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amiedala · 3 years ago

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SOMETHING DEEPER (a mandalorian story)

CHAPTER 1: There's Always Three Things

RATING: Explicit (18+ ONLY!!!)

WARNINGS: sexual content, hints of voyeurism

SUMMARY: HELLLOOOOOOOOOOO AND HAPPY SOMETHING DEEPER SATURDAY MY LOVES!!! this is the first chapter in Something Deeper, the

second installment in the Something More series. in this one, Nova is her established character, they're still trying to save the galaxy, and the spice is racketed up even hotter ;) more notes at the end, as always, and until then, ENJOY!!!

If you're a newcomer, my fic "Something More" is the first installment of this story! <3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: HELLO MY LOVES HAPPY SOMETHING MORE SATURDAY!!!! this chapter is quite the whirlwind, i hope you love it! more notes at the end as always <3

Novalise Djarin is absolutely certain of three things. One, that the strongest thing in this galaxy is the green alien baby she calls her son; two, that her gorgeous, commanding bounty hunter husband is an excellent leader but a fantastically horrible diplomat; and three, that she is by far the most skilled person she knows at getting out of a particularly sticky situation.

Nova is excellent at getting out of things, period—her husband would argue that she’s an expert at getting the both of them out of their clothes and Mandalorian armor, respectively—but she excels at somehow, miraculously, wriggling herself free from between a rock and a hard place. And, right now, the asteroid belt that makes up Polis Massa is the abundance of rock, and the TIE fighters right on the tail of Kicker’s infamously sporadic power is the hard place.

They’re relentless. Nova squints her eyes, making the starry backdrop of the Outer Rim split and fractal into a thousand more glittering balls of light. There’s only three of them, this time, but this is the closest they’ve ever dared to follow her to Mandalore, and there’s something dangerous and electric kicking around somewhere inside of her chest. They keep shooting, jarring bolts of blasts that do their best to try and knock down Kicker’s very stubborn shields.

“Stupid,” Nova whispers, her breath low, the ghost of a smile stretching across her face, even in the crush of space. A year ago, she wouldn’t have recognized herself—this fearless, feisty pilot, the fully-formed reconstruction of the girl she used to be. On the ground, even with the Force on her side, she’s clumsy, an amateur. But up here? This is where Novalise shines. She has the upper hand out in the stars, and, besides, even if she were being chased by an artillery of a hundred more, there’s reinforcements on her old, lovable beater of a starship.

“Surrender,” one of the mechanical, ordered voices comes over the comm, and Nova giggles to herself in the darkness.

“Does that ever work?” she asks, flipping the right switches to make Kicker drop down and over itself, sending one of the fighters careening into the nearest asteroid. It doesn’t deter whoever’s in the cockpit for long, but it’s enough to utilize her infamous barrel roll to twist up and away from the other two fighters close in tow. “You know, asking impolitely for whoever you’re chasing to surrender?”

Silence. Nova smiles again, biting her teeth down against the fullness of her bottom lip. Her stomach grumbles. It was a sleepless night and a long day she spent back on Hoth before making the short trek back home—Mandalore, which isn’t the kindest of planets to call your own but is undoubtably better than some of the other alternatives—and the broth-based soups and dried legumes that frequent the base there are not nearly as filling or delicious as the feasts that being Mandalorian royalty entail. Still nothing from the other fighters, which is perfectly fine, because she’s about to feign dropping into warp and leading through a wormhole that’ll lead nowhere but the barrenness of the Mid Rim, but usually, they’re much more demanding.

“Surrender,” comes the voice again, and Nova sighs, cracking her neck, readjusting the familiar, worn helmet still stamped with the orange Rebel insignia. Kicker beeps angrily, and she lends a soft hand to the worn metal of her beloved ship’s dashboard, coaxing the metal to just go a tiny bit further.

“I’m just saying, you might have a stroke more of luck if you’re a little bit nicer. Less demanding, more asking. Who am I surrendering to?” she asks, and even though the TIE fighters are still volleying an array of blasts at the back end of the starfighter, they’re not quick to identify themselves. Nova squints again, catching a glimpse of one of them as she swoops to avoid a larger chunk of asteroid. It was stupid to come here, she admits internally to herself, even though it makes her heart drop a tiny bit inside of her chest. All she wanted for the hours she spent on Hoth was to get back to Din, to hold Grogu against her heartbeat for as long as she could before she reluctantly had to relinquish him to the one and only Luke Skywalker, but when Wedge called, it seemed urgent. “Hello?” she whispers, only to dare the strange, affected voice on the commlink to rattle back across the stars.

“Andromeda Maluev,” the comm blurts, and the sound of her name—her birth name, still heavy and pearlescent with the weight of losing her parents—makes Nova’s heart drop even further. Everyone left in this galaxy that Nova associates with—Din Djarin, Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles, Bo-Katan Kryze, Boba Fett, Cara Dune, Greef Karga, and every person she met along her trip with Din through the galaxy and back—knows that Andromeda Maluev is dead, and that Novalise Djarin rose from her ashes. But every single bounty Nova’s had on her head has slammed that full weight of her first identity back into her bones, like a brand, like something she can’t escape. It makes the force of people after her—the shadowy legion of the obscured First Order, and all of their cronies—feel just a bit more insidious.

“Not my name,” she volleys back, but the brace in Nova’s voice doesn’t sound like anything dangerous, anything sharp enough scare them off. “I’ve ran into enough of you by now for you to get it right.”

“We’ve got you surrounded. Surrender or be killed.”

Nova snorts. There’s three fighters on her tail, and they’re nowhere close to surrounding her. It’s so ludicrous, so unexpected, that the laugh catapults out of her mouth and echoes in the small hull of Kicker. She wishes Din and Grogu were here to equally share in her utter disbelief—she can practically see the helmet cocking and the baby’s giant, intuitive eyes crinkling—but she dodges another set of shots, which are almost completely aimless and hardly land on the tail end of the ship. “Be killed?” she repeats, swerving and ducking through another large chunk of asteroid, seamlessly, barely paying any attention to the terrain around her. She doesn’t need to. Even in a field this littered, space is Nova’s strongest suit. She could do this with her eyes closed. “As far as I can see, you’ve landed what, three shots? I don’t think you’ll be getting anywhere near close enough to even do damage to my ship. You’re three fighters strong, and one of you has a wounded wing. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“The First Order demands your services.”

Nova’s blood runs ice-cold. It’s a familiar request at this point, but still, the name sends a very real shiver all the way down her spine, rocking and rattling her vertebrae. She swallows, blinking furiously, avoiding the tailspin of a smaller asteroid as she lurches out of the chase. That wasn’t the lowly voice of some sorry stormtrooper that got the shitty job of trying to wrangle her out of the skies. It sounds evil. Dark. Mirthless. It wasn’t Moff Gideon’s voice, but it was something close to the memory of the dark timbre of it. Fear forms wet and cold on the back of her neck, curling up through the bottom of her hairline, seeping underneath the warmth of her standard, Rebel-orange jumpsuit. She swallows, but the air feels like it’s evaporating out of her mouth.

“The First Order,” she manages, finally, trying to detach the nervousness from her voice, “will not be getting my services. Not now, not ever.”

It’s only been two weeks since Din’s coronation. Two hectic, packed weeks in which her big, brave bounty hunter boyfriend got forcibly turned into a very reluctant diplomat under the watchful—and perhaps slightly resentful—eye of Bo-Katan Kryze. Din never seemed to really need sleep the way a normal human being did, but Nova watched as the bags under his eyes darkened and grew as he spent long hours in the war rooms, buried somewhere in the giant, stark palace they’d moved into, eyelids pressed into the warm hollow of her neck in the early hours of the morning when he made it to bed at all. In the meantime, Nova was spending every single precious second of her waking hours with Grogu, who she knows is on the verge of needing to go back to Jedi training, trying to absorb as much of his small, green light as she possibly can. When Wedge called the other day, though, he sounded desperate, which didn’t happen often, and she had wrenched herself away from her family on Mandalore to try and stop the impending doom of the First Order on Hoth, but it had been yet another dead end. Polis Massa was a pit stop—an impulsive, foolish one—because Nova ran furiously out of the library archives the last time she was here, and she wanted to pick up books on the history of Mandalore for Din and herself, and a small star of yearning in her chest was to spend a little more time in the shelves like her father used to before the Empire killed him.

And as much as Nova wants to put Andromeda Maluev to rest, longing for the days when she was tiny and growing up on Yavin with her parents alive and happy beside her outweighs the alternative. She swallows through the lump in her throat and closes her eyes to shake the starshine of her past lives away. The time to focus on getting the hell out of here is now, all yearning and ache can blossom fully formed when she’s away from the reaches of the First Order, safely back on Mandalore.

“Surrender,” the voice says again, only this time it is the timbre of some sorry stormtrooper and not the one that still haunts her nightmares, and Nova sighs, flipping all of the switches on Kicker’s dashboard to feint left and fake drop into hyperspace.

“I’ll ask you again. When,” she exhales, straightening up in the pilot’s chair, “has that line ever worked?”

“We are granted permission to obliterate your starfighter under Order Number—”

“Obliterate?” Nova interrupts, stifling another giggle. “Is the Order giving you vocabulary lessons? I’m impressed, trooper—”

“Andromeda Maluev,” the voice comes again, and Nova tries her absolute hardest to ignore the pulsing and aching in her heart that comes with the punch of her previous identity, “you are to surrender to the First Order. Failure to comply will result in termination. This is your final warning.”

Nova sighs, pulling Kicker to a temporary halt. If she stares, the ghostly outline of Mandalore, embedded forever in her memory, will flash in front of her vision, even out here in Polis Massa’s gigantic asteroid belt. She knows that the troopers, whoever they are, whoever they’re working for, will understand that she’s intending to go straight back to the strange palace she’s started calling home, but she also knows that any force in this galaxy, no matter how dark, no matter how strong, is smart enough to know they can’t take on a planet full of Mandalorian warriors without all the strength they’ve got. From the way Kicker is paused in the middle of space, she knows it looks like she’s about to surrender, or at least like she’s weighing her options heavily, and the satisfied, smug silence of the trooper on the other end of the commlink is enough to assure herself that her plan—hasty and rash as it may be—is working.

“Okay,” she whispers, feigning resignation, into the comm. “I understand I’m dealing with forces a lot stronger than I am. I don’t surrender, but I’ll come with you. But first,” she whispers, silencing the clicking that the switches to go into hyperdrive with the muffler of her right hand, “I need to tell you something.”

There’s a pause. “So be it. Reeling you in via tractor beam now.”

The unmistakable whirring of a ship forcibly being dragged onto another’s power starts up, and Nova swallows, pushing the second to last toggle into place, keeping a steady eye on the rocketing meter on her dashboard that indicates the ship is fully charged. Under the noise of Kicker being pulled into the largest TIE fighter’s proximity, the beeping goes unnoticed by the other party. Nova slips her hand off the switch and finds the necklace Din gifted her back before he accepted his role of Mand’alor, pressing hard enough that the symbol embosses itself into her thumbprint. “First of all,” she starts, trying her hardest to keep her voice level and even and not reveal a single ounce of the glee that she’s concealing, “my name hasn’t been Andromeda Maluev in a decade. You want me to answer to you, to answer to the Order? You’ll call me Novalise.”

The sigh from the trooper is short, clipped. “Noted.”

“Second,” Nova continues, leveling her jaw with the center of the dashboard, watching every single thruster lock itself into gear, “I am married to the galaxy’s most ruthless bounty hunter. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than the word surrender to scare me into submission.”

Kicker grinds to a halt in midair. Nova straps herself in tighter, just enough to ensure that she won’t be sent reeling across the perfectly aligned dashboard when she breaks free of the tractor beam and shoots Kicker straight into the stars, back to Mandalore, back to Din, back home, and steels herself.

“Stop,” another voice says, tinny and nervous over the speaker. “She’s—she’s screwing with us, sir—”

“I’m assuming,” the original trooper speaks, trying to intimidate Nova with the ice in his voice, “that there’s a third thing?”

“Oh, there’s always a third thing,” Nova volleys back, eyes catching the light of what’s been powering up the entire time the troopers thought she was weighing her options and deciding the First Order’s clutches sounded warm and delightful, after all. “Not only am I a commander in the New Rogue Squadron, not only am I the wife of the reigning Mand’alor, I contain multitudes.” She grins, her teeth bared and gleeful in the low light of space, knowing this is by far the most badass exit she’s ever attempted. “And do you know what that means?”

The trooper in the largest fighter sounds defeated. This was barely even a scratch compared to the narrow scrapes Nova’s been entangled with before. She bites down on her bottom lip, cracking her neck, taking advantage of Kicker’s stationary position to break free of the tractor beam, and as the angry clamor of the three troopers in the fighters trying to reel the ship in starts to filter across the commlink, Nova does what she does best.

She barrel rolls the entirety of Kicker, flipping downward and over so that she’s facing the three fighters, staring through her Rebel helmet at the floodlights drenching her whole ship in florescence that shouldn’t be possible in space, and shows every single one of her teeth, smile stretched so far across her face that it hurts, “My starfighter is Rebel-made, sure, but it’s gotten a few upgrades in the past few weeks. The only reason you got this far was because I was waiting to unload the artillery loaded up in the guns that are pointed at you right now. And you know what they’re made of?”

“All aim to kill—”

Nova can’t resist. She tries, but this whole royalty thing, the whole leading the New Rogue Squadron thing, this whole being a Jedi thing—well, all of it has been tallied up enough to recognize she can stand to be the tiniest bit cocky to the people trying to kill her or bring her in as a slave. She raises a single middle finger, making sure that the pilot of the largest fighter catches her elongated, elegant bird with the floodlights. “Same thing as my resolve is. Beskar, bitch.” And with that, she punches all the thrusters, Kicker dazzling and evaporating through hyperspace, gone before the first trigger even pulls.

Mandalore is quiet. There’s a strange serenity that lives on the horizon, pulsing and shifting, but never quite tangible from the planet’s surface. It’s hard to look at the place where the greatest warriors in the galaxy are born and bred and not see anything but a whetted, sharp arena, but so much of this planet is soft around the edges. The blue architecture in the capital, for one—something Nova knows is much newer than the ancient history of the land here—and there’s a silence here that teeters on eerie but mostly stays in a strange sense of tranquility.

It doesn’t hold the feeling of abandonment, like so many other planets do these days, but it seems like the rest of the world around the city is disconnected. Inhabitable. Nova parks Kicker in the nearest landing bay, watching the strange haze that hangs over the atmosphere, trying to find other places where lights are lit, where people live, but so much of the planet is quiet. It’s the same sort of stark contrast that Yavin had when her and Din got engaged all those months ago, or Hoth’s anesthetic brutality, but Mandalore’s environment feels different.

And, Nova reasons, as she disembarks off Kicker’s gangplank, running the tips of her fingers over the Rebel insignia hidden under the outermost coat of white and silver detailing, it’s likely because this isn’t home. Not yet, anyway, and it might never have that feeling of belonging that the Crest did, that Kicker does, that her and Din found on Naator and Kashyyyk and Nevarro. Nova climbs the marble steps to the palace, smiling at the stoic Mandalorians stationed outside as she slips up the stairs and through the main entrance, immediately cutting sideways up the hallways to the left, watching as her shadow traipses behind her in the blue dusk, trying to not stake stock of the silence that most of the building holds. In true Mandalorian fashion, their holding cells are built into the palace itself, alongside training arenas and the war room where Din spends most of his time. Nova moves as quietly as she can through the halls, up the other marble staircase, and when she bursts into the chambers twice the size of the starship that she and Din usually call home, a gurgle from Grogu on the floor makes the entire day turn around.

Nova grins, dropping to her knees. Grogu beams up at her, his big bug eyes full of nothing but love, and she scoops him up, pressing his tiny, warm body against her chest. It chases away all the chill of Hoth and the crush of space, and for a second, she just runs her fingers over the top of his fuzzy head, pressing kisses to his green skin, soaking in every second she can.

“I missed you, lovey,” she murmurs, and Grogu’s giant green ears perk up. “What did you do in your day here?”

Grogu pulls away from her chest, pressing a three-fingered hand against Nova’s temple. The visions that used to terrify her, the ones Grogu put into her head, filled with screaming and loss and desperation, fall away as he shows her the bath he took, the feast he got for dinner, sitting on Din’s lap while in the war room. As he drops his touch, Nova grins down at him, all teeth and excitement, all of the panic and isolation of the last few hours melting away.

“He terrorized Bo-Katan,” a familiar voice rings out from behind her, and Nova pushes herself up on the heels of her hands, her heart flipping over with the same butterfly menagerie Din’s always given her. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop.”

“Hi,” Nova whispers, giddy, watching as Din steps forward out of the shadows. It doesn’t matter how many times she’s been lucky enough to gaze over his handsome face, it doesn’t matter that he’s been spending more time helmetless here on Mandalore, every time she sees him, it’s like the first time. In the moonlight, obscured by the permafrost of Mandalore’s blue twilight, Nova’s eyes roam over the valleys and mountains of her husband’s face. His hair is the length it was when he proposed, long enough for the ends to curl up gently. His mouth, even in the near darkness, is pink and gorgeous, his lips slightly parted in the unconscious way they do when Nova’s the only thing in his eyeline. His scruff is there, long enough to scratch her chin—or her thighs—up something terrible, and the ghost of the mustache she used to feel in the dark is strong, dark, manicured. His eyelashes are longer than the length of her thumbnails, and his eyes, his gorgeous brown eyes, soften around the edges the second Nova smiles.

“Hi,” Din echoes, bridging the gap between the two of them with two quick strides, and Nova feels her breath catch in her throat. Din’s hands, gloved in black and twice the size of her own, balance on the curve of her hips, his fingers digging into the loops of her orange jumpsuit, pulling Nova over her own feet, anchoring her body right up against hers. The way he kisses after only being separated overnight is desperate, longing, filled with words he doesn’t always know how to say. Nova leans into his embrace, head fuzzy, waterlogged, like everything else fades away. It does. She loses track of time, how many minutes pass, the stars behind her eyes dazzling, supernovae, regenerated.

When they break apart, Nova’s hand trails over the regalia Din’s wearing. It’s his familiar beskar, the armor he’s worn since they first met, but it’s been cleaned, and underneath, where his typical black undergarments used to cling to his build, he’s wearing Mandalore blue. It’s the color of the skyline at dusk, a faded azure that signals something more than warrior, something a shade closer to royalty. The material is lightweight, practical. It’s the same kind that every single one of her matching outfits are made out of—Mandalorians don’t have much use for aesthetic, it just gets in the way of practicality—but it seems more vibrant on Din. “How was today?” she whispers into the hollow of his mouth, and Din exhales, low and slow, tipping his bare forehead against hers.

“Long without you,” he admits, his voice barely anything. Nova’s eyes search his deep brown ones, trying to figure out where his exhaustion is hiding. “Come with me. I—I want to show you something.”

Nova nods, catching sight of the dirty orange jumpsuit stretched over her tan trousers, the black tank top she’d spent the past year replacing every time Din tore it off of her body. “I should change.”

Din’s eyes flick hungrily over her silhouette, and when he speaks again, his voice is husky. “No,” he says, finally, digging his thumb slightly into the flesh on her hip, “you shouldn’t.”

The trek downstairs is quiet. Both of them move in the shadows, lulled into an easy silence, their hands knitted together in between their two bodies. Nova watches as the low light of the corridor flickers as they cross over another staircase and down a side hallway, entering through the war room by the back entrance instead of the front, even though there’s no one left in here to try to hide from.

Nova’s been in here at least ten times, but the decoration steals the breath straight out of her mouth every time. A glittering holotable, top of the line, at least twenty years more advanced than the one on Hoth, sits in the direct center. The ceiling looks more like a cathedral than it does anything else, which is perfectly fitting for a group of people who treat fighting as their religion. Nova looks up through the sheer domed ceiling, watching as the moody dusk falls into a silent, quiet night. Stars dazzle and shine from above, and even though they’re not nearly as poignant and powerful down here as they are out in space, the direct line to the cosmos is bright enough to make her throat ache. “Wow,” Nova whispers, voice barely anything at all, staring straight upward, mapping constellations under her breath. Eventually, her eyes slide off of the ceiling, traveling over the careful architecture, the shrines in the corners, the murals painstakingly hand-painted across the circular walls, all of beskar and helmets and Mandalorian history. It feels so ancient, even though the palace was recently rebuilt, reconstructed from nothing during both of their lifetimes. She’s been in here a handful of times before, but never as night is on the horizon. There’s something transcendent about this place, this holy center of Mandalorian worship. Something deeper, something divine enough to make a Jedi believe in them, too.

Din’s standing across the other end of the holotable, fidgeting with the controls until a map of the galaxy sparkles to life in front of them. Through the light, Nova watches the peaks of her husband’s face getting caught in the reflections, letting everything except his face blur out to stardust. “Did you get anything from Wedge?” he asks, and Nova blinks her eyes to refocus on the map. “Anything new? Anything…useful?”

Quietly, Nova shakes her head. “He thought—he called me back to Hoth because of a prison break in one of the sectors Cara doesn’t have jurisdiction in, or I’d suspect she’d have already taken care of it. It was small, just a few criminals with nothing more than petty charges breaking out of a hold somewhere, but he thought it might be related to—”

“The First Order?”

“Me,” Nova finishes, quietly. Her eyes narrow just a fraction, refocusing on Din’s silhouette through the glitter of the galaxy between them. “Yeah, the Order. We couldn’t prove anything, but I—”

“You feel something is coming,” Din interrupts gently, stealing the words right out of her mouth, bracing his strong, gloved hands on the side of the holotable, and Nova nods, watching his grip, starting to get a little dizzy, with lust or with the reflections above them or both. “Don’t you?”

“I do,” she echoes, confirming his theory. “I—I took a detour coming back here. I went to Polis Massa, to try and return to the library archives so I could learn more about Mandalore and bring you back something other than a dead end.”

Din stares at her, his face partially hidden in the glow of the rotating image of the holotable. “You brought yourself back here,” he says, finally, and Nova’s knees buckle a little under the husk of his voice. “It’s hard to care about much else.”

Nova bites down on her lip, butterflies swirling up a storm inside her tummy. “Din,” she whispers, leaning forward on the table, cocking her head in the signature way he always does, lifting her chin slightly with the tilt, “we are tasked with the incredible privilege of saving the galaxy, you know—”

“Fuck the galaxy,” Din breathes, and despite the fact that what he’s wanting to shirk is their top priority, and really has been for months, it buzzes inside Nova, wet and hot. “Let someone else handle it for once. I don’t care.”

“You do care,” she protests, weakly, but his tongue slides out from the hollow of his mouth, and everything else seems to evaporate. “I know—fuck, I don’t know, I know you missed me when I left overnight, I know we’ve been apart more than we’ve been together, but it’s for good reason, and when we save, y’know, the whole galaxy and everything, it…it’ll be all the time in the world for the two of us.”

“I’m impatient,” Din counters, roughly, and then he’s around the table in three quick, determined strides. Nova sighs, letting her body crumple a little as Din moves forward, his hands on her hips, anchoring her pelvis against his. “Don’t make me wait any more for you, cyar’ika, I won’t be able to stand it.”

Nova inhales sharply, feeling him harden against her leg, and she lifts her chin a touch more, enough for their lips to only be an inch apart, enough to make eye contact, enough for all of this to let the rest of the world fade right out. “You know,” she whispers, finally, blood pumping furiously, “you’re the leader of this planet. You could order me to do anything, and I’d be helpless to do anything but comply.”

Din lets out a groan, low and desperate, a choked off, guttural one. “And if I told you I wanted you right here on this table?”

Nova grins, her teeth glittering against the quickening darkness, pulling away only to drape herself over the holotable, face down, letting the spots where her body occupies the space filter out of the reflection. The glow of the lights is disrupted by her figure, and she hears Din’s voice catch in the dark behind her as she arches her back, still fully clothed, an invitation for him to come closer, to take what’s rightfully his. “Then you’d have me right here on this table, Mand’alor.”

She feels Din press up against her, hard against the soft, voluptuous curve of her ass. He inhales, heavily, she can hear it whine through the darkness, not hidden under the evenness of the modulator built into his helmet. Nova knows she’s an expert at getting out of things—sticky situations, clothes, everything in between—but right now, she wants to make Din wait beg for it before she complies. Something to prove that even while he’s the one on the throne, her neck is holding up the crown. At least here. Especially here.

“And if I told you I wanted to fuck you on the floor?”

“Then you’d take me on the floor, Mand’alor. I quite like the floor, you know.”

“You—” Din’s breath cuts off again, and Nova lets the timbre of his voice soak into her. It turns her heart over, first, that excitement tangling up with the knowledge that she’ll let him do anything. It’s been over a week since the last time they fucked, because he’s been spending most of his time in this room, trying to prove to the rest of the planet that he’s worthy enough to hold the throne, and she’s been splitting her time between Grogu and saving the galaxy. All of them necessary evils, deserving distractions, but it’s nearly impossible to think about anything other than the feel of Din up against Nova, his mouth on her neck, his hands on her hips, concerned only with burying himself as deep into her as he possibly can. “I brought you down here to show you the stars. You’re distracting me.”

Nova smiles, then braces her palms on top of the holotable, pushing herself up, gliding her body backwards up against her husband’s. “What an honor,” she purrs, quiet, low, the same kind of voice Din always uses when he wants her so badly it hurts to breathe, “that the king of Mandalore thinks I am a suitable distraction.”

“Novalise.”

“Use me as a distraction, then,” Nova continues, taking hold of one of Din’s gloved hands, guiding them against the curve of her chest, making sure he feels how her nipples harden under his touch, a soft, mewling sound with her mouth completely indicative of the flush of warmth rushing between her legs. “Show me anything you want, oh worthy Mand’alor, please—”

Her breath is cut off as Din whirls her around by her throat. It’s sudden, desperate, the kind of electricity he used to greet her with whenever he finally tracked down the bounty he was hunting and could let loose with her on the Crest.

“Get on,” Din starts, voice raggedly, both hands clenching against Nova’s cheeks, puckering her lips, “the fucking throne, cyar’ika.”

“The—throne?” Nova repeats, breathless. “You want—”

“I want to fuck you on my throne,” Din interrupts, and stars above, she can feel the way that his cock is throbbing in his pants, through the regalia, through the beskar, all of it. “You said anything I want. I want to make you scream my name on the planet we rule while I’m seven inches inside of you. That work for you?”

Nothing but a strangled moan comes out.

Din nods. “Good. Get over there.”

Nova reels back as he releases her. It takes more than a few seconds to collect herself enough to move, and when she does, her legs feel like they’re made out of rubber, elastic and wobbly. She can feel his heavy gaze on her as she makes her way around the holotable, and when she takes the few steps that lead to the ironclad, menacing chair that sits atop the highest point in the room, Din’s voice rings out.

“Stop,” he commands, and she does, feeling her heart hammer. “Face me.”

Nova turns, her breath caught in her throat, staring down at Din. The few steps she’s scaled make her just a tad taller than Din is, and she watches as he slowly moves forward, crossing the tile of the floor with quiet, intentional steps.

“Take your clothes off,” Din manages, and Nova’s almost a hundred percent sure that he’s whispering, even though it might just be that she can’t hear anything over how loud her blood is pumping, over how hard her heart is hammering.

“Now?”

He raises a single dark eyebrow, and Nova nods, trying to peel off her shirt and her trousers as fast as she can. She kicks off her shoes, and they land at the bottom of the steps with a very incriminating thud, but Din just kicks them out of the way as he presses the soles of his beskar boots deliberately against the tile. Everything in here is blue and reflective, even after night has fallen on Mandalore, and Nova catches sight of her silhouette in the floor. Her breath stutters in her throat, suddenly very aware that she’s completely naked and Din, save for his forgotten helmet, is fully clothed, but with the way his eyes are roving over her body like he’s starving and she’s the only thing in this galaxy or the next that can satiate it, she forgets how to care.

“You,” he starts, trailing a single gloved finger down the curve of her body, “are so beautiful.”

“Stop,” she whispers, smiling, everything burning and in flames. It’s the opposite of what she means—she never wants Din to stop calling her beautiful, stop revering her, stop treating her like something holy—but when they’re in a public room that just about anyone left on this planet can walk on, and she’s the only one naked, the risk burns hotter than her desire. “Din, I—”

His finger is on her lips before Nova even realizes he’s moved. “Do you believe me?”

Nova blinks, stuttering over the dying words hidden somewhere between her teeth and the back of her throat. The answer is yes, because Din Djarin never utters a single word that he doesn’t mean, because he uses so few of them to begin with, and also because he’s seen every single inch of her body and worshipped it, but in this reflective room, usually full of figures so much more athletic, razor-sharp, warrior-grade, a tiny bead of insecurity spools down the back of her neck. Nervously, Nova’s gaze filters off of Din’s, flicking over to the ornate door on the other side of the room, and when she looks back, he’s staring at her.

“Nova?” he repeats, gently, and something about the way he’s saying it makes tears spring up in her eyes. “Here. Come here. Look at yourself.”

She lets him guide her over to the throne, which is made out of the shiniest, most reflective beskar she’s ever seen, polished so effortlessly it doubles as a mirror, and Din pulls curls of her dark hair away from her collarbone, fingers grazing the new necklace he gifted her, one hand curling around her jaw, the other sliding down the side of her body.

“Look at yourself,” Din repeats, his touch still so light, and when Nova doesn’t immediately obey, his grip tightens. Not hard, just filled with enough desire to snap her back to her senses—that he took her into this room to fuck her senseless, that his eyes don’t meet anyone else’s, that Din Djarin isn’t a pious man in any other capacity than his Creed and all the rules he broke to worship Nova instead. She relaxes under his touch, her eyes glazing as they travel over the valleys of her naked body. Her skin doesn’t glow in the darkness like it does during the daylight, but it’s a rich brown, three or so shades darker than Din’s. Her eyes, a deep sage green that dips into brown in the darkness, glitter as they flash against the beskar. Her eyelashes, dark and tangled up in the corners from where her laughter lines are. Her nose, not as prominent as Din’s hooked, curved one, but big, slightly upturned, and anchored in the center of her face. Her mouth, plump and perma-stained deep pink from where she bites hard on it in concentration. Her hair, so long now that it trails down to where her curved hipbones protrude, woven into a deeper curl than the natural wave of her hair from the braids it’s always tied back in. Din’s hand on her hip clenches gently at his knuckles, and she lets her gaze shift off of her face, down the stocky muscles of her upper arms, slightly sore from twirling Grogu around and from flying out of her skirmish with the TIE fighters. Her hands are long and elegant, princess fingers, her mother used to call them, dainty and slender, nails kept short to flip all the necessary switches on whatever vessel she’s flying, thumbs worn down with callouses from fighting and twirling Luke’s lightsaber around for the last two weeks, trying to conjure the power he radiates on her own. Down the left side of her tummy, which is rounded and collects weight around her bellybutton, is the scar that Jacterr Calican left in an attempt to rip her soul out of her body, and Din’s finger traces over the bump of it, gentle, endearing, protective. Her hips, which are wide, the curves of her upper legs, the muscles that pack on more weight in her calves. Nova looks at herself and sees, just for a glimpse, just for a split second, that sure, she’s not shaped like a Mandalorian, but she’s certainly desired by one. Din pulls her hair back from where it’s settled against her throat, pressing his lips to her skin.

“What do you see?” he murmurs, his voice deep and electric.

“The girl you love,” Nova whispers, grinning at him in their reflections. Din spins her back around, much gentler than he did a minute ago, all the fire gone, his eyes gentle like the oceans on Yavin.

“Damn right,” Din affirms, the timbre of his voice in her ear making goosebumps spark up across Nova’s bare arms. “Now get on the throne.”

She’s giddy. Her heart is, as usual, racing a thousand beats per minute, threatening to hammer right out of her chest. It’s cold—the throne—cool to the touch. As Nova slowly slides down onto the beskar, she watches Din’s brown eyes flash with lust and longing, and his look alone is enough to take away the chill against her bare skin. The beskar warms to her touch, and she crosses one thick thigh over the other, trying to quell the nervousness that’s still whining at the back of her mind.

“Don’t look at the door,” Din orders, his head cocked to the side. It’s been a few months now since Nova’s seen every single contour of his face, but every new expression not hidden behind the helmet makes her stomach lurch up into her throat. Right now, she can see the tenseness of his command in his clenched jaw, but his eyes soften as they roam over her body. “Look at me.”

“Din—”

“Look at me.”

Nervously, she does. The second her eyes meet his, everything else fades away. In the back of her mind, she’s aware that she’s completely naked, her skin up and against something divine, something not meant for her, this throne that she’s about to be desecrated on.

And sweet Maker above, she doesn’t even care. Din slowly canvasses the distance between the two of them, the intensity of his gaze never once wavering off of Nova’s face. The pure look of animalistic desire on his unmasked face makes her whimper under her breath. If she were weaker, she would cower away, avert her eyes, but by this point, she’s earned her brazenness. There are exactly two things in this galaxy that the ruler of Mandalore, the most ruthless bounty hunter, and the man in front of her would do anything for. Grogu and Nova.

He doesn’t make a noise. Everything is an electric wire as he finds his secure, silent footing on the first step, and Nova’s heart catches in her throat. She wants to say something, to make a silly comment, to cut through the tension, but she knows that whatever’s about to follow Din’s ascent will be worth her quiet. Instead, Nova bites down on her trembling lip, watching the rest of the throne room disappear as Din steps closer, still not making a single noise, pulling his body weight up the lip of each step, staring at her.

“What?” she manages, finally, the word all air.

Din moves closer. Nova’s seated against the throne, the beskar suddenly warm against her bare skin. Everything in her is burning. “What do you want?” Din asks, his voice deep, rumbling through her like a honeyed thunderstorm. He doesn’t even have the modulator to filter his words, and even though the deepness of his voice through the helmet runs rivers through her, Nova’s suddenly glad for the bareness of all of this. It makes it easier, dirtier, better.

“I want you,” Nova manages, hollowly, the words surrender out of her parted lips. “Just you.”

“You want me?” Din repeats, and a flash of lust sparks up behind his beautiful brown eyes. There’s something dangerous in his tone, something deeper, something electric. She stares at him, unwilling to break his gaze. If it were anyone else, Nova would think that the timbre of Din’s voice was teasing, but the edge to it suggests towards pleading.

“Yes,” Nova echoes, and Din moves forward, towering over her. She stares up at him as one gloved hand easily notches against her right cheek, eyelashes fluttering as the pad of Din’s fabric-laden thumb traces over the mountain of her cheekbone. “I want you, Mand’alor—”

“I’m not Mand’alor right now, cyar’ika,” Din interrupts, his voice low and ragged, sparking somewhere in his throat. “Look at who’s on the throne.”

Nova gulps. Air is suddenly impossible to come by. Everything in her is electric, alive. Everything else fades out except for Din’s touch. Her doubt, her insecurity—it’s all been chased away and zapped into obliteration by the way Din’s speaking, touching, breathing. “I—”

“Say my name,” Din says, hooking his free hand under Nova’s chin. She swallows, letting the roughness of his gesture manipulate her body in any way that he wants, pliable against Din’s weathered hands. “Say you want me.”

“Din,” Nova squeaks out, and a single one of his dark eyebrows quirks up against the celestial darkness of the throne room, daring her to speak. “Din Djarin,” Nova rectifies, her voice suddenly loud and clear. It booms out, fills the throne room with sound. For once, the buzzing in her head completely drowns out her fear of being discovered. This palace doesn’t exist. Anyone walking the strange, ornate, blue halls doesn’t exist. Stars above, Mandalore itself doesn’t exist at this point. She’s emboldened, as if her will has flooded back, full-force. “Three things. There’s always three things included in how I want you. I want you without armor. I want you without titles. I want you like I had you back on Dagobah.”

“And how,” Din whispers, his voice running through Nova like heat, “is that?”

She gasps as Din’s hand slowly slips down to her throat, bracing itself there. He barely squeezes, and without all of her senses screaming at her that Din’s hand is against her, she thinks his touch would feel like a ghost, like nothing there at all. “Like we belong to each other,” Nova manages, and Din’s grip intensifies. It’s a slip. She can tell, with the way that his eyes roll back, with the way that a moan slips out from the hollow of his open mouth. Stars blur through her vision—some refracted from the open sky up above, and some from the restriction to her airflow, and she leans into the pressure just as Din retracts his grip.

“Cyar’ika—”

“I belong to you,” Nova whispers, the words sounding like a confessional, deeper and darker than she intended. Her hands find Din’s, wordlessly pulling his hand back to rest like a vice against her throat. “Everything in me is yours. Remember?”

Din squeezes again, and the grin that was hiding slowly spreads across Nova’s face. She knows that in the darkness, her teeth glow white, framed by the plump pinkness of her mouth. Din’s standing, still fully clothed, but she can tell by the way his grip tightens against her throat that he’s rock hard under all that beskar.

“Din,” she manages, her voice high and thready through the pressure of his hand, “what do you want?”

“I want you,” he chokes out, guttural and dangerous, his voice coming from somewhere beyond the horizon. Immediately, he pulls Nova to her feet by her throat, eyes flickering carefully over her own gaze to double-check that what he’s doing isn’t too far. She smiles back at him, and when she’s fully standing, smile still plastered across her starstruck face, she drops her grip on Din’s wrist and immediately moves to unhook his armor. She could do it in the dark. She could do it blind. By now, Nova’s memorized every single inch of Din’s body, whether he’s armored in all of his beskar or not. Even the new additions to his regalia since becoming Mand’alor are burned into Nova’s memory, bright and gleaming. She doesn’t break Din’s gaze as she undresses him, pulling the pauldrons off, the chest plates, the silver V of covering that protects his lower stomach and his crotch. It’s over in what feels like seconds, and then the only thing covering Din is the soft fabric of his underclothes. Nova tugs at his trousers first, pulling them down to reveal the silky feeling of his boxers. She positions herself in between Din’s legs, grabbing his right hip to anchor his hardness against her, and he groans out again, the desperate, wet sound filling up the throne room. It's loud. Too loud. The kind of loud that Din never reaches, not unless they’re the only two people on a planet, not unless they’re lost out there in the crush of space. If his cheeks redden at the sound, though, Nova doesn’t catch it, because her touch is too focused, her vision still spinning off starry, impassioned, loud. Slowly, she reaches up through Din’s weakening grip to pull the shirt off of his torso, breath catching in her throat as she takes the King of Mandalore without armor, without clothes, without anything. Nova smiles up at Din, blinking away the small tears of pleasure that gathered in the corners of her eyes, and then she sinks back down on the throne, squaring her shoulders, tossing her loose hair out of her face, eyes full of allure and desire.

“I want you,” she echoes, and then her mouth is on his stomach. Din gasps out, the sound of it ringing out like infernal bells, and Nova hides her teeth as she grins against his stomach, tongue swirling up and down his belly, fingers grazing like butterfly wings across the bones of his hips. She can feel him growing harder and harder as she teases, parting some of the faint hair that trails down his stomach with the wetness of her mouth. Din’s hands find her shoulders, and his fingers clench down, leaving small half-moons imprinted on either side of her neck. “Can I taste you?”

“W—want you,” Din chokes out, his voice demanding and desperate, but the rocking of his hips against her chest betrays him, and before he can make good on his command, Nova’s already slid every inch of him down her throat. She moans in rhythm with him, as Din’s hands leave her shoulders in a frenzy and instead tangle in her hair, wanting. Quietly, Nova swirls her tongue around the base before she pulls off of his cock with a loud, slurping, sucking noise, and she doesn’t even have time to be embarrassed before she’s sinking her mouth all the way down over Din again, the tears that have returned at the corners of her eyes springing back to life. They feel like satisfaction. She can feel him trembling, and when she drops one of her hands between his legs, lightly cupping his balls, Din cries out again. “Nova—”

“Shh,” she interrupts, which is truly a feat, considering her mouth is full of him and her saliva and not much else, “let me finish you here.”

“No,” Din interrupts, and his voice is strangled, muddled. Immediately, Nova does, pulling her mouth off of him regrettably, blinking up at him, lower lip slowly jutted out. “I k—fuck, I know you wanted to finish me like this, but—but I need you to break in my throne.”

A jolt of lightning strikes through Nova’s body, and she shudders as Din’s shaking grip finds the small of her back and pulls her to her trembling feet. For a moment, everything else evaporates, just the two of them breathing and holding each other, Din’s forehead stooped low to press against hers, and then he whirls her around.

Nova’s used to Din’s manhandling, the expert way he spins and lifts her, like she’s made of nothing but air. This is much clumsier than his usual vigor, and when she’s done a complete 180 and is facing her husband, Mand’alor, the big brave bounty hunter, he’s seated on his throne like he owns it, and his hands are on Nova’s hips in the same place where she was sitting a second ago. There’s something deeper and more intense in his gaze right now, something beyond just lust. It’s power, Nova recognizes as Din pulls her hips down, her knees splaying to the sides of the beskar throne. The metal is unyielding against her bones, but still, she doesn’t feel the impact. Din has collapsed her on top of him, the only thing keeping her upward is his grip and her knees trying desperately to cling onto the straddling position that Din’s holding her in.

For a moment, she just stares at him. He looks like divinity, here, something deeper than just another human being in front of him. Nova doesn’t know if it’s the starry sky spinning through the throne room, or because this feels like a holy place of worship, or if it’s just been weeks since they’ve had longer than a handful of minutes at the end of the day before they both fall asleep, too exhausted and dizzied by their work to touch each other relentlessly, but she feels like she’s spinning. Like this has been months in the making, even though it’s only been a handful of days since Din pulled her down over his lap and anchored her hips to his. Her eyes are on his, desperate, searching. When a single hand trails up to brush against her throat, she eagerly leans into his touch, nodding before his outstretched hand makes contact with her neck, skin on skin.

“You want this?” Din breathes, eyes fixed on her open mouth, and Nova nods against his question, his touch, everything.

“More than anything,” she manages, voice throaty and high, stars spinning beyond her eyes. Din nods in assent, and then his hand is gone, a claw rounded around her hipbones, his fingernails sinking into the plushy flesh. The way he holds her as he grinds her down on top of him is enough to make the rest of the world—and every insecurity—trickle out of Nova. When he pushes inside her, slick and warm and so big from this position, she gasps, the sound of it wet and obscene, too loud for the silent room.

“Fuck,” Din hisses, and then Nova starts moving of her accord. She can’t really feel her knees as they dig into the smooth, impenetrable surface of the beskar throne, but it doesn’t even matter. This is worth never feeling either patella ever again. There’s something humming low and urgent in Din’s throat, his scratchy face buried in Nova’s neck, tongue licking and snapping at her most sensitive pulse point. She groans. “You—you’re perfect, cyar’ika.”

“Not perfect,” she murmurs, hands wrapping around Din’s neck and tangling in his dark hair, eyes fluttering open enough to catch a glimpse at it, her fingers long and beautiful as they tug at his hair.

“Listento yourself,” Din pleads, one of his strong, toned arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her down over and over. In any other situation it would be embarrassing, the sucking noise coming ceaselessly between her thighs, but she’s so wet and so close to the edge that she doesn’t try to obscure it, and doesn’t try to fight Din’s insistent, guttural words. “You’re perfect. Everything about you. Your hips, the—the way they move. Your eyes, rolling back into your skull as I fuck you. Shit, Nova, everything about your pussy, I—”

She can feel her cheeks burning. It’s not often that Din is this vocal, this unhinged, especially not in this situation. It’s dirty and forbidden, and as she bounces up and down on his cock, eyes rolled back like he loves, everything wet and slippery between her legs, she forgets all about the fact that they’re naked and desecrating the throne of Mandalore. It’s everything. It’s so much, and when she’s right on the edge of orgasm, Din grinds his hips up into her.

“Din—”

“I want to show you off,” he grits out, and before she can ask him what he means, he’s lifting her off of him like she weighs fucking nothing, pushing himself down to the hilt inside her as she watches the empty throne room, the empty seats around the holotable, watched by the lifeless warriors painted on the wall. She doesn’t try to hide any part of her body. Din’s still whispering every dirty sound he can think of in her ear, one broad arm wrapped around her waist, the other hand tangled up in Nova’s hair.

“To whom?” she asks, the words barely even air. She’s on the edge still, eyes blinking, torso trembling. She wants Din to let her cum so bad, she can barely hear what he’s saying over the pumping rush of blood in her ears.

Din lifts up a lock of hair, the same stubborn wave that always falls in her face, tucking it gently behind her year. For a second, she sees red, legs shaking, completely subject to whatever Din’s doing. “Everyone,” he whispers, and the shock of how guttural and feral his voice sounds sends Nova right over the edge she’d been teetering on. He makes her cum so hard that everything explodes out into the same number of stars shimmering above, divine and dangerous, white-hot, so, so alive. And before she has a chance to gain her senses back, Din’s dragging and rushing as deep into her as he can, every inch of him warm and desirable, and when he lets go to follow Nova over the edge of the cliff they’re both standing on, she gasps as he fills her, hot and thick. It’s so much harder than the last time they fucked, both of them devastated, exhausted, fulfilled.

Nova leans back against Din’s chest, heaving, spinning, trying to catch her breath. They’re both inhaling and exhaling intently, trying to return back to the planet they rule, to the throne they just fucked on. “Well,” she starts, pulling the long waves off her back, looking over her bare shoulder at Din, “wow.”

He laughs, and he’s still inside her, slowly softening as he comes back down from the high of it, pressing his pink lips against her exposed skin. “High praise.”

“It’s the truth,” she whispers, giggling, suddenly remembering where they are. “I—I can’t believe we just did that—”

“We’re newlyweds,” Din interrupts, his voice still rough from the aftermath of sex, and something sparks up low in Nova’s belly as he talks, “plus I’m the ruler of this planet, remember?”

She grins, tipping her shoulder back into his bare chest, trailing her fingers over his tan skin, tracing fault lines she’s never seen but knows are there. “I like power on you.”

“Nova—”

“No, seriously,” she continues. “It’s hot. Do you get a crown, maybe? Do I?”

“I think one of us will have to duel Bo-Katan for that one,” Din groans, and Nova laughs again, sliding off of his lap, slowly pulling together the pieces of armor she discarded earlier, tossing them through the dark air for Din to collect. The mention of Bo-Katan, though, sends a shiver of a reminder down Nova’s very exposed spine. She pulls her own underclothes on, quickly whipping her tank top back over her head, suddenly remembering how cold it is in here when she’s not writhing between the proverbial sheets with her husband. She bites down on her lip, hastily zipping her trousers up, the noise loud and discordant. “Nova,” Din continues, squinting at her, “what’s wrong?”

“Oh,” she says, dazed, tossing the last piece of armor back over to him, “you know, we—we just desecrated a holy part of Mandalore, we don’t know how the hell to fight off the First Order, and Bo-Katan is probably standing right outside that door, ready to kick both of our asses.”

“She,” Din answers, pushing against the heavy beskar doors, “is not here. We’re working on how to stop the Order. And this holy part of Mandalore,” he breathes, walking back towards her, one eyebrow raised, as if he’s questioning the way his face is displaying expression, “is ours to desecrate.”

“When you said,” Nova breathes, staring back at him, everything else fading out, “that you wanted to show me off to everyone—”

Din suddenly looks sheepish, and she giggles. “Nova, I didn’t—I was just into the moment, if you don’t want to—you never have to, I—”

She grins, smile glittering in the dark, sliding past him and into the empty hall, drifting in the general direction of their bedroom. “I didn’t say,” she whispers coyly, holding out one hand for Din’s gloved one, “that I didn’t want to.” She winks, pulling a still-stammering Din behind her. “I just can’t believe you want to share me with anyone.”

They’re up the stairs and back to the entrance to the master bedroom, and Din finally finds his words—or his grip—and grabs her, twirling Nova back into his arms with the force of the bounty hunter that he used to be. “You’re mine,” he whispers. “I won’t let a single person in this galaxy forget it.”

Nova grins, heart doing backflips in her chest. By the time they finally make their way into the suite, it’s dark across the whole wide expanse of sky, and Grogu is asleep in their bed, comically small compared to the king-size that takes up most of the room. “I know,” she whispers, looking back and forth from her husband to their son, a smile etched into her lips. “We should get to bed,” she murmurs, after a second, and Din nods, pulling off the armor and his underclothes in his silent Mandalorian way, Nova weaving her hair back into her usual braid, feeling the bruises from her knees banging forcefully into the beskar throne.

“What’s on your schedule for tomorrow?” Din asks, both of them gently pulling the pillows that line the bed onto the ground, until it’s empty except for their usual spread and the baby’s tiny body. His eyes drift down to Grogu, and so do Nova’s. He knows. She knows. Neither of them want to say it aloud. It’s time for Grogu to go back with Luke and resume his Jedi training, even though none of them want him gone. Nova swallows.

“You know,” she tries, halfheartedly trying to lift her voice into excitement, “Back to business.”

Din rolls over, facing Nova in the darkness. “You don’t have to,” he whispers, and she knows losing Grogu again, even though it’s to Luke Skywalker, even though they’ll be able to fix it, is wreaking havoc on him too. Nova settles down next to him, ears focused only on the miniscule snores of Grogu’s open mouth, her hand finding Din’s, her eyes falling over where Luke’s lightsaber is hanging ceremoniously by the door.

“But I do,” she answers, finally, closing her tired eyes. “We have a galaxy to save. And I,” she breathes, snuggling in closer to the baby, “have a Jedi to see.”

if you would like to be taken off the taglist or put on it, send me a message/ask/comment!! <3

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!!! whether you're a returning reader or a longtime lover, i m so happy you're here with Din, Nova, Grogu, and me. i just simply could not stay away from this story, and i cannot wait to go across the stars and back with the second fic in the series!! leave all your thoughts in the comments here, or find me over at tumblr @ amiedala, or scroll through my tiktok @ padmeamydala

CHAPTER 2 WILL BE UP SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH, @ 7:30 PM EST!

xoxo, amelie

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megatraven · 4 years ago

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Shapeshifting Poly AU. A video was posted to UTube. A video that got a LOT of views and comments and likes. The title? KITTENS CHASE PUNK OUT OF THEIR TERRITORY. It's a video of KittenJason and kittenCeleste following JD around and hissing at 'em, often climbing on desk and high places to up their intimidation tactic, until JD leaves HERA, The video ends with a close up on the kittens smug/proud faces.

WFERGTEFRGTFEGTGREEFGRTH HAHHAHAHAHA

the real kicker is that hifl mc is the one that posts it and she ends up high-fiving jason and celeste both

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beingatoaster · 6 years ago

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Okay then. Yelkha- 18, 20, 32, 35, 73; Hallifax- 10, 18, 26, 61, 79; Krue- 3, 16, 31, 38, 74; Sudryal- 5, 24, 27, 52, 81

Hey, look, I got them all done the same day! :D

Yelkha

18. What would your character’s Zodiac sign be, following stereotypical astrology?

YOU KNOW FULL WELL SHE’S A TAUROS XD

20. What is the biggest mistake your character has ever made?

In her own opinion, probably the only mistake she’s made is not leaving the tribe more cleverly–faking her and Gurgiu’s death or something–since they have caused real trouble for her and Bryn since. Stealing Gurgiu was a good choice, beating up the dog-kicker was a good choice, traveling with Bryn was a good choice….

In a more meta/OOC sense, years later she will look back and think, hell, she shoulda stolen her kids from the start, then Bryn wouldn’t have gotten so determined to charge back in and steal them. :P But that’s more hindsight.

32. What is your character the most insecure about?

She gets super jealous over Bryn at times in large part because she’s insecure about… well, being everything Bryn needs and deserves. Growing up fairly monogamous in a society where poly was the mandated default kind of messed her up on social norms, and while mostly she’s just like, ‘sex is fun, I love Bryn, we are good at asking each other for stuff,’ sometimes she gets insecure about all of it anyway–she’s not experienced at this kind of sex, she’s only just learning romance, and when Bryn mentions someone from her past who she seemed to really like or someone is really smooth with her, Yelkha’s stomach goes all funny and then she sees red.

She’s also, more generally, insecure about herself around smaller and more delicate races. Yelkha knows she’s big and strong and she’s proud of it, but she also knows that she is not exactly dextrous or delicate, and she’s prone to unreasoning rage, and she sort of lives in fear around smallfolk in particular that she’s going to fuck up and just break a whole gnome somehow.

35. Why is your character’s lowest stat their lowest (the in-character reason, not “because there’s no reason for a wizard to have 16 strength, duh”)?

Yelkha’s lowest stat is her 8 INT, and it’s because she is not well-educated at all! She’s gotten plenty of training in practical skills like midwifery and training, but let’s be real, she can barely read. Intelligence in D&D seems to be mostly knowledge skills, but she also isn’t natively good at reasoning through stuff and wasn’t taught critical thinking, either.

73. If your character knew that they were going to die in a month, how would they spend the rest of their life?

Okay, I’m gonna be completely honest: if Bryn didn’t know, Yelkha wouldn’t want to tell her, and she’d try to do the super dumb, super dramatic thing where she tried to engineer a rift between them so that Bryn wouldn’t feel broken up about it or obliged to stay with her or anything. The rest of her time would be spent trying to make sure Gurgiu would be happy and secure. She might try to send a message to the tribe, just to keep them from chasing Bryn any more.

—

Hallifax

10. If your character had time to pick up any artisan’s tools, game set, instrument, etc., what would it be?

Hallifax can play cards and dice, because she’s a sailor, but she’s not proficient with them, and hell yeah would she like to pick up that full proficiency. She also wouldn’t mind really learning to be great with cook’s utensils. (As it is, she does her best, but she likes cooking for people and that is… unfortunate… for the people in question. I hope Grusha likes her eggs burnt and the chopped tomato on top of them somehow uncooked and runny.)

18. What would your character’s Zodiac sign be, following stereotypical astrology?

I can’t decide between Aries and Scorpio, because Aries fits very slightly better overall, but Scorpio is almost as perfect, and is a water sign to boot….

26. What would your character say their best trait would be?

Hallifax would boast about the fact that she’s a hard worker, and might go so far as to talk up her competence, since she’s very, very proud of that, even if it seems like it’s dissing other people. Privately, in her head, she is dissing other people–not all other people, but specifically people who don’t catch on quickly to physical tasks. It’s something she values the most in others, competence and quick learning, so of course she has to value it in herself too.

61. How does your character imagine the way they will die?

Although Hallifax is a “never say die” type of person, when she’s feeling particularly down she does seriously accept that she very well may die in her quest of vengeance, since she assumes she’s going to be facing down a powerful wizard and the nastiest minions they can summon. She likes to turn that thought on the head by imagining it being heroic, but… there’s more reasons than her youth and impulsivity to why she hasn’t put a lot of thought to “courting proper” or settling down or, in general, a future beyond her quest.

But goddamn, does she really like the idea of saving her captain and surviving crew and going out like some kind of Big Damn Hero.

79. What unusual talents does your character possess?

I’m… honestly not sure what counts as unusual, given what you might expect from a water genasi/halfling cross and their background. XD She’s weird in general, but everything she’s got is something that, if you think about it, follows naturally from that. She has a really good sense of balance, is that an unusual talent?

—

Kr'AUKtktktktkwer

3. What are your character’s core moral beliefs?

I’m not… entirely solid on this yet? Krue is Lawful because that’s just who she is, her respect for authority, but while she’s more Lawful than Good, she’s also Lawful Good because she’s kind, and prefers to mean well. I know that the core ethos that she works from is respect–respect for other people, respect for their beliefs, respect for their ethics, respect for their beliefs. That can mean letting an individual be harmed, because she believes that a society builds its laws and rules and punishments for the benefit of the group as a whole, and even if she disagrees with or disapproves of this specific harm that structure is doing, she finds it hard to believe that it wouldn’t be for the greater good. Why would a society let things that aren’t for the greater good become enshrined in law and custom? (This is something she believes about her own society as well, despite… some personal evidence to the contrary, so it’s really hard to question it about other societies without facing it about her own.)

Her ideals are not quite the same as her core moral beliefs, to me, but they’re a good guide. Tradition is innately good, strangers’ traditions are to be respected, authority wouldn’t be authority if it wasn’t right, family owes obligations of both action and affection to each other. Again, respect is at the core of it all.

16. If your character wasn’t whatever class they are, what would they be instead?

Well, not cleric! She is basically a fantasy atheist: the force she serves is a natural force, not a deity, and while she understands that real deities do exist, and respects them and even invokes them in some of her ceremonies, she does not serve them herself. (Syranita is just sort of… there, for her people. In abstract theory they worship her, but in practice they don’t spend a lot of time on it, and besides, she’s a goddess of Life. A cleric of Syranita would be placed in the inner colony and not allowed to contact the outside world, and definitely wouldn’t be allwoed to sully themselves with death rituals.)

It’s easier to say what she wouldn’t be than what she would, but by process of elimination: not a barbarian, not a bard, not a fighter, not a paladin, not a rogue, not a sorcerer, and not a wizard. That leaves druid, monk, and ranger, and despite the racial boost I don’t see her as that dextrous or physically adept, so she’d be a druid. Probably a Circle of Twilight druid, backstory staying the same and all.

31. What stereotypical group role does your character play in the party? (The Mom, the Mess, the Comic Relief, etc. Optionally: What role would your character play in the “Five Man Band” structure?)

In a Five Man Band, she’d probably be the Chick/the Heart, balancing out anyone she works with. More generally, she would find herself compelled to be the Only Adult in any group of younger folks (she’s not the mom friend by a long shot, but she’d help mediate between them and the rest of the world), and would definitely be the Peacemaker.

38. What treasure/item/artifact that your character has collected during the adventure is the most important to them?

She hasn’t really adventured to say, but… in general, she values tokens of sentimental value rather than useful objects or things of power. Though, if they’re useful, that’s a bonus. She probably has a tangle of charms tied to her bag, little gifts that she’s wrapped in string and tied to fasteners or straps so that she can carry them with her always.

74. What makes your character feel safe?

Heights, especially heights that would be difficult for anyone else to get to. Open spaces where she can launch herself easily, especially if there’s a convenient cliff. Open spaces in general, just for nice long lines of sight. She’s also emotionally comforted by ceremony and ritual, whether it’s the simple exchange of practiced greetings or the ornate details of a religious ceremony that she knows.

—

Sudryal

5. Does your character have any biases for or against certain races?

His bias tends to be more against more technological, less nature-respecting cultures than particular races, but given that in DnD there are certain races more prone to that… he’s not a big fan of dwarves and humans, at least when they’re doing their resource-gobbling thing. Dwarves are a bit better because they think more in the long-term and can sometimes be talked out of it, though. And he does have some lingering elvish bias against orcs (he had to get over that fast when he met Grai, ngl, and sometimes he’ll still unthinkingly make a genuinely hurtful assumption or statement) and hobgoblins, c.f. the standard racial rivalries there. But it’s mostly humans he’s most scornful of, fast-breeding and innovative and often heedless of the future.

24. Which other player character does your character find themselves having the most in common with?

Of the group he hangs out with when we talk, Gul, just because they have to patch up the same idiots and put up with the same dumbassery. XD He is probably quite willing to bond with them over Dumb Things These Kids Have Done, expanding out to Dumb Things Critters Around You Have Done and Unnecessary Medical Emergencies You’ve Treated and so on.

(NGL, Sudryal is also pretty loosely attached to his gender–I waffled between “him” and “they” throughout writing his backstory, before eventually deciding he just doesn’t feel enough dysphoria to stake that ground out socially, but if he was one of those elves that could change daily he’d be ‘neither’ as often as not–and I think he might kind of ping on Gul a bit about that, too, subconsciously. Probably not talk to them about it, except very casually and in passing, but… yeah.)

27. What is your character’s greatest fear? Deep, irrational?

If we’re talking deep, irrational fears, then it’s that he’s a Bad Person To Be Around. He knows he’s not an easy person to be around in the first place, and he’s mostly okay with that, and also he doesn’t know how to be any other kind of person–but while he judges himself for being toxic personality-wise (without managing to really shake the bad habits or patterns of thinking that cause it), what he’s really afraid of is that he’s innately toxic, that he’s surrounded by bad luck or an evil destiny or a spiritual poisonous aura. That for all the healing he does, all the mediation and problem-solving he tries to do, in the end he’s still going to make places and people worse just by being there. That he walks around ruining things with his existence, and an isolated god chose him for an isolated hermitage specifically to bottle him up there with the bigger evil buried under it.

…and while there’s a lot more reasons as well, petty and small-minded ones that he can acknowledge as petty and small-minded without actually repudiating them, one reason not to fix his abrasive attitude is that if people don’t get too close, maybe he can’t mar them too badly.

He’s also super afraid of whatever his god is guarding, and pretty damn afraid that he’s not going to prove competent enough with people to actually successfully unwind the shit going down that might expose it. That’s a much more rational fear, though, and a conscious one, while the other one is mostly subconscious.

52. If your character was granted a single use of Wish, what would they use it for?

He’d actually be very careful about it, because Sudryal has already learned the 'be careful what you wish for’ lesson. Sometimes you think you have everything under control, and you don’t–and that can be even more true of magic, especially such a big piece of magic, than it is of, you know, owlbears. Just as a random example.

If not forced to use it immediately (at which point he’d slap fire resistance on everyone), he’d probably save it in order to use either the heal-all option or the undo-recent-event option in the case of a disastrous battle. That’s a resource you save, if you possibly can.

81. What does your character’s name represent to them? (Or: why as a player did you choose your character’s name?)

Guess who made a name by mashing together elements of elven names from Xanathar’s and then playing with the pronunciation and spelling til I was happy with it. 8D To Sudryal, his first name is his last connection to his family–he can’t claim his clan name anymore, now that he’s been exiled, but they didn’t take this one from him. And the surnames/epithets he offers to others who insist on having them, Twice-Bitten and Wolf-Mender, are of his own make and serve as adequate self-description.

'Sudryal’ probably means something in Elvish, too, that may or may not be meaningful to him, but again, I made it up by mushing sounds together and I’m not sure what it should actually mean. (I mean, I can think of a lot of nastily ironic meanings, but there are so many options if that’s the route I take.) In any case, I figure that for elves it’s like being named Patience or Rose: it may technically mean something, but unless it ends up being goofily ironic, to you it’s just your nam

#dnd chars #yelkha #krue #sudryal #hallifax mudbottom

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pinkletterday · 6 years ago

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In which Hussie says to hell with it and talks about all her slash WiPs even though she has no idea when they will be posted.

I love Olivarry and Coldflash. But my problem with reading those fics are that I miss Iris like a limb if she's not also part of Barry.

I felt the same way before I ever shipped Westallen, and I didn't even ship them for the longest time. Nor was I particularly interested in Iris as a character until sometime mid-way S3.

(It was when she burst into frightened tears in 3x9. Something in me immediately went PROTECC and it hasn't turned off since.)

I think it was more the sheer intensity of Barry's love for her that fascinated me. Not that a man fixating on a woman and obsessively pinning all his happiness on her is new or healthy phenomenon, but it was also deeper than that, character-wise. His love for her is so tied up in his self-definition, and the myriad ways their childhood bond helped mould their adult selves.

(And the fact that no matter how this love can change in nature, he will never be immune to appreciating her beauty and sexuality as a woman, which is so important to me as a slash fan and WoC. Seeing women be desexualized unless they're active romantic interests makes me want to scream. You can find people attractive af without wanting to bang them! It doesnt make you any less close! Not all close m/f relationships have to be sibling-like! Aargh!)

Regardless of how it came about, I need Iris to have that importance in Barry's life no matter who (else?) he's in love with. Which is why I started writing slash myself. It's a relief to me to know that she's there in every story I write, like a personal touchstone if nothing else. There you are my darling, you aren't forgotten.

Coldflash vs Olivarry polyam AU - Barry's love for Iris and the pain of her rejection is the springboard of the series. His struggle to reconcile with her over the years drives his character trajectory as much his love for Len and Oliver does. And there is so much she sees and evolves and goes through herself that the stupid boy cannot see until the very end, caught up in his own pain as he is.

The Assistant Verse - Barry and Iris are queerplatonic partners in a poly sexual relationship. Iris is the one who dolls up her boy in lipstick and booty shorts and sends him into Len's path in Paint It Red. Many years later, in Every Kind of Love, she descends wrathfully on Oliver from half a world away for doing her darling wrong, bringing her own broken heart for Barry to nurse.

This is one of the most wholesome Westallen relationships I have ever written, even though I'm pretty sure it will generate the least interest.

For The Good of the Realm - in the first draft Iris was Barry's first love and heartbreak pulled apart by politics, but in the second revision they're again queerplatonic partners and childhood best friends who call each other "soulmates". They had hoped to be married to each other and be kept safe from political matches. But then Barry becomes betrothed to High King Oliver and must be sent to Starling Court as the reluctant new Prince Consort, while Iris sets out on her mission to emancipate the tribes of the Middle Kingdom. They gift each other two halves of a magical "heartstone", a conduit of emotional resonance that connects two people across leagues of distance. In the fear, alienation and intrigue of the Starling Court, its Iris's love and safety that Barry holds onto, even while he falls in love with his husband.

Call Me By Your Name - Barry and Iris go to Greece in the summer before college, each hoping it will lead to a resolution to the magnetic push and pull they've been feeling for years. But when Barry meets and falls in love with Oliver and realizes he's gay, he is devastated at both breaking Iris's heart and not being in love with her. Because he really wants to be; she's always been his home and the future he's envisioned - to lose that terrifies him. It's a story about Barry and Oliver's sexual and romantic awakening, but also about how Barry and Iris manage to break down their own expectations of what it means to love one another forever and build something much truer and real.

A Stitch in Time is solidly Queenwestallen now. I was going to have Iris evolve into an undefined queerplatonic partner for Barry and Oliver but that ship is long gone.

For Love Or Money - Barry and Iris were childhood sweethearts and married young, Barry's tech startup and her career both took off. By their mid-twenties they should be the couple that has it all.

Except for Iris finally realizing she's ace and sex-repulsed. This is a terrible shock to both of them and not a small blow to Barry's self-esteem because she's the only woman he's ever been with. But they decide they're too in love to divorce and Iris tentatively suggests that Barry takes the opportunity to explore his interest in men, leading him to engage Oliver's services as an escort. Iris has to discover for herself what it means to be an asexual woman but Barry falling in love with Oliver is an issue they both have to deal with as a couple. Meanwhile Oliver has to reconcile the fact that not only is he falling for a client but one who is very much in love with his wife.

Mercury Rising - my Earth-13 Coldflash mob boss AU and oh is Iris ever there! This is my most delicious iteration of her - not as Barry's support but as his combatant, his antagonist and the eternal thorn in his side. Her unwitting role in Barry's betrayal that drives him to criminality, her bull-headed faith in the goodness of his character even in the face of his escalating violence, calling him to account every step of the way till he does the one thing she cannot forgive. The resulting single-minded determination to take her former best friend down without compromising her own moral code even as the undeniable magnetism between the two of them wreak havoc with their lives, and final realization that even after everything she can never give up on Barry Allen. Hate is truly just love with its back turned and what makes them tear each other to pieces even as it brings out their noblest and most human instincts.

Queen of Starling - On Earth 42, Beatrice Allen is adopted by Harrison Wells when her parents are murdered and taken away to Starling City - but even distance can't make her less in love with the best friend she left behind.

Here's the kicker of this story - Iris dies. Her death bisects Beatrice's story in two - the halycon days of her girlhood and the shattered trauma of the next fifteen years where she has to collect the pieces of herself out of her lover's grave to rebuild herself into the mother her children need, the superhero the world needs and to let herself love again.

The Awakening - Curse specialist Iris West and alchemist/ lore master Barry Allen are part of the Men of Letters team that go into a old cursed and haunted mansion to retrieve the Book Of The Dead, last known to have been in the hands of disgraced former Man of Letters and necromancer Eobard Thawne. The team is led by their chapter's chairman Harrison Wells, but the expedition is funded by eccentric millionaire and hunter Oliver Queen.

The blue-collar hunters and elitist Men of Letters don't trust Oliver, being seen as a mere hobbyist or thrill-seeker in the absence of any real tragedy or family legacy to put him on his path. But Iris distrusts him because she's the only one who can see his clear attraction to her best friend and childhood sweetheart Barry. Iris has spent her life as Barry's protector, himself being something of a pariah in the community due to his rumoured supernatural parentage and open empathy for the spirits and monsters they hunt. It's Iris that sees the way the house draws in both Barry and Oliver and the patterns of the hauntings that occur around them, she's the one who is as terrified for Barry's safety as Oliver as the house sucks them deeper into the tragedy of its past and she's the one that finally deduces how the malevolence of the house works and what it wants.

From Dusk Till Dawn - I think this is the story that has Iris in it the least. Eobard kidnaps Barry at age fifteen and subjects him to an experiment that backfires badly, leaving him dead and Barry with only a fraction of powers he was destined to have and no connection to the Speed Force. ARGUS immediately finds him and forces him to manufacture a rift with the Wests so they can claim him without suspicion, mould him into one of their operatives and train him to hunt the other metahumans Eobard created.

This is an Olivarry story where Barry rediscovers hope and love through his secret protection of Oliver. But its the memory of Iris's love and the happiness of their childhood that keeps him tethered to his humanity through the next eight years, it is her that he goes to the night before what he believes will be his final sacrifice ("You have always been the best part of me. Keep that part of me inside your heart and I can never die. Keep me and don't let me go, Iris"), it is her, after everything, that leads him home, and it is her that seeks out Oliver and asks him to help Barry heal.

This is not including my Coldwestallen fics The Scarlet Rose (Snow Queen/ Beauty and the Beast fusion) and The Adventures of Snart The Cat (Bastet turns Len into a cat and charges him with protecting Barry and Iris's unborn child).

So yes, I absolutely started writing slash because I missed Iris West. It's not just her though. None of the ladies are relegated to ship support. In the Polyam AU Lisa Snart specifically rips into Barry for ignoring her emotional needs as a friend while on the outs with Len, Oliver's fixation with Barry in Stitch in Time and resulting neglect of his friendship with Laurel has serious repercussions, Caitlin couldn't give less of a damn about Barry's romantic exploits in her incarnations as Killer Frost. Even in For The Good of the Realm where he's her foster brother and charge, Caitlin is more wrapped up in manoeuvring him away from court intrigue, legitimizing her own presence at his side and being a ball of identity issues. And I absolutely love my dark!Felicity AUs where she is outright antagonistic and disapproving of Barry's love interests and sometimes of Barry himself. In the Olivarry stories where she is supportive and sympathetic, Felicity and Oliver themselves still acknowledge their own romantic potential. Which means Barry and Oliver falling in love creates tension between the three of them, and the men have to learn how not to hurt her or take her support for granted while they figure themselves out.

The relationships between men and women in every flavour and intensity makes stories so much richer and deeper and three dimensional. I am done being conditioned as a woman to erase ourselves when we inhabit the bodies and stories of m|m men.

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aboutagirl4031 · 3 years ago

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I can’t explain the sadness I feel, I promised Luna it was always gonna be me and her. I wanted to give her my undivided everything forever. I’m honestly taking the new baby harder than she is because when she sleeps all I can think about how devasted she was when I first told her, like I know we’ll be okay but I can’t get over how I was so set on our moments forever and I feel like I hurt my first baby with the second because I was so okay with what I told myself and what the doctor’s had told me. I noticed how uncomfortable people would get when they asked me if I was excited about the new baby and if I didn’t answer like “OMG YES I AM SO EXCITED AND BLAH BLAH BLAh” I don’t think they understand the extent of what I truly went through.

I suffered with weird periods, more body hair, fatigue, weight fluctuations and so much more and finally got diagnosed with poly cystic ovarian syndrome and it was fucking traumatic hearing the doctor explain and educate me right then and there after what we saw what my ovaries looked like on the ultrasound. My ears were ringing, his voice slowly faded out and I felt like my body was slowly moving backwards and I didn’t even noticed bc It was like I completely left my body and I did that for weeks after that appointment, he said it would be harder or I would haft to try harder to have another baby and that Luna was probably a miracle when she did happen and how she was conceived, I never planned another baby but being told I couldn’t just decide to have one or maybe it would have been impossible to have another baby really rocked me to my core and I didn’t even acknowledge myself well enough to realize my fertility was important to me. Everything I went through at the beginning of this year has transformed me so drastically and was filled with so many tears, anxiety, restless and emptiness. I had just got broken up with because I had a breakdown, a breakdown that was caused because of my mentally abusive/toxic partner, he constantly pushed me to my breaking point just because I wanted him to take accountability for his actions towards me and his daughter, he treated us so awful and so I gave him that same energy back and he couldn’t handle it, I never felt bad for treating him how he treated me because it got to the point where I really believed I didn’t deserve jack shit and that I was unworthy and “heartless” I let my happiness depend on a person who doesn’t even love themselves and I promised myself that I would love me so I wouldn’t beg another shallow man for it, I got so far in my ptsd therapy and in my spiritual journey I can handle so many things thrown at me, I no longer broke down at the smallest inconvenience, I no longer allowed peoples projections and micro aggressions define me because i knew who I was, I sifted through all the trauma I had already endured and over came … realized that I wasn’t fucking weak or suicidal, I was just treated like shit by a bunch of people with unhealed traumas/ toxic environments and their opinions of me never defined me, everyone always had an opinion about me and once I realized my power , the love I have for myself and my knowledge because I learned my lessons the hard way and had to grow up fast because of the trauma and my shitty parents. I love my this life, I love what I have overcome and I love my babies.

So I continue with the heartbreak/love of hearing sorry your fertility cannot be tracked because of your pcos and we never know when you can have another baby to 3 months later going in for a UTI test and two days later hearing them tell me no UTI but that I was pregnant. I cried immediately and I don’t think anyone truly understands what I felt like in that moment, I cried from the bottom of soul that I had lost my breathe on the phone with the nurse and she was so concerned she was like “Um are you okay…we’re you expecting this?,do you wanna keep the baby?” and I immediately said “yes of course but oh my gosh” through deep breaths. I still feel so bad for doing that to the nurse that day but bless your heart for understanding what I was going through. I immediately called my mom with that same labored breathes that I didn’t even notice my toddler climbed into to bed with me and she was rubbing my hand asking if I was okay, my mom start crying too and I was so in shock to hear that IM PREGNANT AGAIN. She knows because she was the first one I told about my ovaries and my miracle baby Luna 😂❤️

Everyone thought it was everybody but me but alas I went into the er to see how far along I was because it was a Friday and I couldn’t wait til Monday bc I was having more pain than usual, er took me in and did ultrasound and blood work to start… the doctors they had couldn’t tell what they were looking at so I had to wait for dr eastam from women’s clinic and wait for my blood work to come back, hours went by as I laid in the cold hospital wondering and panicking, I couldn’t believe how fast everything turned into a nightmare once again.

I finally got to eastam and he said it looked like I bled a lot.. he didn’t understand where the blood was coming from but his first guess was a molar pregnancy considering how high my HCG levels were in my blood test at only 6 weeks pregnant … he said by now I should’ve miscarried or they thought the pain I went in for was the start of a miscarriage so they made a decision to send me home and literally wait for me to miscarry instead of admitting me to the hospital because my pain wasn’t that bad. He said we’ll wait 7 days and then you can come back in and we’ll redo another ultrasound to see if the baby grew healthy or detached basically and if the baby had no heartbeat then he would send me in for a D&C surgery, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I fully packed a bag and prepared for them so take my baby out but as soon as we got the baby on ultrasound everything was completely normal, and the baby had grown I wanted to jump up and scream. He guessed that maybe all that blood had come from the way my placenta was attaching but he measured the baby and the baby was a completely healthy looking pregnancy a huge difference from what we saw last week, he got me my first official ultrasound picture and gave me the official congratulations and said we will be starting my prenatal appointments, I walked out feeling like I was on a cloud …. I’m having another baby.

I just went through all of this and yet I became stronger and happier within myself, I had confidence in my body and my soul, I had so much love for myself and my life. I’m still in shock but I can’t wait to have another little baby again ❤️ unplanned doesn’t mean unloved. I’m so proud of me for holding myself together so well and still being a good mother to Luna, nobody can take away my power

I have earned every bit of happiness that I have been working so hard on and I don’t have to prove a single thing to anybody, I don’t haft to prove my worthiness and growth to a single fucking person, I know me

I know who I am and that’s enough. If people were really worthy of seeing my growth it would happen but that’s the real kicker with growth, people still remember you only for the person you were when you met them, they don’t allow for you to grow in their thoughts. People still look at me as that shallow depressed sixteen year old and I am so far from her, I appreciate her because without her I wouldn’t be who I am today.

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seasonscozy · 8 years ago

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Also here’s what the anon sent me earlier, hope you’re happy now

well, for starters, the entire plot is the authors’ gay conversion fetish.

if you go to the creators fb pages and go back to before the show started, you’ll find both of them, along with other crew members, are obsessed with poly gay conversion. if you’re not familiar with this particular fetish, it’s getting gay people into a poly m/f relationship (usually a bi person and a het person), and slowly over time making the gay person bi by slowly pushing their boundaries (be it in sex or general relationship stuff, like the other partner coming in and joining the sex, even when the gay person protests, and little things like shaming the gay person for not being more affectionate with the other partner/not being equally affectionate with both other partners). it’s defended as “exploring sexual fluidity”, but if you’re not aware, that’s the new term for conversion therapy (“SAFE-T: Sexual Attraction Fluidity Exploration (in) Therapy” where they aim to effectively make gay people bi) so it’s pretty fuckin obvious how the creators feel about actual gay people.

esp when you know that, word of mouth, from the creators themselves stated when asked about mid-way through season one, once the sens8 happens and everyone is connected, they feel each other’s feelings, and therefor everyone is now pan.

but there’s a lil problem with that. I mean, not only is it literally gay conversion, making gay people not gay anymore (as remember, the goal has been moved. “SAFE-T” practitioners no longer aim to make gay people straight, they now aim to make us bi, since grooming us into thinking we also feel m/f attraction is a lot easier than completely suppressing one attraction and fabricating another to replace it) but the straight characters aren’t changed. for all intense and purposes, stay straight. we never see them express same-sex attraction, and they only ever have m/f sex, while the previously gay characters are shown having m/f sex and loving it, multiple times.

and also, that excuse is even more bullshit when you notice, even though it was said that they’re “all feeling each other’s feelings” their sexuality seems to be the only part they each feel. you have men and women connected, including a trans woman, yet none of them are nonbinary, nor do any of them ever feel the trans woman’s dysphoria or gain any dysphoria of their own from the connection. this whole “feeling each other’s feelings” ONLY applies to sexuality, and only actually affects the gay people, whom the creators love “fixing”.

and another kicker, is the two gay men, and the woman who completely fetishizes and dehumanizes them. throughout their story, she does nothing but treat them like yaoi (gay male Japanese media) fangirls/fujoshi (extreme yaoi fangirls) treat fictional gay characters. like they’re nothing but manga (comic book) characters for her to squeal over and masturbate to, which is exactly what she does.

she literally watches them having sex, and takes pictures of them without their knowledge or consent, and when confronted about this, when it’s shown how terrified one of the men is to be outed, he’s attacked and chastized by the other gay man for not considering the straight fetishist’s feelings, who’s upset that he doesn’t completely love how much she fetishizes them.

every single interaction she has with them is her treating them like pure fap material for her enjoyment, and they turn on each other, doing things no actual gay person would actually do (that whole ‘why won’t you come out of the closet, are you ashamed of me???’ thing? complete straight bullshit, as is a gay man not only being ok with a straight girl treating them like this, but chastising his own partner for not being ok with it. that shit, just straight up does not happen)

and this is literally just the first season stuff! I mean, idk what definition of homophobia you have, but methinks you need a refresher, cause this is literally definition homophobia, and in fact very real violent homophobia and actual rape if the authors’ made their fetish a reality outside of their show and facebook posts.

a show can be diverse and seem progressive, but be the exact opposite. just cause a minority wrote it doesn’t mean it’s inherently good. a black gay man is the head writer for the Dear White People TV series, who’s goal with the show was to challenge how black gay men are viewed and portrayed in the media, and he wrote a “lesbian” teacher having an affair with her male student and denying it by continuing to claim she’s a lesbian while he makes comments about how she “isn’t a lesbian when she’s with [him]”, rolling lesbianism not being real and lesbians being pedophiles/predators all into one awful caracature of a character. just cause he’s a gay man doesn’t mean he can’t be homophobic. just because the creators of sens8 are trans doesn’t mean they can’t be homophobic. just cause a show is diverse doesn’t mean it can’t be the mouthpiece for bigotry. bigotry doesn’t only come from the completely privileged in shows that only have token minority characters.

I get that on the surface the show might seem good, that if you didn’t know any of the background stuff on the authors you wouldn’t know any of that, but the two gay men and the fetishizing straight woman alone should have been enough to tip you off that something isn’t right with the show, and the fact that you really can’t see anything wrong with that is really, really telling.

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adulthoodisokay · 8 years ago

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What had began as a routine family gathering became the site of an unprecedented feat of human resilience as Dahlia did so without setting herself on fire.We’re super inspired by Dahlia’s ability to not set herself on fire over this!

“Well, scheduling tweets and Facebook posts is part of it,” she described, miraculously not erupting into flames as the words left her mouth. “But it’s also about tracking social trends and promoting engagement.”

Unlike the dozens of social media managers before her, she did not finagle a makeshift flamethrower from various KitchenAid appliances to end it all right there. But it wasn’t over just like that: Upon being asked what her day-to-day process was like, the English and poly-sci double major smiled, made a sarcastic joke and then—wait for it—she politely answered back.

“We’re the first line of contact between the brand and the consumer, so social media presence is incredibly important,” Dahlia lied to herself, wistfully remembering her senior thesis, “The Post-colonial Poetic Memory and the Rise of (A)gendered Imagination.” Although she briefly dug into her pocket in search of a lighter, she bravely abstained.

Dahlia could’ve done any number of things throughout this conversation. She could have said, “Actually, I’d rather talk about literally anything else in the world than hear the details of how I spent my time uttered aloud.” She could have peed her pants to avoid the humiliation of answering the question. All would’ve been easier than what she did.

“Of course, there are the occasional spambots on the post—but what can you do but delete their comments?” she continued, in complete seriousness, her soul collapsing but her skin uncharred.

Typically, when social media managers hear themselves say the words, “What you’re really looking for is ‘Shares,’” they erupt into flames like that Vietnamese Buddhist monk, but with far less contribution to society. But not Dahlia, who is a goddamn hero.

Want the real kicker? You sure you’re ready for it?

“I love my job,” she said, without a hint of irony or desire to self-immolate.

How does a social media manger retain enough will power to say those words and not, at the very least, hurl herself into oncoming traffic? If only we were all as strong as you, Dahlia! Bravo!

#this is fucking beautiful

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sometimesrosy · 8 years ago

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Rosy there's something i cant understand even in our fandom people want to clarke still mourning the 4a? are you kidding me for a girl who she barely knows and they never dating or been in a relationship only one hour to said goodbye? and its like they are saying clarke only loves her and im pretty sure there if someone is you bigest weakness and you got all crazy when he is in danger you love him, for me well the narrative is so clear she is in love with bellamy too of course she was with L too

I agree with you nonny. I don’t get it either. And when they say she didn’t have time to grieve or we didn’t see her mourn. Like. Yes. She did. Yes. We did. And it was actually far more time than she had to grieve for Finn, and certainly for Wells. And it is kind of dismissive of her other loves and losses to think that L demands so much more grieving time than anyone else. This isn’t about the story. This is about the fandom. This is about the the squeaky wheel getting the grease. I think they’ve gotten pretty much all of the explicit grieving they’re going to get. She won’t ever forget L, like she’ll never forget Finn or Wells or Jake, but the story and Clarke are moving on.

Clarke’s grief was part of the whole plot line of 3B. She got, like 8 episodes to face it, to think about her loss, to handle her shock, to think also about the rest of her life, the rest of her people, the rest of her goals, and to slowly remember who she was and what she still has to do in her life.

People want, I think, a talking head scene where Clarke sits down and says, “I loved Lxa and I feel terribly sad and I can’t move on,” and someone else says, perhaps, “your love for Lxa was real and your grief and mourning is deserved, but you are still alive and you still have things to do and people to love and with time you will be able to move on.”

That’s not going to happen. But they did show it. They showed it in action. They showed it in dialogue. They showed it in symbolism. They had a Lxa stand-in with the chip. She was, like, carrying around her “urn” and staring mournfully at it all the time. And they also showed us in many ways that Clarke was returning to her people and her other loves. I don’t just mean Bellamy, but Bellamy was certainly part of it. Particularly since they had some particularly unsubtle fades and parallels between the things that represented Lxa and Bellamy himself.

There are actually a LOT of scenes where we’ve got Clarke talking about Lxa in 3B. I can’t tell you exactly which yet because I haven’t started my rewatch of it. (3.10 tomorrow!) From Raven to Jasper to Luna. To all the many many times she checks on the chip. She is immensely focused on this *weight* that is everything that happened in Polis, the flame, her relationship, her duty, her grief. But there are a couple of things that stand out to me as examples of Clarke processing all this grief and responsibility and moving on.

First there was the was the fade that started with them at the cremation (funeral ceremony) with Bellamy that faded into Clarke looking at the chip, almost as if Bellamy was by her side and she was saying good bye at Lxa’s funeral.

And another one was in two separate episodes. When Clarke left Polis, she gazed at the tower and it’s funeral beacon, then turned sadly to the chip. This is contrasted with the scene when they return to Polis, and Clarke gazes out at the tower, then turns around a watches Bellamy, for no reason, as he is lit up like a beacon by the rover headlights. This takes us on a journey where she comes full circle with her emotions and mourning.

And then there’s the kicker, where she gets what mourners never do get. The chance to actually say good bye to their loved one and have closure. I mean, come on. Let Clarke move on and return to the land of the living, because she’s got an apocalypse to handle. I’m pretty sure it even fits into the five stages of grief–denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They do so like their pop psychology.

I get that it isn’t explained with dialogue. No one TELLS us what is happening. That kind of exposition slows down action, and I think this show avoids that if they can. But you CAN discover some of the emotional story by watching closely to the visual storytelling. They don’t TELL us that Clarke is in mourning, they show it to us, for the whole of season 3B. Sometimes it’s symbolic, sometimes it’s subtle action. Sometimes it’s brief comments. But it is absolutely there if you’re looking for it.

#the 100 meta #clarke griffin #polis #grief #psychology #symbolism #visual storytelling

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magpiewritingthing · 6 years ago

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grab a new lifeline / 1

Chapter: 1; they do not shred him

Series: traditionalist wesen, remixed

Overall Summary: Now that Rolan’'s got one foot in the proverbial door, he’s on the slow(, slow, realllly slow) path to forging a friendship -- or at least an acquaintenceship -- with Monroe The Blutbad. Wesen dynamics will be changing, baby!

Not that the Bauerschwein’s ever taken other factors into consideration, ever. Such as: traditional Wesen; his own housemates being their unpredictable selves; a Grimm, who is also a cop; a serial killer; Monroe’s other friends, both present and past.

Oh, and his Purely Hypothetical Crush blowing up into something a little too real. Life’s a shin-kicker like that.

Chapter Summary: Roland comes home from his walk in the woods, and comes to a revelation about his brief (and awkward) encounter with a Blutbad. His housemates are less than impressed. And a body is found.

Warnings: mention of domestic violence and child abuse (in the past) in the latter half of this chapter; mention of murder

Other notes: i am... winging this; also, i also took liberties with the multiple variation of Taureus-Armenta and my latin is like practically nonexistant but lmao :’); also-also, mild innuendo and sex jokes

The breath is still rattling out of him when he gets home, stumbling up the front porch with now-wobbly legs. Angel, while sitting in such a way on the porch rocker that’ll likely give his back grief later, gives him a funny look. Probably because Roland can't keep the goofy-ass smile off his face for a more than three seconds.

“What’s got ya?” Angel asks before Roland has a chance to escape inside and hide in his bedroom.

“Nothin’,” he mumbles at the door, out of reflex. No reason for it, other than the creeping sensation that he should be embarrassed. Because the whole thing’s ridiculous, he knows, but— “No it’s just—” He stumbles, licking his lips and huffing: getting his thoughts clear. “I… met someone.” He jerks his head in the general direction of where they'd met. “In the woods.”

Which he probably shouldn’t’ve said because now Angel’s got that look on his face. “Ohhhhh?” he drawls, left forefinger tucked into the junction between finger and thumb, right forefinger poised. “You mean like—” Right pointer, meet left vacuum; please get to know each other intimately. “‘Cooling off’ with the luckiest—”

Angel doesn’t get much further than that before Roland thumps his shoulder, and even though he laughs, it hurts like Hell because Roland for sure has razors in his knuckles and the hammering force of… mmm, yeah, a hammer. “No, not like that, you asshole!” Roland isn’t laughing, but he is grinning, cheeks and ears pinker at the suggestion. “You’re fuckin’ nasty, A.”

“Virgin.”

“Pervert.”

Angel tuts, wagging his finger in Roland’s face. “Touché, mon frère; you got me there.” They both laugh at that, too: their own little rhyming joke. And, at least in Roland’s eyes, it’s an affirmation of affection, even when they get in each other’s faces. He’s come to cherish it, quietly, and all the other small phrases and actions, because Angel is hardly ever… honest with himself, never full-on affectionate or willing to settle down for a heart-to-heart when things flare up. Like an argument over what would be the best way to approach an interview or questionnaire or no you should totally go for this vs. no i can’t—

“Earth to Roly-Poly!”

“Yeah.” He slaps his friend’s arm out of his face. “Fuck off, man.”

“You fuck off; I’m chillin’.” Then, contrary, “Who’d you meet out there if you weren’t getting’ it oooon?” Complete with awful, cheesy hip movements. Why’re they friends again?

Now Roland is self-conscious. Again. Because what if Angel freaks out over a Blutbad, even if he doesn't know where they live? “It— uh… Blutbad.”

When his friend’s eyebrows drop into a concerned frown (he doesn't ever do outright fear, too wrapped up in preserving his self-image), so does Roland’s stomach. “I mean I’m alive, so it’s not bad—”

“How.” Rising out of the rocker, he looms over Roland by a full head. Grasping the sides of Roland's face, he asks, “How’re you alive, man?” And although this concern is touching (to the point of being embarrassing because jeez, it’s like he’s never been hugged as a child), he can only blurt out, dumbly, “Wieder.”

“… Ah.” The relief settles over Angel’s face, relaxing it into the usual smile (or near enough, the momentary concern still lingering), dimples deepening. He lets go of Roland’s face. “Veggie-friendly wolfman.”

“Yeah. Rabbit-friendly, too. Cutesy sorta…” He shrugs, eyes to the side because Monroe flashes in his head again: Monroe holding the rabbit; Monroe in woge; Monroe in a more comfortable stance; Monroe walking towards him; Monroe walking away. “… thing.”

The smile turns into a cheeky grin, as though knowing. “Is he?”

“Awhh, dude, no—”

“Have you got like, a thing for dudes who can kill you? Is that your thing?”

“Fuckin’… maybe!”

“Awh, baby virgin has a death-wish crush on a veggie wolfman!”

“I do not!”

Before they can argue any more – Roland’s face growing pinker by the second and Angel’s grin growing wide enough to encompass his face – Winona’s car pulls up. It’s just after half-past seven, and only now are Kenna and Winona coming home. One would think a teacher and administrative assistant would be home sooner than that. “You’re late for dinner!” Angel calls, nudging past Roland to go inside.

“Incredible,” Kenna mutters, “the house hasn’t burned down.”

“It’s probably microwave meals, let’s be honest,” Roland joins in.

“Fuck y’all,” is the welcoming indignant noise to all three as the file in the front door and towards the kitchen/dining room.

“Fuck me running a marathon, I’m starving,” Winona says, immediately swinging open the pantry door and squinting at tins upon tins of beans, corn, baby carrots, baby potatoes, and garden peas. “We got anything else?”

“Pizza,” Angel says as he cranks the oven on.

“Fuck’s sake—”

“Couldn’t be assed buying anything else today so we’re gobbling on shit. Again.”

Further half-hearted squabbling over food washes over Roland as he begs silently for Angel not to bring up the topic of Monroe up anytime soon. Or at all. Neither prayer seems at all likely – having lived a year and six months with the other man, Roland knows what to expect by now – but it never harms to at least try. Kenna, for her part, is quiet. Tired from another day of kids and keeping them engaged, he supposes. He’s not asked yet, and can't find a way that doesn't come off as right-out odd, but he hopes the kids like her as much as she enjoys teaching them.

“So, anyway,” Angel starts, and yes Roland knew it was inevitable but he’s rolling his eyes anyway, praying that Angel is only leading into this with that teasing vibe only to swerve onto something completely different— but he doesn’t. Natch. “Didja hear about Roly’s iddy-diddy crush?”

Winona leans back, mock-gasping, “No!” while Kenna leans forward, elbows on the table, asking, “Really? Aww.”

“Yep – on a Blutbad.”

The girls choke; Winona bangs the table and shakes her head while Kenna splutters, “what! what! are you shitting me! what!” At least it’s perked her up a bit; makes her look lively and less likely to fall face-first and full-asleep into her food.

Then Angel has the gall to be placating, and Roland can only muster up so much energy to glare at him. Panache: Angel’s got it in spades. “Now, now, ladies, it’s A-OK – the dude’s Wieder. Veggie reform.”

Both women scoff; Winona slaps the table again, and Kenna mutters, “Fucking Hell, but a Blutbad? Roly, honey… really?” Her eyebrows scrunch together in her confusion, and she only turns her head when Winona excuses herself from the table. “’m tired, g’night, y’all, Blutbad-fuckers and none alike.” A garbled chorus blesses her winddown-to-actual-bedtime way (“G’night babe.” “I'm not even—” “Nighty-night, lamb.”), and she waves as she trudges upstairs to her and Kenna's bedroom, either to read or translate a book.

Dishes are cleaned and dried and put away, and the remaining three perform their own winddown rituals: Kenna scampers up to one half of the attic, having claimed the eastern half of it as her “study” room (the other half belongs to Leopoldo); Roland drags out his sketchbook from his bedside drawer, along with pencils and pens, and sets to doodling on the fold-out couch he’s got squashed in one corner of his boxy bedroom; Angel watches a How It's Made episode, and he almost considers calling the others down, because they all share a casual interest in this sort of thing, but as it is, he's settled down and far too comfy to move.

Angel considers ignoring the knocking at the door, too, even when they call out that it’s the police, and it is rather urgent. Now, not that his friends have much of a clue, but the memory of a blue boy’s (or blue girl’s) knock is ingrained into his memory – father and mother being the reason that they came in the first place, upsetting and scaring the neighbours (and him) with all sorts of noises. It doesn’t bother him at present, not just because he’s done nothing wrong (might’ve… broke a girl’s heart, once or twice or thrice, but he’s always smoothed it out before) (and not recently, anyway), but because he has nothing to fear. He could probably charm the pants off any person if he were actually human, he’s sure.

Still, there’s no need to irritate, so with great reluctance he heaves himself up off the sofa (that’ll probably end up in the basement in five years’ time), and heads towards the door, noting Roland’s hesitant presence at the top of the stairs before he hides behind the wall again. Nothing to think of, as Roland likes being ‘sneaky’ and an eavesdropper, so when Angel opens the door, he’s not expecting much of anything. Probably the only thing that's ‘urgent’ is that there’s been another string of robberies.

“Evenin’, y’all. What can I do you for?” Off the bat, it sounds ridiculous to hear from his own mouth, but he liked the idea of it rolling off of his tongue so easily. Just some chipper dude enjoying the last dregs of the evening before tuckering off to bed to fetch his sleep before the long work day ahead of him.

At least, as chipper as he can be considering the cop in front of him is a Grimm.

Cold blue, then cold darkness, infinite, stretching long like visible neurons and only his face, his real face is staring back and it is like that old Nietzsche saying, isn’t it?

The cop barely reacts, his face only steeling with realisation. Angel’s only vaguely aware of Roland trotting down the stairs (thumpthump, thumpthump, thumpthump) when the cop – Detective Burkhardt – tells him there’s been a suspicious death in the woods. His partner, Detective Griffin, stands a few feet behind him.

“Oh,” is Angel’s empty reply as he slides in to fill the frame of the front door, trying to block Roland from seeing the Grimm at their door, and keep the Grimm from knowing that there’s more than one Wesen living in the house. They’re all of the harmless variety anyway, so even if he weren't a cop, he’d have no business messing with them. Yet the panic doesn’t leave, only intensifying with the gasp and strangled, “Oh, shit.” At least Roland’s trying to keep his shit under wraps, even if he is now visible and motionlessly panicking under the Grimm’s eye.

Burkhardt, for his part, is acting professionally while the two of them freak out. “Have either of you heard or seen anything?” They both answer in the negative. When Griffin asks how long they’ve been home (suspect list suspect list suspect list), Angel says that he was home since four in the afternoon after finishing up some handywork in the inner city. Roland struggles to remember when he came home.

“I think it was a bit before Kenna and Winni, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Angel agrees, “you came back from…” He spares Burkhardt a glance, “From the woods after your walk.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Roland bites his lip, and adds, mouth running a thousand miles a minute, “I took a walk earlier after we’d gone over some job applications.”

“We?” Burkhardt repeats. Behind him, Griffin shifts his stance, glancing at his partner; the tone was perhaps too sharp for just a simple door-to-door inquiry.

Roland squeezes into the frame, gesturing helplessly at his friend. “He helped me because I get stressed out when going through paperwork.”

Both Wesen are now sure they’ve fallen into the trap of over-explaining themselves: methinks the suspect doth protest too much. In any case, Burkhardt isn’t giving anything away.

“Alright, so what time did you leave, Mr…?”

“Uh, Hoffmann.” Pause, glance at Angel. “Roland.” Clears his throat. “Uh, I think it was… was it around four?”

“No, that’s when I came back, dot-on. You and me went over that paperwork and questionnaire stuff and you went and cleared your head about… five? Ish?”

Another quick look at the Grimm; not a thing from him.

“So yeah, and you came back about seven thirty – wow, you were gone long.”

This time, a trickle of interest on both of the detectives’ faces, and Roland panics.

“I was just walking, man,” he protests, shuffling a quarter-inch further into the house, “I didn’t do anything.”

“Was there anyone else you bumped into who looked suspicious?” Griffin asks, his tone more casual than his partner’s.

“No—” Roland shrugs and frowns. “No-one I thought was suspicious.” A sort-of lie: Monroe The Blutbad sticks out, but… he let the rabbit go. He let the frigging rabbit go, and for fuck’s sake the dude’s Wieder. “I just met one guy in the woods.” He tries for joviality: “I think he’s more the rabbit person than a killer, though.” Of course, it falls flat.

Griffin nods slowly, as if deciding that it’s time to call it a night before Burkhardt can ask any more questions, which is just as well because if he asks anything about their other housemates, there’d be chaos: Winona would break down blubbering under the scrutiny of a police officer even when innocent, and Kenna would stonewall them at every turn; Leo and Elham might be more cooperative, wary as they might be (being no better than the girls, really); Charalampos and Sophia would… well, they might be better with the police, but only if it weren’t posed as some sort of challenge, because they were must stubborn (natch, as Taureus-Armentum).

“Alright, if there’s anything else,” Griffin reaches forward with a number on plain card, “call us.”

“Will do,” is Roland's automatic answer.

Once the two detectives leave, the door is locked and the ground floor is double-checked to make sure the windows and back door are also closed and locked; their other friends have their own keys, so they’ll be able to get in without struggle. The looming promise – “There’ll be someone to come and take your statements tomorrow morning.” – leaves a bad taste in Roland’s mouth.

“Who died?”

Kenna hangs back on the stairs, Winona staying on the landing; it’s likely that she barricaded the bedroom if she ever looked out of the window and saw the cop car, or even so much as heard the word police when they first knocked.

“Dunno,” Angel says, and he instantly sounds more like his usual self – less strung-out, more so-laid-back-he's-horizontal. “We didn't ask, and they just said it was a suspicious death.”

“One of ‘em was a Grimm,” Roland blurts out, and Kenna swears while Winona moans lowly and sags against the wall.

“Oh fuck me fucking sideways, then.”

“Babe,” Winona whines, half-hiccuping, half trying to laugh.

“TMI, hon,” Angel says. Again, lightheartedness falls flat, and dies.

The panicked buzz over the ‘suspicious death’ and the new knowledge of a Grimm blankets them as they retire to bed. The promise of someone on the police force coming over tomorrow to take their statements feels more like a threat, something to trip them up and wrangle a confession out of them.

But it’s not the police, or the death of a person yet unknown, that take precedence in Roland's mind once he’s pulled the covers over his body. It’s the woged face of Monroe The Blutbad, and a rabbit in his hands. More than the panicked dread over the next morning that’s threatening to drag his body into a sleepless, restless night, his head is light with stupid, optimistic hope.

Wieder Wieder Wieder Wieder Wieder--

He dreams of teeth. They do not shred him.

#mine #my writing #mw: grimm #wc: 2000 – 3000 #series: traditionalist wesen; remixed #ch: roland hoffmann #ch: angel krastev #ch: winona maki #ch: kenna allaway #sft

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