the body heat and the momentum. Everywhere your bodies touched, you felt the transfer, it soaked into your flesh. It wasn’t as though you weren’t aware of it, of the feeling, or that it didn’t trigger some part of your brain in disgust and fear, but more that your brain couldn’t focus on such a thing. The disgust and any horror the sensation should have ignited was overridden by the overwhelming heat that jolted and shocked your body and consumed every thought you could possibly have, your mind was wiped blank and unable to process anything else, not even the words you spoke. “I’m sorry,” your voice was strained and cracking. “Please, please, please…” You weren’t certain what to follow the word with, a million possible thoughts briefly spun through your barely functioning brain. Please, please. It kept spilling out of your mouth as one hand clawed against his back still as the other reached upward and latched into his hair. It was wet in some strands, clumped and scratchy in others, depending on how dried the blood it was soaked in was. Your fingers clenched and held onto it, pulling inward. One of his hands grabbed the underside of your thigh and pressed it as close to your chest as it would go, trying to do the same – close in whatever slightest distance kept your bodies apart. Still, your grip was weak. It always was, he said every part of you was, frequently reminding you there was no point in physical resistance in any form to anything. It was easy for him to pull his head up and out of your grasp. He grabbed your jaw, pulling your head backwards, exposing your neck. You barely had time to brace yourself before teeth sank down into the flesh of your jugular, gasping at the sudden sharp pain. It lingered for a moment, then alleviated, then struck again, in a different spot than before. Not harsh enough to break the skin – just barely – but sinking in and leaving indents on the flesh that stung, you whimpered with each bite. Sucking at the flesh before pulling off with a pop and repeating the process. The pain was intensified by the fact that the movement of his hips didn’t stop all the while, each thrust into you pulled your skin against his teeth. Each time he pulled away, you shivered at the cold that air on the wet spot created. Tears spilled down the side of your face, still flowing despite how many you had already shed. Pain, maybe. It mixed together, the feelings in your body and brain, becoming all one sort of same feeling. Your body was compliant enough, only tensely clinging and not creating any resistance of its own, that the entire bed moved with the force, and you simply took the sensations in. He let go of your neck, tightened his grip on your jaw, and latched your mouths together. There was an instinctive response, despite it all, it was the one thing that finally brought your sense of disgust to the substance back to the forefront of your mind – you were certain your stomach lurched when the taste of copper filled your mouth, and you instinctively tried to pull your head back, but couldn’t even budge. It consumed your sense of taste from where his tongue kept pressing onto yours. The disgust blurred. The feeling overrode again. And became stronger. Stronger, stronger, heat pooled in your core and your body began to quiver.

He seemed to sense it, letting go of your mouth, somewhat sitting up and looking down at you with half-lidded eyes that quickly widened with realization, and, the action apparently being possible, fucked into you harder than before, grabbing on to your hips. Not with any technique or skill, but not needing any – as with most things, he would simply substitute whatever was needed with brute, rough force and somehow, it worked out. You whimpered when you came, shivering and spasming, feeling your muscles clench down on the fullness and raking your nails down his back, hips bucking upward. There was the softest of grunts, as if trying to stifle the sound, and his hips thrust harshly forward one more time, stilling as his fingernails dug into your hips. Semen spilled into your body, far more than a human could ever output, in such great volume that you couldn’t not feel the warmth and the swelling sensation it created. There was a moment of quiet, shivering, cold of the air against sweaty skin setting in, before he tugged his hips backwards and slid out. Excessive semen flowed out and drenched the sheet underneath your body. You’d always wondered why that… feature, function, whatever one would call it, was a trait he had, but it was only one of a thousand questions you would probably never know the answers to. Cold set in. So cold. The surrounding air was not good for your body, coated in sweat and blood. Your teeth chattered with a shiver. You almost reached over for the blanket before remembering its spotlessness. It was sacred in its own way. So instead, you reached out and grabbed at the body before you. Warm. There was a silence as you took into account the appearance of it all. Even in the room’s dim lighting, you could see the results of your coitus; both your skins had a coating of a reddish stain, thicker splotches in some places, a thin orangish sheen in others. The sheets and blankets of the bed had splotches and patches here or there, streaks where new red joined dark, long-lasting stains. “…Don’t leave this place ever again.” You almost jolted at the sudden interruption of silence. It was a similar phrase as those times you had had other pathetic attempts (never getting beyond the door), some vague variant warning of telling you to never repeat your attempt, but something threw you off about it. It was not usually said so early. There was a process to these things. A routine. Breeding you in what you assumed was some sort of possessive instinct was part one, the warning was part three, whereas now, part two – some form of consequence – was oddly skipped in entirety. That, and the unusual tone in his voice. It was normally gruff, frustrated, growling. Now it was quiet, barely audible, spoken with an unusual softness. “You’re not….?” You paused. You took a moment to sit upright. He looked at you with a flat expression, tilting his head. You swallowed. “You’re not gonna… do anything to me?” He looked down, seeming to actually ponder the question. For a moment, you nearly feared that perhaps the question was being taken as a suggestion. Most people could either give a sentimental answer, or an answer intended to make you afraid, or demand an apology, or threaten to do worse, but he simply responded, as he did with all things, in a very genuine, bizarrely honest way. “Later.” It certainly was not comforting, but he didn’t seem to intend it to be the opposite, merely stating what he thought. Still, it confused you, and despite the dread, you questioned. “Why later?” He reached up to his face and pointed at the equivalent spot where your own was swelling. “It’s… Bruising.” You couldn’t see your face at the moment, but you had no trouble believing that, as it throbbed and, as you reached your hand up, felt slightly swollen. “If I do something, it’ll be all…” He shook his head, huffing in frustration over a seeming difficulty finding the right words. “It’ll be mixed together… bruises from them and me. That would feel… strange.” He looked down a bit. “I want marks like that on you to be… just from me. So I’ll wait. Until you heal from that.” He looked at your neck, where you felt the lingering sting of indents to the flesh. A different sort of marking. It occurred to you that it was far more bites than normal. Compensation, you assumed, for the inability to create any other sort. “… Even seeing that…” he looked back up at your face, “and that at the same time is… I don’t like it.” Reasonable enough, you guessed. It made as much sense as anything else did. Which wasn’t a lot, but it was something. The silence was long and tense. There was something in his body language – he fidgeted, you thought you saw him almost open his mouth. He had something to say, so you waited. But when he did open his mouth and finally spoke, it was not as long as you expected. “And because… I’m less upset than I should be.” He gave a determinate nod, as if mentally confirming the thought. You breathed softly, eyes half-open, voice empty. “…Why?” “…I don’t know."  More hesitation. He shuffled forward a bit, moving closer to you, and slowly, hesitating, as if you might jolt and pull away, leaned forward and wrapped his arms around you. Even if you had any will to fight the action, there would be no point, and it was far, far too comforting to your weary body and mind to resist. You reached your own arms around him and did the same, hoisting yourself up on your knees, settling down so you were sitting on the lap of his now cross-legged posture, and only then did you catch the sensation against your body, nearly like vibrating, it was so rapid. And at first, you thought it was your own body, aftershock of orgasm or panic subconsciously taking over, but one harsher shiver made you realize it was his, not yours. He shivered and trembled against your embrace, eyes dull and empty, staring down. "I think…” he started, voice hoarse yet quiet, “it’s because you… I would have thought you would rather just let… rather that than… I didn’t think that you’d…” he trailed off, huffing in frustration. Leaned his head down and forward onto your shoulder, “…but you did, and…” his arms seemed to tighten around you. “I’m… glad.” The trembling continued for a while. You didn’t move nor respond, kept your arms around his frame, until it slowly subsided. It took a few minutes, quietly breathing in and feeling the warmth radiating from the other’s body. Both bodies limp and unmoving. Tiredness set in, and you were so, so sore, sore in every muscle, every inch of your body. Your arms and legs from the incident, your neck, your face that still throbbed, your insides that still dripped with cum, your mind and heart from a rush of panic, fear, shock, so many overwhelming feelings you’d felt so intensely earlier, a difficult contrast when you had grown so used to uneventful monotony. Sore and spent. You crawled backwards, tugging at his arm and falling to your side, soon followed, the bed beneath your creaked a bit with the shifting weight. “Do you…” He seemed to struggle for words. “Want to go… wash it off?” Trying to remember for your sake. You should have, characteristically speaking, leaped at the chance. “…I’m tired… it’s already on everything anyway.” Yes, the stickiness was there, all over your skin, it was drying on your hair and face, it coated your flesh. Your stomach churned a bit at the thought, ever so slightly, but the exhaustion was far more overwhelming than anything else. He nodded. “Alright.” Of course, it wasn’t as if it bothered him. It was just a matter of trying to go along with your wishes. You laid your head down on the pillow, thankful that the bruising was on the other side. It hurt, but to some degree you hoped it stayed that way for a while. The longer it took to heal, the longer you could evade whatever you’d face for your transgression. Still, you didn’t feel the fear that the thought of the impending consequence should probably have. It couldn’t be worse, you concluded, than what you would have faced otherwise. …Would it have been worth it? For the possibility of being freed after, and then being able to go home? You shook your head a bit and decided to not think about such a thing. It was already over. Thinking about it would do nothing now. Feeling the stickiness of his skin on yours when your bodies were pulled together didn’t seem to ignite any reaction, the wet spots where it soaked into the sheets was not noticeable enough for you to feel any need to get up. It was all tolerable. You supposed you did, to the extent you could, get used to it.

[shofics]

Hi Hi I adore your writing every time you post a new chapter I read it 3 times! Do you by chance have any strong QPR Zoscar headcanons on hand? Like for moments that happened in the podcast or the time gap or even just general ones, I’d love to hear them :)))

Aaah you sent this so so long ago and I've had these written for ages! Thank you so much for the kind words, I'm so glad I could bring you some happiness <3 Yes of course I have HCs!

1. A lot of what opened Zolf up to Wilde when they started working together after Damascus was that Wilde was actively going through a lot of stuff that paralleled what Zolf had already gone through. Zolf was directly if accidentally responsible for his brother's death, while Wilde probably felt a similar way about the team; I see the Meritocracy being to Wilde what Poseidon was to Zolf; of course Wilde has now also lost his magic. Not to mention the way we know Wilde acts when he's got a lead and refuses to take care of himself- easier to throw yourself on a greater good/higher power than to learn to actually deal with your depression.

2. Wilde is also on the ace spectrum! I HC him as demi; unlike Zolf, however, he's not aware of this, because he's not only not sex repulsed but actually enjoys it, and just kind of assumes he knows what sexual attraction feels like. Until one day many months post-campaign he looks at Zolf and is like ah. Yes. Wait. What. Hang on. What

3. I think Zolf is the more tactile of the two of them! And in fact the more touch starved. He's just... very good at hiding it (it's the depressión). Maybe he feels as though he's not worthy of it; maybe he feels as though it's not important enough to warrant attention during the end of the world; maybe he just hasn't found the person he feels safe enough around to allow to give it to him (he has, it's Wilde. Wilde is the only person he trusts enough to trust him with this very vulnerable part of himself)

4. A post campaign HC: Zolf is the only person on the planet who can get Wilde honest-to-god flustered, mostly because Wilde's not used to receiving genuine affection from people. It's a bit easier to brush it off and joke when his friends are giving it, but with Zolf it makes him genuinely nervous bc what is the protocol for this what does he want in return the amount I feel for this man is too much to process what to do, Wilde.exe has stopped working. Zolf takes an evil delight in the power he has to reduce Wilde to a blushing mess.

5. ANOTHER post-campaign HC: Wilde does not let anyone touch his hair ever, except one day Zolf starts doing it unconsciously, and he freaks out when he realises and starts apologising but then Wilde is like... actually that felt really good... You May Continue. So now Zolf is the only one allowed to touch his hair, and Azu and Hamid and Cel witness it happen once when Wilde and Zolf aren't fully paying attention and are 100% sure Zolf's about to get slapped but then he doesn't? And Wilde just kind of hums happily and closes his eyes and melts a little and ????????

[fisherrprince]

@renatogpadilla : What about baby Ven headcanons from the Age of Fairy Tales? Or current day Ven with Chirithy back and training with Kairi? I imagine having been a part of Sora for so long makes him want to protect Kairi like crazy, but it's VEN, so maybe it doesn't go that well... (Wether it's because the Daybreak Town issues hit them like a ton of Bricks or because Kairi legit wants her own adventure and accomplishments is anyone's guess... Regardless, Chirithy sus)

(vibrates) small ventus this got long my sincerest apolocheese

this goes hand in hand with my daybreak hcs so i think small ven has no concept of private gardens. Daybreak town had communal gardens/agriculture, and the LoD had their gardens and the market near town, and he barely went to the second one so if that boy sees a fruit tree. He's going to take one.

also my FAVOURITE HC thats now supported by khux is that ven Did not Learn how to Read Modern Script until about a year into staying with Eraqus. Ancient text he can read, but Xehanort didn't give him books, and hundreds of years have passed and language has evolved he has no idea what this sign says. Aqua gives him her YA fantasy novels like magic treehouse. vanitas can't read either

he was also just, Extremely nervous a lot... if we had anxiety medication in the age of fairytales he'd be on some. Not only as like, an insecurity thing (because this kid is the most insecure little man--) but also he startles easily and his brain often goes to the worst outcome. He's not necessarily a pessimist, he's very excited when things go right and when there's New Stuff to see!!!!! He often thinks the best of people he hasn't gotten to know!! but that also makes him think he's the one with issues, not someone that might be rude to him. the kid has inattentive adhd leave him be there are also no medications for that -- but he's doing better now that there are older kids who taught him coping methods that work.

He also Definitely played down how darn powerful he was because he didn't want to like, brag, or was afraid the other kids were obviously stronger than he was. The other dandies are STRONG, but Ven didn't have much going on socially, so training/missions was his go-to. khux ven wasn't allowed to be awake during th finale bc he would have gone ham

also wasn't allowed bc the Darkness he ate still had a sentience if not a heart and it hadn't gone thru time and gotten muddled yet so it would not have gone well

Ven Loves weather as a Thing that exists, he loves when it snows and rains and thunderstorms and he would and still does dash outside in that thunderstorm just to be in it. Ventus you will catch a cold. its worth it!!!

when he wakes up he sometimes has a hard time remembering when and where he is, or what he's doing. Sometimes his brain just says hey! We're back home ten years ago, go look for the master :] or hey we're supposed to be asleep go to sleep. it really messes with him he doesn't like it, he'd never experienced something like a sleep paralysis hallucination before and dislikes it Immensely

UM I THINK, I think actually that he and Kairi are buds and they totally see eye to eye! Both fulla light, kind of treated like glass by their best friends, both very interested in being part of something though while Ven is very into traveling and safeguarding the worlds Kairi is taking the Riku route and is into protection mostly for her close confidants. She doesn't care much about The Big Picture, she cares about her friends. They would hang out and like, shake hands and agree not to hold back on each other (well, mostly, Kairi is still learning and Ven is nearly at Mastery level) when sparring or just talking. I feel like if they had to be careful talking to other people, they wouldn't have to with each other. I just think they're fwends and they play extreme uno together... Ven has Huge protective instincts for Sora, like, fully big brother instincts him, but Kairi visited for a little bit a while ago and he kind of "watched over" her little sleeping heart during that time, knowing that Sora was keeping her safe just like he did for him. ventus loves sora to absolute death and sora doesnt even know the full extent of it

anyways yeah chirithy sus but i give it a kiss on the head just don't do anything drastic and i will still love u you sweet sweet kitty cat . how are u affecting your keybearer is he like, good, mentally, with you around,

i cannot Wait until this kid starts remembering things. I think Namine should help. I think that maybe he should realize half his memories are with Vanitas and hysterically try to find him to get them back

i also think ven has taller energy than the rest of the heart hotel. sora/vanitas/roxas/xion are 5'2" (CANONICALLY? YOURE SHORT?) (vanitas is 5'4" with the heels), ven is 5'5", Namine is 5'7". they r all still growing a little but their heights will remain in this order

[roobylavender]

What do you like about the Nolan movies, if you don't mind explaining? Most people don't seem to enjoy them so I'm surprised you do

mostly i adore them ideologically. i don't think nolan always executes a clean plot while making the trilogy, there are obv very concerning casting choices, and his white liberalism does reveal itself every now and then bc he presents interesting questions about the system only to more often than not leave them hanging in the air by the end. but, why i tend to be okay with bearing with all of this is bc his take on the bat is genuinely wonderful to me. i even think there are ways he expands on the original foundations of the character's philosophy that are better than some avenues comic writers have explored

what i think the trilogy emphasizes so well from start to finish is that it believes in broos and it believes in the bat. it's a very hopeful take on the character and despite broos needing to go through stages of growth and maturation as a person, there's never a feeling that he's being condescended to. he's criticized for his initially limited ideas regarding justice (whether this is by rachel, ducard, harvey, etc.), but he's allowed to learn and help his understanding of the world evolve so that he can be a better hero by the time he puts on the mask. the broos who decides he wants to seek justice for his parents is a very naive, emotional idealist. the broos who decides to put on the mask has a vision and understands what it is that he seeks to do to save his city. he's nowhere close to being the perfect hero, but his motivations and compassion for people are taken seriously, and that's something that i think is sorely missing from not only a lot of adaptations but also the comics in general in this modern age

i am also a really huge fan of how nolan approaches martyrdom and heroism as concepts. i'm sure people have convinced themselves that any version of broos who can let go of the mantle is not a good adaptation but i honestly beg to differ. the longevity of the character and dc's understanding that they will never sell more than when they're prioritizing broos is what's lead to him never leaving the mantle long-term, not who he actually is as a person. personally i think he either should have died or retired years ago. there are two things i love about the trilogy's approaches to broos leaving the mantle:

(1) they allow broos to understand that simply being the bat is not the end-all, be-all solution. there is more to heroism than solely pursuing your own vision and giving a big fuck you to all other options. i know a lot of people hate the ending to the second movie and how it allegedly positions him as a murderer, but the thing is, broos knows he didn't kill anyone. he's not actually a murderer. he's simply someone humble and compassionate enough to understand that the hero the city needs in that moment isn't him, and that he has to step down so that the city can survive under the weight of its own desperation for hope. it's an entirely selfless moment and i love it bc i really do think modern writers have convinced themselves that the best way to write broos is to have him entirely obsessed with his masked identity when imo it's far more interesting to explore broos recognizing there are other avenues for justice and other positions he can take upon to help the city. understanding that the bat is not the only solution to the city's problems is very humble, and by extension, it's why i also adore the trilogy's attention to who broos is in his daily life bc it recognizes that there are moments for him to be heroic just as himself too (the second movie does a marvelous job of this in particular)

(2) they allow broos to move on and understand that the burden is not his alone to bear! another thing people seem to hate about these movies is how they have broos retiring. and i kind of understand, what with him being gone for eight years and then having a last huzza before taking the mask off permanently, but i also wish people approached that development from a purely ideological standpoint. there are obv problems with john being a cop and like i wish i wish i wish he wasn't one but the plot line with him and broos is genuinely one of my favorites and i think it's so cool and full circle that broos starts the trilogy wanting to be a symbol to inspire people towards doing good, and that's exactly what happens in the end. he inspires someone, he realizes that he doesn't have to shoulder the fate of the city all alone, and he passes on the mantle to someone he knows shares his compassion and vision for justice. it's another beautiful, selfless moment and i almost wonder if people hate it bc they have this idea that broos can only ever be dedicatedly obsessed and close minded wrt the masked identity. i know for many people that is the appeal of the character/phenomenon and its longevity, but for storytelling purposes, i think allowing bruce to be selfless and humble enough to entrust the city in the hands of other people like him is very inspiring. i wish comic had done it years ago and let him retire or at least take a backseat role rather than making him into the obsessive micromanager forever and always

overall nolan to me is someone who genuinely understands and believes in the heroism that not just the bat but any hero is supposed to evoke and then expands on that concept in interesting ways by tackling martyrdom as well. the plots of the movies are clunky as hell, much of the action is a bore, and by the last movie nolan has gotten so ahead of himself in terms of ideas and plots he wants to tackle that it's all falling apart. all of this is true. but ideologically the themes of the movies are what really draw me in and i don't think we are ever going to get that hopeful and sympathetic of a take on the character again, unfortunately. the newest movie is enough of a testament to that since it can't even manage to believe in broos or his vision and instead has to chide him for being an obsessive shut-in with no eyes for anything or anyone else until the very end of the film

[laughableillusions]

Lovecraft OC Time!!!

Name: Riley (havent figured out a last name mdjckdjfndn)

Age: 28 (has been since 1947)

Pronouns: he/they/it

Occupation: lighthouse keeper

🌊 always pale and sickly-looking, he says that living by the water keeps him healthy. However he is almost deathly pale, and seems like a ghost.

🌊 stands at about 5’7”, if anyone comments about this he will simply joke about how much taller people have gotten “these days.”

🌊 stands at about 5’7”, if anyone comments about this he will simply joke about how much taller people have gotten “these days.”

🌊 His hair has turned prematurely white from stress and long exposure to the Elder Gods and Great Old Ones, this happened gradually.

🌊 usually seen wearing thick comfy sweaters, flannel, and overalls. He dresses very old fashioned for the time, and is often confused by “modern” fashion.

🌊 many people have gone missing when visiting the mysterious Lighthouse Keeper, many townsfolk know now not to ask too many questions.

Personality:

🌊 very chill dude mostly, doesn’t look fish-like at all. The only thing slightly “unsettling” abt him is that he seems very behind on the times and awkward to talk to.

🌊 soft spoken mostly, though gets very excited about things he likes. Lighthouse keeping seems to suite him well, he is most relaxed when alone…many have asked if he gets lonely, he only shakes his head with a smile as if the question is silly. He has friends he says, though they do not come out very often.

🌊 talks a great deal about his “spouse.” When asked where this “spouse” is, he only says that he is traveling. Nobody has seen this spouse of his, but the townsfolk know enough to ignore the large storm clouds that gather by the lighthouse every month.

🌊 Sort of has a spooky air about him, he speaks like someone from a century ago. His eyes are cold and aged, and he regards the world around him like a bitter old man. He calls himself an “old soul.” But everything he says about himself never feels quite true…like he’s hiding something.

🌊 regularly is seen walking along the shore at night, talking to some unseen figure or simply the ocean itself. When asked about this he will become nervous, and say that it helps clear his head.

Backstory:

🌊 Riley was born on February 27th 1922, his mother was a devout member of the Cthulhu cult, he was sent to be sacrificed when the Great Depression in exchange for his mother’s livelihood. However, he was spared because the Deep Ones sensed something…important about this child. They took a liking to him, and became his protectors (and playmates) through much of his childhood.

🌊 was sent to an orphanage, he was never adopted because of…well…having scary grey eyes and strange “friends.” That he’d play with by the beach. He left when he was 16 to find work, ended up joining the Navy. There was a bad storm which sunk his ship, he was the only survivor By Some Miracle™️. Though this time it was not the fish people…it was something Much Bigger.

🌊 was honorably discharged for mental health reasons, settled on being a lighthouse keeper to recover a bit from the trauma and PTSD. He started having weird dreams about a black island, and being dragged down underwater by a mass of tentacles…also Deep Ones telling him weird cryptic information.

🌊 Riley by now has stopped seeing the Deep Ones, he had “grown up” now, only keeping and eye on him. So this scared him a lot bc he didn’t really wanna think about his childhood, but he couldn’t help but be drawn into the occult and what his visions meant (which he had drawn.)

🌊 He himself took part in the cult, however the members began to see his strange-eldritch-aura. They began to think he was Nyanthrolotep (idk if I spelled that right) in disguise, or some other being to “distract them.” So they staged to kill him.

🌊 Of course the Deep Ones would not allow this, and killed all the cultists before snatching away an unconscious Riley…now placing him on the island of R’lyeh. He awoke very confused, scared…and otherwise not quite happy about this situation. However, he recognized this place from his weird vision-dreams. So he cautiously began to explore.

🌊 (The island itself is sort of like a giant bisual illusion, like that scene in Labyrinth where Sarah walked into a pathway in the wall, and the stairs n shit…Just weird mind breaking stuff, where the lack of reflection/light bouncing off the rock makes the whole place just really weird to look at.)

🌊 So Riley having to fucking explore this nightmare place sucks ass, he is Not Having A Great Time. But after a few hours or so stumbles upon the big gate…and collapses in front of it. The dream he has is basically Cthulhu being like “congrats you found me finally!! Anyways, here’s some weird cryptic information that implies that our souls are bound together!”

🌊 Riley then wakes up in the lap of this very pretty…person. They comfort them like they’ve known him all his life, and it’s “the most warmth I have ever received from a singular entity” or smth like that. However, the giant gate is open which is a big “oh fuck” moment, and Riley now freaks out bc he didn’t find the gate opened like that and now there’s this person here, and guess who/what that person is? You guess it! It’s Cthulhu showing itself in human form!! (Non-binary Cthulhu rights). This connection is enough to break Riley’s brain enough that his hair starts going grey.

🌊 Cthulhu tells Riley to close his eyes for now and Riley them has an existential crisis/panic attack bc he is now piecing together his dreams, his childhood, the cult incident. Cthulhu, who is holding him basically confirms that “basically you are an avatar of R’lyeh itself because we had a bit of a fight a millenia ago because it wasn’t okay with the whole “killing Earth” thing and decided to walk among humans for a few thousand years and I’ve now finally you again.” So basically R’lyeh itself was this sort of guardian god that looked after Cthulhu whilst slumbering, and they ended up falling in love…but because that was a “human emotion.” It basically went “well maybe it’s better to be human if they can feel love.” And fucked off to do that. Basically, unconsciously living through human experiences…but “blessing” such humans with uncanny powers n shit.

🌊 Riley is like “holy shit what the fuck.” And is like “so I’m just a puppet?” And Cthulhu is like “no, you yourself are R’lyeh, maybe in it’s last avatar…so basically, your going to ascend to Godhood if you so choose…I hope you do bc ily and I miss you a lot but it’s up to you.” And Riley is like “what…” and Cthulhu then shows him all the forbidden knowledge he’d know. Riley is like “I’m scared and I don’t know if I want to do that.” And Cthulhu is like “well that’s fine I guess but we’ve met now so I can’t exactly just let you go now because it’s taken like a millenia to find you.” And Riley is like “We can be friends I guess?” And Cthulhu is like “sure that’ll work, I literally love you in any and all capacity so I can deal w that…if you change your mind ofc I’ll be here.”

🌊 After that Cthulhu tells him to open his eyes, and reveals his True Form But Human Sized™️ to him, which makes more of his hair turn grey bc humans Aren’t Supposed To See That. Basically the cost of ascending to Godhood is letting go of all of humanity and basically having a myriad of health problems and mental problems caused by sheer exposure of The Great Old Ones. Riley is willing to risk it because now he belongs somewhere, which may be the weird spooky arms of an eldritch being…but hey…it’s somewhere. Cthulhu as well must wait until Riley is Ready To Accept.

🌊 Holy shit this is getting long already…but Riley is then taken back to his Lighthouse by Cthulhu (who he has dubbed Lu bc Cthulhu is a handful to say.) And long story short they fall in love all over again kind of? (Riley falls in love with it and Cthulhu falls in love with humanity basically but mostly just Riley.) Then in 1950 they officially get “married” in humanly comprehensible terms. But Riley is still too scared/wary to ascend, so when they get married Lu grants Riley immortality and youth so they have all the time in the world to figure it out.

Current Situation:

🌊 Riley still takes care of the same lighthouse, and Cthulhu visits physically once every month for a few days (during the full moon.) However Lu visits them frequently in dreams ;).

🌊 Innsmouth mostly leaves Riley alone, the Deep Ones are now his primary friends except for a photographer/videographer who visited from the Mainland. They are the witness to Riley’s final ascension and return to the sea…

🌊 Innsmouth residents and The Deep Ones actually have very stable relationships, It is very common for Deep Ones and humans to simply fall in love and get married and join their beloved in the ocean. The community is tight knit and supportive, wary of strangers and very protective of their own.

Ideally Riley’s story would either be some fake documentary-flick, or some kind of Analog Horror style series.

[charrwybie]

(I've seen this interview meme floating around the tag and it looks super fun so here it goes! Wyatt is not my Commander, but he's still a fun character who WOULD have fans bc he's in a band! Used to do ballet!)

INTRODUCTION

- Can you introduce yourself?

I'm Wyatt Epping - Wybie for friends! I play bass in a rock band with my friends.

- What is your gender identity, orientation and relationship status?

I'm a guy, bi, and not... availa-bly. That was Awful, sorry about that. Not looking to be in a relationship right now, either, I have some healing to do before I'm ready to try again, found that out the hard way.

- Where and when were you born?

We - mom and me that is, assume in Lion's Arch because that's where she found me as a newborn cub some twenty years ago.

- What is your weapon of choice and fighting style?

I prefer to not fight, but when I have to, I prefer my staff or greatsword, and an axe for when things get close. My aunt calls me a powerhouse and I'm usually last still on my feet so I guess I'm good at dancing around the danger and hitting hard when I need to.

- Lastly, are you happy?

Yeah. Yeah. Getting there at least! I've gone through some shhhhoot that made me not happy for a long time, but I'm getting there again! Feels good.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

- What’s your family like? What is your relationship with them?

(Wyatt laughs) I have a big and weird family by a lot of standards. I'm sure you're thinking that Epping doesn't sound like a charr name and you'd be right! I was raised by my mom, Norma, a human woman, in Lion's Arch so I definitely don't have like a charr upbringing, or a charr name even. I also have another mom who's a charr but not the one that birthed me, and a step-sister who's about the same age as me. Then there's my dads who aren't really my dads but kinda are -- it's a long story, but we're happy. Close! I love them very much and am definitely a momma's boy and a family boy.

-Have you ever ran away from home? 

No. Well yeah, when I was like four and mad about something and I got all the way to the other side of the street before running back to hug my mom and cry that I missed her.

-Would you consider marriage or having children? 

Marriage, definitely, with the right person, I -- think I want that, but it's also scary right now. Kids? No thanks. Thought I wanted some, but nah, turned out to be some misplaced emotional shenanigans. Kids are great, but not for me.

-Do you secretly hate one of your friends?

I wouldn't waste time being their friend if I did, I don't think. I can be a polite boy and act civil in any company, but I'm not gonna be friends with someone I don't like. What's the point?

-Which friend knows everything about you? 

Ordell, who is also in the band - he grew up with me and my sister and we were like an inseparable triple trouble trio, and he was kinda like our little brother but not really. Still is the same. He's the kind of friend I can talk about anything with, or just sit quietly, and it's just... comfortable. Cozy.

ASKED BY FANS  

-Are you literate? Have you been to school?

Is this a joke about bassists being dumb? Yeah I'm literate, have been to school in Lion's Arch, and did real good there. I liked school and studying and would work on ballet flexibility while doing my homework; hobbies, no matter how serious, never were more important than learning.

-The eeriest prediction you made that later came true?

Hmmm. I don't know if anything like that's happened? My mom used to call me Stormlord because I used to predict thunderstorms and lightning strikes as a kid; does that count? She was amazed that I didn't become an elementalist.

-What is something you were embarrassingly late to realize?

You know what, PROBABLY a lot of things, but I can't think of an example.

- Do you have mental health or physical issues?

Both, haha... I have seasonal allergies, a permanently injured knee that ended my hopes of dancing professionally, depression that came with THAT, aaaand PTSD from a different kind of trauma. I'm healing, though!

- What is your current main goal?

Just... To have fun! And to get a griffon, that's what I'm working on right now. We'll see, a lot of animals don't like me, and I really don't know why. I think I'm cursed or something. Let me tell you, it's not fun out there when seemingly every animal ever seems to have a personal beef with you, specifically. And I'm not talking about wildlife, I'm talking about cows and chicken and like generally friendly things.

CHOICES:

- Drink or food?

Food, unless my sister made it, in which case probably neither.

-Cats or dogs? 

Both! I grew up with both and currently have both - I have a cat called Silly - Cilantro, really - and a dog called Potato.

-Early bird or night owl? 

A little more of a night owl, I guess, though not really that either. I like sleeping.

-Optimist or pessimist? 

Optimist. Trying to be real hard at least! Mostly it's working!

-Sassy or sarcastic? 

Depends on the day and company I guess. Not a lot of either.

HAVE YOU EVER:

-Been caught sneaking out

No, but sneaking back in, yeah! (Laughs) I'd come home too late from parties or something drunk before I was supposed to be drinking and inevitably mom would catch me because I'd always get sick, or be way noisier than I thought, or, you know, both. I try to not drink enough to get that drunk anymore.

-Broken a bone

Kneecap, yeah, when I goofed my entire knee. Some toes, I think? Amazingly not anything bigger than that though.

-Received flowers

Yeah! From friends and family and dates, and fans too. I like flowers, am very allergic to some of their pollen though, haha!

-Ghosted someone

Well, yeah. Sometimes deservedly, sometimes it's been me panicking and being shitty as a result-- aw rats, there goes a coin in the swear jar... But yeah, I have.

-Pretended to laugh at a joke you didn’t get

Oh for sure. Sometimes I don't have to pretend because I'll just laugh at myself not getting it!

[jaskicr]

reverse au BUT canon universe geralt and jaskier are sent to an alternate universe where their roles are reversed but they remember their canon lives

ft. bamf jaskier and blushy geralt

canon universe geralt and jaskier touch a weird artefact and they’re sent to an alternate universe where jaskier is a witcher and geralt is human

(this is established relationship)

so they grow up without memories of their past (???) selves but they get vague impressions/dreams that tell them something’s not right

they regain their full memories they’re 15/16 ish

jaskier is born first. he’s sent to kaer morhen and goes through the training and the trials to become a witcher (he gets extra mutations bc i said so, im a sucker for witcher!jaskier with white hair and cat eyes ok)

he remembers his life as a bard when he’s 16, not long before he sets out on the path

and he realises that geralt isn’t with him in kaer morhen - he’s in the cohort geralt would have been, he’s friends with eskel and all that, but geralt isn’t here

and jaskier thinks that whatever happened, geralt must be dead

it hurts, as he walks around kaer morhen, knowing that geralt should be there, knowing that, in another life, geralt had walked within the same walls

but jaskier still holds out hope, returning to kaer morhen every winter and hoping that someone like geralt would show up

but geralt never does, and on his travels, jaskier asks mages and researches to find a way to reverse whatever was done, but he can’t

after maybe 2 decades, jaskier gives up and properly mourns the witcher he had known, who doesn’t exist here

once, he tries picking up the lute, but it hurts too much. it reminds him of what he’s lost, reminds him that geralt isn’t here

he puts down the lute and picks up his swords. he doesn’t touch the lute after that

something like blaviken still happens but maybe in a different way bc it’s jaskier

a few decades after jaskier is born, geralt is born into a noble family

from a young age, he’s unnervingly good at sword fighting and combat, and he enjoys it, but something draws him to music

at first geralt isn’t very good at it, but there’s an inexplicable urge within him that tells him to continue, a quiet yearning for melody and music that makes him want to be good at it

so he goes to oxenfurt, and that’s when he remembers being a witcher once, remembers the path, remembers jaskier

and he searched desperately for jaskier. he scours the campus, asking professors and students, searching the faculty and alumni

but no one has heard of jaskier

and geralt knows that there’s no way that jaskier wouldn’t have gone to oxenfurt - the only reason jaskier isn’t here, isn’t in whatever universe this is, is because he’s dead

geralt vows to live in jaskier’s memory, and he takes up the lute

he misses jaskier’s singing, misses his songs. so he learns the lute, learns to sing, so that there’s always a part of jaskier with him

when geralt graduates from oxenfurt, he sets out on the road

in a fit of nostalgia, he travels to posada, something bittersweet and wistful rising within him

unbeknownst to geralt, jaskier is heading to posada as well, tracking a contract

they unknowingly end up in the same tavern

at this point, jaskier has learnt to tune out bards. it hurts too much to remember what he’ll never have, so he doesn’t register the bard that’s playing right now

geralt is playing when he spots a dark figure in the corner, black armour and swords marking him out as a witcher

it’s all too familiar, and a tentative hope blooms in geralt’s heart

maybe -

he makes his way over, heart hammering, and says the words etched deep into his memory

‘i love the way you just.. sit in the corner and brood’

and geralt’s heart is in his throat, hoping and hoping and hoping for the right response

and jaskier hears a familiar voice saying words he had said, a lifetime ago

jaskier raises his head and sees a familiar face, a face he knows as well as his own despite the different hair and eyes and stature, and his heart stutters

it can’t be. but it is. and jaskier just knows.

geralt almost cries when unnaturally bright blue eyes with slitted pupils rise to meet his, set in a familiar face marked by a long scar and framed by silver hair

‘i’m here to drink alone’

it’s this familiar exchange, repeated but reversed, that lets them know that the other remembers, that they’re here

and for the first time since they woke up in this different world, they feel complete

they bask in the moment, drinking each other in, because they’ve found each other, and even if they’re different, even if everything is different, they’re together

geralt slides into the seat opposite jaskier, and it’s so, so familiar, but so different

‘i thought you were dead,’ geralt whispers

jaskier smiles, a small and sad thing, but he reaches over and grabs geralt’s hand. their callouses are reversed, now. jaskier’s hands are rough from the grips of his swords, and geralt’s fingers are padded from years of playing the lute

‘me too,’ jaskier confesses softly. then his smile turns slightly more playful. ‘i didn’t think you’d have red hair and green eyes. you look good.’

then geralt ducks his head and blushes under his freckles (yes he has freckles it’s hella adorable ok) and jaskier is fascinated bc he’s never seen geralt blush

(and he!! has freckles!!!)

‘this suits you,’ geralt mumbles, still blushing. he peeks out from under his lashes and jaskier sort of melts. ‘the hair and the eyes, i mean.’

and, well. jaskier had been insecure about his mutations that mark him as something other, something inhuman, but hearing geralt’s acceptance of him...

jaskier squeezes geralt’s hand, still in awe that he’s here, he’s real. they’re here, together. ‘i missed you.’

geralt beams, and jaskier‘s heart warms at how easily geralt seems to smile now. ‘i missed you too.’

the elves happen pretty much the same way apart from the fact that geralt and jaskier expecting it

and when geralt follows jaskier, neither of them object to it

they try to find out what happened to them, but all they’ve figured out is that their lives have been reversed, and no one else seems to be affected

so they travel the continent together trying to find an explanation or a cure

they try to return to the place where they found the artefact, but they only find a patch of dirt

jaskier brings geralt to kaer morhen

they ask vesemir about their situation (and geralt aches at the fact that his old mentor doesn’t know him), but he has no idea

eskel and lambert look at geralt with no recognition, and it hurts

but they take to geralt easily, and in no time, it’s almost like they’re back in their own world

they find yen earlier than they do in canon. she’s hostile at first, not knowing why they’re seeking her out, but when she hears their story she’s intrigued and promises to try and find a cure

in the meantime they try to settle into the new lives and new dynamic

they both have two lifetimes in their heads, two whole lives that are theirs, that they’ve lived

of course, they’re not the same people, shaped by new experiences as well as old

geralt is more open, more affectionate, more vocal with his thoughts and feelings. he smiles more, and he’s less gruff with others, though he still isn’t completely comfortable in social interactions

jaskier is a bit quieter, a result of his witcher upbringing. he’s still mostly open about his emotions, and being around geralt makes him smile and chatter liked he used to, but there’s a hypervigilance in him borne out of his witcher training, something lethal and deadly

they learn about each other again, finding new things to love and explore

now, geralt is the one who plays in taverns, and jaskier is the one who takes contracts

geralt still retains the skills and memories of his training as a witcher. though he lacks the enhanced strength, he can still fight, and jaskier gets some lightweight swords for him

geralt helps out on contracts sometimes, when he’s confident that he won’t get hurt. jaskier is reluctant at first, but concedes that geralt should be able to hold his own against weaker monsters

that’s when geralt realises that witcher!jaskier is a huge bamf and also very buff (buff jaskier rights!!!) and geralt really shouldn’t like it as much as he does

jaskier also looks unfairly good in armour with his swords in his hands

and now he understands why jaskier used to be obsessed about his black eyes after taking a potion, because HNNNG

with geralt by his side, jaskier doesn’t mind playing the lute again. it doesn’t hurt like it used to, with geralt by his side once more

geralt lends jaskier his lute and jaskier plucks out tentative notes on the strings, before he launches into one of his songs

jaskier’s voice is rough and untrained, lacking the oxenfurt training he used to have as a bard, but it’s pleasant and sweet, and geralt joins in, their voices twining together in a lovely duet

jaskier doesn’t join geralt when he sings in taverns, fearful of how humans would react, but on the road, they sometimes sing together, and it’s unexpectedly nice

(maybe jaskier gets a glamour at some point, and the continent discovers that the famed bard geralt occasionally gains a partner)

as a witcher, geralt had been unable to lash out at the people who’d insulted him and attacked him

but now, he’s human, and watching jaskier’s shoulders slump as humans spit vitriol at him, well, geralt gets to be feral now

he’s far more dangerous than jaskier had been as a bard. sure, bard jaskier was feral, but he lacked the skills that geralt remembers from his time as a witcher

the humans don’t stand a chance against geralt, and jaskier is the one hauling geralt out of fights now, and many taverns witness a white-haired witcher dragging his redheaded bard out as he yanks him into a fierce kiss

they’re both very soft and very gone on one another. geralt is far more tactile now and jaskier does not mind. they cuddle a lot and jaskier is the big spoon

they’re both openly affectionate, there’s a lot of soft hand holding and hair braiding and casual touches and like. they’re just soft, ok?

jaskier makes it his mission to make geralt blush as much as possible, because it’s adorable

(he also discovers how far down that blush goes, and geralt gets to witness jaskier’s witcher strength and stamina)

they make it work. jaskier gets insecure sometimes, knowing that his features are unnatural and scarred and nothing like what he’d looked like as a bard

but geralt reassures him, telling him that he’s beautiful no matter what

sometimes, geralt hates his own human frailty, how weak he is without his enhanced strength and how easily he gets hurt

but jaskier shows him everything he loves about geralt’s human body, telling him how happy he is that geralt gets to live a life without the suffering of a witcher

and the longer they’re together and the more they get to know each other all over again, they become less sure whether they want a cure or not

geralt likes being a human bard. humans don’t hate him anymore, and he likes being a bard more than he thought he would

but he knows that jaskier is, by nature, someone who loves people. and watching jaskier be rejected by prejudiced humans makes geralt’s heart hurt, because jaskier loves people so fucking much, and now he’s hated by them

but jaskier doesn’t mind being a witcher either. he can help people now, even if they’re ungrateful. there’s a deep satisfaction as he slays monsters terrorising innocents, and like this, he also gets to protect geralt

(not that geralt needs protecting, but still, it’s nice. and geralt has realised that he quite likes jaskier swooping in to save him aka picking him up in his arms)

and jaskier sees how free and easy and open this geralt is, unburdened by decades of hatred and conflict, and he wants this for geralt, wants geralt to know the happiness of a human life without being hated by the very people he helps

both of them like the lives they lead now, and they don’t know if they want to go back. but their old life is the original world, and they still wonder if they should go back

idk how it ends - either they somehow find a cure and return to canon universe with a whole load of new experiences, or they never find a cure and they learn to live in this new world

or maybe they do find a cure and decide that they’ll stay in this world because they’ve learnt to accept and love each other even with the changes, and it’s their world now

there’s a fic for this now!

[janetbrown711]

Are there any ideas or thoughts you would like to share about the AU that no one has asked yet?

I’ll try to think of what I haven’t answered fjksafjda; XD

Angelina blamed Lena for her father’s death, and Lena believed her (and still feels partly responsible- until therapy)

Wakko keeps begging for a pet- and I’d like to think Lena or William get him a fish somehow (either a koi pond or something like that XD )

The scene at the end of the last chapter was inspired by the song Leave Luanne (timestamp 3:44 to be specific) as well as the dancing in the village scene from Tangled (which is easier to guess fdjs;alkfjsal;)

I have a very specific playlist I listen to when I write, and when I was writing the 2nd to last chapter (the one where they return home and Dot has her nightmare) the song Everything Stays played and I realized that song perfectly captured what happened to them and doubles as a lullaby of sorts so I knew I had to make Lena sing it 

Idk how much you all can tell, but Wakko doesn’t talk to people much outside of his family, and even then, he can get pretty quiet unless it’s Yakko or Dot. 

Yakko was never allowed to be a kid and can’t even fathom being childish and playing with toys anymore (not helped by the fact that he is around 13 now)

don’t ask me their ages, I lost track a long time ago (though I think my original intention was to keep them all 4 years apart)

William and Lena are both bisexual (hence their immediate support of Yakko’s crush on Max)

(I wanted to imply that Lena was attracted to Helloise upon first meeting but mostly scrapped it (unless you read between the lines) bc it was distracted and they had bigger things to worry about- and it wouldn’t matter bc Lena is madly and everlastingly in love with William). 

Helloise is a lesbian

Angelina is not a psychopath or a sociopath. At most, she’s a narcissist and a perfectionist

William dated at least one of his fellow knights/squires before meeting Lena (likely the one who let the warners through when they escaped)

William and Lena can tell Wakko’s gender vibes aren’t cis, so they let him dress however he pleases (mostly after Angelina is gone though- god knows she would’ve murdered him if he wore a dress)

William is teaching all of his kids how to fight with swords, and it’s rlly cute

Lena has a prominent scar on her left shoulder from the attack that shows all the time bc she prefers to wear off the shoulder clothes, but she doesn’t mind

After returning home, Lena had all of her mother’s clothes taken away and deconstructed to give to poorer towns who could use the fur and fabric far more than they would need it

The first time Angelina hit Lena was the day of her father’s funeral (she was 10)

Scratchnsniff wanted to give Lena therapy the moment she was beginning to recover and be function bc he could see how traumatized and guilt-ridden she was, but she refused and couldn’t be swayed for the longest time

If Lena knew how Wakko escaped from the tower when they ran away, she would’ve had a heart attack and probably grounded Yakko (even though it was necessary- she hated it when William climbed up, she would’ve hated it, even more, knowing her baby boy did it too)

Once she cut her hair in the tower, she never let her hair grow out ever again (though she’s always had those bangs)

I pondered giving Angelina a beauty mark, but then realized in Wakko’s Wish Dot really wanted one and I thought that connection would have bad implications and I was like “nopenopenope- we aren’t doing that-”

There’s probably more but these are all I can think of rn

[bansheeoftheforest]

Well, my wifi is not back, and wont be anytime soon. The very earliest luckiest would be getting it back by Tuesday (unlikely). The very worst my house burns down so theres that /lh /hj

This sucks so much because I really cannot read asks I dont see in real time, I have the same amount of reading comprehension for them as I do Frankenstein XD

Dm me links to any important syndicate asks I miss while I'm gone 👍

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Bannnnnn I tried to draw the Jekyll brothers but Kent? Is inconsistent? The database (what I use) showd him as a clean shaven guy with a bit messy hair but google is showing Kent as a completely different model? Neat hair, Brokenshire beard. Like it's the ingame "identify" zoom in and I cant check whats right before I already killed himmmm

Anyway here art <3. I know I said I'd draw the DTIYS first but art inspiration is stored in the Syndicate au <3

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Also I've been thimking about Henry wearing a mask +plus ponytail to hide his identity like for the past two days. Yknow those theater masks? The weeping and laughing? He wears the sad one while in the Blighters and Templars and the happy one while in the Rooks because hes a dramatic theater nerd. Also! I like to think that if Jekyll has to be a templar he'd still wear the Blighter uniform when he could and pretend hes not high ranking. He gets away with it because Crawford doesn't care about him and Roth lives for chaos

I also drew Henry in a mask and ponytail but it's not done yet 😔

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Also I did the math the the twins are 3 years older than Jekyll. Like thank goodness first of all because I fully went into ship entirely unaware on if there were canon ages or a scary difference. But also Jacob being 3 years older than Henry is kinda funny to me

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All of Evie's outfits (besides her default) are bad and I'm gonna fist fight the designers because the secrets of london (where I only searched the locations of 3) is so bad, especially with the effort needed. How did they do Jacob so good, but utterly fail with Evie /lh

NOOOOOOO D: Man, I really hope you will get it back asap, and also that your house don't burn down!!

Man, if I don't know your struggle rn. However I shall do my best to link you to every syndicate ask that I will get from here on out bc I don't tend to get small asks for that au so <3

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Huh-- oh wow you're right. I wonder if it is a set design or just a bit on random depending on the save file... I killed him a long ass time ago so I have absolutely no idea how he looked like <3

EITHER WAY OH MY GOD IT LOOKS AAMZING. I love??? How you gave all three individual personalities in just a single picture??? Kent looks like he is seconds away from murder and I LOVE Henry in the templar outfit, it fits him so well??? Man I really want to start thinking more of this branch. Would the entire Jekyll family be Templars so the trio got that role inherited? Are Raphael and Kent unidentical twins and Henry is the odd-one-out because he is the youngest? Were the three of them really close in Scotland, but left as soon as possible bc their family was abusive, only for Kent and Raphael to find refuge in the Templar Order while Henry goes to university? Would they still have that brotherly love if they were close as kids even when they are in the Order, or would they have a falling out and start despising each other (or Jekyll @ the older brothers at least)? Would Raphael and Kent secretly be protective of Henry and manage to keep him out of Starrick's line-of-sight so that Henry won't get in trouble for defying orders/ignoring them? Would they force Henry to join the Templars with threats or would Henry mostly feel obligated to join them? Since the Templar Order isn't illegal in London, would other people know that Jekyll is a Templar, or would he keep it hidden from the public? Would his brothers help hide his identity?? SO many questions and I'm so sad I won't be able to discuss them with you :'c

(also can I just say I love the poetic differences between their clothing. Raphael is just wearing a waistcoat/basic clothes and he is a brute and more open, Kent is wearing more clothes/layering up and he is the "brains" out of the two of them, Jekyll is wearing the most layers and is almost trying to hide himself and I just... *chief's kiss*)

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Henry being a dramatic theater nerd and stealing Roth's costume supplies to hide his identity bc he is so ashamed of it and doesn't want people he knows to know about it my beloved <3 Plus the blighter uniforms doesn't look too far off of what he normally wears so he could probably use that as an excuse whenever some other Templar gets up his ass about not wearing the right clothes, yet it still doesn't make Henry feel any better knowing he has to bear the knowledge that he is actively wearing discreet blighter clothes to keep the Order happy and the public oblivious, knowing what cause he is reluctantly supporting. (him joining the rooks and suddenly coming into the Society all dressed in green lol)

Anyways I have now also decided that Maxwell and Henry are friends bc they both hate the Templars and Crawford and Henry gets to star in many of the plays he sets up. Plus they are both slightly insane so they match each other good.

YKNOW WHAT I WAS DAYDREAMING ABOUT WHILE BRUSHING MY TEETH RIGHT AFTER THIS ASK? Jekyll being forced to be the one to murder his brothers and the twins trying to track the murderer down just to know who tf are killing their targets, conveniently at the same time Maxwell starts meeting Jacob. Henry watching Jacob from afar getting smitten by him but keeping a distance bc he knows Maxwell is possessive, Jacob being the first to befriend Henry after Maxwell explains that both of them are against the Templars and Crawford, Jacob saving Henry during the fire of the theater? Yes pls <3

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Thank god bc here I was imagining an age gap of like idk 15 years bc of the differences in the timeline but! I'm just going to keep the canonical age difference while also shoot the timeline up a lil so that the events of Syndicate and TGS takes place at the same time but they are the right age and stuff, just bc I do not like Evie's and Jacob's older designs and I do not want to imagine them meeting during the Ripper dlc <3 Also the thought of Jacob being older than Henry is funny. I think Henry has a type /j

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They are so fucking bad and I'm going to scourage the Nexus to see if I can find any good redesign mods because they are so fucking bad. But to be fair, all female main characters' outfits are bad. Pearl? Lucy Thorne? Mfs looks like vampires. Even more reasons for why I only play Jacob, bc all other outfits on Evie are bad <3

[stormwarnings]

“But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us, but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the havens long ago.” - The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 276

aka this makes me really emo bc its spoken by legolas (a very, very young elf) and it just sounds so sad, really. it makes me think about that comment that was like “lotr is what we think of when we say ‘high fantasy’ and yet lotr itself is almost post-apocalyptic”. the entire story is set in this world that’s nothing more than a pale echo of the grandeur of ages gone past - all the wars and battles might be small skirmishes compared to the massacres of the first age, the land is peppered with ruins and abandoned towers that were once full of life (not to speak of the splendor of beleriand, now mostly drowned, i believe). the valar, once ever-present, are barely spoken of, and the blood of numenor, kings among men, has been (in the case of gondor and arnor) diluted, or just plain lost. and the elves, who are fading and who know they are fading, who know their time has come to pass across the sea and leave this land they sacrificed everything for. most of them already have.

legolas is just. very young. he is very young, in a land that is very old. and this statement of his shows the weight of it well, i think.